Episode 163

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Published on:

23rd Sep 2025

How To Build Human-Centric Leadership in an AI World with Bob Johansen, Jeremy Kirshbaum & Gabe Cervantes

This episode is sponsored by Deel.

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In this episode of the HR L&D Podcast, host Nick Day sits down with futurist Bob Johansen (Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future), Jeremy Kirshbaum (Founder, Handshake), and Gabe Cervantes (Director of Scalable Foresight, IFTF) to explore what it really takes to lead in the age of AI.


Together, they unpack the third edition of their groundbreaking book “Leaders Make the Future” and reveal the 10 essential human-centered leadership skills every HR leader and CHRO needs to thrive in a rapidly evolving, AI-powered workplace.


This conversation will help you understand how to use generative AI as a tool for augmentation, not replacement, and how to prepare your workforce for the future of work while keeping your humanity intact.


Important Links:

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Make-Future-Third-Leadership/dp/B0D66H9BF1

Bob Johansen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-johansen/

Jeremy Kirshbaum: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-kirshbaum-6294b01a1

Gabe Cervantes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabe-cervantes-ab147338/


Nick Day’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/


Find your ideal candidate with our job vacancy system: https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/919cf6b9ea


Sign up to the HR L&D Newsletter - https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/23e7b153e7


(00:00) Preview and Intro 

(03:11) The 10 Skills Every Future Leader Needs  

(04:59) How to Use Generative AI

(11:34) Humans + Machines: Augmentation Over Replacement  

(14:24) Human Calming: Staying Grounded in a Chaotic World  

(16:54) Moving from Efficiency to Effectiveness with AI  

(21:35) Using GenAI to Train Leaders  

(23:53) What Humans Should Keep vs. Offload to AI  

(25:27) Bob’s “Stretch” AI Model That Challenges His Thinking  

(27:42) Building AI Policies with Clear Yes-Zones  

(30:24) About the Book: Leaders Make the Future  

(34:52) HR L&D Vault

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About the Podcast

The HR L&D Podcast
Leadership, recruitment, culture. Conversations with HR's best
HR gets handed the problems nobody else wants to own. The restructure, the grievance, the engagement survey that came back badly. And then gets asked why people are leaving.

I'm Nick Day. I run an HR recruitment agency, which means I spend most of my week on the phone to HR directors and people leaders talking about what the job is actually like rather than what's written on the job spec. This show came out of those calls. I kept hearing things worth repeating, and nobody was repeating them.

Every week I sit down with HR leaders, chief people officers, L&D specialists and the occasional academic who has changed how I think about work. We get into leadership, and what happens when someone brilliant at the technical side gets promoted into managing humans.

Employee engagement past the survey score. Diversity, equity and inclusion in a climate where saying those words out loud has become a decision in itself. Pay transparency, talent management, reducing bias in hiring, HR digital transformation and the HCM systems everyone is being sold. And of course we cannot forget HR AI tools and platforms that are flooding the landscape as AI in HR becomes a hot topic every people leader is keen to understand and leverage.

Wellbeing comes up constantly, and it usually turns into the same question. Who looks after the HR team.

I'm not an HR practitioner and I don't pretend to be. I'm the person who hires them, which puts me in a useful position. I get to ask the obvious question that everyone in the room already knows the answer to and nobody says.

No script and no polite version. Mostly it's the conversation you'd have with someone doing your job at a different company, if you ever got the chance to sit down with them.

If you work in HR, people management or L&D, or you're building a career in it, start by subscribing to The HR L&D Podcast. We have had guests including Stephen Covey, Alan Stein Jnr, Andrea Wareham and Dr. Thom Mayer among other HR Leaders who are shaping the future of work and leadership.

Need HR staff? I run JGA Recruitment, an HR and payroll recruitment agency. www.jgarecruitment.com or info@jgarecruitment.com

Want to be on the show? Nick@jgadigital.com

If payroll is closer to your world, I also host The Payroll Podcast, the most listened to payroll show in the world.

Topics include HR leadership, people management, employee engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI strategy, AI, talent management, HR digital transformation, HCM, staff wellbeing, pay transparency, reducing bias, L&D and HR recruitment.

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Nick Day