#25: The Productivity Pendulum: Why Leaders Struggle and the Rhythm That Restores Balance
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
Release Date: 09/22/2025
#44: Why Your Team Gets Quiet When You Walk In
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
Are They Underperforming…or Are You Over-Influencing? Have you ever walked into a meeting and felt the energy subtly change? The agenda stays the same—but suddenly people speak more carefully. Ideas slow down. Decisions start drifting toward you. To most leaders, this feels like respect. But what if it’s actually hesitation—and what if your presence is the reason? As one powerful truth from this episode reveals: “Leadership presence is never neutral.” In this episode of MPWR, Eric Pfeiffer and his co-host explore a leadership dynamic that quietly undermines team performance...
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#43: If They Keep Coming to You for Everything, This Is Why—and How to Fix It
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
Why does your team keep coming to you for every answer—and why does it feel so exhausting? In this episode of the MPWR Podcast, Eric and Dawn unpack one of the most subtle leadership traps: confusing helpfulness with effectiveness. When leaders default to solving problems, giving quick answers, and removing uncertainty, work may move faster in the moment—but long-term growth quietly stalls. This conversation explores why over-functioning leaders unintentionally create dependent teams, how certainty and responsibility migrate upward, and why many leaders become the bottleneck without...
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#42: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: The Shift Required for Your Next Level
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
You don’t hit a plateau because you’re failing; you hit it because you’ve outgrown the version of yourself that got you here. In this episode of the MPWR Podcast, we unpack one of the most challenging truths in leadership, business, and personal growth: the habits, mindsets, and strategies that created your current success may now be the very things holding you back. This conversation explores the invisible ceilings leaders face when they rely on outdated patterns, over-optimize comfort, or mistake consistency for growth. The next level doesn’t require more effort—it requires...
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#41: The Ripple Effects of Underdeveloped Leadership — Part 2
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
The Ripple Effects of Underdeveloped Leadership (Part 2) In Part 2 of this conversation, we go deeper into what really happens when leadership development stalls—and why the consequences rarely stay contained. Most leaders don’t realize this until it’s already shaping their teams: what goes undeveloped internally begins to ripple outward. Emotional intelligence gaps, unregulated stress, and inconsistent leadership behaviors quietly influence communication, trust, psychological safety, and culture. In this episode, we explore two critical ripple effects of underdeveloped...
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#40: How Underdeveloped Leadership Spreads: From Your Inner World to Company Culture— Part 1
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
The Ripple Effects of Underdeveloped Leadership Most leadership breakdowns don’t begin with obvious mistakes. They begin quietly—inside the leader. In this episode of MPWR, we explore a reality many leaders don’t recognize until it’s already shaping their culture, communication, and results: the ripple effects of underdeveloped leadership. Last week’s conversation focused on what it feels like when leaders get stuck. This episode takes that insight further by examining what happens next—when internal tension, unaddressed growth edges, or outdated leadership strategies begin to move...
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#39: Why Leaders Feel Stuck And Why Pushing Harder Makes It Worse
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
Why Leaders Feel Stuck (And Why Pushing Harder Makes It Worse) There’s a moment in leadership most leaders don’t prepare for. You’re experienced. Capable. Proven. The strategy is sound. The team is strong. And yet, progress feels heavier than it should. What once moved quickly now requires more effort. Decisions take longer. Momentum feels harder to sustain; not because you’ve lost discipline or drive, but because something deeper is shifting. For high-level leaders, the instinct is almost automatic: push harder. Apply more pressure. Increase output. Demand more from yourself...
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#38: We Promote People Because They Perform But Rarely Prepare Them to Lead (And How to Fix It)
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
We promote people because they perform, but we rarely prepare them to lead. There’s a quiet epidemic happening inside organizations—and it isn’t burnout, turnover, or lack of talent. It’s underdeveloped leadership. In this episode of the MPWR Podcast, we unpack why high performers are so often promoted into leadership roles without the skills, tools, or support required to lead well—and why this gap doesn’t always show up as failure right away. Instead, it hides behind busyness, temporary results, and “getting by” until pressure exposes the cracks. You’ll hear why...
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#37: Leadership Hot Seat: Eric Answers Your Top Questions About Influence & Culture
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
Executive Q&A: Leading with Trust, Clarity, and Strategic Coaching In this executive-focused Q&A session, Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of MPWR Coaching, and Dawn Neldon, Director of Content, address some of the most pressing challenges facing today’s senior leaders: earning trust, strengthening team alignment, and developing people to perform at a higher level. Together, they deliver an elevated conversation designed for CEOs, founders, and executives who are responsible for driving culture, shaping organizational performance, and leading through complexity. This episode provides strategic...
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#36: Leadership Q&A Every High Performer Needs to Hear
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
The Questions That Build Better Leaders In this special Q&A episode of the MPWR Podcast, Eric and Dawn pull back the curtain on the real-world pressures leaders are facing today—and the practical tools they use to stay grounded, focused, and effective. This conversation goes deeper than the typical leadership advice. It’s raw, honest, and rooted in lived experience from decades of coaching high-performing executives, entrepreneurs, and teams. Across fast-moving industries and unpredictable environments, leaders everywhere are asking the same urgent questions: How do I lead well...
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#35: Grateful Leadership: The Evidence-Based Strategy That Builds Stronger Teams
MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow
How Gratitude Transforms Workplace Culture (Even Under Pressure) In today’s episode of the MPWR Podcast, we explore one of the most underestimated yet transformational forces in leadership: gratitude. Not the soft, surface-level kind that shows up in holiday emails or employee appreciation week—but the kind of gratitude that shapes culture, stabilizes teams, and strengthens leaders under the real pressures of modern work. Leadership today is harder than ever. Expectations are higher, pressure is constant, and team dynamics shift faster than most leaders can keep up with. But...
info_outlineHow Do Leaders Escape the Productivity Pendulum and Create Lasting Rhythms?
