Let's Fix Leadership
The landscape of business is changing...radically. Yet leadership is being taught the same way it's always been taught. When the world is changing, it’s time to bring our leadership styles along for the ride. Thanks to cutting-edge neuroscience, we now have access to new tools and new language that inspires action, collaboration, and innovation in the modern workplace. And Let's Fix Leadership is designed to bring you the best of these cutting-edge tools, exercises, best practices, and modern leadership strategies - every week. Whether you're a company leader, corporate visionary, intrapreneur, or entrepreneur, this show gives you new insights into the neuroscience and language of leadership, as well as practical steps and tips you can take back to the office. Join Jen Thornton as she showcases how to lead your teams in powerful ways, and keep your people happy and engaged while achieving your biggest goals.
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A Lesson in Customer Loyalty: How to Shift From Quid-Pro-Quo to Serving People w/Jenn McMillen
05/02/2024
A Lesson in Customer Loyalty: How to Shift From Quid-Pro-Quo to Serving People w/Jenn McMillen
Whether we’re talking about our customers or teams, loyalty is the currency of successful relationships. In the business world of yore, loyalty was one-sided, it was buy something or do something to get something. Today that quid-pro-quo style falls flat. Just like Taylor Swift…brands who do well understand that having customers and employees is a privilege, and they aim for relational loyalty, not transactional relationships. How do we put authentic loyalty at the heart of our businesses? What has changed about leadership as the world of work continues to evolve? In this episode, I’m joined by loyalty and CRM expert and the founder of Incendio, Jenn McMillen. We talk about the shift in customer loyalty programs and what all businesses can learn from it. Guest Bio Jenn McMillen is the founder and Chief Accelerant of Incendio, where her specialty is increasing topline revenue by building and fixing customer programs. Her team helps companies solve and overcome their CRM, loyalty, and customer experience challenges. She is also a nationally known loyalty & CRM expert, recognized by the CRM community and her peers with major industry awards for programs such as GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards, which has more than 35-million members, many of whom pay an annual subscription fee for an enhanced experience. She has also created and/or run several well-known loyalty and subscription programs like myGNC Rewards, United Airlines’ Silver Wings Plus, Vail Resorts PEAKS, Payless ShoeSource Points, Neiman Marcus InCircle, and one of the first big national loyalty subscription programs in the 90’s, Blockbuster Rewards. For more information, go to or connect with her on .
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How to See the Gifts in Workplace Adversity
04/25/2024
How to See the Gifts in Workplace Adversity
You know that job that makes you miserable, that boss who makes your life hell and that co-worker who’s difficult to work with? They are specially wrapped gifts that can work in your favor. Hear me out… Do these situations suck? Do they test our patience? Yes and yes. But, what you might not see in that moment are the skills, competencies, and empowering opportunities these difficulties give you. I mean, I can personally attribute starting my own business to my own workplace adversity! Difficult bosses and peers serve as live training grounds for enhancing our emotional intelligence. They teach us to manage our emotions, respond rather than react, and navigate complex interpersonal dynamics. They can even help us understand ourselves better. Working with challenging individuals tests our limits, but that makes us more resilient and more effective as leaders and people. So how do we reframe the way we see our workplace adversities? What are all the great things we can get from all the crappy stuff we go through in our careers?
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Not Making a Decision IS Making a Decision...Here's Why
04/18/2024
Not Making a Decision IS Making a Decision...Here's Why
Decisions, decisions…the hallmark of good leadership is swift and impactful decision-making. But let’s be real, amidst the whirlwind of emails, meetings, projects, and strategic pivots, the decisions we have to make can be so overwhelming, that we can decide not to decide at all. Here’s the problem though, not making a decision can be just as detrimental as making the wrong one. It causes projects to stall, innovation to wane and it erodes trust and competence. So whenever we’re holding off on making a choice - we have to be clear: is it a strategic pause to gather more info, or is it just avoidance? How do we use strategic non-decision to create better outcomes? In this episode, I talk about the silent yet profound impact of not making a decision and how to avoid creating a culture of uncertainty.
