Leadership & Motherhood

Summer is a unique season for working moms.  While social media reminds us that we "only get 18 summers" with our kids, many executive moms are simultaneously leading teams, managing projects, running businesses, navigating camp schedules, and juggling childcare logistics. The result? A lot of pressure to make every moment count. In this final episode of Season 2, Leanna explores how high-achievin...

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with career and executive coach Maya Sharfi to explore what it truly means to grow your career in alignment with your life, not at the expense of it. Maya shares how she supports high-achieving women, from manager to executive levels, in navigating promotions, career pivots, and redefining success. Drawing on her unique background in design and wome...

In this powerful and perspective-shifting episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Anna Malaika Tubbs, renowned author, speaker, and advocate for examining the narratives that shape how we see ourselves and each other. Anna shares her global upbringing and how it shaped her understanding of identity, belonging, and cultural storytelling. Together, they explore the importance of elevating voic...

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Lauren Cannata, a leader in the influencer marketing industry and mother of two, for a conversation about motherhood, career growth, work-life balance, and the intentional decisions that help high-achieving women create more sustainable and fulfilling lives. Lauren shares how becoming a mother reshaped the way she approaches ambition, productiv...

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, this episode creates space for a conversation that often goes unseen, especially among high achieving women. Leanna sits down with Dr. Kelly Dries, a strengths-based leadership coach, to explore the complex and often hidden relationship between ambition, success, and mental health. Together, they unpack what it really looks like to be high functioning on...

What do you do when something goes wrong at the worst possible moment? In this episode, I'm sharing a story from earlier this week — a flat tire, pouring rain, and a coaching mastermind I didn’t want to be late to — and the one sentence that kept me from completely spiraling. That sentence: "This is my curriculum for today." It sounds simple, but the shift it creates is profound. When we hit an un...

What if the reason you feel overwhelmed isn’t just about your circumstances, but also how you’re thinking about them? In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath explores the shift from feeling stuck and out of control to becoming truly empowered in your life and leadership. Drawing from her own experience as a corporate executive and new mom, she shares how easy it is to fall into a pattern of overwhe...

This episode is a candid, thought-provoking conversation with three executive mom friends: Leanna Laskey McGrath, Annemieke Rice, and Andrea Palmer, on what happens when high-achieving women can no longer rely on the same habits, identities, and definitions of success that once drove them. Together, they explore the shift from effort-based value to experience-based leadership, and why motherhood d...

What if enjoying your life wasn’t about changing your circumstances, but changing how you think about them? In this episode, Executive Coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Camille Jaramis, an Australian entrepreneur, full-time professional, and mom, who is intentionally building a life that reflects what matters most to her.  She works very hard. She’s building a platform to support parents....

We’ve all heard plenty of advice when it comes to our health: what to eat, how to move, how to take care of ourselves. And for many high-achieving women, the challenge isn’t a lack of information… it’s actually following through. In this episode, Leanna is joined by Dr. Meghan Garcia-Webb, a triple board-certified physician and certified life coach, to explore the missing piece in women’s health....

If you’ve ever ended a full, productive day and still thought “it’s not enough” or “I should’ve done more,” this episode is for you. In this solo episode, Executive Coach Leanna Laskey McGrath unpacks one of the most common (and invisible) patterns she sees in high-achieving women: the constant feeling of falling short, even when you’re doing everything right. The root issue? Most high achievers h...

So many women live with debilitating pain that no test can explain. This is Leanna’s story and her journey to finding answers and solutions. Despite multiple ER visits, specialist referrals, scans, and procedures, everything continued to come back “normal.” With no clear answers, she began to question her own experience—and eventually, like so many women, started to accept the pain as something sh...

In this episode, executive coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with mindset and meditation coach Nemisha Patel Owen to explore what it really means to live an aligned life. After 18 years climbing the corporate ladder in a highly male-dominated engineering environment at NATS, the UK’s air traffic control provider, Nemisha appeared successful by every traditional measure: an MBA, promotions, and...

In this special episode of Leadership and Motherhood honoring Women’s History Month, Leanna sits down with executive leadership coach Loretta Stagnitto and her daughter, fractional marketing executive Annie Ricci, for a powerful cross-generational conversation about ambition, identity, and defining success on your own terms. Loretta shares her journey from corporate VP in Silicon Valley to buildin...

In this first interview on Leadership and Motherhood, executive coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with top-performing NYC real estate leader Rebecca Blacker to explore the real challenges high-achieving executive women and mothers face. From people pleasing and mom guilt to delegation struggles and confidence at work, this conversation dives deep into the tension between building a successful...

Welcome to the very first episode of Leadership and Motherhood! After 2.5 years and 153 episodes, The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast has evolved into something bigger. In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath, Executive Coach for Moms, shares why she made the intentional decision to end her previous show. It was not because she stopped loving podcasting, but because she felt called to create somet...

You are listening to the final episode of The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast as we know it. It’s the end of an era! A huge thank you to everyone who has made this podcast such a huge success and this journey so much fun. Listen to hear a little bit about what’s next, and in the meantime, here are three things you can do right now: Follow the show to receive future updates. Rate and review the sh...

This episode is a grounding conversation for high-achieving women who want to stay ambitious without becoming emotionally hijacked by everything happening in the world. Leanna explores how to remain informed without burning out your nervous system, why timing and intentionality matter when consuming news, and how external chaos can quietly pull you off track from goals that deeply matter to you. S...

When life gets busy, even the most successful executive moms can find themselves quietly drifting away from their goals, not because they don’t care, but because the strategies they’ve been taught are missing some important mindset components. In this episode, executive coach Leanna breaks down why motivation fades when life gets full, what’s actually happening beneath the surface, and what truly...

In this behind-the-scenes New Year episode, executive coach Leanna McGrath shares the goal setting process she uses every year—and how it’s helped her build a life and career in alignment with her values and vision. Designed for executive moms, working mothers, and high-achieving women, this episode explores why reflection matters, how consistency beats intensity, and what actually keeps ambitious...

Merry Christmas! In this heartfelt episode, Leanna opens up about a deeply personal season of rest, recovery, and reflection. She talks candidly about undergoing surgery after six years of unanswered pain and what it taught her about advocating for herself in a healthcare system that often minimizes women’s pain. Beyond the medical journey, this episode explores something many high-achieving women...

I created the Holiday Tips series for ambitious high achieving women trying to juggle everything this holiday season -- closing out the fiscal year at work, coordinating holiday events, hosting, cooking, cleaning, communicating, shopping, wrapping. The mental load is extra heavy this time of year, and I'm hopeful these holiday tips will help make things a little lighter for you. Connect with me on...

I created the Holiday Tips series for ambitious high achieving women trying to juggle everything this holiday season -- closing out the fiscal year at work, coordinating holiday events, hosting, cooking, cleaning, communicating, shopping, wrapping. The mental load is extra heavy this time of year, and I'm hopeful these holiday tips will help make things a little lighter for you. Connect with me on...

I created the Holiday Tips series for ambitious high achieving women trying to juggle everything this holiday season -- closing out the fiscal year at work, coordinating holiday events, hosting, cooking, cleaning, communicating, shopping, wrapping. The mental load is extra heavy this time of year, and I'm hopeful these holiday tips will help make things a little lighter for you. Connect with me on...