The Leadership Mistake That Almost Cost Her Everything
Catherine Blackmore is GVP of Customer & Employee Programs at Oracle, and she has built her career inside organizations: operating models, customer programs, communities, and leadership teams. She has also been a guest on every podcast I've ever hosted. This conversation is why I keep inviting her back.
We trace her journey through three distinct phases: the builder, the bulldozer, and the leader she is today. Along the way, she names the moments most executives keep to themselves, including the feedback session she calls an intervention.
What You'll Hear
The Bulldozer Phase
Catherine had the ideas, the energy, and the passion. She also hired people who could keep up with her and left everyone else behind. She explains how the strengths that earned her a seat at the table started working against her, and how she finally saw it.
The Intervention
Her leadership team was exhausted, angry, and ready to walk. So she asked them for feedback on her job, and her only permitted response was, "Thank you." What she heard in that room, including that her proudest programs were rewarding extroverts and sidelining introverts, changed how she leads.
A Vision Simple Enough to Live Daily
Shape the way the world sees Oracle. Six words, and every person on her team knows them. Catherine walks through the listening tour, the workshop, and the crowdsourced process that produced that sentence, plus the values and the team brand, The Playmakers, that turned culture into daily practice.
Curiosity Over Answers
Catherine believes motivating people through fear is the cheapest tool in leadership, and that it never lasts. She makes the case that trust and psychological safety, backed by Google's research on high-performing teams, are what actually produce innovation. Her advice to her younger self sums up the whole conversation.
Episode Timestamps
01:01 Entrepreneurship as Leadership
06:02 Builder Phase Origins
10:32 Bulldozer Phase Wakeup
15:29 Feedback Intervention Call
24:02 Supper Club Community
33:15 Crafting Vision Statement
36:15 Culture Needs Intentionality
37:47 Making Values Real
40:40 Brand Identity Playmakers
45:52 Alignment Drives Execution
47:56 Founder Scaling Trap
55:32 Curiosity Over Answers
01:03:24 Trust Psychological Safety
01:11:14 Leadership Lessons Closing
About Catherine Blackmore
Catherine is GVP of Customer & Employee Programs at Oracle. She has spent her career building inside organizations: operating models, customer programs, and leadership development frameworks. She also co-created the legendary customer success Supper Club, which became one of the hottest tickets in the industry.
Connect with Catherine Blackmore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineblackmore/
