Your Work Friends Podcast: New Episode - Leading through the age of outrage with Karthik Ramanna Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and a fellow at St John’s College.

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Lead with Temperance…

Leading right now can feel like you are standing in the middle of the fire, trying to keep everyone calm while the heat keeps rising. If you have felt the weight of having to fix it all or be the steady one for everyone, you are not alone.

We talked with Oxford professor Karthik Ramanna about why temperance is the trait leaders need most in polarized times, how to build lasting trust, and ways to keep yourself and your team grounded when things get heated.

Oxford professor Karthik Ramanna joins us to unpack how to lead with humility and temperance in the age of outrage—so you can build trust, lower the temperature, and keep your team thriving in polarized times.

Outrage is everywhere—at work, online, even in our group chats. So how do you lead when everyone’s on edge? In this episode, we sit down with Oxford professor and Age of Outrage author Karthik Ramanna to talk about the leadership trait almost no one is talking about (but everyone needs): temperance.

We get into:

  • Why outrage is spiking in workplaces and beyond

  • How trust is built (and destroyed) in polarized times

  • The underrated power of humility in leadership

  • When to speak up vs. when to step back

  • Why small promises + big delivery beats bold hype every time

Whether you’re running a Fortune 500 or a team of five, this conversation will give you the tools to keep your cool, earn trust, and lead well—without losing yourself in the noise.

About Karthik Ramanna: 

Karthik Ramanna is Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and a fellow at St John’s College. He teaches at the Blavatnik School on managing organisations in polarised times, which led to his 2024 book The Age of Outrage.

An expert on business-government relations, sustainable capitalism, and corporate reporting and auditing, Professor Ramanna studies how organisations and leaders build trust with stakeholders. His scholarship has won numerous awards, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics Best Paper Prize, the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award for “groundbreaking management thinking,” and three times the international Case Centre’s prizes for “outstanding case-writing,” dubbed by the Financial Times as “the business school Oscars.”

Professor Ramanna established the Case Centre on Public Leadership and the Transformational Leadership Fellowship at the School, the latter a bespoke, by-invitation programme for senior leaders looking to reimagine their public-service impact. In 2022, he co-founded the non-profit E-liability Institute, where he serves as principal investigator, with a mission to drive decarbonisation processes through rigorous GHG accounting. From 2016 to 2023, he was director of the Blavatnik School's Master of Public Policy programme that has educated over a thousand public leaders from about 120 countries. From July 2023 to April 2025, Professor Ramanna was on partial public-service leave from Oxford to advise the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an “auditor of auditors” in global markets.

Previously, Professor Ramanna taught at the Harvard Business School in both the MBA and senior executive-education programmes. He has a doctorate from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He lives in Oxford with his husband, Jon, and they enjoy dinner parties and touring Caravaggios.

For diary, meetings and other general enquiries email: ramanna.pa@bsg.ox.ac.uk
About The Age of Outrage 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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