Value-Powered Leadership

Culture does not break because HR is weak. It breaks the moment leaders are allowed to ignore the values everyone else is expected to live. Rosie Allan , CHRO at Eurasia Group , argues for a tougher version of HR, one that speaks business instead of process and stays visible enough to be believed. She unpacks with David Cohen how to address bad behavior with a CEO in a way that actually lands, why the best CHROs keep a running log of concerns, and how to handle leaders who call values touchy-feely. 📩 Contact Rosie Allan: rrallan@zoho.com • 301-266-2188 • LinkedIn ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A seat at the table means nothing if nobody trusts what you say at it. David Cohen hosts HR leadership veteran Fernando Vescio , whose career spans commerce, finance, boards, CEOs, public and private companies, and even some rock & roll! He explains how HR earns credibility rather than assuming it. Fernando walks through how to stay visible and accessible while protecting confidentiality, how attrition, retention, surveys, and focus groups surface problems long before they surface on their own, and how to tell a senior leader the truth when they treat the company values as aspirational. ───────────────────────────────── CONNECT WITH FERNANDO VESCIO! 💼 LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-vescio-41ba607/⁠ 📧 Contact: fernandovescio@gmail.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Discover how rewarding high performers can damage organizational culture. Leadership expert David Cohen reveals why confidence and results can be misleading, masking toxic behaviors that erode trust. Learn strategies to align actions with core values for sustainable success. Tune in to protect your organization's future. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You did not make one big mistake. You made a hundred small ones that felt reasonable at the time — the hire who hit the numbers the wrong way, the behavior you overlooked because the quarter was tight, the standard you let slide once and never quite recovered. Culture does not collapse. It erodes. And by the time you notice it the people who cared most are already gone. David Cohen has spent his career helping companies like Michelin and Boehringer build cultures that actually hold — and his own path through ADHD, dyslexia, and cancer gives every lesson the weight of someone who has fought for what matters. What he shares about hiring for values, rewarding how people get results, and refusing to trade long-term identity for short-term numbers is the most important leadership conversation you are not having loudly enough inside your organization. Culture is not what you announce. It is what you allow. This episode shows you the difference. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You have heard it in every meeting. The millennials want flexibility, the boomers resist change, Gen Z has no work ethic. It feels like useful shorthand for managing people. It is actually one of the fastest ways to misread your team and push your best people toward the door. Because birth year predicts almost nothing about how someone performs, and when you lead by the label instead of the person, the people who do not fit the stereotype stop feeling seen and start looking elsewhere. David Cohen, founder of DS Cohen and Associates and author of Selecting the Best, sits down with Lisa Urbanski to dismantle the generational myth and replace it with what actually drives performance. You will learn why generational labels backfire on the leaders who use them, the difference between traits and behaviors and which one actually predicts results, why life stage tells you far more than birth year ever will, how stereotyping quietly drives out top talent, and why trust and respect are not the same thing even though leaders treat them as interchangeable. Stop managing the decade someone was born in. Start managing the person in front of you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The engagement scores came back strong. On paper, your team looks committed, satisfied, bought in. So why are your best people quietly checking out, doing the minimum, and updating their resumes on the side. Here is the blind spot. Engagement measures how people feel about their work in a moment. Experience is what it actually feels like to work for you every single day, and a high engagement number can sit right on top of a deeply broken experience without ever showing it. David Cohen, an organizational consultant and author, sits down with Lisa Urbanski to separate the two ideas most leaders treat as one, and to explain why confusing them is quietly draining your culture, your retention, and your bottom line. You will learn why strong engagement scores can mask a workforce that is barely holding on, how surveys get gamed and what the numbers are really telling you, the experience pyramid that actually drives loyalty and performance, why this problem belongs to leadership and not HR, how AI is quietly isolating the people on your team, and the five pillars of employee experience you can start applying today. The score is not the truth. The experience is. This episode shows you how to finally see the difference. 📍 Catch David live at SHRM 2026 — Pre-Conference Workshop, Orlando Tuesday, June 16 · 8:00 AM–12:00 PM EDT Register: ⁠https://registration.events.shrm.org/flow/shrm/shrm26/public-catalog/page/catalog/session/1768332959523001Vxhq⁠ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The candidate looked perfect on paper. Polished resume, tailored to your job description, hit every keyword. And there is a real chance a significant portion of it was written by AI in about four minutes. The hiring crisis most companies are not talking about yet is not a talent shortage — it is a signal problem. When every resume looks optimized, the traditional screening process stops filtering for fit and starts rewarding whoever used the best prompts. David Cohen has spent his career studying what actually predicts whether someone will perform in a role — and his core finding cuts through every resume, AI-generated or not: the difference between someone who can do the job and someone who will do the job is where most hiring processes completely break down. This episode will change how you screen, how you interview, and how you make the call that determines whether your next hire becomes your next problem. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You asked all the right questions. Tell me about a time you faced a challenge. Where do you see yourself in five years. What is your greatest weakness. And you still made the wrong hire. Those questions are not broken because they are hard to answer. They are broken because they measure how well someone interviews — not how well they will actually do the job. David Cohen has spent his career studying the gap between interview performance and real-world results — and the behavioral interviewing framework he walks through in this conversation is the single most practical shift any hiring manager can make to start predicting performance instead of just assessing polish. This episode will change the next interview you run. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody looks forward to performance reviews. Not managers who dread the awkward conversations. Not employees who feel blindsided by feedback they are hearing for the first time. The process that was supposed to improve performance is creating anxiety, defensiveness, and a loss of trust that takes months to rebuild. David Cohen has spent his career studying what actually makes people perform better — and what he shares about why surprise kills trust, how switching from feedback to feedforward coaching changes everything, and the simple 90-day check-in structure that replaces the annual review ambush will make you wonder why anyone is still doing it the old way. Performance conversations should not feel like a verdict. This episode shows you how to make them feel like a partnership instead. