In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli sits down with Mohammad Anwar, founder and CEO of Softway and co-author of the book Love as a Change Strategy. Together, they take on one of the most misunderstood ideas in leadership: whether love has any place in driving performance, innovation, and large-scale change.

Mohammad’s perspective is not theoretical. He shares a deeply personal leadership story, tracing how a fear-driven, control-oriented approach nearly destroyed his company, and how a fundamental shift in how he treated people helped turn it around. The conversation challenges the assumption that tough leadership and human leadership sit in opposition to each other.

The discussion then moves into why so many organizational change efforts fail, despite heavy investments in process, technology, and change management frameworks. Mohammad argues that most leaders don’t actually have a change management problem. They have a change strategy problem, one that overlooks how humans respond to uncertainty, fear, and loss of control.

Mahan presses on a question many CEOs wrestle with privately: if fear-based leadership can produce results, why not use it? The answer isn’t moralistic. It’s practical. They explore sustainability, commitment, and the hidden costs leaders don’t see until it’s too late.

The episode also tackles AI and transformation through a people-first lens. Rather than framing AI as a threat or a productivity shortcut, Mohammad reframes it as a test of leadership maturity and an opportunity to restore humanity to work, if leaders are willing to change themselves first.

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