Meta-Cast
by Bob Galen & Josh Anderson
Latest episode
You Were Hired to Change Things. So Change Something.
You Were Hired to Change Things. So Change Something.
About this podcast
Bob Galen and Josh Anderson draw on decades of coaching experience to support your leadership journey. If our 400+ episodes don't have what you need, ask us a question, and we'll help you out!
www.meta-cast.com
Episodes
The newest 50 of 407 episodes
- You Were Hired to Change Things. So Change Something. · 23 minBob and Josh each brought their top 5 moves for the first 90 days in a new leadership role, and for once they mostly agreed, which neither of them enjoyed. Josh stamps a culture…
- 10 Questions to Ask Before You Accept a Tech Leadership Role · 29 minThe job market has been rough on tech leaders lately, and picking the wrong company can cost you a year or two of your career. In this episode, Bob Galen and Josh Anderson each…
- We Got Leadership Wrong for Years. Here’s What We'd Change. · 28 minBob and Josh frame the episode as “letters” to their future or past selves, sharing personal and leadership advice. Josh emphasizes trusting his gut even when he’s “annoyingly…
- The 1 Measuring Stick We Hold Every Leader To · 30 minWhat would change if you treated every person on your team as someone else's precious cargo? A friend of the show visited her son at Fort Bragg and came home less worried…
- The 4X rule every feature MUST pass · 27 minJosh and Bob discuss growing finance pressure over AI token spend—dubbed the “great token reckoning of 2027”—and the mismatch between claimed 10x developer productivity and lack…
- The "New" AI Hiring Skills Are the Ones You Always Needed · 27 minOpen any hiring feed this year and you'll find a fresh list of skills for the AI era. Discernment. Judgment. Taste. Bob Galen and Josh Anderson think the list is fine. They just…
- Does Code Quality Still Matter When AI Writes It? · 43 minThe hottest take on LinkedIn right now is that coding was never the bottleneck. Josh and Bob have hired hundreds of developers, sat through the "why is this taking so long"…
- Most Leaders Can't Answer This One Capacity Question · 41 minThere's a squeeze on right now, and it's landing hardest on middle managers and senior leaders. Do more with less. Do more with the same. Lead the team and ship the code. The…
- Expectation Inflation Is Stronger Than Ever · 27 minBob and Josh take on expectation inflation, the widening gap between what executives believe AI can do and what your team can actually deliver. Bob tells the bourbon and cigar…
- Just Ask Us For Help · 22 minSomebody finally sent Josh a message asking for help, and it turned into an episode. Bob and Josh break down every reason people talk themselves out of reaching out, what…
- When Being Stubborn Is Leadership And When It's Ego · 26 minBob sings The Gambler and turns it into a leadership question. He quit a job after 4 days when he learned he'd been hired as the ax man. Josh called off an office redesign…
- 10 Leadership Habits Most Managers Skip · 24 minFootball's back. And on the first day of the 2026 preseason, Josh and Bob take one of the oldest lines in coaching and point it straight at leadership. Good teams don't win on…
- Bob and Josh Finally Disagree About Something: Transparency · 24 minBob opens with a metaphor about window blinds. Truth isn't a switch, he says, it's a set of slats you're constantly adjusting. Closed all the way, open all the way, and every…
- Everything We'd Tell a New Leader · 27 minBob and Josh each bring a list for the person thinking about stepping into leadership for the first time. Your why, the loneliness, the burdens you can't share, why most leaders…
- AI Answers Everything, So Who's Having the Ideas? · 26 minAI can hand you an answer to almost anything in seconds. Bob and Josh spend this episode asking what that convenience is quietly costing us. It starts with an IEEE Spectrum…
- 6 Leadership Characteristics We Admire After 20 Years of Working Together · 24 minBob and Josh go round robin, naming the leadership characteristics they admire in each other after 2 decades of working together: generosity, genuineness, the courage to evolve…
- Life Balance for Leaders on a Hard Sprint · 28 minA CEO's LinkedIn vacation post sparks one of our most personal episodes yet. Bob shares the real cost of putting the company first, Josh shares the question from his kids that…
- Can AI Make You a Great Leader? · 31 minCan AI make you a great leader? Josh says no, Bob agrees, and they spend this one drawing the line between the tactical work AI can absorb and the human work it can't. They get…
- The 60 Second Habit That Builds Better Leadership Instincts · 27 minThe smartest leadership tool you've got isn't in any AI model. It's your gut. Bob and Josh dig into why intuition still wins the hard calls, the ones data alone can't make for…
- Why Great Leaders Get Comfortable Being Wrong · 24 minEvery leader gets it wrong eventually. The question is what you do next. Josh and Bob dig into one of the hardest things any leader faces: admitting a mistake out loud. Not…
- Lean Into the Ambiguity Before the Ambiguity Leans Into You · 28 minBob and Josh sit with a hard truth this week. The change rolling through software and leadership isn't optional anymore. It's not Agile in 2007, where you could adopt it or sit…
- The Courage Gap in Tech Leadership · 29 minJosh and Bob dig into the courage problem that runs through every layer of tech leadership right now. The courage to push back on your team. The courage to be honest with peers…
- Agile Isn't Dead. The Free Ride Is. · 35 minBob's back from Agile Coach Camp Cologne, and the room was heavy with "agile is dead" energy. Josh and Bob aren't buying it. What's actually dead is the free ride. The coaches…
- When Your Words Sound Smooth But Mean Nothing · 27 minBob Galen and Josh Anderson dig into one of the most quietly destructive habits in leadership communication. You know the feeling. You sit through a thirty minute all hands, and…
- The Hidden Glue That Creates Resilient Organizations · 29 minBob and Josh dig into a recent HBR article on the leadership case for friendship-based culture. Not the toxic "we're a family" version, but something real, where leaders model…