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How to Master the Art of Influence
04/11/2024
How to Master the Art of Influence
Influence is a powerful currency for motivation and success…it’s no wonder why influencer marketing has become a literal billion-dollar industry! Being influential doesn’t just work on social media. In a workplace, it’s the lifeblood of leaders who can propel the collective without demanding, manipulating, or dictating. A combination of trust, inspiration, and communication - influence is the silent force that packs a mega punch, and the more influential a leader you are, the more success you’ll have. What are some of the effects of influential leaders? How do we become influential? In this episode, I talk about cultivating your own influence and the difference it will make in your organization.
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How to Fix Your Addiction To Being Right
04/04/2024
How to Fix Your Addiction To Being Right
“My people don’t do what I ask them to, they don’t listen and they don’t come up with innovative ideas.” Leaders say it all the time, and if I had a penny for everytime I heard this, I could buy my own private island! But before you point a finger at your team, what if this is all because you’re addicted to being right. Yes, like sugar and shopping, being right can be the drug of choice for leaders, and because they are so accustomed to getting it, they alienate their teams. How do you know you’re addicted to being right? Here’s an easy tell: notice how you feel when the good idea in the room isn’t yours… How does an addiction to being right block innovation and ultimately the growth of our organization? What can we do to cure ourselves of this affliction? In this episode, I’m joined by co-hosts of Bossy, Brilliant and Badass, Liz Green and Lisa Lindsey. We talk about how to eliminate fear from our organizations, why leaders need to look inward to solve problems and how to build trust in our teams. Guest Bio Lisa Lindsey and Liz Green are entrepreneurs, coaches and co-hosts of Bossy, Brilliant and Badass. Bossy, Brilliant & Badass is a weekly conversation about business, careers and personal development, designed to inspire, educate and motivate you to show up powerfully, live fearlessly and to find and unleash your inner badass! Lisa and Liz share their paths to success, the obstacles they overcame, and the tools, tips, resources, and mindset strategies of successful women.
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Triangulation: Stop the game, build trust
03/28/2024
Triangulation: Stop the game, build trust
When conflict arises at work, there are two ways people deal with it. Go directly to the person in question or tell other people about it first. Many times, we take the latter route, and it never goes well. If you ever played telephone as a kid, you’ll know that the original message always gets twisted somewhere along the way. At work, the stakes are much higher though. The result: gossip, miscommunication, damaged team dynamics, a toxic work environment, and the question you can’t shake: is everyone talking about everyone else behind their backs? When information gets passed through a third-party, it creates something known as triangulation. There’s no bigger culture killer than that. To combat triangulation, we have to foster workplaces where people feel comfortable for people to address conflict directly. In this episode, I talk about how to remove triangulation from our work culture, and move toward a healthier way to communicate and deal with conflict.
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How to Lead Through All the Noise
03/21/2024
How to Lead Through All the Noise
Ever tried to have an insightful conversation in a room with loud music? It’s noisy…and that’s what leading feels like today. From the oceans of emails flooding our mailboxes, back-to-back meetings filling our calendars, to the urgent but not important tasks that demand our attention. There’s a lot to wade through in today’s world. When we’re distracted and living in the noise, we get stuck there, and sometimes, we don’t even notice it…maybe that’s why they invented noise-canceling headphones. If we want to stay focused on what matters and what moves the needle, leading through the noise is a must-have skill. You may not be able to shut all the noise out, but there are intentional steps we can take to turn the volume down so we can hear ourselves think (and lead). In this episode, I share how to remove the noise from our day-to-day and why it’s key to the success of our teams and organizations.