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everyone is busy. Everyone is trying. And somehow work keeps falling through the cracks, blame quietly circulates, and good people start disengaging without anyone being able to explain exactly why. The culprit is almost never effort. It is role clarity — or the absence of it. When people are unclear about where their responsibilities end and someone else's begin, the result is not just confusion. It is burnout, resentment, and the kind of low-grade dysfunction that survives every team meeting and offsite because nobody ever names the actual problem. David Cohen has spent his career studying what actually aligns teams — and the four-question role clarity exercise he walks through in this conversation creates more alignment in one session than most organizations achieve in a year of performance reviews. Clear roles do not constrain people. They free them. This episode shows you how to build that freedom into your team starting this week. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You addressed the burnout. Offered more flexibility. Added wellness benefits. And your best people are still disengaging. That is because burnout is not the disease — it is the fever. The actual infection is happening in the employee experience long before anyone reaches the breaking point. David Cohen has spent his career studying what actually drives engagement and retention — and what he has found consistently is that no benefit package or wellness program fixes what a broken manager relationship and unclear growth path create. What he shares about the specific leadership shifts that change the employee experience from draining to energizing will make you stop treating burnout as an HR problem and start treating it as a leadership signal you finally have the tools to answer. Your team is telling you something. This episode helps you hear it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You are hitting your metrics. Running your meetings. Holding people accountable. And something in the team dynamic still feels off — a lack of trust, a reluctance to speak up, a sense that people are compliant but not committed. That gap is almost always the difference between management and leadership. David Cohen has spent his career studying what separates bosses people tolerate from leaders people follow — and what he shares about what integrity actually looks like in everyday decisions, how to use empathy without lowering your standards, and how to explain hard calls in a way people trust even when they disagree will give you a completely different framework for how you show up for your team. Anyone can manage a process. This episode shows you how to lead the people inside it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every company has values. They are on the website, in the onboarding deck, maybe framed in the lobby. And in most organizations they have almost nothing to do with how decisions actually get made when things get hard. The gap between stated values and lived values is not just a culture problem — it is a retention problem, a trust problem, and eventually a business problem. David Cohen has spent his career studying what separates organizations where values actually govern behavior from ones where values are performative — and what he shares about how to tell the difference fast, why values must apply to leadership first or they mean nothing, and how values-based hiring changes who stays and who thrives will make you look at your own organization with completely different eyes. Culture is not what you say you believe. It is what you reward, what you tolerate, and what you model when nobody is watching. This episode shows you how to close the gap. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You asked for feedback. You got it. And somewhere in that report was something that stopped you cold — a perception of you that does not match how you see yourself at all. That gap between your self-view and how others experience you is not evidence that you are failing. It is the most valuable leadership data you will ever receive — if you know how to read it. David Cohen has spent his career helping leaders move from defensiveness and self-doubt when they receive 360 feedback to the kind of clarity and curiosity that actually drives change. What he shares about why the self-view gap is completely normal, how to respond to tough comments with courage instead of ego, and how feedforward language turns uncomfortable feedback into a practical growth plan will change how you experience every piece of feedback you receive from this point forward. Feedback is not a verdict on who you are. It is a map to who you could become. This episode shows you how to use it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You have been optimizing your resume for keywords, formatting it for algorithms, and tailoring every bullet point to match the job description. And you are still getting ghosted. The job search advice most people follow was built for a system that no longer exists — and the candidates getting hired right now are not the ones with the most polished credentials. They are the ones whose resume, LinkedIn, and interview all tell exactly the same honest story about what they actually do and how they actually work. David Cohen has spent his career on both sides of the hiring table — and what he shares about why behaviors beat skills in the first 30 seconds, how values and culture fit outweigh perfect credentials, and the simple follow-up moves that separate serious candidates from the noise will give every job seeker an immediate and genuine advantage. The best thing you can do in today's job market is be completely real. This episode shows you exactly how. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

On paper your organization values integrity, collaboration, and excellence. In practice there is a different set of rules — the ones everyone actually follows, the behaviors that actually get rewarded, the shortcuts that actually get tolerated when the quarter is tight. Those are your covert values. And they are running your culture whether you acknowledge them or not. David Cohen has spent his career helping organizations close the gap between the values they claim and the values they live — and what he shares about how to uncover what your organization actually believes, the single interview question that exposes value misalignment before a bad hire happens, and what leaders must understand about AI bias in hiring before they trust the tech will give you a completely honest and actionable picture of the culture you have versus the one you think you have. Authentic leadership is not a philosophy. It is a daily behavioral choice. This episode shows you what making it actually looks like. 🔗 Interested in David’s insights? Dive deeper into his work via his website and on LinkedIn. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT WITH DAVID COHEN 🌐 Website: https://sagltd.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-cohen-0b0191/ 📚 Leadership Courage Series: Part 1 – Having the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-one-having-courage-live-your-values-worth-david-s-cohen-ncdqc/ Part 2 – Building the Courage to Live Your Values: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-two-building-courage-live-your-values-david-s-cohen-lm7nc/ 📩 Email: david@sagltd.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━