10,000 Swamp Leaders

060_Janie Ekberg comes to the Swamp to share her stories of leading across multiple social impact projects. Her story is personal for me because she found a way to mobilize me and get me involved in Camp Siberia and in so doing, change my life and perspective on what it takes to lead without authority.  Janie has also changed the trajectory of  hundreds of other people in her community and around...

Natalie Trotta comes to the Swamp to share her decision to alter her career trajectory and lead herself in the pursuit of building a wellness community. Natalie’s journey is important because she highlights that leading is always a choice and it can come from anyone and at any time. Natalie models  that leading has nothing to do with age or “life experience.” She has made a commitment to use herse...

Maxime Fern and Michael Johnstone are at the forefront of taking Adaptive Leadership out of academia and into boardrooms and learning spaces around the world. They come to the swamp to share their great book Provocation as Leadership: A roadmap for Adaptation and Change. Maxime and Michael have been working in family and organizational systems for most of their careers. They believe provocations a...

Lianne Morgan comes to the Swamp and shares her thoughts on the value of following a mindfulness practice. Lianne is a role model for us all. She has a long history of navigating life as a corporate leader. Long enough to know when it’s time to depart and how to make that transition. Today Lianne is a mindfulness coach. She offers wisdom in this episode on how to design a practice of mindfulness,...

Ellen Schall of New York University comes to the Swamp and shares her wisdom on how to develop a leadership reflective practice. Ellen’s journey began when she worked in New York City starting as a Legal Aid Society attorney. She moved to New York University in 1992 and it is still her home. She taught the Leadership course: Reflective Practice: Learning from Work.  Ellen shares her thoughts on th...

Tracey Camilleri and Samatha Rockey come to the Swamp and bring a treasure trove of research based thinking that leverages both the art and science necessary for building successful groups. They share their recommendations from their new book: The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups. We discuss  the Dunbar Number, the value creation that comes from investing time and energy in  foste...

Martin Thomas and Mick Yates, two friends I admire, come to the Swamp to share their encore stories and second acts. Both men returned to university late in their professional careers and that decision changed the trajectory of their lives, the focus of their commitments and how they have chosen to make a difference as they conjure up second acts and most likely, third and forth acts.  All of us w...

Episode 053_  Nick Conigrave brings to the swamp his marriage of deep leadership study with the pragmatism needed to help people build their capacity to lead for greater impact. You will hear Nick’s passion for helping people as he shares the range of approaches he uses to construct leadership programmes and coaching strategies that are useful to all. Nick is a true  bricolage of leadership develo...

Episode 052_ Joanne Flinn visits the swamp to discuss how company directors can integrate the environmental, social and governance agenda inside their organization and thrive. Joanne is the Chair of ESG Institute and the author of Greensight: The Sustainability Guide for Company Directors. She discusses the challenges of the ESG agenda as well as ideas for implementation.  Joanne’s Links LinkedIn...

Episode 051_ Tom Tyner comes to the swamp to share his decision to help preserve public lands for future generations. He shares his decision to leave his position as legal counsel to a global bank, move his family from San Francisco to the Seattle area and dedicate his time and expertise to secure parklands, forests, range land and wilderness for future generations. Tom’s a humorist guy so he hold...

Anne-Fleur Goll joins me to share her story of a call to action on climate change that started small and then suddenly it was big and global. Anne-Fleur balances being a climate consultant on the Deloitte Sustainability team with her climate activism. She has learned a few things on how to create and sustain a movement as well as how to manage and balance these dual roles and take care of herself....

Karin Zastrow comes to the Swamp and she arrives with over twenty years of first hand experience working as a leader. Our conversation starts when Karin is tasked with designing her organization’s leadership development strategy. Without a budget. Immediately we come to understand that her unique combination of persistence, curiosity, and action is ideally suited for this challenge. Her hard work...

Joe Badman joins me in the swamp to share his passion for working with public service individuals and teams. Joe discovered early in his career that he was quite good at helping teams collaborate and solve messy problems. Through this work, he unearthed his passion to help improve people’s  lives. We all rely on our local governments to deliver high quality services.  Joe and his team help organiz...

