Archives

Featured Guest: Raj Subrameyer

Raj Subrameyer knows about toxic leadership first-hand: HE was a toxic leader. Fortunately, Raj learned before it was too late that the toxins affect the leaders just as much as their teams. Anxiety, depression, anger, sleeplessness, illness…they all mount up. In this episode, Raj talks about his former leadership style, and his subsequent journey to a better work life. In the process, he reveals lessons on personal branding. It’s not unrelated — the more comfortable you are with yourself, the more comfortable your team becomes in working with you.

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 Superpowers, Reid joins host Maureen Metcalf to identify the powers we’re all born with…and to provide some basic tools to reactivate them so you can achieve your full potential, personally and as a leader.  And when you do that, you’ll help the people around you achieve their potential, too!

Featured Guest: George Limbert

“Character is what you do.”

That’s a fundamental leadership principle for George Limbert, president of Red Roof.  This is our second visit with George since he began his leadership journey as a first-time corporate president last summer.  Red Roof has prospered under his guidance, proving the value of his philosophies.  Character sits at their core.

A focus on character led to many innovations at Red Roof, including their Women’s Center for Excellence and Women in Leadership programs to help level the gender playing field, particularly in the lodging industry.

To keep character objectively defined, and his actions with character exemplary for his team, George looks at himself and his team through the lens of judicial temperament.  It’s a non-biased way of looking at a situation from all sides to determine its core truth; it comes naturally to George, whose legal background goes beyond law school with deep roots in family: his father is a judge, and a brother and sister are also attorneys.

George shares the many ways any good leader can display character, calmly analyze corporate storms, and deal with other real life ups and downs of leadership with host Maureen Metcalf.  Join us for this episode filled with practical examples from Red Roof.

Featured Guest: Rachael Kelly

Every business has its ups and downs. But when trauma hits, the worst thing to do is ignore it. The best: tend to your people! Rachael Kelly watched the effects of COVID quarantine rapidly cascade through the restaurant industry…including at her organization: Smokey Bones. As a restaurant chain, the quarantine hit Smokey Bones hard — and almost instantly. That, in turn, created serious issues for servers and other restaurant staff. Rachael joins host Maureen Metcalf to reveal how they dealt with the cascading trauma…and, more importantly, how they turned it into an opportunity to improve their team environment and emerge even stronger. In fact, Smokey Bones holds multi-year certifications as a Great Place to Work.

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…for everyone from front line staff to the board of directors.  This isn’t academic theory; Kaissi studied real-world leaders from Napoleon Bonaparte to New Zealand’s acclaimed Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.  While narcissists sometimes do make it to the top, they’re the exception, and their actual performance (as opposed to their PR) tends to be less than stellar.

Fortune favors not simply the bold, but the humbitious!

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Mental Toughness: How to Embrace Stress for Greater Success

– Career Sponsorship – And Being Sponsor-Ready

– Informed Leadership: The Power of Trauma

Featured Guest: Darren Chait

There’s one simple truth most working adults realize in their first job:  meetings stink.  Darren Chait is no exception.  While he was an attorney, he recoiled at how inefficient and archaic lawyers’ meetings are…then he had sticker shock when he saw the invoices and realized clients pay for that slow-paced inefficiency!  That put him on the path to finding a better way for meeting.  The result:  Hugo, an online app that changes the way we think about meetings.

On the way, Darren learned that leadership in a fast-growth startup is very different than what the textbooks say. He joins Maureen to share what he’s learned on the journey about leadership, how collaboration is changing, modern team dynamics, shared consciousness, direction versus support, and when to make leader problems team problems.

Season 7 Episode 32

Guest: Jared Graybeal

In The Self Help Book: 6 Practical Ways to Never Stop Growing, author and coach Jared Graybeal outlines six practical ways to live a life of constant growth while avoiding stagnation or burnout:

Confidence
Competence
Clarity
Character
Connections and
Commitment.

This short, insightful guide is filled with inspiration and encouragement, and is designed to give you the perspective that works for your unique goals, no matter what’s going on in your life. Jared applied these principles to his own life.  He joins Maureen to discuss the book, and how listeners can re-energize, so they never stop growing.

Featured Guest: Paul Gibbons

Conversations about meaning and purpose at work are very old and very new.  Spirituality provides a lens for those discussions — a lens that is effective regardless of your team’s religious preferences.  From evangelical to atheist, a sense of mission and meaning are critical to well-being.  Workplace spirituality helps us understand the issues underlying personal meaning in the workplace:  fulfillment, engagement, purpose, leadership and more. However, it also increases worries about values conflicts and how well organizations handle that.  There are many ways to help the process go smoothly.  40-year career veteran Paul Gibbons joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss the spirituality of work and leadership for leaders and organizations.

Guest: James Brenza

By their very nature, emerging industries (such as EVs, private spaceships, and cannabis) present unique leadership challenges – and opportunities – rarely encountered in long-established businesses.  In addition to general entrepreneurism, you’re creating something new for the marketplace…and forging the team to shepherd it.

Emerging industries often lend a new twist on old businesses: they allow the opportunity to relook at established practices, sparking innovation in the business sector. James Brenza joins the show to discuss his venture into an emerging industry — and how that provided him with new challenges as well as the possibilities of new solutions.

Here’s what James and Maureen cover:

• How disruptions in your personal life can spark your drive into new kinds of business;
• Ways to navigate the uncertainty of cutting-edge industries when legislation isn’t consistent across the country; and
• Why standards and technology remain vital components in emerging industries.

Season 7 Episode 39

Guest: Dr. Jim Ritchie-Dunham

We all have agreements.  Some are overt, such as agreeing to make monthly payments when you get a mortgage to buy a house.  And some are unconscious, like the agreement in sports that everyone on your team will work toward winning against the other team.

We all have two ways of responding to those agreements. You have a Yes! response that aligns your purpose and unique contributions with the impact you can generate and the experience you can have.  It’s yours to choose.  Your Yes! always generates net-positive value and your No! always generates net-negative value—your choice.  Jim Ritchie-Dunham joins Maureen to explain the science behind our Yes!