Let Them Lead

A native of Cheboygan, MI, Mark Grisdale recalls his football coach, Irv Sigler, quietly and privately telling Grisdale he knew he was padding his work out sheet, and if he kept cutting corners the team would not be undefeated again the next year. The lessons stuck. Grisdale fell into education and soon discovered teaching, coaching, and leading were his passions. Ten years ago he started a new hi...

Leading a city is a largely thankless job, where strangers get to insult you in public. So if you’re not excited about actually governing, this isn’t for you. Christopher Taylor is a successful lawyer, but has served as Ann Arbor’s mayor since 2014 – for peanuts – and he loves it. “In a democracy, collaboration is the key. You simply have to get buy-in. So when we make a decision, a lot of smart p...

When Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio at 38, his career seemed over. 12 years later he was elected president -- strengthened, not weakened, by his battle with polio to lead the nation through the Great Depression and World War II. Award-winning author James Tobin tells his story.  https://www.jamestobinwrites.com/ For info about the book or this podcast please visit our website: http://www.lett...

If you’ve seen Jerry Maguire, you know David Meltzer’s story – or part of it. The inspiration for the famous movie, Meltzer started with little, quickly rose to the top of the sports agent world – when his wife gave him a wake-up call. He later lost it all, bankrupt – then rebuilt his fortune on new principles. This is his story. Davids Website: https://dmeltzer.com/ For info about the book or thi...

Fred Crawford played for the MSU basketball program in the mid ‘80s, but wisely decided to focus on school. He worked his way to the top of AlixPartners, a New York firm specializing in turnaround and restructuring, including arguably the best-known turnaround in corporate history: General Motors.“One thing you learn quickly: time is not your friend, and neither is perfection. You have to move fas...

In Part III, the final episode of this interview, Mauti and Zordich tell the story of the rest of Penn State’s 2012 season. After almost all the players decided to stay, the team suffered a heart-breaking 0-2 start, followed by a stirring run, including revenge against Illinois, capped by an overtime victory against future Big Ten champion Wisconsin. Then they describe what it all means today.  Fo...

In Part II of this podcast, Mauti and Zordich describe the 24 hours after NCAA sanctions hit, when dozens of teammates were considering leaving and others actually driving off. With Penn State in danger of imploding, these two met this moment of truth head on, working with rookie head coach Bill O’Brien to keep the team together, and the program alive. For info about the book or this podcast pleas...

After a strong Season One (thanks to our great guests and listeners!), we’re ready to launch Season Two of Let Them Lead: a podcast about the risks and rewards of leading today. We’ll have more great guests talking about their mentors, their hardest days, and their most satisfying triumphs leading in just about every endeavor imaginable, including sports, education, health care, business, law, pol...

Joe Parker grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, where a 6th grade teacher recommended him for student council. He never forgot it. Parker went on to win multiple state titles in swimming, became an All-American at the University of Michigan, then embarked on his career in athletic administration, serving for Bill Martin at UM, plus Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech before becoming the AD at Colorado S...

This week, with the Helber family’s approval, we’re presenting my eulogy of their husband, father, and grandfather, Paul Helber, who was very well known and respected by anyone who grew up playing hockey (and probably baseball and football, too) in Ann Arbor. Our relationship started, amazingly, after I was the last man cut from his 1978-79 travel team. He handled it so well it became the foundati...

Brenda Ryan grew up in Detroit in the late 1960s, and took a big chance to enroll at Michigan Tech, sight unseen. She started a promising career at General Motors before getting her masters and starting her own companies – three, now, all successful – while becoming the Chair of the MTU Board of Trustees. Some keys: when you become a leader, don’t tell people what to do, ask them to teach you; whe...

Almost three decades ago, Amanda Macaluso, from Australia, decided to work at Hayo-Went-Ha for Girls just for a year, on a lark – but she never left. Thanks to a dramatic scene on a beach, she was transported her from possibly being fired to becoming Director on Lake Arbutus, near Traverse City, MI, a position she has held for XX() years. Her keys: “Make camp a safe place to be different, and try...

Brad Black grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where he met people from across the country passing through their train station. He rose up quickly through the ranks at Pitney-Bowes, then re-built the sales side of Stryker Corporation, and transformed the culture so dramatically, the employees voted to decertify their union. He then founded Humanex, which transfers his leadership principles to athletic and...