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The Neuroscience of Leadership: How to Eliminate Fear and Create Safety w/Danny Langloss
03/14/2024
The Neuroscience of Leadership: How to Eliminate Fear and Create Safety w/Danny Langloss
Now that we know a lot more about how the brain works, a lot of what we’ve been taught about leadership is just plain wrong. We have to throw it out the window and never look back. From a neuroscience perspective, there are 2 categories of chemicals constantly firing off in our brains - happy hormones and fear hormones. The old school model of leadership did nothing but trigger a good old cortisol hijack - induce fear and kill innovation. In order to have cultures that bring out the best in people and produce great results, everything we do has to mitigate fear. In a nutshell: in the modern world, leadership isn’t about power, it’s about empowerment. How do we create psychological safety and eliminate fear? In this episode, I’m joined by speaker, leader, and host of The Leadership Excellence podcast, Danny Langloss. We talk about the brain chemicals of leadership and how we can create environments that induce the right ones Leadership isn’t about power and control, it’s about service and empowerment. -Danny Langloss Guest Bio Danny is an innovative and progressive leader who specializes in creating winning cultures and championship teams fueled by the X Factor of purpose-driven ownership. Danny's leadership has been tested by the most difficult situations. He helped lead the City of Dixon back from the $54 million Crundwell embezzlement, lead the Lee County COVID Unified Command Team, lead the City through the 2016 Dixon High School Active Shooter Incident, and has led the police department through several high profile murder investigations. One of Danny's greatest skills is creating diverse and specialized teams to address complex issues that span across several professions. From creating public / private partnerships between local government, developers and financial institutions to accelerate community and economic development to working with state and national organizations to create several innovative programs that are alternatives to the traditional criminal justice system. He has led multiple statewide task forces and helped create "first of its kind" laws in the country to prevent child abuse "Erin's Law" and to help those suffering from substance use disorder. For more information, head to .
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Contagious Emotions: How to Harness This Perfectly Natural Human Phenomenon
02/29/2024
Contagious Emotions: How to Harness This Perfectly Natural Human Phenomenon
Like an illness on a playground, emotions are contagious, and in a business setting, they can spread fast! It’s how the annoyance of one colleague can catch on and bring the whole office down, and how a good vibe can have a huge ripple effect. Being a great leader is understanding that humans are going to human, that our people have emotions, and that they will affect the climate of our organizations. How do we navigate emotional contagion and use it to better our organizations? How do we use our own emotions to lead by example? In this episode, I talk about how to harness the phenomenon that is emotional contagion.
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Your Culture Isn’t Your To-Do List, It’s The Long Game w/Rosa Ponce de Leon
02/22/2024
Your Culture Isn’t Your To-Do List, It’s The Long Game w/Rosa Ponce de Leon
Unlike the next meeting, deliverable, or deadline, working on our culture isn’t as simple as penciling it into our calendars. It’s a living, breathing process that never ends, it’s the long game that has to be front-of-mind for leaders. We know the world is busy and how easy it is to get bogged down in the to-do list, but the more we can step out of the routine of our roles, the better our organizations get. Weaving culture into every single facet of our teams takes a conscious reassignment of our minds. From focusing on our own silo of priorities to the needs of the whole organization. From treating culture as an afterthought to making it the guiding principle. This is what’s required of leaders today. How do we step away from the busy work and make culture a priority? In this episode, I’m joined by Business Consultant, Leadership Strategist and host of Powerful At Work, Rosa Ponce de Leon. We talk about the powerful shifts every leader (and organization) must make. Guest Bio Rosa Ponce de Leon is Business Consultant, Leadership Strategist and host of Powerful At Work. As a longstanding servant in the public sector, she has successfully led teams, small and large, to great success through difficult situations from unproductive work cultures to major national crises. The same principles that apply to disaster preparedness can also reconstruct company culture. To facilitate change that has a longstanding impact on businesses, Rosa and her team bring their unique gifts for excavating potential and fostering resilience within teams. She operates from a place of love for people that inspires change from the innermost depths. For more information, go to .
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Conscious Leadership: How to Create the Mindset
02/15/2024
Conscious Leadership: How to Create the Mindset
Not sure who said that, but the statement has inspired a lot of thought, reflection, and furious rabbit-hole research. So I thought to myself, why not share all my findings and musings with you? Leading in today’s world requires approaches that transcend traditional management practices. It’s about fully understanding the intersection between ourselves, our teams, and our organizations. Self-awareness, emotional intelligence, curiosity, and system thinking…these are all things that lend to conscious leadership. How do we bake this concept into our mindsets and actions? In this episode, I talk about conscious leadership and why it’s so important.
