Here's something most business podcasts won't tell you: leadership isn't about having all the answers anymore. It never really was, but the old playbook — top-down commands from a corner office — died somewhere between the pandemic and the first AI wave. What's replaced it is messier, harder to quantify, and honestly a lot more interesting.
That's the thesis driving WSJ Leadership Institute Presents Leaders, a biweekly podcast series hosted by Alan Murray, founding president of The Wall Street Journal's Leadership Institute. Since its debut on September 22 at 5:00 a.m. ET, the show has released 22 episodes and built a modest but engaged following — 4.1 out of 5 stars on Apple Podcasts from ten ratings, which tells you more about the audience than the score itself. These are people who actually run companies. They don't rate things on the bus.
The format is straightforward: Murray sits down with CEOs and top executives, goes beyond the press-release narrative, and asks what leadership actually looks like when everything is on fire. No panelists. No moderators. Just a journalist who's spent decades in the room with powerful people, pressing on what they won't say in a keynote.
It works because Murray isn't pretending to be neutral. He's opinionated, he pushes back, and he brings genuine curiosity to every conversation.
Alan Murray: From Bureau Chief to Institute President
Murray's credibility on this beat isn't accidental. He spent over twenty years at The Wall Street Journal as a senior editor and bureau chief — the kind of reporter who knew how to get a CEO to say something real. Then in 2018, he made what looked like a lateral move but was really an upgrade: CEO of Fortune Media, where he launched the CEO Daily newsletter and the Leadership Next podcast. He started his first newspaper at nine years old, selling thirty copies for five cents each on his Pittsburgh street. That's not a soundbite. That's just who he is.
When he returned to Dow Jones as founding president of the WSJ Leadership Institute, the mission was clear: help executives navigate an era where change doesn't come in cycles anymore — it comes in waves, and they're getting steeper. The Institute runs the prestigious CEO Council and executive networks built around peer learning, because that's what C-suite leaders actually prefer. They don't want a Coursera course. They want to hear what the person running the next biggest company did when the same crisis hit their door.
Murray told Beyond The Boardroom during a Singapore visit in October 2025 that the Institute's job is to provide "whatever tools, data, or information we can to help them master this unprecedented pace of change that defines their work and their leadership journeys." Translation: the world's moving fast, and his audience needs a co-pilot who actually understands the cockpit.
The Leadership Philosophy Behind the Mic
If you listen closely across these episodes, a pattern emerges. It's not about strategy decks or quarterly forecasts. It's about something far more human: the shift from authority to empathy as the core currency of leadership.
Murray put it bluntly in that same Singapore interview. He referenced Jack Welch, the legendary GE CEO who was the archetype of the all-knowing, top-down leader. "That model simply doesn't work anymore," Murray said. "Things change too rapidly; no one can possibly have all the answers." The best leaders today spend less time instructing and more time setting a North Star, motivating people, and asking them to generate solutions.
The data backs this up. Murray cited a 2023 survey where roughly half the CEOs he spoke with named "empathy" when describing how their leadership evolved during the pandemic. That word — empathy — was something he'd almost never heard from CEOs before. Now it's strategic infrastructure.
The central challenge, repeated across nearly every conversation, is "creating coherence out of chaos." Murray quoted Leena Nair, CEO of Chanel, who framed it precisely: "Creating coherence out of change." People are drowning in information, uncertainty, and fear — geopolitical, economic, technological. The result is organizational paralysis. A leader's job now is to create enough coherence that people feel they can move forward.
It's a different job description than the one most business schools teach. And that's exactly why this podcast exists.
The First Episode: Rubrik's AI-Cybersecurity Tightrope
The series opened with an episode that immediately signals what this show is about: Rubrik CEO on Balancing AI Growth and Cybersecurity. Rubrik, the enterprise data protection company, sits at the exact intersection of the two forces reshaping modern business — AI-driven growth and the cybersecurity risks that come with it.
The conversation, available as a WSJ video at the series page, tackles what happens when you're scaling AI capabilities while your attack surface expands in parallel. It's not a theoretical question. For companies like Rubrik, the answer determines whether AI adoption accelerates or stalls under the weight of security incidents.
