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Sheila Pride is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Moksha Group, where she works with organizations and executives worldwide to create conscious leadership and transform toxic workplace cultures. As both a therapist and organizational consultant, she specializes in using neuroscience-based approaches to build psychological safety, improve communication, and help teams stay connected despite their differences. In this conversation, she reveals why most workplace culture efforts fail and shares practical frameworks like the “depletion vs. renewal grid” and structured dialogue techniques that actually work.
This episode is essential for CEOs, team leaders, managers, and anyone struggling with workplace dysfunction, difficult conversations, or toxic team dynamics. Listeners will learn evidence-based strategies for creating psychological safety, facilitating productive meetings, handling feedback effectively, and building teams that thrive under pressure. By applying Sheila’s neuroscience-backed methods, you’ll transform not just how you show up at work, but how you communicate in every relationship—creating ripple effects that improve your leadership, reduce stress, and help you build the collaborative, high-performing culture you’ve always wanted.
00:00 – Introduction and Welcome
00:49 – What is Moksha Group?
02:13 – Why Culture Work is Still Needed
02:28 – The War Brain vs. New Brain
04:43 – The Spillover Effect of Workplace Stress
05:07 – Depletion vs. Renewal Framework
07:16 – Multiple Entry Points for Change
10:19 – The Business Case for Team Development
11:25 – Live Exercise: Great Leadership Qualities
16:31 – The Neuroscience of Belonging
19:08 – Bad Leadership and Its Impact
22:06 – The Tsunami Story: Psychological Safety in Action
26:24 – Why Difficult Conversations Are So Hard
32:14 – When Good People Leave and Teams Go Silent
36:08 – Leading from Any Level
40:17 – Staying Connected Despite Differences
43:18 – The Universal Need to Be Seen and Heard
45:49 – Live Demonstration: Structured Dialogue
54:24 – Skills We’re Never Taught
55:52 – The Importance of Repair Processes
57:00 – The Challenge of Apologizing
01:00:10 – Creating Safe Spaces for Mistakes
01:03:02 – Teaching the Fundamentals
01:05:39 – Being Real, Open, and Vulnerable
01:08:07 – The Need for Coaches and Continuous Learning
01:11:58 – Self-Compassion as Foundation
01:13:27 – Living Practice vs. Dead Practice
01:14:08 – How to Connect and Work Together
01:15:12 – Closing Gratitude and Reflection
Content Notice
This podcast and all She Lift Project content represents the opinions of Cynthia Kirkpatrick and her guests. The content here is for informational purposes only, and should not be taken as professional advice – financial, legal, medical, or otherwise.
Views and opinions expressed in the podcast and across all She Lift Project media channels are our own and do not represent that of our places of work. While we make every effort to ensure that the information we are sharing is accurate, we welcome any comments, suggestions, or correction of errors.
“You have to be cautious and mindful of the board of directors you invite into your head. And we as women especially listen terribly to that board of directors. And if you have one bad seat on there, one bad teacher, one bad classmate, one whatever from your history that you are listening to, it can really sabotage you.”
“You just have to do it, come back and face what is new and different and learn and grow. You can’t stop thinking. You have to keep thinking, how can I go forward with this. Nothing has to be the way it is. It isn’t going to be a straight line, it’s going to take its own path, and you have to be ready to follow that path and move forward.”
“Everybody has a light inside of them, and you have a choice. You can either use lighter fluid or an extinguisher. Same thing goes with everything. Same with people’s talents. You can either light it up or you can extinguish it.”
“If you follow this methodology, if you follow the pattern, the outcome is inevitable. You cannot mess it up because it’s just calculated moves that are in writing.”
One of the things I love to do if the opportunity presents itself as coach people, because I feel like that is the most, wow, fun, enriching thing that you can do for people. Because what happens is I believe that people behave for reasons, and you got to figure out what’s the root cause. So if someone reacts in a certain way, whether it’s anger, emotion, or whatever, there’s a reason why they’re reacting that way. And so I don’t think that people really want to react that way. They want to be their best self.
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