Featured Guest: Valerie Biden Owens, First Female Presidential Campaign Manager It’s said that leaders are made, not born. That’s certainly true of the Biden family. Although Joe Biden is in the spotlight as the 46th President of the United States, his three siblings are all leaders in their own right, too. And Joe’s sister Valerie Biden Owens says that forging of strong leadership began in childhood with deep family values. Valerie joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss her book, Growing Up Bide...
Dec 13, 2022•25 min•Season 4Ep. 51
Featured Guest: Pat Dambe De Beers Vice President Pat Dambe takes a case study approach to the private and public sector partnership between De Beers and the government of Botswana on sustainability and corporate citizenship. She discusses her personal and corporate story and the courage required to contribute responsibly to the communities in which she works and resides. Pat’s story offers a model for a company and a country to create an interconnection that transcends the challenges both face ...
Dec 13, 2022•53 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Featured Guest: Christoph Hinske Can you survive in the new economy? As the supply chain disruptions have shown, our current economic model is very linear. One kink in the chain can cascade through our whole system, nationally and globally. And our linear economy assumes unlimited resources to keep production going to start the chain. But unless we start mining asteroids soon, Earth has finite resources…and climate change is reducing even those (for example, where do we get wood as forests conti...
Dec 06, 2022•55 min•Season 8Ep. 49
Featured Guests: Ren Washington and Laura Gibson Though we rarely think of it, there are strong connections between art and leadership. Art sets the environment and tone of the workplace; in your business or home office, it sets the tone of any conversation -- and sends a strong message of who you are, as a person and as a leader. The type of art around your team also shapes the kind of creativity and problem-solving they'll generate. The Center for Creative Leadership has used and studied art a...
Nov 30, 2022•54 min•Season 8Ep. 48
Featured Guest: Diane Rosenfeld People like to think humanity is at the top of cultural achievement, the pinnacle of evolution’s craftwork. But one glance at the daily headlines proves we have problems. Lots of problems. Across all nations, there’s one glaring problem that hits hard over half our population: sexism. From subtle misogyny to outright violent abuse, women continue to be left on the outside of patriarchies…of a man’s world. That’s not the case with bonobos. They’re our close evoluti...
Nov 22, 2022•51 min•Season 8Ep. 47
Featured Guest: John Reid Adulthood is kryptonite. We’re all born with superpowers. Curiosity is the most easily recognizable. As children, we’re flooded with it. But as adults, instead of being rewarded for having a million questions, we’re expected to have the answers. Leaders, in particular, believe they should have all the answers. Your superpowers are still there, and truly great leaders know how to unlock them. John Reid will help you rediscover yours, too! Author of The Five Lost Superpow...
Nov 22, 2022•57 min•Season 8Ep. 27
Featured Guest: Dr. Ciela Hartanov When you face uncertainty, how do you react? We’re biologically wired to meet uncertainty with concern, even panic or anxiety: it triggers our fight-or-flight response. But behind that veil of the unknown lies tremendous opportunity, and we can rewire our brains to look forward to it…to welcome uncertainty as fun and exciting. As Dr. Ciela Hartanov explains to host Maureen Metcalf, the key is to hack our own mindset to create a new mental framework. In the proc...
Nov 15, 2022•57 min•Season 8Ep. 46
Featured Guest: George Limbert The pace of change in the world is rapidly increasing, and there’s no slowing it down. VUCA – a program developed by the U.S. military – is a way of identifying the disruptions of change…and, more importantly, of being ready for them. We’ve talked about the theory of VUCA before (see our interview with Chris Nolan posted September 6, 2022). In this episode, George Limbert talks about VUCA and its antidotes practiced in the real world. George is the head of Red Roof...