- How Great Leaders Handle the Pressure of AI Hype · 32 minThe AI hype cycle is testing leaders everywhere, and Josh and Bob are here to cut through the noise. Bob opens with a sharp observation. Everyone became an AI zen master…
- When AI Makes Your Pipeline Faster But Your Product Worse · 38 minBob Galen and Josh Anderson dig into the two ends of the AI-accelerated pipeline: the upstream product strategy crisis, where AI amplifies leadership indecision, and the…
- AI Output Without Organizational Readiness Is Just Expensive Chaos · 31 minThe central question in this episode lands hard and fast: does AI-enabled speed actually produce better outcomes? Josh opens by framing the problem plainly. The capability to…
- The Meta Management Gamble and Why We're Worried Every Other Company Will Copy It · 33 minMeta just announced a 1:50 manager-to-employee ratio for their new AI engineering team, and Bob and Josh have opinions. They debate what management is actually for, whether AI…
- Why Technical Leaders Undersell Themselves and How to Stop · 32 minMost leaders will tell you they hate bragging — and they mean it. But somewhere between "I don't want to be that person" and never talking about what you've done, a lot of…
- Caring Is Leading: Eight Lessons from the Hardest Job You’ll Ever Have · 44 minBob Galen and Josh Anderson connect two worlds most people keep separate: caregiving and elite organizational leadership. Using 8 skills that dementia caregivers build every day…
- Why Great Leaders Use AI to Hire More People, Not Fire Them · 31 minAI-driven layoffs are reshaping the tech industry — but is cutting 40% of your workforce bold leadership or lazy leadership? Josh and Bob don't hold back as they break down the…
- How to Step Down From Leadership Gracefully · 33 minWhat happens when a leader decides they're done leading? In this episode, Bob and Josh tackle one of the most uncomfortable topics in technical leadership: stepping down from a…
- Take Part in Your Own Rescue Instead of Blaming Leadership · 23 minIn this provocative episode, Bob and Josh flip the script on their usual leadership-focused content. Instead of critiquing leaders, they're calling out team members who…
- The Proven Hiring Framework Two Leaders Discovered Independently · 36 minTwo veteran engineering leaders reveal the proven hiring principles they independently discovered through building world-class teams. Learn why diversity across all dimensions…
- Control vs. Innovation - The Two Forces Behind Every RTO Decision · 41 minThe return-to-office debate has been hijacked by the wrong conversation. In this episode, Josh and Bob cut through the noise to reveal what's really driving RTO mandates—and it's…
- Are You Too Nice to Be an Effective Leader? · 30 minAre you a nice leader or a kind leader? It might sound like the same thing, but Bob and Josh break down why the difference could be holding you back from becoming the leader your…
- How Leaders Generate Energy When They're Running on Empty · 31 minLeaders don't have anyone to pick them up when they fall—so how do you generate energy when you've got nothing left? Josh and Bob share real talk about the mental battles of…
- Great Leaders Are Great Followers First · 33 minGreat leaders aren't born—they're made through great followership. Bob and Josh explore why mastering the art of following is essential to leading, including Amazon's "disagree…
- What We Loved in 2025 - Tech, Books, and Everything Between · 39 minBob and Josh share their favorite things from 2025—from fountain pens and Batman comics to Claude AI, Drizzle ORM, and the books that kept them turning pages. Plus honest talk…
- Give Yourself Grace Because 2025 Kicked Everyone's Ass · 34 minBob calls it the worst tech job market in 45 years. Josh has been grinding harder than ever with a slower pipeline. In this raw year-in-review episode, the hosts share what's…
- Finding Your Leadership Weaknesses When Nobody Will Tell You · 31 minAs leaders gain responsibility, honest feedback disappears. Bob and Josh explore why power dynamics silence your team, how to find truth tellers who will call you out, and why no…
- Weaponized Curiosity and Other Leadership Questioning Mistakes · 25 minAre your questions undermining your leadership credibility? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson expose the hidden dangers of over-questioning, from "death by a thousand questions" to…
- Should Leaders Ever Say "Don't Bring Me Problems Bring Me Solutions"? · 28 minShould leaders ever say "don't bring me problems, bring me solutions"? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson challenge binary thinking in leadership. Learn when this controversial phrase…
- If Leaving Your Team Hurts Then You Probably Did It Right · 26 minWhat happens when you've built an amazing team and then have to leave? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson explore the guilt, emotion, and complexity of leadership transitions. Learn why…
- From Stack Ranking to AI Hiring - Detecting and Fixing Toxic Workplaces · 38 minBob Galen and Josh Anderson dissect toxic workplace culture and challenge leaders to take ownership. Learn why stack ranking exists (spoiler: because leaders aren't doing their…
- 8 Things EVERY Leader Needs to Do MORE Of in 2026 · 45 minCelebrate Episode 100 of The Meta-Cast's Leadership Focus as Bob Galen and Josh Anderson share 8 critical areas where leaders need to do MORE. Learn why hiring can't be…
- The Painfully Easy Leadership Traps We Fall Into,(And How to Escape Them) · 29 minThis week, Josh and Bob tackle the hidden beliefs that hold leaders back — inspired by a recent Harvard Business Review article. From perfectionism and ego to the inability to…
- Hard Conversations You Need to Have With Yourself · 37 minIn this episode, Josh and Bob hold up the mirror — hard. This isn’t a pep talk; it’s a reality check for anyone frustrated with their career, the market, or leadership. They…
- Why Networking Still Beats Any Career Hack · 42 minThis episode dives into one of the most "avoided" skills in career growth — networking that actually matters. Josh and Bob pull back the curtain on how real connections, not…