Nyuon William is an accomplished lawyer and advocate for peace, gender equality and human rights. She joins us to share her journey growing up in the midst of Sudan’s civil war, being raised by parents who advocated and supported her education and her development path to becoming a lawyer.  Her specialization includes reforms for women’s equality, as well as the youth, peace and security agenda. A...

J erilyn Brusseau offers evidence that one woman, with a vision to heal can change the lives of thousands of people. Her story begins with heartbreak when she learns that her brother, Dan Cheney, was shot down and killed in Vietnam just 15 days after he arrived in the country. In that moment, Jerilyn joined nearly 60,000 other American families who lost family members in a war that would last almo...

Larai Diana Gwani comes to the swamp and shared the challenges and successes she has produced in her role as a government official in the Kaduna State Legislature. She has spent  her life living and working inside a patriarchal culture.  She has learned how to use herself to lead inside this difficult environment. She is fighter and advocate for gender & social inclusion as well as citizen sta...

Deborah Jones comes to the Swamp and shares what it took to build the Community Leadership Programme and  the Violence Reduction Network in Leicester, England. She describes how the commitment of Leicester’s diverse network of leaders has fostered a culture of leadership practice and produced an enhanced impact that benefits their city and county. And they all seem to be having a great time suppor...

Meg Zeenat Wamithi comes to the swamp to share how the work of her organization, Mindmapper , is helping youth to learn how to take care of their bodies, minds & bank accounts, engage in meaningful relationships and take part in work experience opportunities in their local communities.  Meg is candid about the mental health challenges she faced and she tells us how the network she is building...

Cecile Demailly comes to the Swamp to share insights from her book “The Middle Manager’s Survival Guide.” Cecile spent almost twenty years as one of those “middles” in global organizations. She brings her lessons learned from that world and adds fifteen years of experience helping the middle manager community as a consultant. Her ideas are practical, accessible and can be used for managing in the...

Episode 039  Irwin Turbitt comes to the swamp to share his complex and life altering journey from being a police commander in Northern Ireland to teaching and building leadership capacity at the Harvard Kennedy School and Oxford/Said Business school.  Irwin had earned his teaching and consulting credentials the “harder way". He began on the streets of Northern Ireland by working on the centur...

040 Anne Gibbon joins me to share how her father, the United States Naval Academy and her intuition all conspired to form the leader that she is today. Anne was both the 2007 Heavyweight National Amateur Boxing Championships and a Second-Team All-American rower, and was  inducted into the Academy Athletic Hall of Fame.  That was just the beginning of her leadership journey. We discuss her thoughts...

040_ Benjamin Taylor Benjamin Taylor, RedQuadrant founder, returns to the Swamp for an enlightening conversation on two topics: The Problem with Adaptive Leadership The Problem with Consulting  I asked Benjamin to return to the podcast (listen here to Episode #021) because he has clear and strong thinking on both adaptive leadership and the world of consulting. Adaptive leadership is a bit of a ma...

Eka Gigauri comes to the swamp to share her twenty year trek to establish transparency, accountability and social integrity in her country of Georgia. Her story begins with the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 when the country separated from the Soviet Union. Today Eka is the Executive Director of Transparency International’s county office in Georgia. She leads a team committed to rooting out sy...

Julia Fabris McBride is the Interim President and CEO as well as the Chief Leadership Development Officer of Kansas Leadership Center.  She is co-author with Ed O’Malley of the recently published book “When Everyone Leads” The Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) is a one of a kind, non-profit organization committed to fostering leadership for stronger, healthier and more prosperous Kansas communities a...

Rachel Musson comes to the Swamp to discuss how her organization, ThoughtBox Education, is reimagining education for kids around the world. Their work is helping students develop the relevant skills to create and sustain a thriving world. She shares the Triple Wellbeing Culture model that focuses on care for self, others and the world. We discuss the value of being a Tempered Radical and how to ac...