Coaching For Leaders

Dave speaks with Brooks Bradford, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how he got intentional about motivating people – and himself – towards an important vision. Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy will close on Friday, March 14, 2025. Visit the Academy page for details and to apply.

Donna Hicks: Leading with Dignity Donna Hicks is an Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the former Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR). She has facilitated dialogues in numerous unofficial diplomatic efforts and was a consultant to the BBC in Northern Ireland, where she co-facilitated a television series, Facing the Truth, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She is the author of Dignity: It’s Essential Role in Resolving Conflict and Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People*. Everyone wants to be treated in a way that shows they matter. We may differ in status, but we are all equal in dignity. In this episode, Donna and I explore how appreciating dignity can help us bring out the best in people. Key Points Everyone wants to be treated in a way that shows they matter. Dignity is different than respect. Everyone has dignity, but not everyone deserves respect. A major

Dave speaks with Nanette Metzger, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how she helped her team start bringing solutions to new problems. Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy will close on March 14, 2025. Visit the Academy page for details and to apply.

Dave speaks with Hayley Park, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how she got to altitude for better perspective on what's happening in the organization. Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy will close on March 14, 2025. Visit the Academy page for details and to apply.

Melody Wilding: Managing Up Melody Wilding is an executive and leadership coach for smart, sensitive high-achievers who are tired of getting in their own way. She teaches human behavior at Hunter College and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider, who named her one the “most innovative coaches.” She is the author of Managing Up: How To Get What You Need from the People in Charge*. Good work speaks for itself. It’s a lie many of us have wished was true, but found that there’s actually much more work involved. In this conversation, Melody and I discuss what really helps in creating more visibility. Key Points Good work does not speak for itself. Our fear of appearing self-promotional can hinder the visibility conversations that our leaders and team need from us. A story will be told about your work. By having stories that you are ready to tell, you get to shape the narrative. Instead of listing what you’ve done, highlight what you want to be known for. Give

Dave speaks with Raj Bawa, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how he focused his attention on creating better relationships with peer executives. Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy open on March 7, 2025. Visit the Academy page to receive an invitation to apply.

Rebecca Homkes: Survive, Reset, Thrive Rebecca Homkes is a high-growth strategy specialist and CEO and executive advisor. She is a Lecturer at the London Business School, Faculty at Duke Corporate Executive Education, and Advisor and Faculty at the Boston Consulting Group focused on AI and Climate and Sustainability. She is the author of Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times*. Uncertainty seems to be more and more the norm. Sometimes, that leads an organization into survival mode. If that’s where you are now, this conversation is the roadmap for what to do next. Key Points We default to the assumption that uncertainly is unequivocally bad. Executives are often overconfident in their ability to predict the future and get tied into patterns that reward following the plan. We tend to adopt the first explanation we hear that makes sense instead of examining our beliefs. Make good decisions even when you cannot make good predictions. Avoid attempting to predict

Jess Britt Jess Britt is an experienced executive and nonprofit board chair. Today as a coach and consultant, she uses a facilitative leadership approach to empower leaders and teams to build collaborative, high-performing, data-driven workplace cultures. She’s an alum of our Academy and for the past two years, has taken a leadership role inside our community as a Coaching for Leaders fellow, providing coaching and facilitation to our members. While some leaders love to hate meetings, a well-designed meeting can open huge opportunities to connect, engage, and build culture on a team. In this conversation, Jess and I zero in on simple tactics that will help you engage attendees and lead meetings that people actually enjoy. We explore how objectives, facilitation tactics, and adult learning principles can help and invite you to start with one. Key Points Identifying both shared and non-shared objectives helps you design meetings, informs how you show up, makes meetings less frustrating, and helps you pivot.

Margie Warrell: The Courage Gap Margie Warrell is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, leadership coach, and Forbes columnist. With twenty-five years of experience living and working around the world, she has dedicated her life to helping others overcome fear and unlock their potential. She is the author of The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action*. Whether it’s painting a vision of the future or giving feedback on something that didn’t work yesterday, courage is a necessity for leaders. In this episode, Margie and I highlight the way towards just a bit more of it. Key Points Leaders may rise in the ranks because of what they do, but cap themselves because of who they are. The smarter we are, the more our fears work in the background. Beware discounting the future. Fear causes us to value the future less than the present. Reel in fearcasting worst-case scenarios. These can prevent us from seeing the benefits of action. Stop rationalizing inaction and excess caution. An excuse is always there t

Dave speaks with Irma Tragesser, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how she shifted her approach to get more and better insights from her team. Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy open on March 7, 2025. Visit the Academy page to receive an invitation to apply.

Ethan Kross: Shift Ethan Kross is the author of the national bestseller Chatter and one of the world’s leading experts on emotion regulation. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he is the Director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory. He's the author of the new book, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You*. Being a leader means that our emotions get triggered, often many times a day. While none of us can avoid those triggers, how we respond to them can make all the difference. In this conversation, Ethan and I explore his research on how to better manage our emotions. Key Points We often assume that approaching emotions is universally good and avoiding emotions is universally bad. Reality is much more nuanced. We can strategically use our senses to modulate our feelings. Music is a simple and powerful way to manage emotions proactively. Use playlists that align with the mood you wish to crea

Sandra Matz: Mindmasters Sandra Matz is a Columbia Business School professor, computational social scientist, and pioneering expert in psychological targeting. Her research uncovers the hidden relationships between our digital lives and our psychology with the goal of helping businesses and individuals make better decisions. She is the author of Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior*. Algorithms are becoming more influential with each passing day. That’s why leaders must understand their power and then decide how their organizations engage. In this conversation, Sandra and I discuss where psychological targeting is at, where it’s going, and the opportunity you have to make the world a bit better. Key Points Everyone knows everything in a small town (for better or worse). In the same way, psychological targeting can used for both evil and good. Psychological targeting already is successful at identifying wealth, personality, income level, and sexual orientation –