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How to Create a Performance-Based, Value-Based Culture w/LBJ Biggers
02/08/2024
How to Create a Performance-Based, Value-Based Culture w/LBJ Biggers
Many leaders have the epiphany that it’s not culture if you have to micromanage to achieve it. It becomes culture when people perform when no one’s looking. That begs the question: how do you turn culture from something you have on paper into something weaved into everything your organization does? In order for an organization to drive forward, we need a strong culture and values, but performance also needs to be part of that deal. That’s where the concept of performance and value-based company comes in. How do we tie the values of the organization in with everyone’s roles? How can we go from perception to perspective, and why is that such a powerful shift? In this episode, I’m joined by the Chief Revenue Officer at Big Star Transit, LBJ Biggers. He shares how his team turned culture into something tangible and trackable. Guest Bio LBJ Biggers is the Chief Revenue Officer at Big Star Transit LLC. Big Star's non-emergency medical ride share service offers specialized passenger transport to the disabled and underserved using its robust in-house network of road-monitored vehicle operators. Go to for more information or connect with LBJ on .
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Digital Curiosity: The Skill Every Leader Needs (Like Yesterday)
02/01/2024
Digital Curiosity: The Skill Every Leader Needs (Like Yesterday)
Here’s a mind-blowing fact for you…a lot of the technology we use and rely on today, didn’t exist a few years ago. Which means, tomorrow’s technology might still just be a big idea in someone’s brain. ….I’ll let that sink in. Technology is moving faster than it ever has, and it’s going to continue to speed up. What we know how to use today is going to be outdated in a blink. As leaders, we have to keep up, both in our competencies, and how we hire and how our teams continue to innovate. If you don’t have digital curiosity, you’ll always be left behind by new tools and trends, and that might as well be light years behind. How do we embrace this new competency and let it permeate the roots of our organizations? In this episode, I talk about why digital curiosity has to be part of the continuous growth of leaders and our teams.
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Stop Calling Them Opportunities, Say This Instead
01/25/2024
Stop Calling Them Opportunities, Say This Instead
If there’s one word I want to gently pluck out of the vocabulary of leaders, it would be…. “opportunities”. Why, you ask? I mean it seems like a totally innocent and well-meaning word, right? Well… sometimes, when we tell people on our team what their opportunities are, we actually end up messing with their superpowers. Instead, we can manage their strengths so they show up with their best foot forward. In this episode, I share a better way to think about opportunities as a leader.
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Y’all…It’s Messy at the Top
01/18/2024
Y’all…It’s Messy at the Top
Before you became a leader, you thought every executive had it all together. They are confident, always know what decision to make, and turning ideas into execution happens at the snap of a finger. You just walk around telling everyone how to execute the plan, how hard could that be? Insert the laugh track here… Leading is messy…we have to communicate effectively, approach problems from multiple perspectives, turn creative chaos into a cohesive plan and a whole lot more. That is a feature of the job, not a bug, and it is….A LOT. How do you get comfortable with having moments of messiness in your leadership journey? In this episode, we talk about how to embrace the messiness of leading a team or an organization.
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2024…The Year to Start Breaking Things
01/11/2024
2024…The Year to Start Breaking Things
You can’t make a delicious omelette without breaking a couple of eggs. You can’t break through without shattering something. As we set intentions for this year, what if we could commit to breaking things? So many of us are on autopilot in different areas of our lives. Deciding to break things shakes us out of complacency, allows for massive growth and yes, it fixes leadership! Old systems, mindset, behaviors and habits - we can dismantle them all and build back up better. How do we get comfortable with breaking things? How does this make us better leaders? In this episode, I talk about my goal for this year - breaking, dismantling and experimenting.
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“What's One More Thing?” The Simple Statement That Sparks Openness, Clarity and Alignment
12/14/2023
“What's One More Thing?” The Simple Statement That Sparks Openness, Clarity and Alignment
Here’s a real head-scratcher for you. You leave a meeting thinking, “the team has got this''. Then you go to execute, and you find out that you weren’t, in fact, on the same page. You asked “any questions,” and no one responded, so surely there was clarity and alignment…so what gives? Well, I hate to break it to you, but that very question could be the thing blocking them from getting clarity. You could be triggering fear without even knowing it. How do we create room for curiosity and questions and play with the brain to create openness? In this episode, I share how one small conversational shift can foster conversation, clarity, collaboration, and honesty.
