No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership

Send us Fan Mail In this raw and personal episode, Stephanie sits down with former colleagues Kristin Ginter and Kurt Wuerfele to talk about what it takes to build trust inside an unhealthy system. Together, they explore protective leadership, ethical tension, managing up, client advocacy, and the real cost of holding a team together when the larger culture is misaligned. This conversation is for...

Send us Fan Mail What do you do when a toxic or ineffective leader is causing harm, but cannot be removed immediately? In this episode of No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership , Stephanie Licata is joined by Ellie Holbert, founder and principal advisor of Empact Advisory Services, to explore how organizations can contain leadership risk at the top. We discuss why damaging leaders often stay in...

Send us Fan Mail What do you do when your values no longer align with the culture around you,  but speaking up comes with a cost? In this episode of No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership , Stephanie Licata talks with Shweta Kelkar , CEO and Founder of the Work360 Foundation , about moral courage, toxic work environments, values-based leadership, and the fine line between standing up for what m...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership, Stephanie Licata talks with leadership advisor and organizational designer Chelsea Lewis about how leaders can navigate “wicked messes,” complex challenges with no clear definition, easy answer, or clean finish line. Together, they explore why traditional top-down leadership often falls short in chaos, how capable leade...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership, Stephanie Licata talks with Stephanie Lemek, Founder and CEO of The Wounded Workforce, about what trauma-informed leadership really looks like in practice. They explore how leaders can build trust, avoid harm, support accountability, and respond more effectively to stress behaviors at work, without stepping into therapy...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Stephanie Licata is joined by Angela Cheng-Cimini for a candid conversation about toxic leadership, the “brilliant jerk” problem, and the organizational courage it takes to address bad behavior at work. Together, they explore why high-performing but harmful leaders are so often tolerated, how fear and power dynamics keep people silent, and what HR, executives, and...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve invested in training. People left energized. And then… nothing changes. In this episode of No Jerks Allowed — Why Leadership and Team Development Doesn’t Stick —Stephanie Licata and guests Kristin Chase, and Blake Cason (more on the host & guests below!) unpack why even great programs fade fast when development is treated like a one-time event instead of a reinforced sy...

Send us Fan Mail What do people actually remember about great leaders? Hint: it’s not tools, titles, or technical brilliance. In this first episode of No Jerks Allowed: Real Talk on Leadership , Stephanie Licata, M.A., A.C.C. breaks down why leadership is so often over-engineered,  and why behavior matters more than frameworks.  Drawing from years of training middle managers and emerging leaders,...