Over the last few decades, the attitude on leadership coaching has shifted dramatically. What was once considered necessary only when there was a performance issue is now a common piece of leadership development.

“More and more leaders are seeing executive leadership coaching as actually a sign of investment and development,” says Daniel. “It’s a positive thing.”

But being given a coaching opportunity can raise a lot of questions. Can you choose your coach, or will your company assign you a coach? How much will your boss know about your coaching sessions? And what does a coaching session even look like?

In this episode, Daniel and Peter take a look at the value of coaching, what to look for in a coach, and how to make the most of a coaching experience.

Tune in to learn:

• The difference between a coach and a mentor–and why both can be helpful to your career
• The importance of coaching as a “safe space” for leaders
• The one thing you should NOT do if you want to get the most out of your coaching experience

Plus, what we can learn from Costco’s Code of Ethics, and the strategy you need to win (almost) every game of Risk (at least when you play against Daniel and Peter).

In this episode:

1:42 – Insight of the Week

5:42 – Memory Lane

8:50 – Topic: What to Expect from Your Executive Coach

10:31 – Why Executive Coaching?

18:21 – How Do You Choose an Executive Coach?

31:56 – What Does a Coaching Session Look Like?

34:40 – Lightning Round

Costco Code of Ethics

The Ultimate Risk Strategy Guide

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

Choosing a Coach: How the Right Coach Can Help You Get Unstuck

The Five Steps of Great Coaching

How Do You Know if You Are Choosing the Right Executive Coach?

How the Right Coach Can Ease a New Executive Transition

10 Questions to Ask to Best Develop Your Individual Action Plan

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

What if AI were the key to innovation inside your company?

Today’s guest suggests that AI puts innovation in the hands of people who aren’t necessarily scientists or programmers.

Travis Hoppe is the Assistant Director of AI Research and Development at The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He co-authored The Pile, a pioneering open source dataset used for training large language models that served as a catalyst for promoting open science within the field of AI, and he holds a PhD in physics.

In this conversation, Daniel and Travis discuss everything AI–from the basics of machine learning and algorithms to implications for leaders to the most promising applications of AI.

“Now, people can experiment with some really good idea,” Travis says. About 20% of your organization really wants to build stuff. “Oftentimes you just need to bring them together and you need to give them the freedom to do so.”

Tune in to learn:

• Why guardrails in AI innovation are so important
• Why leaders have a unique opportunity to be pioneers right now
• Why you don’t need to fear “the singularity”

Join us for a fascinating conversation about the present–and future–of AI.

In this episode:

1:35 – Introduction: Travis Hoppe

2:53 – What is AI?

9:25 – Algorithms: A Brief Review

13:05 – How Should Leaders Think About AI?

18:40 – AI Guidance for Teams and Businesses

28:00 – AI in Practice

32:40 – Lightning Round

Travis Hoppe profiles:

• @metasemantic on X
• LinkedIn
• Google Scholar

The Pile

Memorandum M-24-10 (listed under “Memoranda 2024”)

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• 4 Ways to Encourage a Healthy Failure Culture
• The Power of Imagination in Planning
• 7 Ways to Prepare Leaders for Disruption
• 5 Advantages of Becoming a Digitally Literate Change Leader
• 5 Ways to Help Manage Your Team’s Change Exhaustion
• AI-Powered Talent Retention
• Women and AI

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

How do other people see you?

In a world where there’s more noise than ever before, many of us have lost our ability to communicate with empathy, says Stacey Hanke, executive mentor and author of Influence Elevated: Maximizing Your Connection Monday to Monday. In this conversation with Daniel and Peter, Stacey shares her insights about how leaders can learn–or relearn–how to connect with consistency across platforms and maximize their influence.

“Every conversation is your opportunity to practice something,” says Stacey. Whether it’s improving meetings, asking for feedback, or even watching a recorded meeting to critique their own screen presence, leaders should increase their focus on how others perceive them to maximize their influence on their teams and across their organizations.

Tune in to learn:

• Three practical tips to improve remote meetings
• Two ways for leaders to coach their team members
• One valuable technique that can improve a leader’s influence

Join us for this practical and insightful discussion.

