MPWR Podcast | Become The Leader YOU Want To Follow

Ninety-five percent of people believe they're self-aware. The real number? Closer to 10 to 15 percent. That gap might be the most expensive blind spot in your leadership. As the fourth quarter ramps up, deals need closing, targets need hitting, and pressure pulls every leader's attention outward. In this episode, the first in a new miniseries on self-awareness and self-leadership, Eric Pfeiffer an...

Most leaders believe they're highly self-aware. The data says otherwise. When leadership assessors put executives through real evaluation, the average self-awareness score comes in at a 2, 3, or 4, nowhere close to the 8, 9, or 10 most leaders confidently give themselves before the test. That gap isn't just a fun statistic. It's often the single biggest predictor of whether a leader will build tru...

From Bottleneck to Breakthrough: Closing the Authority Gap in Growing Teams 41% of companies are cutting management layers right now... without redistributing the workload those layers used to carry. The result: fewer managers doing more work, more decisions getting stuck, and an average of 12 direct reports per manager when the ideal ceiling is closer to 8-10. Something has to give and usually it...

Only 21% of employees trust their leadership and 65% of Gen Z workers quit within their first year. If your team's turnover, disengagement, or stalled growth has you stumped, the missing ingredient might be simpler than you think. In this episode, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon dig into what they call the "trust recession" — the quiet erosion of trust reshaping today's workplaces. They unpack why "...

Micromanagement rarely starts as a control issue; it starts as fear. Fear that if you let go, things will fall apart. And that fear is quietly keeping capable leaders stuck doing work they should have handed off months ago. In this episode, Eric and Dawn pull back the curtain on why even the most competent, well-intentioned leaders fall into the micromanagement trap; at work and at home. They intr...

Fractional Leaders Are Rising Fast, Is Your Culture Ready? The fractional executive market is exploding; from $9.4 billion in 2025 to a projected $25 billion by 2034 and 72% of CEOs say they're planning to bring on more fractional leaders this year. But here's what most companies aren't preparing for: fractional leaders don't just bring their skills through the door. They bring their own culture,...

The Leadership Vacuum, Why the Next Generation Is Saying "No Thanks" By 2030, ten thousand people will hit retirement age every single day; many of them sitting in the senior leadership seats of today's organizations. At the same time, only 30% of the workforce says they even want to become managers. That's not a coincidence. That's a vacuum. And in this episode, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon name...

He's Spent 56 Years Studying What Actually Motivates Human Behavior Dr. E. Scott Geller isn't your typical psychologist. As Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech and founder of the Actively Caring for People (AC4P) Movement, he's spent over five decades proving that gratitude, leadership, and self-motivation aren't soft concepts — they're science. His TEDx talk on self-motivatio...

You Get What You Tolerate: How to Reset Your Team's Culture Starting Today Is one negative teammate quietly reshaping your entire office? In this final episode of our culture series, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon reveal an uncomfortable truth: whatever attitudes and behaviors you allow on your team, you're actively choosing — whether you meant to or not. As Eric puts it, "leaders define culture fo...

THE CULTURE SERIES RECAP A 7-part deep dive into what's actually breaking your team — and what fixes it Over the last seven episodes of the MPWR Coaching Podcast, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon went all in on one topic: culture. Not the free-snacks, ping-pong-table version of culture. The real one — the one that decides whether your team performs under pressure, stays when things get hard, and actu...

Inside Coca-Cola Consolidated: 17,000 Employees, One Culture, 25 Years of Excellence He spent 8.5 years in federal prison as the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history; the man Matt Damon portrayed in the Hollywood film, The Informant! Today, Mark Whitacre leads culture for the largest Coca-Cola bottler in America. In this episode, Mark takes us inside Coca-Cola Consolidated — 17,...

From 75 to 139 Units: Inside the Leadership Rebuild That Nearly Doubled a Real Estate Team's Best Month For 26 years, Tina Caul learned real estate leadership the hard way; trial by fire, "figure it out" as a management philosophy, and a growth ceiling stuck at 700-800 deals a year for three straight years. In this episode, the leader of eXp Realty's #7 team in the nation opens up about the real e...

