Managing in the Age of AI, with former Microsoft leader, executive coach, and author Sabina Nawaz
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.4 • 116 Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Executive coach and former Microsoft leader Sabina Nawaz talks about her book, You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need) — and why she believes pressure, not power, is what truly corrupts leaders.
We discuss the thinning layer of middle management, how AI tools are changing the landscape, and why many younger workers no longer aspire to lead. Sabina shares actionable strategies from the book, including Micro Habits, the power of Blank Space, and how managers can stop micromanaging and start serving as the “container, not the content.”
She also reflects on her time advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer — including a memorable moment involving an umlaut — and explains why getting promoted might be the riskiest moment in your career.
Topics Covered:
- Why pressure is more dangerous than power
- Managing when the middle layer disappears
- The double-edged sword of AI-powered management
- Tools: Micro Habits, the Yes List, Blank Space
- Communication fault lines and “sage speak”
- Leadership lessons from Gates and Ballmer
- How to lead without burning out
With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop; edited by Curt Milton.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This Geekwire podcast is brought to you by BECU. Stay tuned to the break as Brian Westbrook |
| 0:06.0 | interviews BECU's Stacey Black for today's money hack, answering your most pressing financial questions, |
| 0:12.9 | including how to track recurring subscriptions. For more money hacks, check out geekwire.com |
| 0:18.6 | slash BECU. What happens when an individual manager says, well, wait a second, I'm an agent boss now. |
| 0:24.9 | That's a phrase Microsoft is using. |
| 0:26.8 | Could there be a risk that that would just lead to this sort of individual mentality? |
| 0:32.6 | Like, I'm the one human overseeing this fleet of bots. |
| 0:36.5 | And so therefore, I don't really have to interact with the other humans on my team. |
| 0:39.7 | I can just sort of take it on my own. |
| 0:41.9 | That would be a danger. |
| 0:43.3 | And are you just going to be the boss of agents or is a boss of you going to be an agent at some point? |
| 0:50.0 | I think that's not far away. |
| 0:53.0 | Who's the overlord now? Who's the overlord now? |
| 0:54.3 | Who is the overlord now? |
| 0:56.1 | Exactly. |
| 1:04.0 | Welcome to Geekwire. |
| 1:05.2 | I'm Geekwire co-founder Todd Bishop. |
| 1:07.1 | My guest today is Sabina Nawaz. |
| 1:09.7 | She is an executive coach and a former Microsoft leader who now advises C-suite executives around the world. Her book, You're the Boss, offers a provocative core idea that it's not the power that corrupts leaders, it's the pressure. And that pressure in some ways and in some cases is only getting worse as AI |
| 1:29.6 | tools, reshape workflows and the middle layer of management disappears or shrinks at companies |
| 1:34.9 | including Microsoft and Amazon. We'll talk about how managers can stay effective when they're suddenly |
| 1:39.7 | more responsible for more people with fewer resources and a flood of new technology that makes them |
... |
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