In this episode:

1:40 – Introduction: Stacey Hanke

2:24 – Elevating Your Ability to Influence

10:38 – What Leaders Need to Be Influential Today

16:50 – Practical Tips to Strengthen Influence on Remote Teams

20:34 – Guidance for Coaching Team Members

32:05 – Lightning Round

Stacey Hanke’s Website

Influence Elevated: Maximizing Your Connection Monday to Monday

Stacey Hanke Amazon Author Page

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• Ask This One Question to Evaluate Your Leadership Skills
• 3 Simple Words to Receive Actionable Feedback from Your Associates
• You Do Need an Ego! But How Much?
• Six Secrets to Your Leadership Growth
• 4 Ways to Encourage a Growth Mindset Culture
• 4 Ways to Prime Your Brain to Receive Feedback
• 10 Tips for Effective Video Meetings
• 5 Characteristics of Leaders Who Show Up With Authority
• 6 Tips for Improving Your Active Listening Skills
• The T

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

“We don't spend a lot of time thinking about how we breathe. We just do it,” says Jamie Flinchbaugh. “But then we find out, whether we're training for sports or meditation or other things, that there's more to learn about breathing. And when we are thoughtful about it, we can do it better, more usefully.”

Solving problems as a leader is similar to breathing, says Flinchbaugh. Leaders take it for granted that they can solve problems in the usual way. They’re often on autopilot, and they forget to think about their roles–and the roles of others around them–in solving problems, which can lead to a “cascade of errors.”

Jamie Flinchbaugh is author of the book People Solve Problems and the host of a podcast by the same name. He acts as a trusted advisor and thought partner for leaders through his firm, JFlinch. Jamie joins Daniel and Peter on this episode of The Leadership Growth Podcast to talk about how leaders solve problems, some of the mistakes they can make, and how they can improve.

Tune in to learn:

• The three roles of leaders as they solve problems
• The importance of curiosity and uncomfortable learning in problem-solving
• Why designing for optimal circumstances is a bad strategy for problem-solving

Join us for this practical and insightful discussion.

In this episode:

0:55 – Introduction: Jamie Flinchbaugh

1:44 – What Do Leaders Get Wrong?

6:23 – Leader Role #1: System Architect

17:44 – Leader Role #2: Culture Builder

31:46 – Leader Role #3: Shaper

36:56 – Lightning Round

Jamie Flinchbaugh’s Website

People Solve Problems Podcast

People Solve Problems book on Amazon.com

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• How to Prioritize Your Work
• The Difference Between Important and Urgent
• The 10 Tenets of Calendar Management
• The Accountability Scale
• Four Keys to Creating Accountability
• 4 Ways to Encourage a Growth Mindset Culture
• You Do Need an Ego! But How Much?

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

“Imagine if Amazon was inefficient,” says Garrett Delph, Founder and CEO of Clarity Ops.

An inefficient Amazon would never reign in the very area that allowed it to disrupt the marketplace–that is, rapid, low-cost product delivery.

Operational inefficiencies are organizational kryptonite, says Delph in this conversation with Daniel and Peter. Garrett Delph is a serial entrepreneur who has founded three businesses, collectively generating over $40 million in revenue. Today, Garrett is an operating partner to business executive leadership in need of transformative solutions that extend business lifetime value, increase company profits, and improve employee well-being.

Tune in to learn:

• How the four types of leaders contribute to operational success
• The most underrated tool to build a lasting business
• What Formula 1, icebergs, and architecture have to do with operational success

With wit, insight, and clear analogies, Garrett shares his own journeys and lessons learned and offers clarity for business leaders caught in operational chaos.

In this episode:

1:35 – Introduction: Garrett Delph

2:40 – Topic: Achieving Operational Success as a Leader

6:40 – The Dangers of Inefficiencies

13:10 – Sea of Chaos?

18:10 – Architecting Order

22:06 – The QuadCore Management Framework

31:26 – Lightning Round

Clarity Ops Website

Garrett Delph LinkedIn

Formula 1: Drive to Survive

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• Start Training on These 6 Essential Skills for Managers
• The 7 Critical Vital Signs of Organizational Health
• How to Identify and Develop a Core Process
• Taking a SPIN: A Simple Way to Serve Your Customers Better
• 5 Questions to Help With Your Process Flow Analysis
• 6 Ways to Drive Employee Retention

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

“Empathy is not being soft,” says Jevon Wooden, CEO of BrightMind Consulting Group and today’s guest on The Leadership Growth Podcast.