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Yes, Decision Fatigue Is a Thing: Here’s How to Mitigate Its Impact
12/07/2023
Yes, Decision Fatigue Is a Thing: Here’s How to Mitigate Its Impact
Do you ever feel like you can’t make one more decision even if your life depended on it? Does decision-making get more difficult as the day or week goes on? What to wear, what to eat, whether to overtake or not. Who to hire, what tasks to work on, the strategic direction of the organization. The average adult makes an exhausting and astounding 35,000 decisions a day. It’s no wonder we get so tired of it. From minor day-to-day choices to high-stakes pivots, we’re making decisions literally every day. Just like a physical muscle, our brains get spent after extensive use. Our decision making muscle depletes with every decision, so how do we protect this precious resource? As leaders, how do we take unnecessary decisions off our plates? In this episode, we’re digging into the science behind decision fatigue, how to mitigate its impact, and how to protect your decision-making capital.
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Fallen Prey to False Priorities? Here’s How to Get Them in Check
11/16/2023
Fallen Prey to False Priorities? Here’s How to Get Them in Check
Following a rigid hiring rule over filling a position with a great candidate. Or proving your co-worker is hard to work with over your own performance. How about, focusing on that pet project to the detriment of the company’s financial stability? False priorities show up all over the place at work, and we’ve all been guilty of them, because guess what? They often make things easier - but only in the moment. False priorities take us off course; costing time, money, innovation and growth. Simply put: when we fall prey to a false priority, our teams suffer. How do we identify a false priority and nip the imposter in the bud? In this episode, I talk about how to stay true to what’s important when a false priority trips us up.
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Turn An Uncomfortable Conversation into a Heartfelt Dialogue About Disability w/Jen Griffin
11/09/2023
Turn An Uncomfortable Conversation into a Heartfelt Dialogue About Disability w/Jen Griffin
Leading the whole person is a non-negotiable requirement for every leader. To make everyone on our teams feel seen and supported, we have to get comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. This is especially true for disability, something a large percentage of the workforce lives with. Disability isn’t easy to talk about because we’re afraid we’ll say the wrong thing, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the conversation. We don’t feel awkward asking people what their dietary restrictions are, so why do we feel uncomfortable asking how we can support a disabled coworker? How do we become better leaders for those with disabilities, seen or unseen? In this episode, I’m joined by leadership coach and my good friend, Jen Griffin. She shares her inspiring story - becoming an amputee and the mental game that helped her recover. We also share how leaders can foster environments where people are comfortable talking about disability. The more I guide and say it’s okay to ask, the better the conversations get. -Jen Griffin Guest Bio Jen’s ability to lead from a creative perspective on life has served her clients well. Championing others by helping them unlock the secret shift they need to overcome and embrace life’s changes, is one of her true joys. Jen’s professional career began as a real estate paralegal and worked for several top-tier corporations and law firms. Upon experiencing a life-altering medical event in 2007, Jen found herself shifting gears and she created and led her own non-profit, she began public speaking, writing, and eventually became a co-owner of a retail brick-and-mortar business. With all her combined professional experience, she is now a leadership coach to other businesses and individuals. Through both her professional & personal life experiences, Jen has developed many tools for working in a fast-paced environment, serving many agendas, finding creative solutions, and overcoming the hardest part – fighting fear and just getting started! Connect with Jen on .
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Connecting Career Dots: How a Single Thread Can Become An Amazing Path w/Jeannie Barsam
11/02/2023
Connecting Career Dots: How a Single Thread Can Become An Amazing Path w/Jeannie Barsam
When we’re starting out in our professional lives, we never know where this adventure known as a career is going to take us. What may seem like stray conversations, nuggets or threads can ultimately weave together and form something amazing in the future. …Like working as an inventory manager, seeing how much of that inventory gets wasted and thinking, “wait a minute, I can build something and make a difference!” That’s what happened to Jeannie Barsam. The founder of Gifting Brands can trace that pivotal decision to the many threads that came together. In this episode, she talks about the journey, how she’s making a difference and evolving as a leader. You’re always growing as a leader, you don’t just stop. -Jeannie Barsam Guest Bio Jeannie Barsam is the founder and CEO of Gifting Brands. With three decades of experience in the dynamic world of Fashion & Retail, Jeannie had the privilege of traversing the globe, contributing to renowned brands, and providing mentorship to numerous individuals, both women and men alike. During her tenure as an executive at Zale’s, a part of Signet Jewelers and the world's largest diamond retailer, she encountered a unique challenge. Zale’s was seeking a nonprofit organization to accept excess inventory, yet, surprisingly, they struggled to find a suitable recipient. This puzzling roadblock sparked a turning point in Jeannie’s journey. Out of this challenge, the idea for Gifting Brands emerged, becoming a defining turning point in Jeannie’s life's work. Gifting Brands was conceived out of a profound commitment to the well-being of women, children, and the principles of giving back. To find out about the holiday auction from November 15th to 19th, head to .
