438 Hope Is the Strategy: What It Means to Lead When You Don’t Have All the Answers with Jen Fisher
In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli is joined by Jen Fisher, one of the most influential voices shaping how leaders think about work, wellbeing, and human sustainability. Jen is the former Chief Wellbeing Officer at Deloitte, where she spent more than two decades helping leaders confront burnout, redesign work, and rethink what success actually means inside large, complex organizations.
The conversation centers on the ideas behind Jen’s book, Hope Is the Strategy, and challenges a deeply held leadership assumption: that hope is soft, naive, or something leaders turn to only when plans fall apart. Instead, Jen reframes hope as a disciplined leadership capability, one that becomes essential when teams feel overwhelmed, uncertain, or quietly disengaged.
Drawing on research, lived experience, and her work with senior executives, Jen explains why even the smartest strategies fail when people don’t believe their work will lead to a better future. She explores how leaders unintentionally drain hope through silence, false certainty, or performative wellbeing efforts, and why truth, agency, and credibility matter more than optimism.
The discussion also tackles the limits of traditional wellness programs, the growing tension leaders feel amid constant disruption and AI-driven change, and why many organizations are still solving the wrong problems. Throughout the episode, Jen offers a grounded, practical lens on what it really takes to lead human beings, especially when leaders themselves don’t have all the answers.
This is a thoughtful, candid conversation for CEOs and senior leaders who sense that something fundamental is missing in how organizations motivate, engage, and move people forward, and who want a more honest way to think about leadership in uncertain times.
Actionable Takeaways
- You’ll learn why hope is not a feeling or slogan, but a leadership capability that requires clarity, agency, and follow-through.
- Hear how even well-designed strategies break down when leaders can’t articulate how change will improve people’s lives.
- Discover why silence and false certainty erode trust faster than difficult truths ever will.
- Hear how leaders can acknowledge burnout and uncertainty without becoming pessimistic or paralyzed.
- Learn why most corporate wellbeing efforts fail to move the needle, and what they overlook about daily work design.
- Explore how hope and wellbeing reinforce each other and why neither can be treated as a standalone initiative.
- Hear why leading humans in an AI-enabled workplace requires skills most organizations never train leaders to develop.
- Learn how credible hope helps teams move forward even when leaders don’t have clear answers or perfect plans.
Connect with the Jen Fisher
Hope Is the Strategy: The Underrated Skill That Transforms Work, Leadership, and Wellbeing
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli: