https://www.pm-podcast.com/530

Earn PDUs for This Episode: Visit https://www.pm-podcast.com/Earn-PDUs to see how many PDUs you can claim for your PMI certification renewal.

For many project managers, the urge to command every meeting and own every milestone feels natural. But veteran program manager Anisha Manvatkar proves that the most effective leaders often work in silence. In this conversation with Cornelius Fichtner she shares how “invisible leadership” unites purpose, communication, and AI-powered efficiency to deliver high-performing projects at Nvidia and beyond. Listeners hear why stepping out of the spotlight lets teams step up, how a clear “why” keeps momentum when priorities shift, and where AI can shoulder the busywork so people focus on innovation.

Anisha breaks down six cornerstone skills: defining vision, speaking “Earth language,” validating plans, treating AI as a sidekick, empowering teams through stealth guidance, and nurturing a change-ready mindset. She offers concrete tactics such as mapping project objectives to a single executive OKR, opening meetings with questions instead of directives, running pre-mortems to surface hidden risks, and using large-language-model clustering to triage stakeholder feedback in minutes. Humor surfaces when Cornelius admits that "So many words..." was a succinct reply he recently received to a rather long email he sent out.

Whether you manage global AI rollouts or small internal upgrades, these insights help you influence without fanfare, measure progress with purpose, and celebrate wins that belong to the whole team. Invisible leadership is not about hiding; it is about clearing the stage so high-performing results can take the spotlight.