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The Self-Authoring Leader: A MUST For A Modern Business Landscape
10/26/2023
The Self-Authoring Leader: A MUST For A Modern Business Landscape
If you’ve hung out with me for some time, you’ve heard me use the word self-authoring, but what does it actually mean, and why am I so passionate about it? In a world where we’re constantly making complex decisions, and challenges come by the minute, we can’t let things just happen to us. We can’t be reactive - we have to stand firm in our vision and proactively decide how we’re going to show up. This is self-authorship. It’s not getting swayed by what gets served up to us, but keeping ourselves, teams and organizations steady despite what’s going on. Why are self-authoring leaders worth their weight in gold? How does this concept benefit everyone in the organization? In this episode, we dive into self-authorship and why you can’t lead without it effectively.
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Creativity, Let It Drive Your Leadership
10/19/2023
Creativity, Let It Drive Your Leadership
If people were just their job titles, how boring a place the world would be! We are whole people - with hobbies, humor, and creativity. Instead of reserving those pieces of ourselves for when we get home, showing them at work is highly valuable. Powerful things happen when we up our creativity - it sparks innovation and ideas that supercharge our workplaces. How do we bring more of our wholeness to work? Why is vulnerability so important in leadership? In this episode, comedian, creative and the COO of Pear Analytics, Tracie Mendoza shares how she brings her full personality to work, and how it impacts her team. If you’re not being creative outside of your workspace, how will you be creative within it? -Tracie Mendoza Guest Bio Tracie Mendoza is the COO of Pear Analytics. Before becoming a business owner, Tracie Mendoza did a little of this and little of that over the years – from comedy, retail management, education, consulting, and recruiting to name a few – Tracie landed in the Sales Field! This was no surprise to those around her, after all in kindergarten she had a line formed around the building, as she charged kids a quarter to color in her “Pink Panther Coloring Book!” She has always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a go getter mentality, and sets out to accomplish whatever she puts her mind to. Tracie graduated from Dallas Baptist University, where she earned a BAS in Communications and Theology and a MALA in both Fine Arts and History. When not leading a team, building a business, and working hand and hand with clients, you can find her shopping, traveling, playing with her pups, and of course making people laugh! AKA: Laughologist, Retail Therapist, Music Fanatic, Lover of the Arts, and Puppy Mama. For more information, head to or connect with her on . To be one of 25 people to get $250 off, head to .
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Crazy Big Idea Meeting: How to Get Your Team Innovating Without Fear
10/12/2023
Crazy Big Idea Meeting: How to Get Your Team Innovating Without Fear
Have you ever wondered why the room goes dead silent when a leader asks the team to share their big ideas? It’s brain science. The fear that kicks in makes it impossible to get those creative, innovative, creative ideas flowing. To make our teams more innovative, we have to reduce fear and create an environment where it feels safe to share ideas. So, next time you want to trigger creativity and innovation, hold a crazy, big idea meeting! How do we create a situation where the prefrontal cortex opens up and starts exploding with new ideas? How do we prime our teams for this meeting and facilitate it well? In this episode, I share how to create a meeting where people are excited to share all their best ideas.
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It’s Your Career, Play To Win
10/05/2023
It’s Your Career, Play To Win
No one’s going to do our career push-ups for us. If we want to reach and even exceed our goals, we have to take full control and ownership of our professional development. That means self-authoring everything we do, and investing in the necessary skills that will take us to the next level. Taking charge of our careers comes with its challenges, but ultimately it’s a rewarding exercise that will accelerate growth. Feeling stuck on ways to develop and level up your own career? In this episode, I share a few ideas on how you can play to win.
