The Leadership Podcast

Patrick Ryan is the author of "The Moral Market: Adam Smith and the Promise of Virtuous Capitalism." Patrick argues that capitalism was never intended to be separated from morality. Modern business leaders often treat ethics as a compliance issue or a reputational concern. Adam Smith saw it differently. He believed markets only function when they are built on justice, reciprocity, and trust. In th...

Jill Schulman is a keynote speaker, Marine Corps veteran, and bestselling author of "The Bravery Effect: A Parable Teaching the Science of Conquering Fear, Achieving More, and Living Life to the Fullest.". Jill argues that bravery is not a personality trait. It's a skill. Most people assume brave people are simply wired differently. The research suggests something else: bravery is built through re...

Jim Brown is the author of "The Imperfect CEO: Making the Climb to Organizational Health" and founder of Org Health. For over 30 years he has worked with CEOs, boards, and executive teams to build healthy organizational cultures and lead with clarity, courage, and shared responsibility. Jim argues that leadership accountability is the most underestimated pillar of organizational health. Not becaus...

Joth Ricci is CEO of LYBL (Live Your Best Life), owner of Winderlea Winery, author of The System, executive chair of Burgerville, and former CEO of Dutch Bros and Stumptown Coffee. In this conversation, Joth explains why great companies aren't built by leaders who solve more problems—they're built by leaders who teach their people how to solve them. He breaks down the difference between executing...

Murshed Chowdhury is the founder of Tech Duels, a communication and training platform redefining how individuals and organizations develop critical thinking and decision-making skills through structured debate. Murshed believes debate is one of the most underused leadership development tools available today. Not because it teaches people how to win arguments, but because it teaches them how to tru...

Karen Doll is a licensed psychologist, author of "Building Psychological Fitness: How High Performers Achieve with Ease," a partner at Psynet Group and chairs the Flourishing at Work initiative under Harvard's Flourishing Program. Most leaders know how to push through stress. Far fewer know how to recover from it. Karen argues that the difference matters more than most people realize. In this conv...

Nick Black is the founder and CEO of GoodUnited, a former Army officer, co-founder of Stop Soldier Suicide, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and a UNC Distinguished Alumnus. Nick focuses on a cost most leaders refuse to calculate: isolation. What happens to your people when no one is checking on them? After deploying 27 months in combat with the 173rd Airborne, Nick watched one of his soldiers s...

Kevin Rice is the former co-founder and president of Hathaway, a digital consultancy acquired by Bounteous in 2021. He is now an angel investor at Theorem One Capital and host of the CEOs and ABCs podcast. Kevin focuses on a gap most leaders don't want to look at. The difference between who you are at work and who you are at home. At work, the metrics are clear. You perform, you grow, you win. At...

What happens when you spend 10 years interviewing some of the world's top leaders? After 500 interviews with CEOs, generals, founders, bestselling authors, athletes, and elite performers, Jim Vaselopulos and Jan Rutherford discovered a surprising pattern. The most successful leaders were NOT the most polished, they were the most self-aware, adaptable, and relentlessly committed to growth. In this...

Maria Brinck is the Founder & President of Zynergy International and author of "The Leadership We Need: A New Mindset for a Brighter Future." In this episode, Maria argues that the leadership crisis most organizations face isn't a skills gap — it's a flawed model. The qualities we've long rewarded in leaders — confidence, decisiveness, and control — were effective in a different era. But in today'...

Dr. Bill Kline is a professor of business ethics and the Executive Director of the Academy on Capitalism. He argues that capitalism and ethics aren't separate conversations. They're the same system. Without ethics, there are no property rights, no enforceable contracts, and no functioning markets. Strip that away and you don't get capitalism. You get chaos with a price tag. In this conversation, B...

Matt Cavanaugh is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, PhD, former Army Athlete of the Year, and author of "Best Scar Wins: How You Can Be More Than You Were Before." Leaders often treat failures, setbacks, and scars as liabilities to hide. Matt Cavanaugh argues the opposite — that the scars you've earned, physical and emotional are the most honest measure of growth you have. The question isn't...