Jevon is a sought-after keynote speaker, coach, and consultant specializing in empathetic leadership. His proven strategies have been featured in major publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine.

In this episode, Daniel, Peter, and Jevon discuss in detail the role of empathy in leadership–and why, as Jevon says, empathy is key to managing any situation.

Tune in to learn:

• The difference between being empathetic and having empathy
• The role of humility in being an empathetic leader
• How people leaders can better understand technical leaders

Bring empathy to your leadership with Jevon’s insights and tips, and watch engagement and results improve.

In this episode:

1:21 – Introduction: Jevon Wooden

9:22 – Empathy as a Skill

17:40 – Improving Business Results and People Results with Empathy

24:52 – Misusing Empathy?

30:15 – Lightning Round

BrightMind Consulting Group

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• 4 Ways to Prime Your Brain to Receive Feedback
• Five Behaviors to Help Develop Your Emotional Intelligence
• 6 Ways to Regulate Your Emotions for Leadership Effectiveness
• 10 Questions to Help You Manage Up
• 5 Executive Presence “Superpowers” of Quiet Leaders
• 6 Keys to Working Well With Your Employees

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

When it comes to accountability, the traditional approach has put leaders in charge of holding others accountable. Often this approach translates into a fear-based, command-and-control, “I have the authority, and I’m going to tell you what to do” approach to accountability.

But does this approach work in the modern workplace? (And, we might ask, did it ever work?)

In this episode, Daniel and Peter dive into the myth of accountability–the idea that leaders must hold their people accountable. This myth often leads to micromanaging, conflict, and a kind of “parent-child” approach to leadership.

Daniel and Peter suggest a better path–one that encourages a culture of self-accountability where teams work together in a partnership to deliver results.

Tune in to learn:

• What the CMC model of accountability is–and why it works
• How to encourage self-accountability as a leader
• What to do if your team resists an approach of self-accountability

Plus, some thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, including a big announcement! And remembering leadership lessons on VHS (that’s “Video Home System” for those of you under 40).

In this episode:

1:30 – Insight of the Week: Artificial Intelligence

8:52 – Memory Lane: Leadership Lessons on Video–Before YouTube!

14:20 – Topic: The Myth of Accountability

33:46 – Lightning Round

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• Ask a Coach: How do I hold others accountable? (Video)
• Leadership Lesson: Employees are Like Turtles
• The Accountability Scale
• Four Keys to Creating Accountability
• 4 Ways to Create Layers of Accountability in a Virtual Environment
• How to Delegate Like a Pro
• Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Our Brains on Feedback
• Matching Managerial Oversight to Employee Competence
• 3 Ways to Avoid Being a Micromanager

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

Are you “all that and a bag of chips”?

We all need an ego. As Peter says, ego serves a function.

But too much ego might translate into steamrolling over others. And too little ego can mean withdrawing and allowing others to steamroll over you.

There’s a good balance between being secure in your own voice without stomping out the voice of others. Good ego management is really intentional humility.

In this episode, Peter and Daniel take a deep dive into ego management–why it’s important, how to bounce back from hits to our egos, and why too little ego can be just as much a problem as too much.

Tune in to learn:

• The “antidote” to ego
• The one thing to keep in mind for ego management
• The value of “safe places” in managing ego

Plus, how feedback has changed–and how it hasn’t–through the decades, and the balance between glory and work.

In this episode:

2:42 – Memory Lane: Feedback Tools Through the Generations

5:58 – Insight of the Week

13:18 – Topic: Ego Management

32:47 – Lightning Round

Resources:

Freakonomics Podcast Episode 592: How to Make the Coolest Show on Broadway

Gallup Q12 Engagement Survey

Stewart Leadership Insights and Resources:

• Lobsters and Egos
• The Lobster and the Ego (Video)
• Big Bear, Little Ego
• You Do Need an Ego! But How Much?
• Leadership: It’s Not About You Anymore

If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or, better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show, and remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

For more great content or to learn about how Stewart Leadership can help you grow your ability to lead effectively, please visit stewartleadership.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.