Your Transformation Station - #140: AI & Leadership: New Rules to Stop Leading Like It’s 1990

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Modern leadership is colliding with reality. Gregory Favazza breaks down how "old school" management is sabotaging teams and issues a 5-year warning: as AI integrates into the workplace, leaders without emotional intelligence and psychological safetywill become obsolete. If you can’t lead humans, a machine will replace you. For show notes and links related to this episode, visit ⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming up on your transformation station. Well, that's a good question, Greg. I don't know. Let me get my fucking phone out here. Hey, charge ETP. What the fuck is Greg talking about? We're tapping in to surpassing expectations from the most successful people in the modern day and honing in a new foresight, methodologies, and clairvoyance you never knew.

This is your transformation station with your host, Greg Favaza. Welcome back to your transformation station. I am your host, Gregory Favaza. Today, it's an interesting day, and this is going to be an interesting episode. For those that are new in the show, go ahead, subscribe. You're about to see why. For the last two recordings that I've had for a potential release on a new episode, has went to shit and I feel like this is a good time for me to share this experience with you guys

I want to look at the optics you guys see me recording publishing an episode but you guys don't see behind the scenes with the effort that entails to set up a recording to set up the interview to research the guest and to find out if they have something great to offer. And now with today, the use of AI is making things a little more difficult to see through the fluff. But I decided to use this episode and those two previous recordings to help guide us in recognizing authenticity with those that are just saying the right words. and that is the key aspect of today's episode is recognizing

the conviction in someone's word but just the words match the body's language matching the rhythm of the body the first recording I'm going to leave his name out of it prior service military look great on paper. Over 25 years, exited the Army as a colonel in logistic operations and planning, which is perfect to get an officer's mindset on how to understand today's organizations and when they can benefit from the military mindset.

We're all about that. And when we set up the recording and we'd met already, it was not how it was supposed to go down. A man that's man or women that's served in the armed forces. They illustrate, they illustrate character, authenticity, and presence. And when I got from him, was excuses and none of that. And that threw me off. And it was hard to see it at first because when you've served in the military,

you experience what's called the agentic shift. And that's a coined term from Philip Zimbardo, who is a psychologist who has led the, I believe it's the Stanley. Milgram experiment, Philip Zimbardo. Or is it the other one? What is it? Let me look him up.

Philip Zimbardo. Psychologist. Yes. And his famous one. What is it? What is it? Prison experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Yes.

Fucking knew it. From the Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971. Fantastic study. study. I love the study because it illustrates the agentic shift and what that is, I can paint it this way for you, for everybody to understand. With someone in the military, me being a sergeant, I come in contact with a colonel, natural customs and courtesies that's been beat down into my head is automatically if I'm standing, go to the position of attention. If I'm outside, salute. That is an unconscious system that was beat down into me

for an automatic response, which is the agenetic shift. It's a mere moment. It's instantaneous where your brain just goes from, hey, we're talking. and have a conversation to, oh, shit. Position of attention real quick. That still lives in me a little bit. It's still, it's in there somewhere where, oh, you have these credentials.

Automatically, you deserve respect, sir. How are you? But now I'm civilian. I'm Greg Favaza, not Sergeant Favaza. but I still live by the principles and the values. I take that with me. I wish all soldiers take that with them. And they do.

However, some see things differently. Choose different paths. I can only control what I do. But that recording didn't happen. And it's just a just, shame. The next example is where we're actually going to dive down into the recording with someone that knows how to market, but then being able to spot the information that's sharing, that's being shared with you. Because you get that uncomfortable feeling when you know

somebody's bullshitting you. When it's like, I know, but you're really not answering my question. They're using dismissive statements to say, oh, yes, agree, but then still continue to say what they want to say as in if it's the answer you were asking or the question that you were asking and the answer you're hoping to get. And that's manipulation. So I feel like that is a fantastic thing to highlight in this episode. view we're going to look into is with Jim Carlo. And there we go. Let's see, we can screen and share this.

Do you guys see the screen here? Can you see me as well? Oh, beautiful. Ah, perfect. Wonderful. All right. People quit their job. Seven of the ten reasons are directly related to their leader. Yes. Yes. I buy them. And that leader, controls everything. Things like lack of clarity of your role. Things like, you're laughing because you have a lack of clarity. It's so common. And then you have the fire drills that come up. And then you have, you know, where's the work life balance? And people want to feel psychologically safe. Yes. Work. And we're not giving that to them. My framework gives the employees, well, it gives you the ability to lead, and it gives the employees the ability to be psychologically safe. In comparison, if the national average of attrition is 10 to 15 percent, why is my historical voluntary attrition rate under five? Well, would that be based off industry?

