The Leadership Buzz | Work Hard. Tell the Truth.

Send us Fan Mail How do great teams stay aligned when the stakes are high? In Part 1 of this three-part series on Teams That Work: How to Build High-Performing Teams by Scott Tannenbaum and Eduardo Salas , Buzz explores one of the book's most practical concepts: team cognition —the shared understanding that allows teams to move in the same direction. Most teams don't struggle because peo...

Send us Fan Mail Your title cannot bend reality. Your confidence cannot change the facts. Great leadership starts when we stop protecting our image and start pursuing the truth. In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , we explore Richard Feynman’s book What Do You Care What Other People Think? and the leadership lessons behind the Nobel Prize-winning physicist’s lifelong commitment to curiosity, h...

Send us Fan Mail o Mess, No Magic: Why Fearless Teams Tell the Truth Every leader says they want honesty. But the real question is — have we created a culture where people feel safe enough to give it? In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , we explore Amy Edmondson’s The Fearless Organization and the power of psychological safety. Fearless teams are not teams without mistakes, conflict, or hard c...

Send us Fan Mail What if the biggest leadership breakthrough is not working harder — but seeing differently? This week on The Leadership Buzz , we explore William Thorndike’s The Outsiders and the remarkable leadership journey of Bill Anders — Apollo 8 astronaut, creator of the iconic Earthrise photograph, and former CEO of General Dynamics. On Christmas Eve 1968, Anders helped humanity see Earth...

Send us Fan Mail Admiral William H. McRaven’s Make Your Bed reminds us of a powerful leadership lesson: small habits create lasting impact. Leadership is not built in one big moment. The big moment usually reveals the discipline, character, and habits you have been building all along. In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , we explore how small daily actions shape stronger leaders. Making your be...

Send us Fan Mail How do great leaders create influence without relying on authority, position, or title? In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , we explore leadership lessons from Leading Without Authority by Keith Ferrazzi and discuss how praise, encouragement, gratitude, and celebration shape workplace culture, employee engagement, trust, motivation, and leadership effectiveness. Buzz shares pr...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Leadership Buzz, we explore how leadership under pressure is usually built long before the pressure arrives. Using Todd Beamer’s story from Lisa Beamer’s Let’s Roll , this conversation looks beyond the headline moments of September 11th and into the values, habits, mentors, faith, and daily choices that shape courageous leadership over time. We discuss: • To...

Send us Fan Mail In this special bonus episode of The Leadership Buzz, Lloyd “Buzz” Buzzell reflects on three defining moments from the summer of 1983 that shaped his understanding of leadership, resilience, responsibility, mentorship, integrity, and service. From witnessing an extraordinary act of servant leadership on a nuclear power plant construction site, to the sudden loss of his father on a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Leadership Buzz, we explore Engage with Honor: Building a Culture of Courageous Accountability by retired Air Force Colonel and Vietnam POW Lee Ellis and discuss how these leadership lessons apply directly to business, teams, organizations, families, and everyday life. This conversation is not just about military leadership. It is about resilience, workplace...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a multiplier or a diminisher as a leader? The fastest way to lose a room is to walk in thinking you need to have every answer. In this leadership podcast episode, we break down Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman and explore a critical leadership question: are you amplifying your team’s intelligence or shutting it down? We’ve both seen it...

Send us Fan Mail Most leaders think they’re being kind when they hold back the truth—but what if the real damage comes from silence? In this leadership podcast episode, we dig into Radical Candor by Kim Scott and explore one of the most important leadership skills: giving honest feedback to people you genuinely care about. We break down the core of the Radical Candor framework—caring personally wh...

Send us Fan Mail Ownership is the quiet force that turns average teams into teams you can trust under pressure. When something goes wrong, do you default to “whose fault is this,” or do you ask the question that changes everything: “what part of this is mine to own?” That single shift builds credibility, reduces blame, and creates real momentum, even when the workload is heavy and the system feels...

Send us Fan Mail Failure is not a leadership flaw. It is a leadership guarantee. What separates strong leaders from stuck leaders is what happens after the miss. Do we hide, blame, and move on too quickly, or do we slow down and learn? In this episode, we lean on John Maxwell’s How to Get a Return on Failure and a military practice called the debrief. High-performing teams review the game tape, wa...

Send us Fan Mail Leaders who don’t read don’t stay sharp, they just stay busy. Today we unpack a simple belief with huge consequences: leaders are readers, and the ones who keep learning are the ones who make better calls when pressure hits. TJ tees up General James Mattis’ famous message on professional reading, and I explain why Mattis saw books as a way to “light a dark path ahead.” When we ski...

Send us Fan Mail Most teams do not fail because they lack talent. They fail because they do not feel safe enough to tell the truth, take smart risks, or trust their leaders when things get hard. We dig into Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last and the real point behind that phrase: leadership is service, sacrifice, and putting your people first, even when nobody is watching. Buzz shares a unforgettable...

Send us Fan Mail Delegation can look like leadership while quietly turning into control. If you’ve ever handed something off and then felt the urge to step back in, rewrite it, or “just do it yourself,” you’re not alone and it’s costing you more than time. We dig into what delegation really means: transferring ownership, authority, and space so someone else can deliver an outcome, not just complet...

Send us Fan Mail How Honest Leaders Build Trust That Lasts The most dangerous leadership moments rarely announce themselves. They show up in quiet rooms, with incomplete facts, time pressure, and someone offering an easy shortcut. In this episode, we explore telling the truth as a daily leadership discipline and why trust erodes quickly when words, actions, and values fall out of alignment. Drawin...

Send us Fan Mail Perfection is a tempting leadership standard because it feels like discipline, pride, and professionalism. But I’ve seen the darker side: when leaders communicate that anything less than flawless performance is unacceptable, people don’t get better they get quieter. They protect appearances, avoid questions, and hide uncertainty. That is how a team with “high standards” can become...

Send us Fan Mail Trust is the operating system of leadership. When trust is strong, teams communicate openly, move faster, and perform better. When it is weak, even simple decisions become difficult. In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , Buzz Buzzell explores a key idea from the book The Seven Rules of Trust — Make It Personal. Trust is not built through titles, authority, or slogans on the wal...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Leadership Buzz , we explore the newly published book Strong Ground by Brené Brown and the leadership idea that real performance starts with a strong foundation. Before teams can move fast or perform well, they need stability. Trust, clarity of values, and connection create the ground people stand on. When leaders rush past those things, teams often end up c...

Send us Fan Mail Control can turn a crisis around, but does it build a team that lasts? We dig into the hard gap between short-term wins and long-term strength, guided by Surrender to Lead from Jessica Kriegel and Joe Terry and a field-tested equation: purpose plus strategy plus culture equals results. Through a candid military story, we show how metrics can spike while psychological safety sinks,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we explore what it means to be the leader people actually want to work for. Drawing from Quick Leadership by Selena Rezvani, we reflect on how everyday behaviors responsiveness, clarity, and follow-through shape how leadership is experienced. Through story and coaching insight, this episode invites leaders to examine the small moments that quietly build trust or e...

Send us Fan Mail A brief introduction to The Leadership Buzz and what listeners can expect in future episodes. The Leadership Buzz is hosted by Lloyd “Buzz” Buzzell, an ICF-ACC executive coach, DISC practitioner, and retired U.S. Air Force officer with 37 years of leadership experience. Each episode focuses on one book, one idea, and one practical leadership concept to help you align your behavior...