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Sponsored By: The International Leadership Association

Featured Guest:

Pauline Koelbl

Surviving life as a refugee is one thing.  To turn that life into a mission to empower other women is quite another.

That’s exactly what Pauline Koelbl did.  Escaping the war in Rwanda, she found herself a homeless refugee.  Eventually, Pauline found a home in Tucson, Arizona.  More importantly, she found mentoring and support there – and now “pays it forward” as the founder and managing director of ShEquity, and investment firm providing capital and other resources to women-led and -owned businesses in Africa.  Women are the key to unlocking economic success on the continent; they operate over 40% of small and medium sized enterprises.  What’s more, they reinvest about 90% of their revenue in sectors and activities that benefit their families and communities – men only reinvest 40%.  That’s one of many reasons the McKinsey Global Institute estimates the global GDP would increase by $28 trillion if we simply closed the business gender gap!

Pauline shares her compelling story of refugee-turned-entrepreneur focused on female empowerment with host Maureen Metcalf.

Here’s what Pauline and Maureen cover:

• How closing the gender gap in the workforce potentially adds $28 trillion to the global GDP;
• Why, despite the stereotypes, refugees bring with them vast amounts of intellectual capital host countries tend to waste; and
• Why women are the key to African (and other) nations fully realizing their economic potential.

Sponsored By: The International Leadership Association

Featured Guests:

Nadia Younes, Gamiel Yafai, & Louise Carvalho

Slow as molasses.  That’s one way to describe how leaders have responded to the rapidly changing workplace.  The work environment was already changing before the COVID pandemic; now, there’s no going back to the old “industrial” model.  It doesn’t meet rapidly evolving employee expectations nor the major shifts in workforce demographics.  That, in turn, means the Great Resignation should have come as no surprise at all!

The new, effective workplace models all embrace DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  Inclusive business cultures hold many advantages for staff, leaders, and profitability.  From morale to a broader pool of leaders, the benefits are impactful.

How does it work?  Nadia Younes, Louise Carvalho, and Gamiel Yafai use CERN, Europe’s particle physics research center, as a launching point to explore inclusiveness with host Maureen Metcalf.

Here’s what Nadia, Gamiel, & Louise cover:

• While Gen Z gets all the press, leaders must learn how to juggle the wants and needs of five different generations overlapping in the same workplace;
• Why – despite the old-school wishes of CEOs like Tim Cook, Bob Iger, and Elon Musk – workers and the workplace have changed forever; and
• With the decline in church attendance and other traditional social arenas, how the workplace has become most people’s place of “community.”

Sponsored By: The International Leadership Association

Featured Guest:

John Antonakis

Power does tend to corrupt.  Especially the more testosterone is added to the mix.

That’s just one finding that the scientific study of leadership has revealed.  Yet, despite the legions of leadership consultants plying their theories, very little research in the field has been conducted with scientific rigor.  Even science basics, such as control groups and identifying variables, are missing.  That punches big holes in many leading leadership philosophies and best-selling books; they look at what top-performing companies have in common…but don’t check to see if the worst performing companies have those same things in common, too!

Enter John Antonakis.  A professor of organizational behavior, and the editor-in-chief of The Leadership Quarterly, John applies the scientific model to studies of leadership qualities, with a particular interest in charisma.  He’ll talk about power, hormones, and his AI charismometer in this episode.

Here’s what John and Maureen cover:

• Why the lack of truly scientific studies of leadership makes it difficult to tease out what really forges a good (even great) leader;
• How testosterone in a leader increases their likelihood of corruption; and
• That most traits of truly great leaders can be learned – you don’t have to be born with them!

Sponsored By: The International Leadership Association

Featured Guest:

Jonathan Reams

Leadership is nothing without thought — and research shows we (literally!) think with our hearts as well as our minds.  Neurocardiology is just one way we’re learning about how a good leader thinks.  The development of more robust thinking skills is vital in growing as a leader.  Jonathan Reams, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, discusses the mindsets required for leaders to be effective.

Here’s what Jonathan and Maureen cover:

1. What the science of neurocardiology shows about how a leaders’ emotions physically affect their teams;
2. How the fall of Superman and rise of The Avengers in popular culture reflects the change in leadership the real world needs; and
3. The thinking tools we need in a knowledge economy.

Guest: Jacob Morgan

There has been a lot written about leadership for the present day, but the world is changing quickly. What worked in the past won’t work in the future – so how do we prepare leaders who can successfully navigate and guide us through the next decade and beyond?

What’s required of leaders, even the types of leaders we need, is in flux. So what can a struggling leader do now?

