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Let Go & Lead with Maril MacDonaldAuthor: Gagen MacDonald
As a leader, letting go doesn't mean abdicating responsibility. In fact, it's just the opposite. Letting go to lead means encouraging your people toward mastery, infusing the workplace with a sense of purpose, allowing room for self-direction and giving others more autonomy in their jobs. In the Let Go & Lead podcast, Maril MacDonald, Founder and CEO of award winning strategy firm Gagen MacDonald, unpacks these topics and more in conversations with today's business leaders, academics and creative thinkers. Language: en Genres: Business, Management Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Stephanie Kramer | Building Great Leaders & The Future of HR
Tuesday, 18 November, 2025
Stephanie Kramer, chief human resources officer of L'Oréal North America, discusses leading with empathy and rigor as work practices change fast. She explains how her background in chemistry and marketing shapes a data-informed HR lens that keeps people first and results clear. Stephanie and host Maril talk about building leaders, empowering managers and designing processes that reduce friction and scale care. Stephanie also discusses "Carry Strong," her research-driven guide to pregnancy and work, and why engagement, enablement and wellbeing mesh together in healthy cultures. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Introduction. 02:25 Leadership careers often start with curiosity and a willingness to grow. 04:47 Understanding people is essential in any discipline, from marketing to human resources. 09:56 Empowering managers strengthens trust and creates space for employees to thrive. 12:56 Transparency and accountability drive progress as technology reshapes how we work. 16:44 Clear and consistent processes create stability and enable meaningful human connection. 24:01 Sustainable leadership depends on setting priorities and maintaining personal balance. 29:35 Taking time for self-care ensures leaders can guide others with clarity and energy. 31:10 Being deliberate with time and decisions builds focus and long-term effectiveness. Resources Mentioned: Stephanie Kramer https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniemaekramer/ L'Oréal North America | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lor%C3%A9al/ L'Oréal | Website http://www.loreal.com "Carry Strong" by Stephanie Kramer https://www.amazon.com/Carry-Strong-Empowered-Navigating-Pregnancy/dp/014313728X Fast Company https://www.fastcompany.com/ ABOUT LET GO & LEAD Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers. Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world. Full episodes also available on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A — Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com. #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