Because, I mean, I can see that being around, I would say, towards, let's see, the blue collar as far as labor, I feel like they wouldn't have that psychologically safe work environment just because if you're looking at that, I mean, you're also got to look at the type of leadership that's in charge of those personnel. I would say they barely have any post-secondary education. They're more so the individual that started from high school and have been there and grew up in the ranks and only just kind of used the same information that's been delegated down. And that's kind of just bark in order. without understanding why.

And then when you're in that population that's working for that type of person, you don't understand why you're not being recognized because you were told, if I put my head down and I grind, I'm going to excel in life. Yet this asshole or this dumbass that's above me and charge of me

doesn't even recognize it. So is it professional favoritism, personal favoritism, or is it just the fact that I kept my mouth shut when I should have just spoke? So I think it's a combination of a lot of things, but you are what is also another common problem. When we have... So he just said that I'm the common problem.

Do you see that? Okay. That is a logical fallacy that is ad hominin where it's pinpointing the person as a problem, me. specifically, when we're speaking about a metaphorical situation. Opening in America, years ago, I'm a lot older than you are. Just trust me on that one. We don't need to get into ages, but just trust me on that. And that's where we have to establish this trust based on age.

It's because you're older that we have to accept what you are saying. There's a respect factor, but when it comes to what's relevant information, what's knowledgeable, versus what's anecdotal and not actually factual. When people managed in the 60s and 70s and 80s, it was more authoritarian. It's much more collaborative today, and it should be collaborative. And I've mentioned this on previous episodes. within that years, it's the old school mentality where they bark orders. Corporate leadership, leadership in general,

is barking orders. They don't see you as anything but a number, a body. Today, this is 2026. We expect a little more respect than that. Today. What happens today, what happens today, is when we have an opening, because we have very poor succession planning, what we typically do is look at the team that needs to be managed.

And we find the best technically skilled person to step into that manager role. We call that a technically, an accidental manager. They've never been taught how to manage. And in your scenario, the person above you who just put you in that position had never been taught how to lead people. and it just compounds itself. And that is why that contributes the most to the turnover rate, because people don't know. I'm going to be honest with you.

When I was my first management job in the early 80s, now I'm dating myself. Wait, do you mind if you touch on something? Because you set us up for society now, but I want to look at what society is going to be like in five years from, now with the use of AI and we have leadership that is using these systems to make life easier for them. Now, how is that going to, one, how is it going to affect their consciousness and their decision-making skills?

Because it's not going to be up to par what it is now versus what it's going to be like five years from now because them already using those systems. But then two, it's going to remove the human aspect. So what's happening here? AI cannot replace leadership. Here's why. AI can't show emotion. Yeah. AI could tell you a joke, but it can't tell when you're having a bad day.

It is not what I'm asking. What I'm asking and what I'm about to illustrate is that AI can't replace leadership, okay, but AI is being utilized by right now the majority of the population, since we've had that use in tools. Correction, not the majority of the population. 20 to 25%, which I've cited within episode 137 with the, the gall up that is utilizing these tools in AI. And that's affecting their decision-making. Because their decision-making is being based on what the information is being processed

through AI. My question is, leadership right now has the ability to think and rationalize, deduct and inductive and deductive reasoning skills, they have that. It's not affected since this AI is now becoming simple and easy to access everywhere. But five years from now, how is it going to be? After utilizing this system for five years, what is your brain going to look like? what is your capabilities of rationalization going to be? Because I'll tell you right now, ever since we've had access to a mobile device,

can you remember at least more than three phone numbers? Can you honestly say to yourself that you know more than three phone numbers? I'll tell you the only one I can remember right now is the, in my house, landmine. The one I grew up with, I used to remember one of my buddies that I used to hang out with. every day after school, that was it. So, I mean, I got two down. But that's a problem, because we're relying on that technology to carry those phone numbers. So now let's look at it from a larger macro perspective. If we are entrusting leadership, not just management, okay? I'm talking leaders in all organizations, the military. Any government, any government, any government,

government organization, their decision making is being entrusted by AI. What the fuck is that going to be like in five years? Try having a conversation with someone who has utilized this tool every day in their life. To me, I feel like I'm going, this is just me forecast in the future. What it would look like is that I feel like I would be interacting with someone who's hollow shell, like, well, that's a good question, Greg. I don't know. Let me get my fucking phone out here and, hey, chat youTP.