Jacob Morgan wondered as well, so he interviewed over 140 CEOs, then partnered with LinkedIn to survey almost 14,000 of their members around the globe to see how those CEO insights aligned with employee perspectives. He uncovered some fascinating insights, and shares them in this episode.

Here’s what Jacob and Maureen cover:

• The undeniable reality that pre-pandemic leadership isn’t going to cut it in this post-pandemic decade;
• Why these changes are happening; and
• The four mindsets and five behaviors to develop as a leader for tomorrow.

Guest: Cameron Stockdale

Can a four-day workweek be just as productive – even more productive – than a five-day workweek?

The answer is an unquestionable “yes!” Cameron Stockdale talks about this and other workplace wellness initiatives with host Maureen Metcalf in this episode. Cameron is the CEO of the Work Wellness Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia. They’ve experimented with many different ways of improving employee wellness, with sometimes surprising results! For example, the staff overwhelmingly prefer taking walks outdoors over chillaxing indoors on yoga mats during their regular 17-minute breaks.

What would work in your workplace? Listen in to find out!

Here’s what Cameron and Maureen cover:

1. How giving employees the tools for wellness is more effective than dumping money into the most expensive wellness programs;
2. Why it’s important to normalize our view of mental health to the same view we have of physical health; and
3. Uncovering the myth of the 8-hour workday (because in a “normal” office, your people only really work 2 hours and 59 minutes a day!).

Produced with support from the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

• Finding Meaning, Joy, & Purpose in What You Do with Paul Gibbons
• The Human Energy Crisis at Work with Joshua Freedman
• The Dogged Pursuit of Pet-Friendly Workplaces with Lisa Campbell

Season 7 Episode 41

Guest: Howard Tiersky

Digital is at the center of most adults’ lifestyles worldwide—and it’s here to stay (In fact, roughly 1/3 of people surveyed said they’d give up sex instead of their smartphone!). That has disrupted and changed the customer relationship. Customers today expect the brands they deal with to deliver outstanding and seamless digital experiences. If your brand is failing to thrive, odds are you’re ignoring the marketplace changes digital has wrought. You must take what is core to your value proposition and adapt it, perhaps significantly, for a world filled with digital customers. That will require flexible and innovative leaders whose companies can turn on a dime. Howard Tiersky joins Maureen to discuss the methods for accomplishing this outlined in his new book, Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance, as well as his experiences assisting large organizations grow from their analog past.

Featured Guest: Ruchira Chaudhary

Something was wrong with the company.

Working for a large corporation in Singapore, Ruchira Chaudhary realized there were too many issues blocking a thriving work environment…and it all stemmed from poor leadership.  Now an international executive coach and author of Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership, Ruchira joins us to reveal how coaching is more than a nice skill for leaders – it’s the secret sauce of truly extraordinary leadership.

Coaching is more important today than ever before: our turbulent times require leaders that empower, elevate and enable. They must build trust, resilience, and admit mistakes. And they must recognize that each team member requires different coaching: understanding this could actually help close the workplace gap between men and women, for example.  Ruchira points out that coaching is no longer a “nice to have” aspect of leadership – it is absolutely essential, and you simply cannot be a good leader without being a good coach!

Guest: Heather Krentler

Employees want to be heard. They want to know their employer wants the best for them. Continental Services heard – and worked hard to innovate their company culture to fully focus on the employee journey.  Heather Krentler, Continental’s chief administrative officer, joins host Maureen Metcalf to explore Continental’s employee-led culture and how it came to be; the changes made not just to engagement, but sourcing the best talent in the first place; and how leaders embraced the new employee-centric culture.  The results have been remarkable: a happy staff really does lead to a pleasant bottom line!

Here’s what Heather and Maureen cover:

• How part of the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting stem from people – your staff – asserting more control over their lives;
• Why compensation doesn’t cut it as the only benefit to retain a valuable employee; and
• Why the best ideas tend to come from the front line, not the back office.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

• What Your Team REALLY Thinks…in Real Time – with Greg Moran
• Leading with Care in a Tough World – with Bob DeKoch & Phil Clampitt
• Joy at Work! – with Roxanne Brown & Edward Cook

Season 6 Episode 49

Guest: Brian Ferguson

The COVID pandemic has elevated a long-overlooked narrative: we ask A LOT of the nurses, doctors, and frontline medical staff who shepherd our communities in times of public health crisis. And while they are required to step into unknown, high-pressure + high-stress work, we do not equip them with the same tools for resilience and recovery that we do for professional athletes and elite military units. Brian Ferguson joins the show to discuss how Arena Labs is focused on pioneering what they call “High Performance Medicine” in order to bring those same tools, training, and technology to frontline medical teams.