You were trained for almost everything. Nobody trained you for this.
In this solo episode, Lori Adams-Brown draws on her extraordinary career of working in civil war zones, surviving riots targeting American citizens, leading evacuations, and navigating genuine life-or-death threats across multiple countries to name the one threat most leaders are completely unprepared for: the workplace bully.
Research tells us these individuals spend approximately 80% of their time watching, planning, and strategizing how to take down the people they perceive as threats. Not because those people did anything wrong — but because they are competent, empathetic, and influential. They charm publicly and destroy privately. And they use the same psychological tactics as hostage-takers: isolation, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, and the careful, strategic destruction of a target's reality.
In this episode, Lori draws on research and the insights of seven past podcast guests, including Elaine Lin Hering (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s10e182) (Unlearning Silence), Dr. Chuck DeGroat (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s10e230) , Minette Norman (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s11e247) , Catherine Matisse (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s11e246) , Dr. Shveta Miglani (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s10e228) , Rachel Radway (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s11e255) , and Gary Ridge (https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/s11e244) , to make the case that leaders need new skills, new protocols, and a new willingness to believe the people who speak up.
In this episode:
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Why workplace bullies use the same psychological tactics as hostage situations, and why organizations are structurally unprepared
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The predictable bully playbook: how they charm publicly, control the narrative, and isolate targets before anyone knows what happened
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Three red flags every leader needs to be able to spot, and why silence in your organization is not a green light
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What real protection looks like beyond HR departments and policy documents that collapse the moment someone actually reports abuse
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Lori's direct challenge to leaders, and a free framework to help you detect internal threats before you lose your best people
About Lori Adams-Brown:
Lori Adams-Brown is a Strategic Transformation Executive, founder of Brava Global Advisory, and host of A World of Difference podcast with 153,000+ downloads, 285+ episodes, and listeners across 100+ countries. She has worked across six continents in six languages and spent over two decades helping organizations build psychologically safe, high-performing, and globally minded cultures.
Timestamps:
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[00:00] Cold Open — Real crisis training and what was missing from it
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[03:00] The threat from within: what nobody prepared us for
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[05:00] The bully playbook, charm publicly, destroy privately
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[07:00] Silicon Valley offices, nonprofits, and the mission statement contradiction
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[09:00] The painful irony: the strengths that made Lori effective also made her a target
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[11:00] Three red flags every leader must learn to recognize
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[13:30] What real organizational protection requires
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[15:30] Trauma-informed leadership: believing the target
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[17:00] Lori's challenge to leaders and a free resource
Free Resource:
Download the SAFE Framework at: loriadamsbrown.com/safe (https://loriadamsbrown.com/safe)
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