The Real Cost of Staying the Same | Why Leaders Can't Outsource Culture Why This Episode Matters Your team's culture isn't an accident; it's the direct result of what you've invested in (or ignored) as a leader. If you're frustrated by drama, disengagement, or a culture that just isn't working the way you hoped, the problem might not be your people. It might be the leadership investment strategy b...

Most leaders aren't lacking commitment to culture change, they're using a strategy that's quietly designed to fail. Industry research has estimated that a majority of culture change initiatives never produce lasting results, and in this episode of the Empower Podcast, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldim break down the real reason why culture change initiatives fail in organizations , drawing on over 20...

You Are the Lid: How Leaders Unknowingly Cap Their Team's Growth MPWR Podcast | Culture Series | Eric Pfeiffer & Dawn Neldon You sent your team to the conference. You bought the books. You hired the consultant. So why does your culture still feel stuck? Here's the uncomfortable truth most leadership content won't tell you: your team isn't the problem. You might be. In this episode, Eric Pfeiff...

What if your culture was your greatest competitive advantage — not just a nice place to work? Most organizations treat culture like a perk. Ping pong tables. Casual Fridays. Extra snacks in the break room. But the organizations that truly win — that grow revenue tenfold, dominate their industries, and become the place everyone wants to work — understand something the rest don't: culture isn't soft...

What if the biggest problem in your organization isn't performance… but culture? In this episode of the MPWR Podcast, Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon unpack the invisible forces quietly shaping your team dynamics, employee engagement, leadership effectiveness, and organizational performance. From toxic high performers to fear-based leadership and accountability breakdowns, this conversation reveals...

Most leaders say culture matters, very few can actually define it. In this powerful episode of the MPWR Podcast, the hosts unpack one of the most misunderstood topics in leadership and business: culture transformation. What starts as a conversation about executive coaching quickly evolves into a deeper revelation about what truly drives organizations forward — people. The Hidden Problem Inside Mos...

Your team isn't broken. Your strategy isn't the problem. And neither are you. The real culprit? A gap most leaders never even know exists. In this episode of the MPWR Podcast, hosts Eric Pfeiffer and Dawn Neldon bring the best of their recent live webinar straight to your ears — a raw, insightful breakdown of why so many high-performing leaders still feel stuck, burned out, and like something is f...

Why Expectations Matter More Than You Think Expectations shape everything in leadership; performance, communication, and culture. Yet, they're often one of the least examined dynamics inside organizations. As shared in this episode: "Expectations are everywhere, whether we've clearly communicated them or not." The Gap Between What's Said and What's Understood One of the biggest breakdowns in leade...

The Questions Leaders Are Really Asking What actually separates great leaders from the rest? In this FAQ-style episode of the MPWR Podcast, we unpack the most common questions leaders, executives, and business owners are asking behind the scenes. As shared in the episode: "We basically take the most frequently asked questions that we run into with clients in the trenches of the battle of building...

What separates those who succeed from those who stay stuck? In this episode of MPWR , we sit down with Dre Baldwin; entrepreneur, author, and former professional athlete who built his career on discipline, consistency, and the decision to create his own opportunities. Stop Waiting. Start Creating. After graduating from Penn State Altoona, Dre spent 9 years playing professional basketball across 8...

Why Do the Smallest Things Set You Off? You stay calm in crisis. You handle pressure like a pro. …but then something small happens; a comment, a tone, someone chewing too loudly and suddenly you feel triggered. If you've ever wondered: 👉 "Why do small things set me off more than big moments?" You're not alone. In this special Q&A episode, the MPWR team dives into real, unfiltered questions fr...

The Moment You Realize Something's Missing You've done everything right. You built the career. You achieved the milestones. You checked all the boxes society told you would lead to success. And yet… something still feels off. If you've ever found yourself wondering "Why doesn't this feel as fulfilling as I thought it would?" — this episode will hit home. In this powerful conversation, we sit down...

The Best of MPWR: Leadership, Purpose & Emotional Mastery Why do so many high-achievers feel unfulfilled, even after they've "made it"? You can have the success. The status. The money. …and still feel like something is missing. In this special Best of MPWR episode, we've compiled the most downloaded, most impactful moments from the podcast—revealing the deeper truth about leadership, purpose,...