The Leadership Project Podcast

That thought you can’t stop replaying isn’t just annoying. It quietly shapes how you walk into meetings, how you speak under pressure, and how safe other people feel around you. Susan Drumm, bestselling author of The Leader’s Playlist and founder of Meritage Leadership, joins me to unpack a powerful idea: every leader has a playlist. Some of it is literal music that shifts your energy fast. Some o...

Two people can face the same change and walk away with totally different stories: one feels opportunity, the other feels threat. That gap is where leadership lives. We step back and synthesize three conversations into a simple but demanding framework for modern leadership: Adapt, Care, Connect and the deeper idea underneath it all that leadership is helping people make sense of their world.  We ta...

Most change initiatives don’t fail because the plan is flawed. They fail because leaders confuse communication with conversation and then wonder why people feel anxious, resistant, or checked out. We sit down with returning guest Huw Thomas , author of Change Anything, to move beyond individual psychology and get practical about organizational change management that actually sticks. We dig into wh...

What if the leadership skill your team needs most is not sharper strategy or faster execution, but a leader who genuinely cares and knows what to do when things get hard? I sit down with Graeme Cowan , a leading voice on workplace mental health, resilience, and leadership, and a founding director of R U OK Day. Graeme also shares his own lived experience of depression and the long road back, plus...

The leadership style that got you promoted can quietly become the thing that holds you back. When you move from building great work to leading people, the rules change fast, especially for technical founders and high-performing individual contributors who suddenly wake up running a business instead of writing code. We sit down with Mike Krupit , a serial entrepreneur and executive coach who has li...

What if the real job of a leader isn’t to get people to do what you want, but to create the conditions where people can do their best work? I’m reflecting on the biggest leadership lessons from this month’s conversations and pulling the common thread that ties them together: stop chasing control and start designing an environment where clarity, trust, and ownership can actually grow. We start with...

If your leadership strategy still depends on being the smartest person in the room, AI is about to make that a painful game to play. We sit down with Chris Deaver , culture shaper, leadership coach, former HR leader with experience at Apple, Disney, and Pixar, and co-founder of Brave Core, to talk about what actually scales now: bravery, co-creation, and the skill of leading with questions.  We un...

What if the person you’re frustrated with at work isn’t lazy, careless, or “not leadership material,” but simply stuck in an environment that works against how their brain operates? That question sits at the center of my conversation with Wainwright Yu , a senior technology executive and leadership coach who specializes in neurodiversity and cognitive diversity. We get personal quickly, starting w...

If you have ever walked out of a town hall thinking “we were crystal clear” only to hear your team say “we still don’t get it,” you’re not dealing with a motivation problem. You’re dealing with a communication and trust problem. Mick Spiers sits down with Alejandra Ramirez , internal communication strategist and founder of Ready Cultures, to show why leadership communication shapes organizational...

The hardest leadership problems rarely announce themselves as “leadership problems.” They show up as weight you carry in silence, conversations you keep postponing, success that still feels empty, and a loud inner voice that says you’re not ready. I step back and connect the biggest lessons from this month of The Leadership Project into one practical thread: leadership is human before it is tactic...

That quiet voice saying “I’m not good enough” shows up for almost every leader, even the ones who look the most confident from the outside. Mick Spiers sits down with world-renowned leadership coach Marc A. Pitman , author of The Surprising Gift of Doubt, to unpack why self-doubt and imposter syndrome are so persistent and how they can actually point you toward growth, alignment, and better leader...

What if the promotion, the praise, and the “big win” you’re chasing isn’t actually the thing you’re looking for? We sit down with Anthony (a professor and leadership researcher focused on relationships, loneliness, and sustainable leadership) to challenge a stubborn assumption in modern work culture: that success and outcomes are the path to happiness. We dig into why leaders get trapped by result...

Your culture isn’t what you say in calm moments. It’s what your team experiences when tension rises, deadlines slip, and someone has to tell the truth. We sit down with returning guest Bill Benjamin , co-author of The Last 8%, to move from individual stress behaviors to the bigger question leaders wrestle with: what happens to your culture when things get hard? Bill shares a simple, powerful way t...

