Leadership Limbo

Connect With Brooke MacLean Learn more about Brooke and her team at Marketwake , and follow Brooke on Instagram at @brookebmaclean . Episode Overview What happens when leaders give people both the structure to feel secure and the freedom to be creative? In this episode, Josh Hugo and John Clark sit down with Brooke MacLean, CEO of Marketwake, an award-winning digital marketing agency recognized fo...

Help Us Name the Leadership Limbo Community What should Leadership Limbo listeners be called? Cast your vote here . Episode Overview Can leaders change their minds without appearing indecisive? And how can a team remain adaptable without allowing flexibility to become disorder? In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore the tension between adaptability and structure. New...

Episode Overview Not every piece of feedback needs to become a difficult conversation, but some situations require more preparation, care, and directness. In the third episode of their series on feedback and difficult conversations, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore how leaders can recognize what a situation actually calls for. The goal is not to treat every concern like a major confrontation or av...

VOTE! Help Name the Leadership Limbo Community What should we call Leadership Limbo listeners? Help us settle the debate by voting for your favorite or suggesting something better. Vote here Episode Overview When does a message require a carefully prepared difficult conversation, and when is it simply feedback that needs to be shared? In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark r...

Episode Overview Not every piece of feedback needs to become a difficult conversation—but some messages genuinely require courage, preparation, and care. In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore the spectrum between everyday feedback and higher-stakes conversations. John challenges leaders to stop inflating routine feedback into a major event. When managers normalize s...

EPISODE OVERVIEW Delegation is supposed to free managers, empower employees, and develop future leaders. Why does it so often create confusion, frustration, and disappointing results instead? In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark examine how managers can delegate work without micromanaging, rescuing, or disappearing. Josh begins with a delegation failure from his own leader...

EPISODE OVERVIEW Most leaders say they value personal development, but how many can identify a leadership behavior they are actively changing? In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore why leadership development often stops at insight. Reading books, listening to podcasts, completing assessments, and recognizing personal tendencies can increase self-awareness, but none...

Episode Overview What happens when organizations become so focused on optimizing systems that they stop developing the people inside them? Former Rocket Mortgage Graham Skidmore joins Josh and John to discuss burnout after professional success, the difference between coaching and advising, and how leaders can use AI to expand human capability rather than diminish it. Graham shares the deeply perso...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark revisit one of the podcast's earliest topics -communication - but through a very different lens. Rather than offering another conversation about how to communicate more effectively, they challenge one of the most common phrases heard in organizations: "We have a communication problem." Josh and John argue that while com...

Episode Overview Season 3 begins with Josh Hugo and John Clark tackling one of leadership's most celebrated, and most misunderstood, concepts: servant leadership. While servant leadership has become a guiding philosophy for organizations across education, nonprofits, healthcare, faith communities, and business, Josh and John challenge listeners to look beneath the language and examine the behavior...

Episode Overview In the Season 2 finale of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark welcome executive coach, author, and InteraWorks Managing Partner Anne McGhee-Stinson for a conversation that challenges many of the assumptions underlying modern leadership. Drawing on decades of experience spanning military education, global leadership development, entrepreneurship, and organizational consultin...

Episode Overview In this special bonus episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark realize they accidentally miscounted the season schedule and discover they aren't quite at the summit of Season 2 after all. Instead of wrapping things up, they take the opportunity to do something different: turn the microphones on themselves. Through a mix of leadership reflections, personal stories, rap...

Episode Overview As Leadership Limbo approaches its 40th episode and the close of Season 2, Josh Hugo and John Clark pause to reflect on the ideas, guests, and leadership lessons that have most shaped their thinking over the past year. Rather than revisiting individual episodes, this conversation explores the recurring themes that surfaced again and again across discussions with guests from educat...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark welcome construction industry leader, consultant, and founder of Constructive Leadership Solutions , Dan Beatty, for a conversation about one of leadership's most overlooked tools: storytelling. Drawing on more than three decades in the construction industry, Dan shares how his unlikely combination of construction exper...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore one of the most overused, and often misunderstood, concepts in leadership: ownership. Leaders frequently say they want teams that “take ownership,” “act like owners,” or are “biased toward action.” But what do those phrases actually mean in practice? And more importantly, what conditions are leaders responsible...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark continue their series on psychological safety by exploring a deeper question: how do teams actually become psychologically safe over time? Rather than treating psychological safety as a static value or aspirational slogan, this conversation reframes it as a developmental process that teams must move through together. Dr...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark continue their conversation on psychological safety by moving from theory into the subtle language and behaviors that shape team culture every day. Building on the prior episode, the discussion explores how leaders unintentionally avoid tension, soften conflict, and emotionally accommodate others in ways that ultimately...

In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark take on one of the most widely used—and often misunderstood—terms in modern leadership: psychological safety. While the concept has become a cornerstone of team culture conversations, this discussion challenges how it is being interpreted and applied in today’s workplace. The episode begins by examining a growing tension: by many measur...

  Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark sit down with Suzi Lantz, leadership consultant, executive coach, and CEO of Personal Peak Consulting , and Co-Founder of Oxygen to explore the intersection of self-awareness, behavior change, and organizational culture. Suzi’s journey begins in education, where her experience teaching and coaching middle school stude...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark move from questions to deeper internal work, exploring what it actually means to lead from self in moments of uncertainty, tension, and external disruption. Building directly on their prior episode about ambiguity, this conversation shifts from what leaders should ask to how leaders must show up. At the center of the di...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark take a different approach to leadership in uncertain times. Rather than offering immediate strategies or answers, they focus on something more foundational: the questions leaders must ask themselves when the world outside of work begins to shape what happens inside of it. Framed by global instability, political tension,...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark return to one of the most defining realities of leadership: ambiguity. Rather than treating uncertainty as something to escape, they challenge leaders—especially middle managers—to see it as the very condition that requires leadership in the first place. The conversation reframes ambiguity as more than just uncertainty....

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark sit down with Dr. Aaron J. Griffen , Chief Student Affairs Officer at DSST Public Schools , to explore what it truly means to lead in complexity, chaos, and cultural tension. Drawing from over two decades in education—as well as his work as co-editor of Leading in the Midst of It All —Dr. Griffen offers a grounded, expe...

Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark explore one of the most defining — and uncomfortable — realities of leadership: ambiguity. Framed by a listener suggestion and grounded in real-world leadership experiences, the conversation centers on what it actually means to lead when clarity is limited, direction is evolving, and certainty is out of reach. Rather th...

  Episode Overview In this episode of Leadership Limbo, Josh Hugo and John Clark sit down with David Boelens, leader of the Integrated Talent Development organization at Raytheon, to explore what it really takes to develop leaders at scale. Drawing on his experience as a U.S. Army cavalry officer and now as a leader responsible for developing thousands of professionals in operations, supply chain,...