Patrick Leddin is an army veteran, entrepreneur, and NYT and WSJ Bestselling Author. He is the co-author, with James Patterson, of "Disrupt Everything—and Win: Take Control of Your Future." Most leaders treat disruption as something to survive. Patrick argues that's exactly the wrong frame. The gap between leaders who thrive in uncertainty and those who get buried by it isn't talent or timing — it...

Steve Cadigan is a global talent strategist, author of "Workquake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working," and LinkedIn's founding Chief HR Officer. Steve believes the world of work is going through a "workquake" — a fundamental shift that's breaking the old employer-employee contract. At the core of it is a false premise: the idea of long-term loyalty that neit...

Will Linssen is the CEO of Global Coach Group, and the author of "Triple Win Leadership Coaching: The Coach's Guide to More Impact, More Coaching, and More Clients." In this conversation, Will challenges the traditional model of leadership coaching. Too often, coaching focuses on the leader while leaving the team out of the equation—one reason why team satisfaction frequently remains low even when...

Mark Crowley's newest book is The Power of Employee Well-Being: Move Beyond Engagement to Build Flourishing Teams. For more than a decade, organizations have chased employee engagement - through surveys, gamification, perks, and wellness apps - yet the results haven't improved. Gallup now reports engagement at a ten-year low. Mark was one of the early voices questioning the engagement movement, an...

Muriel M. Wilkins is the founder and CEO of Paravis Partners, host of the HBR podcast, Coaching Real Leaders, and author of "Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential." Muriel makes the case that lasting leadership change doesn't come from better tactics. It comes from changing the hidden assumptions driving those tactics in the first place. Drawing on research with...

Mark Morgenfruh is the President and CEO of GetHRready and author of "Never Fire Anyone: A Leader's Guide on how to Lead People not Companies." He holds a Master of Human Resource Management from Rutgers University and built his no-nonsense, trust-first philosophy from the ground up. In this episode, Mark dismantles the two most common leadership failures he calls "keyboard cowboys" (leading from...

Steve Taplin is the CEO of Sonatafy Technology, author of "Fail Hard, Win Big: 30 Ventures | 20 Failures | 10 Wins," and host of the Software Leaders Uncensored podcast. In this conversation, Steve reveals the partnership that almost destroyed him but vindicated him five years later; why he walked out of a meeting with a Fortune 500 CIO; and the discipline that saved his sanity. Steve also shares...

Work–life balance sounds responsible. Admiral William (Bill) McRaven thinks it's misleading at best—and often harmful. In our special 500th episode of The Leadership Podcast, McRaven strips away the language leaders hide behind and replaces it with judgment, clarity, and responsibility. Instead of chasing balance, he offers a far more useful distinction: knowing which commitments are crystal balls...

Joe Pine is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and advisor, best known for The Experience Economy and his latest work, The Transformation Economy. In this episode, Joe explains why the market is finally ready—25 years later—for the shift to the transformation economy. He walks through the evolution of economic value, from commodities to goods, services, experiences, and now transformat...

Oli Raison, co-founder of Safarini Leadership, designs immersive leadership expeditions in Kenya that combine cultural exchange with Samburu elders, wilderness trekking, and deep reflective coaching. In this conversation, Oli challenges one of leadership's most entrenched assumptions: that resilience is about individual grit and mental toughness. Drawing on the Samburu concept of naboisho—interdep...

Geoff Woods is founder of AI Leadership and #1 international bestselling author of The AI Driven Leader: Harnessing AI to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions. In this episode, Geoff introduces the CRIT framework: "Context, Role, Interview, Task." He also reveals why most leaders are still acting like industrial workers—showing up on time, following orders, doing repetitive tasks—when machines now do th...

Mark van Rijmenam is a futurist, award-winning keynote speaker globally ranked as number one in his field. Salesforce recognizes him as a leading voice in AI. His latest book, Now What: How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, is available now, and he's the founder of FutureWise. In this episode, Mark challenges the assumption that faster change requires faster action. He argues that organizations movin...

Patrick Veroneau is CEO of Emery Leadership Group and author of The Leadership Bridge: How to engage your employees and drive organizational excellence and The Missing Piece: What Great Teams Do That Others Overlook. In this episode, Patrick explains why organizations' increasing focus on accountability systems over the past five years has coincided with employee engagement hitting a 10-year low....