Leadership at the highest levels doesn’t fail because of lack of ambition, talent, or even vision. It falters because of pace.
In this powerful episode of the MPWR Podcast, we explore the hidden trap we call the productivity pendulum; the relentless swing between overdrive and shutdown that silently drains leaders, undermines teams, and slowly erodes organizational health.
As one CEO listener put it after hearing this discussion:
“I realized I’ve been running with my hair on fire for years, thinking it was leadership, when in reality it was a slow-motion breakdown.”
The truth is sobering. Most executives live at one of two extremes:
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Overdrive — pushing endlessly, running on adrenaline, wearing “busy” like a badge of honor.
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Shutdown — retreating in exhaustion, withdrawing from vision, and disengaging from teams.
Both extremes are costly. Endless hustle burns out leaders and fractures trust, while disengagement strands teams and kills momentum. Neither pathway builds the kind of steady, sustainable leadership that organizations desperately need in a turbulent, high-stakes economy.
The Problem: The Productivity Pendulum
In the episode, we frame this challenge in clear terms:
“Leadership often feels like a pendulum swing. We’re either going full speed, or we’re so drained we’re checked out completely. And most of us live stuck in one of those extremes.”
This pendulum isn’t just a personal issue—it has profound organizational consequences. When leaders burn out, cultures tilt toward fear and micromanagement. When leaders withdraw, alignment fractures and employees lose direction. In both cases, performance, innovation, and trust suffer.
As CEOs know, the weight of leadership can’t be carried by sheer force of will. It requires rhythm.
The Solution: Sustainable Rhythms of Leadership
The antidote to the productivity pendulum isn’t more hustle or longer recovery. It’s something far more strategic: sustainable rhythms.
“It’s not about running so hard that we eventually crash, or pulling back so far we disappear. It’s about finding a rhythm that allows us to stay engaged, energized, and effective for the long haul.”
In practice, this means embracing deliberate cycles of focus and rest, clarity and creativity, execution and reflection. CEOs who master these rhythms not only sustain themselves, but also model balance for their teams—creating cultures that thrive rather than survive.
Key insights from the conversation include:
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Why leadership is less about time management and more about energy stewardship.
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How to spot when you’ve drifted into an extreme—before the damage is done.
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Practical ways to reset your rhythm without sacrificing results.
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How sustainable rhythms improve trust, retention, and innovation across large organizations.
Eric Pfeiffer’s New Book: Upgrade Your Leadership
This episode also coincides with the release of Eric Pfeiffer’s new book, Upgrade Your Leadership: The 7 Foundational Shifts to Overcome Burnout, Elevate Your Influence, and Lead with Lasting Impact.
In it, Eric distills decades of leadership experience and research into a roadmap for CEOs and executives who want to stop swinging between burnout and breakdown—and instead step into a new model of resilient, confident leadership.
The book expands on themes from this episode, including:
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The Leadership Energy Framework—why mastering personal pace is the first step to organizational excellence.
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The Cost of Misaligned Rhythms—how inconsistency at the top cascades into chaos below.
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The 7 Foundational Shifts every leader must make to lead sustainably and with purpose.
If you lead a large organization and feel the pressure of constant demands, this book will help you reset, refocus, and reignite your leadership capacity.
👉 Order your copy today on Amazon: Upgrade Your Leadership
Quotes That Matter
Throughout the conversation, a few lines stand out as wake-up calls for leaders at the top:
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“Endless hustle burns us out. Disengagement leaves our team stranded and our vision begins to die.”
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“Leadership isn’t about proving your stamina—it’s about building a steady rhythm others can trust.”
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“If the leader is swinging wildly, the entire organization feels the whiplash.”
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“The best leaders don’t sprint or hide—they set a pace that multiplies energy across the organization.”
These aren’t just reflections. They’re strategies for CEOs leading through uncertainty, transformation, and growth.
Why This Matters for CEOs
Large organizations today operate under unprecedented volatility: shifting markets, disruptive technologies, and relentless competition. Leaders who rely on brute force—working harder, running faster—inevitably hit a wall.
The CEOs who thrive in this era are those who:
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Create sustainable pace for themselves and their organizations.
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Develop leaders at every level who mirror that rhythm.
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Invest in cultures that value energy, trust, and clarity as much as output.
That’s why this episode of MPWR—and Eric’s new book—should be considered required listening and reading for executives who want to future-proof their leadership.
If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “How long can I really keep this up?”—this episode is for you.
🎧 Listen to Episode 12 of the MPWR Podcast to discover how to break free from the productivity pendulum and lead with rhythms that last.
📖 Then take the next step and upgrade your leadership by ordering Eric Pfeiffer’s new book today: Upgrade Your Leadership.
Your leadership—and the future of your organization—depends on it.
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Step into the next level of leadership. 📘
Preorder your copy of Upgrade Your Leadership: Foundational Principles to Overcome Challenges and Inspire Growthby Eric Pfeiffer today and be among the first to unlock the mindset, tools, and proven pathways to build confident teams, make better decisions, and lead with clarity.
Don’t wait, future-ready leaders act early. Be one of them.
Are you ready to unlock your full potential and lead with purpose, clarity, and conviction?
The MPWR Podcast, hosted by Eric Pfeiffer, CEO of MPWR Coaching, is your go-to space for transformational conversations, powerful insights, and practical strategies to help you step into the next level of your leadership journey. Whether you're scaling your business, seeking greater alignment in life, or stepping into your calling—this podcast will challenge, inspire, and empower you.
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