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History of Leadership and Where it’s Going
09/28/2023
History of Leadership and Where it’s Going
We interrupt your regularly scheduled podcast for a history lesson - a history lesson on leadership, that is. Ever wondered why I called this show Let’s Fix Leadership? Or why every generation in the workplace feels like the next one “just doesn’t get it”? Well, that’s because leadership isn’t static, it’s always evolving. It doesn’t look the same from generation to generation. First, we had the “great man theory,” where it was believed that only men are born leaders (yes, I’m rolling my eyes too). Then with social change came a change in how we lead, from transactional leadership to servant leadership. This brings us to today, an age where leaders have to adapt like never before. What are the key eras of leadership? How do social changes impact how leaders show up? In this episode, we take a little tour through the different ages of leadership.
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You Need Your Own Board of Directors… How to Build It
09/21/2023
You Need Your Own Board of Directors… How to Build It
Who says you have to be a Fortune 500 company to have a board of directors? After all, you are the CEO of your own career, why wouldn’t you want a team of intelligent, dynamic, and talented people in your corner? Especially in today’s evolving world. It’s like having The Avengers assembling for the good of your professional life… How do we build a board of directors, and how do we enrich and nurture those relationships? In this episode, I share the power of creating and curating your own board of trusted advisors, mentors, peers, and industry experts.
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Yesterday It Was Benefits, Today It’s Total Rewards with Lauren Winans
09/14/2023
Yesterday It Was Benefits, Today It’s Total Rewards with Lauren Winans
Employee benefits used to be pretty standard, boilerplate stuff. A 401k here, health insurance there and maybe a generous time off allowance thrown into the mix. Today, we recognize that we’re humans (shocker, right?) and that work and life have become so intertwined. We need benefits programs that actually serve the whole person and enhance their entire lives. Enter lifestyle accounts, flexible work schedules, gym subscriptions, takeout vouchers, and now you’ve got a benefits program that’s more in line with today’s employee. How can employers create programs that meet employees where they are? Can we negotiate our benefits? In this episode, HR Consultant and CEO of Next Level Benefits, Lauren Winans shares what’s changed in benefits programs and how employers can use them to lead the whole person. Guest Bio Lauren Winans is the CEO and Principal HR Consultant at Next Level Benefits. Next Level Benefits is a nationally-certified HR consulting firm staffed with former corporate HR professionals in all HR disciplines. Each member of our team has at least 20 years of corporate HR experience from Fortune 500 companies, global organizations, and well-known brands around the world. Lauren founded Next Level Benefits in 2019, offering HR teams access to former corporate HR professionals on-demand when they need them most. For more information, head to , or follow the team on and .
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Leading the Whole Person (Because We’re a Lot More Than Our Job Titles)
09/07/2023
Leading the Whole Person (Because We’re a Lot More Than Our Job Titles)
Remember when we could leave our personal lives at home, and leave work at the office? Simpler times, am I right… Then came technology, laptops, phones, and watches that give you meeting reminders and email notifications and it became impossible to separate professional you from the other parts of your life. Back then, work had no interest in our lives outside of our working hours - we had two lives and they never crossed each other. Now, everything is all mushed together and we can’t clearly define the two worlds. For leaders, the reality of balancing all this is a challenge. How do you lead multi-dimensional individuals with lives that run alongside their work? In this episode, I talk about how leaders can lead holistically, making it a priority to support the whole person.
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Go From Perfectly Polished to Authentically You
08/31/2023
Go From Perfectly Polished to Authentically You
When it comes to communicating at work, long gone are the days where leaders had to be perfectly polished, overly formal, and cold. People want authenticity from their leaders - they want to hear your unique voice and feel their unique voice is being heard too. As leaders, we might not be aware of how we’re coming across and how that’s impacting our teams. When we become aware of this, we can make the small shifts that allow us to communicate confidently. How do we communicate better as leaders? Can analytics help us with communication? In this episode, communications and marketing expert, entrepreneur, and professional problem-solver, Heather Lisle shares the secret to understanding and optimizing your communication style. Guest Bio Heather Lisle is a communications and marketing expert, entrepreneur, and professional problem-solver who helps executives and business owners stand out from their competition by creating unique brand positioning based on their personality using the DiSC profile. With 20 plus years of executive level experience, Heather has mastered the ability to cut through the small talk and dig deep to identify her client’s “special sauce” or uniqueness that sets them apart from their competition to increase leads and sales. For more information, head to , find Heather on , and listen to her podcast Game Changing Conversations on your platform of choice.
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