Leadership has a hidden cost we do not talk about enough: the quiet pressure of being the person everyone leans on while you wonder who you can lean on. Hank Minor joins me for a deeper conversation about the inner world of leadership, the emotional load leaders carry, and the moment the role starts consuming the person. Hank brings a rare mix of experience as a former counseling psychologist, a l...

Have you ever looked at a team that’s working hard and still thought, “Why are we not moving?” That gap rarely comes down to talent. I’m reflecting on the biggest leadership lessons I heard across three very different conversations this March and the pattern is blunt: what holds people back is usually interference. Fear. Hesitation. Labels that shrink what someone thinks they’re allowed to try. As...

When leadership gets real, titles stop mattering and habits take over. Fire Captain Mark Andrew joins me to share what he’s learned leading in the fire service, where trust, communication, and decision making aren’t abstract leadership ideas. They are the difference between a smooth operation and a dangerous one. We dig into why so many people are promoted without real leadership training, then fa...

Most innovation programs don’t fail because people lack talent. They fail because people hesitate. That hesitation is subtle: the moment someone decides they’re “not creative,” the moment a team rushes to certainty, the moment a leader rewards only the safe answer and accidentally trains everyone to stop trying. I’m joined by Rich Braden and Dr. Tessa Forshaw , co-authors of Innovation-Ish, to bre...

Want more than buzzwords and brainstorms? Mick Spiers sits down with innovation authority Bruce Vojak to explore how real breakthroughs actually happen. His message is clear: innovation is a human act first. It comes from curious people who challenge assumptions and reframe problems. From the evolution of the carrot peeler to a billion-dollar innovation at Procter & Gamble, this conversation s...

Feeling busy yet strangely stuck? We pull together a month of conversations to reveal a clearer path: lead with conscious influence, not control. Across three standout themes—self-leadership, emotional fitness, and meeting design—we show how small, intentional choices create outsized cultural ripple effects. We start by reframing where leadership lives: not in titles or dashboards, but in behavior...

What if your calendar isn’t a badge of honor but a map of wasted potential? We sit down with Rebecca Hinds, PhD and author of Your Best Meeting Ever, to challenge the idea that more meetings mean more value—and to rebuild meeting culture from the ground up. Rebecca unpacks the visibility bias that equates busyness with status, explains why meetings multiply when clarity disappears, and shows leade...

Disconnection doesn’t usually explode—it leaks in through a thousand tiny moments until voices go quiet and energy fades. We sat down with leadership futurist and change strategist Melinda McCormack to chart a path back: a practical, human way to lead with empathy that drives performance without sacrificing people. Melinda shares her personal journey through loss alongside high-stakes corporate ch...

Ever feel like your team has more to give—and you can’t quite unlock it? We dig into the uncomfortable truth that many leaders become bottlenecks without meaning to, then map a path to becoming a catalyst who unlocks energy, ownership, and momentum. With award-winning leadership and high performance coach Tracy Clark , we examine why strategy and skills (the “trunk”) only go so far, and how deeper...

Think you had a busy month but didn’t move the needle? We unpack why progress often feels invisible and how to make it tangible by changing small behaviors that create big ripples. This solo cast stitches together January’s standout insights on culture, pressure, change, influence, and feedback—then turns them into simple moves you can apply within 24 hours. We start with a hard truth from Bill Be...

What we often call “communication problems” are really clarity problems. Leadership communication coach Salvatore Manzi breaks down why smart ideas stall, why meetings favor fast talkers, and how leaders can make messages land, be remembered, and drive action. From start to finish, this episode focuses on practical moves you can try today. We explore hidden biases that shape conversations: delay b...

Change rarely fails because people don’t care; it fails because we misunderstand what drives behavior. With author and change leadership expert Huw Thomas , we dig into the real forces underneath stalled transformations: loss aversion, identity threats, and the quiet stories we tell ourselves that keep us clinging to the status quo. From childhood curiosity to adult routines, we unpack how our wir...