Alison Wood Brooks: Talk Alison Wood Brooks is the O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School, where she created and teaches a course called TALK. As a behavioral scientist, she is a leading expert on the science of conversation and her research was referenced in two of the top ten most-viewed TED talks and depicted in Pixar’s Inside Out 2. She is the author of Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves*. Conversations are the venues where leaders do so much of their work. We all know someone who always can keep a conversation interesting and relevant. In this episode, Alison and I discuss how a key tactic can help you towards more meaningful conversations. Key Points Healthy relationships are critical for success, and relationships are about talking. Good conversation is both instinct and deliberate effort. Preparing topics in advance improves conversation immensely. Topics for conversation can be sourced from

Adam Galinsky: Inspire Adam Galinsky is the Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the Columbia Business School. He co-authored the book Friend & Foe and his TED talk, How to Speak Up for Yourself, is one of the most popular of all time with over 7 million views. He's the author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. Leaders can delegate many things, but vision is not one of them. Most every leader needs to be able to articulate the future. In this conversation, Adam and I explore the building blocks to get better at inspiring others. Key Points Every leader has the potential to be inspiring. We can choose to get better. Whatever a leader says, either positive or negative, will be amplified. When values are brought front and center, they inspire behavior that creates a better future. Inspiring leaders offer a big picture, optimistic view of the future. Make visions simple and vivid. Simplicity is the key to ince

Sunita Sah: Defy Sunita Sah is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology, leading groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. A trained physician, her research and analyses have been widely published in leading academic journals and media entities including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harvard Business Review, and Scientific American. She is the author of Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes*. We often think of defiance as a snap judgement. Yet, it’s so much more nuanced and purposeful than it often appears. In this conversation, Sunita and I explore the common patterns of defiance and how we can all do a better job of standing up for ourselves. Key Points We follow bad advice – even when we know it is obviously bad – to avoid appearing unhelpful. Defiance means acting in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise. True defiance is not a snap judgement; it’s a process.

Bonni Stachowiak: Teaching in Higher Ed Bonni is the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Dean of Teaching and Learning and Professor of Business and Management at Vanguard University, and my life partner. Prior to her academic career, she was a human resources consultant and executive officer for a publicly traded company. Bonni is the author of The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide*. Listener Questions Josh asked about helpful practices for setting chat groups in the workplace, especially for remote workers. Lily was curious about the best way to structure a first session of a new innovation group and also how to help people engage. Nicole wondered how she might navigate a situation with a particular donor who is asking for more support than is typical. Resources Mentioned The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters* by Priya Parker The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable* by Patrick Lencioni Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof Related

Jennifer Garvey Berger: Changing on the Job Jennifer Garvey Berger is cofounder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, a consultancy that serves executives and teams in the private, non-profit, and government sectors. Her clients include Google, Microsoft, Novartis, Wikipedia, and Oxfam International. She is the author of four leadership books, including now in it’s second edition, Changing on the Job: How Leaders Become Courageous, Wise, and Steady in an Anxious World*. We often think about feedback as something we give to someone else. What if, in addition to that, feedback is an opportunity for both parties to learn and grow. In this conversation, Jennifer and I explore how this can open a door to some of the best leadership work we do. Key Points If we view feedback as only giving our truth to someone else, we’ve missed a huge opportunity for growth. Start by separating what happened from the interpretation of what happened. Asking Get curious about your own response: what made you react so strongly?

Anne Chow: Lead Bigger Anne Chow was the CEO of AT&T Business and the first woman of color CEO in AT&T’s 140+ year history, responsible for leading a $35B global operating unit of over 35,000 people. She was named to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business twice and today serves on a number of boards, including FranklinCovey, 3M, and CSX. She is the author of Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion. We all know the importance of values, but it’s often hard to know where to begin when clarifying them with a team. In this conversation, Anne and I explore how to align on values that support a great culture and move towards a vision. Key Points Values and ideologies are distinct. Leading bigger means honoring diverse ideologies while aligning on core values. Bigger leaders have the courage to admit and cite situations where they fall short. When asking people to craft values, invite them to start by individually considering their personal values. When discussing values as a group, highlight

Karthik Ramanna: The Age of Outrage Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, where he has served as director of one of the world’s most diverse leadership programs. Previously a professor at Harvard Business School, he studies how organizations and leaders build trust with stakeholders. He is the author of The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World. In a lot of ways, leadership is better than it was a generation ago. One way that it isn’t better? Figuring out how to lead effectively in an increasingly polarized world. In this conversation, Karthik and I explore what leaders can do to turn down the temperature on outrage. Key Points We tend to frame effective leadership as heroic. In times of outrage, the virtue of temperance becomes essential. A leader will never fully address the demands made of them, regardless of how well they act. Even when a leader resolves problems, they will be viewed as part of the problem.

David De Cremer: The AI-Savvy Leader David De Cremer is the Dunton Family Dean of the D'Amore-McKim School of Business and professor of management and technology at Northeastern University. He's also an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University and an affiliated researcher at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT. His newest book is titled The AI-Savvy Leader: Nine Ways to Take Back Control and Make AI Work*. We’ve all heard the warnings that AI is going to take our jobs. That’s certainly a possibly in the long-term, but the story emerging, at least for now, is looking a little different. In this episode, David and I discuss how leaders can use AI to augment, not replace, human intelligence. Key Points AI is substantially different than prior digital transformations, and adoption efforts are failing at alarming rates. Instead of leading, too often leaders are being too deferential to data and analytics teams. Your expertise is exactly what your o