What the fuck is Greg talking about? Like, what? Do you see where I'm going with this? And the only way it would know is if I keyed in, Gregory's having a bad day, how do I deal with that? and get a response from that. So AI is not going to impact leadership in terms of the number of leaders we have or we need. It's going to affect our decision-making skills, though.

It's going to get them information at a faster pace to be able to make decisions. And long-term, it's going to affect your decision-making process. Jesus. And I realized, I need my microphone right here. I got that excited to share this information. So we can only wonder how this sounds. But are those decisions based on what and who's taken into account? It depends on what they feed into the system.

What I'll tell you is, AI, so there are companies today that, will screen resumes with AI. Oh, the companies I think. Yeah. And they're missing the most important aspects of information that are on that document called the

resume. So isn't that affecting isn't that leadership and that's affecting their decision making? Is the use of these tools? And as a result of that,

people are getting turned down automatically for positions that they shouldn't be because of the way AI is being used. And AI can't do your performance review. Now, what AI can do is if you are managed by KPIs in terms of your role, it could take those KPIs and your results to those KPIs and calculators. score. But it's not going to say how committed is Gregory to the organization and does he follow the values of the organization and is he a cultural fit for the organization because AI can't figure that out. I disagree. I feel like you could set the system up. It's user-based friendly. However, you want to put the system into play. I feel like it can, I mean, it can do that for

relationship saying, is this person manipulating me? Or is this, is this a healthy situation I should be in at my point in my life? It's, I feel like it's just using all the data that's already been implemented from. So this, I've had enough. The point that I'm making here is that when an individual is portraying themselves as the expert, and then you bring in some grounding information that makes you have to question your own understanding of am I current, am I relevant with the times? And if you are not open to the idea that possibly, hey, I think you might be onto something or even challenge that. But see, the problem is he brought it up in the beginning. It's an age thing. However, okay, yet I was five years in the military. I've had multiple jobs.

management with also a master's degree, but he didn't do any research on who he's speaking with, other than the fact that you see my face on the podcast cover. And that's ultimately disrespectful because you want to illustrate you're the type of leader that is trying to build a healthy learning organization. However, you made a surface judgment on my own capabilities and understanding how the psychology works in an organization. I mean, that's very offensive to me. And it just illustrates you're an idiot. Even when you wrote a book about it. No, no. We can't take that kind of advice. We can't. That's what I'm illustrating here. If someone, the use of technology has allowed us to do many things. One, to write a book in the matter of days and to make it look great

or the use of marketing tactics to get that 4.9 star rating saying that your book is wonderful whenever. However, it's not, it's jumbled and everything's out of line and doesn't make any sense. But that can be personal, but it's factual.

We don't need that type of leadership. That is the type of leadership we need to get rid of because that leadership is the old school mentality. Good riddins with that. For those that are in a leadership position, management position, I urge you to look in the mirror and see if you're still living this philosophy. And if you are, you really need to just take a hard look at what you're doing to yourself and to those around you. these types of individuals

they just see you as a body nothing else they see you as you're someone that has put years at a at an establishment every day of your life years and one day we need to fucking cut

they take the first individual they see and they don't even question it No. If you're working in this type of environment, I urge you to leave and find someplace else that actually respects your value and is also relevant in the times. Because this kind of mentality is going to die out. Not metaphorically, literally. They've reached a point in their life where it's time to get them out of the way. and have the new generation come in and lead us to another era, another form of progression, because that's gone nowhere. This is why we're having these conversations.

This stupidity is still among us, and it's offensive. And I'm sorry for those that have to experience those types of leaders. I know them quite well, and they disgust me. This is your transformation station. I appreciate you tuning in. I'll see you next. week. Thanks for joining us on this adventure of growth and discovery. If you're ready to achieve a sustainable transformation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you've never miss an episode.

And hey, if you've enjoyed the show and want to support it, take a moment to leave a podcast review on Apple or your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected with us on social media for behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, inspiring quotes, and the latest updates. You can find us on Facebook Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Just search for YTS the podcast. Until next time, remember, change is constant and transformation is inevitable. Embrace the journey and keep rocking your way towards a better you. Stay bold, stay curious, and stay true to yourself.

See you next time on your transformation station. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.