Most business strategies don’t fail because they’re bad.
They fail because the leadership culture executing them is misaligned, contradictory, or stuck in outdated behavioural patterns.

In this episode, Susanna Rantanen, the creator of the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™ and author of Story-Driven Employer Branding, reveals the hidden link most leaders overlook: your business strategy cannot succeed unless your leadership culture supports it.

Drawing on the Competing Values Framework by Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, you’ll learn why different strategies require different leadership behaviours, values, and decision-making patterns.

You’ll discover why teams don’t follow strategies; they follow leaders.

And how misalignment between the two creates organisational chaos, missed goals, and cultural friction.

This episode breaks the revelation into three clear reasons:

1. Strategy sets direction, but leadership sets behaviour

2. People don’t follow strategy; they follow leaders.

3. Misaligned leadership behaviour creates a misaligned organisational culture

If you’re a B2B leader, CEO, founder, HR professional or communications strategist, this episode will change how you think about strategy, leadership, culture, hiring, and performance.

You’ll walk away understanding:

• Why strategy execution fails

• What “matching minds with mission” really means

• How behavioural patterns shape organisational culture

• Why leadership personality affects results

• What culture has to do with customer trust and business growth

• How to architect a culture that makes executing your strategy easier

• Which leadership behaviours support different types of strategy

• and how to start realigning your organisation from the top

When strategy, leadership culture, and organisational behaviour finally align, your business becomes coherent, confident, and capable of extraordinary performance.

This is the system behind organisations that “just work.”
And it’s the strategic foundation of story-driven business

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THIS 👉 B2B marketing isn't boring because the audience is boring. It's boring because the message is generic! And leadership lets it stay that way.

In this episode, Susanna speaks with Bill Reynolds (Founder of Element502) about why so much B2B communication feels empty and forgettable, and what actually makes messaging resonate with real humans.

You'll hear why marketing is a leadership responsibility, how "checkbox marketing" kills trust, and why silence can be more powerful than constant noise.

They also discuss what changes in the AI era: when content becomes easy to produce, authentic voice becomes the differentiator, and careless AI use can quietly replace your brand voice with something generic (or risky).

Key topics:

• Why B2B marketing becomes bland (and how leaders cause it)

• Message over volume: why noise isn't strategy

• Authentic voice vs "checkbox marketing"

• Trust-building through consistency and clarity

• AI risks: brand voice drift + data/security blind spots

• The $5.99 haircut story: why cheap becomes expensive

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If this episode sparked something for you, share it with a colleague who's tired of boring marketing, and make sure you subscribe to this podcast for new episodes every Tuesday!

In this episode of the Story-Driven Business podcast, Susanna Rantanen explores why B2B leadership culture starts with you, whether you like it or not.

Drawing on behavioural science and real-world leadership experience, this episode explains why culture isn't created in strategy decks or off-sites, but in everyday leadership behaviour:

• how you respond under pressure,

• give feedback,

• handle conflict

• and how you model values in action as a leader.

If you've ever wondered why alignment slips, why teams behave differently than expected, or why culture change feels harder than it should, this episode will help you see leadership culture in a whole new way.

Find the show notes to this episode, and previous episodes, on: https://www.modernemployerbrand.com

Learn more about Susanna's work here: https/www.emine.fi/en/