Today's podcast is the commencement address I gave for Michigan Tech this spring. In it, I discuss what I call "the myth of inevitability. We’re often told our present world was created by enormous, unstoppable forces. Not true. It was often shaped by individuals, in crucial moments." And then I explain why these graduates are uniquely prepared to lead us -- and need to be! I tried to give a 15-20...

Al Gallup, a 96-year old veteran of World War II, still bikes every day. A former assistant principal at Ann Arbor Huron and Dean of Community High School, during the early 70s he actually let the Huron students engage in sanctioned drag racing, which effectively ended the all-too common racial fights. His keys: “Keep moving!”; “You can’t motivate anyone you don’t know,” which I have quoted in Let...

Richard Koubek grew up in Illinois and attended community college, but eventually rose to become Dean at Penn State, Provost at LSU, and Michigan Tech’s tenth president in 2018, where he has led MTU to record enrollment, research grants, and donations. His take-aways: sometimes you have to sit on the bench and let your people take over; assume the best of people until they prove otherwise; hire fo...

Dave Deluca never went to camp as a kid, but got hooked on it when he became a camp counselor in college. Now he’s spent four decades working in YMCA camps as a counselor, a camp director, and now a CEO of Hayo-Went-Ha Camps, overseeing two major YMCA camps in Michigan. Most of what works for a good YMCA camp works for Fortune 500 companies, too: When you become a leader, ask for help; when you hi...

Brian Lawlor has been the president of local media for Scripps TV for ten years, which has grown from 10 stations to 61 nationwide since Lawlor took over. His take-aways include: To be a good journalist you need to be curious, and that takes courage; hire slowly and carefully, because mediocrities can kill your organization; a leader’s job is to create a strategy that drives us and a culture that...

By his own admission, Ron Alvesteffer is no computer whiz, but after he took over ServiceExpress, which provides data center solutions, in 1998, he transformed it from a $3 million company to a $300 million company. What he’s learned: Don’t make the mistake of just hiring anyone; They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care; your job as a leader is to remove obstacles and pr...

A fun and lively 25-minute conversation with Fred Nahhat, Senior Vice President of Detroit PBS and a frequent host of PBS Books “Author Talk.” Here we discuss LET THEM LEAD: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America’s Worst High School Hockey Team. It’s one of the best conversations I’ve had on the book, because Fred was so well prepared and asked such good questions. Aside: Room Rater watched...

Steve Papadopoulos and his family moved constantly when he was a kid while his dad, a Greek immigrant, pursued his career in the oil business. He became a neurosurgeon – this really is brain surgery – developing an incredibly strong, quiet confidence in the process – just want you need to establish a 99-percent success rate. Papadopoulos then patented dozens of medical instruments, and became the...

If you read LET THEM LEAD: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America’s Worst High School Hockey Team, you know two of the stars of the book are my first captain, Mike Henry, and one of our best goalies, Steve Beltran. Today Henry is the General Manager of USA Hockey Arena and Director of Compuware Hockey in Plymouth, and Beltran is a stand-out eighth-grade social studies teacher at Arthurs Mid...

Vic Strecher is a professor of public health at the University of Michigan, where he started Health Media in 1998, a pioneering, web-based, “digital health coach.” His life changed when his younger daughter, Julia, contracted chicken pox at one, and required two hear transplants. When she passed away at 19, Strecher did some serious soul-searching, and emerged with a new focus: Living on Purpose....

Rosalie Tocco-Bradley Is the Chief Clinical Officer of Trinity Health Michigan, which includes eight hospitals, ten outpatient surgical centers and nine emergency departments. For the past two years, she has also served as the COVID Response Incident Commander for all of Trinity Health Michigan – a job you’d wish on no one. Growing up she would watch through the fence while her brothers played bas...

After 11 very eventful years as the Executive Director of the Boston Athletic Association, which conducts the Boston Marathon, Tom Grilk will step down after this year’s race. Years ago he told his wife that the stress of being an attorney was going to cause him to start drinking or start running. He picked running, which led to sub-3:00 marathons and his current post. He led the Marathon, the wor...