Nov 08, 2022•53 min•Season 8Ep. 45
Featured Guest: Amer Kaissi A major myth in politics and business is that arrogant, over-confident people are better leaders. But reality reveals the opposite: humility combined with ambition drives the best leadership performance – and that, in turn, improves the entire organization. Author and Trinity University professor Amer Kaissi discusses the details with host Maureen Metcalf. His new book, Humbitious , digs deep into the reasons the humble-yet-ambitious leader delivers the best results…f...
Nov 02, 2022•56 min•Season 8Ep. 30
Featured Guest: Bob DeKoch and Phil Clampitt Only 15% of workers in the U.S. feel engaged with their jobs. That's just one job ill poor leadership spawns; bad leaders also cause turnover, absenteeism, and more. What is going wrong? Some leaders have the right beliefs and sentiments. Others may possess the right skills. Yet world-class leaders need BOTH the right beliefs and practices to address the current employee and organizational challenges. That ideal combination produces a leader who goes ...
Nov 01, 2022•57 min•Season 8Ep. 44
Featured Guest: Roxanne Brown and Edward Cook 85% of employees worldwide are not engaged in their workplaces. That takes an obvious toll on morale…and productivity. What can you do? Roxanne Brown and Edward Cook have some compelling answers. They cofounded The Change Decision, a change and culture consultancy focused on growing Joy at Work. Their mission sounds simple, but after decades of disengagement, there is both art and science in boosting your staff. They’ll explore insightful change lead...
Oct 25, 2022•59 min•Season 8Ep. 43
Featured Guest: Paul Smith Paul discusses the power of stories for leaders. He shares his insights about what works, why it works, and how you will be more effective as a leader if you master the use of stories. Paul recounts a compelling story told by Bob McDonald, CEO of Proctor and Gamble, and connects it to a primary leadership and parenting lesson for him. Paul illustrates: 1. What a great leadership story is. 2. The primary elements of a story. 3. Why you should use stories to lead and sel...
Oct 20, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Featured Guest: Erica Dhawan In a world of work-from-home and so much of our personal interaction being digital, we need to understand what we are conveying by digital body language. Today, Erica Dhawan joins the show to share findings from her newest book – Digital Body Language – which decodes the new signals and cues of effective collaboration and teamwork in a digital-first human workplace. Listeners will learn to investigate and improve their own digital body language so that they can suppo...
Oct 20, 2022•52 min•Season 7Ep. 20
Featured Guest: Brian Ferguson The greatest story of the 21st century is not technology, but how technology will be used as a tool for deepening the levels of human potential. Brian talks about his work leveraging the most proven performers, time-honored principles and cutting-edge technology to develop unique performance solutions for a wide range of “arenas” – from medicine to agriculture. He will discuss the following questions? 1. Why has "innovation" become such a buzzword in recent years? ...
Oct 20, 2022•51 min•Season 4Ep. 23
Featured Guest: Jean Brittain Leslie Organizations and the people working in them find themselves in environments that are increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Under these conditions, tensions that are ongoing, and seemingly overwhelming can be difficult to understand, much less easy to address. These tensions show up in all facets of organizational life including leadership (control vs. empowerment), teamwork (task vs. relationships), strategy (competition vs. collab...
Oct 20, 2022•47 min•Season 5Ep. 18
Featured Guest: Jesse W. Newton We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, yet have not realized the significant productivity gains that previous revolutions delivered. Author and Global Management Consultant Jesse Newton believes this to be in part because of the debilitating complexity that organizations have created over their existence. He’s spent years specializing in unburdening organizations from paralyzing complexity. Growing complexity has traditionally been met with added...
Oct 20, 2022•48 min•Season 5Ep. 17
Featured Guest: David White As an IT Leader and someone who works in technology, David talks about why the soft side of what we do is a significant contributor to success. As technology leaders, we need a diverse set of skills including a heavy dose of soft skills to be a highly successful business leaders beyond our technical skills. These skills range from awareness and management or our mood, an ability to be present and focused and skills in establishing and managing a positive culture where...
Oct 20, 2022•46 min•Season 4Ep. 28