This opening episode sets the tone for everything that follows. No hype. No vendor speak. Just a CEO and a journalist working through the actual tradeoffs of building in public during an era where every new capability introduces new vulnerabilities. It's the kind of conversation you can't have at a conference panel, because the questions are too specific and the stakes too real.
The Guest Roster: Who's Actually on This Show
What makes the Leaders podcast stand out isn't just Murray's skill as an interviewer — it's who agrees to sit in the chair. The guest list reads like a masterclass in modern corporate leadership:
Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato (June 15, 2026) — Recorded at the 2026 WSJ CEO Council Summit in London, Duato discussed cancer treatment breakthroughs, longevity research, and AI's role in accelerating medical innovation. Twenty-seven minutes of a pharma CEO thinking out loud about the intersection of biology and technology.
Dow CEO Jim Fitterling (June 1, 2026) — Fitterling reflected on his eight-year tenure rebuilding the chemical giant's culture and profitability after its massive corporate spinoff, as he prepared to hand the reins to successor Karen Carter. Thirty-six minutes on succession strategy and leading with empathy — a topic most CEOs avoid until it's too late.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan (May 18, 2026) — Moynihan had been at the helm for seventeen years, a tenure practically unheard of in modern corporate America. He discussed strategy through financial crises, a global pandemic, and the AI revolution. Twenty-three minutes of institutional knowledge distilled.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby (May 4, 2026) — When Kirby took over in May 2020, he faced a pandemic that brought travel to a standstill. Instead of shrinking, he placed the largest aircraft order in United's history. His episode covers the leadership lessons from that bet — and what he got wrong along the way.
Box CEO Aaron Levie (April 20, 2026) — Levie predicted workers would soon act as managers overseeing fleets of AI tools, replacing the "individual contributor" role with the "agent manager." He also discussed the AI liability paradox — a concept that'll only get more relevant.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and CFO Michelle Chang (April 6, 2026) — The pair explained Zoom's pivot to "Zoom 2.0," including the deployment of AI digital twins in the C-suite and how they're balancing massive AI investments with shareholder returns. Thirty-four minutes of a company reinventing itself in real time.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi (March 23, 2026) — Goodarzi brought listeners inside Intuit's multi-year shift from software to an AI-driven service model, timed to coincide with peak tax season. Twenty-eight minutes on transformation under public scrutiny.
BNY CEO Robin Vince (March 9, 2026) — Vince discussed the cultural and technological transformation of America's oldest bank, sharing lessons on what it takes to get human employees to embrace working side-by-side with AI. Thirty-three minutes from a leader at a 234-year-old institution.
That's eighteen episodes right there. And the series keeps going.
Why This Matters for Anyone Who Leads
The Leaders podcast isn't entertainment. It's a field manual disguised as conversation.
Murray's core insight — repeated across episodes and sources — is that technology conversations always devolve into people conversations within fifteen minutes. CEOs don't want to talk about models and APIs. They want to know how to get their teams to adopt new tools, how to manage fear during transformation, and how to maintain culture when everything's changing.
Murray cited Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, as a leader who gets this right. When AI threatened every job at the world's largest private employer, McMillon didn't issue a memo. He made a video — just him talking directly to employees — reminding them that ten years earlier, during another transformation, Walmart had doubled down on its people: raised wages, invested in education, expanded opportunities. That period built real trust. Then he said: "Now we have to create a new future. And if you come with me, I'll get you to the other side."
That's not a soundbite. That's leadership.
The podcast makes the case, episode after episode, that the leaders who will endure aren't the loudest voices in the room. They're the ones who combine conviction with empathy, who build trust while moving fast, and who can listen as well as lead. In a sense, what defines great leadership today isn't charisma — it's coherence.
For anyone managing people, building products, or steering organizations through uncertainty, these episodes are required listening. Not because they offer easy answers, but because they show what honest conversation looks like at the top.
Where to Listen
The full WSJ Leadership Institute Presents Leaders series is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Audible. New episodes drop every other Monday.
The series is produced by The Wall Street Journal and copyrighted by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.