To understand leadership, you need to understand identity

To understand leadership, you need to understand identity

Author: brucedaisley.com October 27, 2025 Duration: 51:51

This is the second part of an interview with Professor Alex Haslam, the world's leading voice on the study of social identity.

You can hear the first part of this interview on the website.


In this discussion we talk how social identity can help us understand leadership.


Alex talks about the CARE model of leadership.

C - Create the group

A - Advance the group (sometimes over themselves)

R - Represent the group

E - Embed the group identity in everyday life for the group


If you're interested in exploring Alex's recent contributions to discussions on leadership and culture these papers are a great place to start:


Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups, and why social identity is central to motivation, resilience, and effective teamwork.


Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.

Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


There’s a conversation happening about how our jobs shape us, and Eat Sleep Work Repeat sits right at the heart of it. Host Bruce Daisley approaches workplace culture not with prescriptive advice, but with genuine curiosity, digging into the science and social dynamics behind why we work the way we do. Each episode feels like a thoughtful exploration, blending research from management, psychology, and sociology with real-world stories. You’ll hear discussions that challenge conventional wisdom about productivity, teamwork, and wellbeing, moving beyond simple fixes to understand the deeper systems at play. This podcast recognizes that improving work isn't just about office perks; it's about examining the rhythms, relationships, and expectations that fill our days. It’s for anyone who has ever wondered how to make their team more resilient, their own work more meaningful, or simply how to disconnect at the end of the day. With millions of listens, it’s become a trusted resource for rethinking the modern work experience. The tone is engaging and accessible, turning complex ideas into practical reflections. For more from Bruce Daisley, visit brucedaisley.com.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture
Podcast Episodes
Presence: Fish! Time to revisit a culture classic? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:24
This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeIn the 2000s a book called Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results became a bestseller.…
Presence: exploring real life culture rituals [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:09
This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeThis is the second episode about rituals - the first one is next to it in the podcast feed, it's an intervi…
Presence: our rituals show what matters to us [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:45
This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeKursat Ozenc is a product designer who he teaches at Stanford university, He teaches on the subject that we…
Presence: Presence starts with positive leadership [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:30
Flow is the state of being in which people become so immersed in the joy of their work or activity “that nothing else seems to matter.”Presence is to be in a flow state of connection with others.Here’s the last discussio…
The future of work? "The manager as a therapist" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:53
Isabel Berwick is a writer and podcaster who focusses on the evolving state of modern work. I’ve celebrated her podcast Working It many times here (here’s her specials on the 4-day week for example, or her special on mee…
Getting real with Employee Experience [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:02
How should most of us think about the differences between Employee Experience and Employee Engagement.I first spoke to Emma Bridger, who is the author of a well respected book on this topic and the founder of the EX Spac…
Better conversations, better relationships [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:16
Charles Duhigg’s bestseller The Power of Habit was the definitive guide to building and sustaining successful habits.His new book, Supercommunicators, grapples with the knotty topic of creating successful interactions wi…
Do bonuses actually make us work harder? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:23
Many of us have worked in environments that provided bonuses or rewards for success. Maybe they took the form of team rewards or individual incentives, or end of year profit-share schemes. But do these rewards achieve wh…