In this episode of Qonversations, Brian Gorman sits down with leadership author and advisor David Liddell and President of Liddell Consulting explore what happens when leadership shifts from managing effort to cultivating meaning, alignment, and energy. Through stories from manufacturing, healthcare supply chains, and leadership practice, the conversation surfaces a tension many organizations feel but struggle to name: people are busy, capable, and well-intentioned, yet disconnected from purpose, clarity, and shared outcomes.

Rather than treating this as an engagement problem to fix, Brian and David frame it as a wisdom challenge: helping people understand why their work matters, how success is defined, and where their energy is best applied. They explore moving beyond activity metrics to meaningful outcomes, the role of sense-making and unlearning in leadership, and why people commit differently when the human impact of their work becomes visible.

As organizations move beyond Industrial-Age assumptions about control and productivity, this episode offers a grounded look at leadership guided by wisdom, not just intelligence, for those who sense that work is changing, even if the language for what’s emerging is still taking shape.