Lead by Design
Lead by Design
Steven Ma on making work more human, how to fight fear with compassion, designing organisations and leadership for agility, and making the world better for future generations (#002)
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Steven Ma on making work more human, how to fight fear with compassion, designing organisations and leadership for agility, and making the world better for future generations (#002)

Steven Ma lives and breathes agile, and has trained, evangelised, coached and directed Agile across a wide range of industries, both domestically and internationally.

He was the Chief Purpose Officer at No Moss Co, and his personal mission is to make work more human.

Steven co-designs organisations for empathy and agility; emphasising a more human purpose to work. His self-described super-powers are personal grit and endless energy; and he thrives in contexts where leaders desire change and share his agenda of growing people, building purpose and creating environments for incredible business outcomes.

Show notes: https://devsingh.net/steven-ma-on-making-work-more-human-002

Some of the questions I ask Steven in this conversation

  • What is the relationship between empathy and agility?

  • Has the popularity of Agile been a good thing for leadership coaching or diluted the value and impact of it?

  • Can you have one without the other (coaching for the benefit of an individual's development vs for the benefit of the organisation) to the extent where it becomes an issue where that lack of integration can start to fester?

  • Why and how did you come up with your title Chief Purpose Officer, and what's your purpose these days?

  • What made Steven a successful entrepreneur despite coming from a vulnerable, refugee background?

  • How can leaders who might be stuck in the rut of risk aversion or attachment to accountability, escape that rut and inspire their own vision and imagination?

  • What does it mean to lead by design?

  • Should you design your organisational system first or your leadership first?

  • How do you bring loving kindness and compassion into the design of your leadership in the face of pervasive systemic racism?


About Dev Singh:
Dev Singh (@DevSinghNet) has over a decade of experience working with established and aspiring organisational leaders to build stronger & more strategic business foundations, and to lead with greater impact and influence.

Besides working with organisations all over Australia in over a dozen sectors, Dev has coached and consulted for entrepreneurs and executives in places as varied as Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, UK, Southeast Asia, North America, and Singapore.

Dev has designed and delivered keynotes and workshops for hundreds of organisations worldwide on entrepreneurship, business strategy, leadership, branding & marketing, communication, influence and innovation, across a range of industries and sectors including Government, Financial Services, Retail, Professional Services, Non-Profit, Education, Technology & start-ups.

Connect with Dev Singh:
Lead by Design podcast: https://leadbydesign.show
Under My Turban newsletter: https://devsingh.substack.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/devsinghnet
Twitter: https://x.com/devsinghnet

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Lead by Design
Lead by Design
Conversations about leadership, design, agility, innovation, and many things in between.