Friction Isn't the Problem; Ignoring It Is, with Drs. Ross Blankenship and Maggie Sass

Most leaders are told to stay logical and remove anything that feels like friction. But real emotional intelligence in leadership starts with reading that friction, not erasing it. Dr. Mira Brancu sits down with organizational psychologists Dr. Ross Blankenship and Dr. Maggie Sass, authors of the upcoming book Friction, to talk about the emotional data most of us are trained to ignore. They make a simple case: friction is not a malfunction, it is a signal. The discomfort, the tension, the hard conversation you keep avoiding, all of it is information you can actually use to lead better. They get into why using AI to smooth everything out can quietly make your work vanish instead of easier and why leadership only becomes real the moment your decisions meet other human beings. If you have ever felt that leading people is harder than it looks, this conversation explains what is actually going on, and what to do about it this week. Subscribe for weekly conversations on leadership, burnout, and mental health at work. Find our guest here: https://www.tuesdayadvisors.com/ https://rossblankenship.substack.com/ https://www.rossblankenship.io/ https://www.talentsmarteq.com/articles/   / maggiesass-phd   To find more of my work: 👉 Subscribe to this channel 📰 Subscribe to my free newsletter at: mailchi.mp/2079c04f4d44/subscribe 📆 Schedule a call to explore working with me: calendly.com/mira-brancu/30-minute-initial-consultation 📕 Get practical workplace politics tips from my books: gotowerscope.com/books Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/MiraBrancu Learn more about my services: www.gotowerscope.com Other resources referenced: A Second Career: The Possible Dream, Harry Levinson: https://hbr.org/1983/05/a-second-care... 00:00 - The Signal Hiding Inside Every Hard Moment 00:35 - Why AI Makes Your Work Vanish, Not Easier 01:22 - Meet the Psychologists Who Studied Friction for Years 09:26 - The 50,000 Word Book They Wrote and Hated (and How Friction Helped The Write a Better Book) 19:10 - The 38% Who Can't Even Define Emotional Intelligence 22:35 - The Grief Nobody Names at Work 26:06 - When a "Delegation Problem" Is Actually Grief (GOLDEN NUGGET) 26:28 - The real reason you won't delegate has nothing to do with trust (GOLDEN NUGGET ) 34:30 - Removing friction is removing meaning.(GOLDEN NUGGET) 37:00 - When You're Not Leading, You're Just Thinking 44:20 - The One Friction Experiment to Try Tomorrow