Leader ReadyCast: Recent Episodes
Eric J. McNulty
A monthly podcast featuring real-world lessons, best practices, and action-oriented insights for the “You’re It” moments when you are called to lead. Each concise episode features insights from frontline leaders and the faculty of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI), a joint program of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. About the Host Eric J. McNulty is the Associate Director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. He researches, writes about, and teaches leadership, crisis leadership, conflict resolution, and negotiation in graduate and executive education at Harvard and other institutions. He is a regular speaker at conferences and corporate events. McNulty is co-author of You’re It: The Pivot from Everyday to Crisis Leadership (forthcoming), Renegotiating Healthcare: Resolving Conflict to Build Collaboration, and author of numerous articles. He is a contributing editor to strategy+business magazine and past contributing editor at Harvard Business Publishing. McNulty holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an M.A. in Leadership from Lesley University.
Chloe Demrovsky, President and CEO of Disaster Recovery Institute. DRI is the oldest and largest nonprofit that helps organizations around the world prepare for and recover from disasters by providing education, accreditation, and thought leadership in business continuity, disaster recovery, cyber resilience and related fields. We discuss what happened in 2020 and what we can look forward to in 2021.
In this interview with Nancy Halpern, an expert in leading with what she calls “political IQ,” we explore how leaders can foster a politically healthy workplace. This discussion covers how to avoid micromanaging, creating opportunities for cross-boundary connections, and understanding how to work with people who resist change.
This episode explores resilience with guest is Shannon Huffman Polson. Huffman Polson has persevered through personal and professional adversity to develop a deep understanding of what it takes to stay strong through turbulence and change. She has climbed mountains, trekked the Artic on a personal journey of grief, and was among the Army’s first Apache attack helicopter pilots. She’s a triathlete and has been a corporate executive. In this interview she shares her insights as well as those of a range of female leaders she interviewed for her latest book, The Grit Factor.
While much of the focus these days is on the corona virus as well as the street protests, those with their eyes open are seeing an increase in cyber threats. And to help us understand what’s going on and what leaders can do about it, Keyaan Williams the founder and managing director of Cyber Leadership and Strategy Solutions, joins us to discuss this issue.
Recognizing cognitive bias and understanding other insights from brain science in order to get smarter than your brain. Michelle and Danielle have used that same underlying science to work with leaders in our homes, schools and communities. Michelle Palladini is a detective and school resource officer for a Massachusetts police department, as well as a yoga and mindfulness teacher. Danielle Peter is a founder and education director of Pathways to Empower.
Coronavirus mini-cast version of Leader ReadyCast: Just-in-time COVID-19 leadership lessons. In his new book, best-selling author Dan Heath explores how to solve problems before they start–what he calls moving “upstream.” It is complex, difficult work though essential as we confront crises and disasters that are increasingly difficult and expensive to manage through response. Leaders need to put increasing emphasis on prevention, preparedness, and recovery in order to build more resilient, less response-dependent environments.
Michelle is founder of the Neighborhood Admins Resilience Network, a network of hyper-local Facebook Groups supporting community preparedness, response, and resilience. Michelle discusses the challenges and opportunities of “bottom up” leadership during the COVID-19 response.
Coronavirus mini-cast version of Leader ReadyCast: Just-in-time COVID-19 leadership lessons with Greg Ciottone, Medical Preparedness Director, NPLI and Division of Disaster Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he works clinically in the Department of Emergency Medicine. He’s known around the world as an expert in disaster and crisis medicine.
Suzanne shares with us the stories she has been collecting for several years of disaster heroes around the country.
The world is in the midst of a highly volatile situation with a Corona outbreak. Each day brings a new twist in the story as a leader. What does it take to communicate effectively right now? Gilman speaks with us about the four Fs principles to communicate in a crisis like this.
Sports venues are a truly complex environment in which to lead. You have a league and owners with a business to run. They want things to be safe but not through an obtrusive security presence that might seem unwelcoming to fans. Fans want to see a game and expect to roam freely about the stadium. Players are high-profile individuals; there are always VIPs in the house; and of course, you have a heavy media presence.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. When leading, particularly in the midst of crisis, your decisions are often how you are judged. You rarely have all of the information or time you’d like. Yet, when “you’re it,” you must decide. Given the importance of the ability to make decisions is to effectiveness when leading, it is odd that so few people are formally trained in the art and science of making the best possible decision in whatever circumstances you happen to find yourself.
Communicating well is a core competency for anyone leading others. You may be called upon to set direction, provide feedback, clarify a situation, or any of a hundred other challenges. Your ability to understand the communications need and fulfill it effectively may spell the difference between your success and failure.
Much of the attention around disaster leadership goes to response. However, a lot of what happens in response is shaped by the policy choices in mitigation, preparedness, and recovery. Alice Hill, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution where she focuses on potentially catastrophic global events such as climate change, speaks with us about leading from a policy standpoint.
The goal is laudable: save lives. And this is National Preparedness Month. In this episode we discuss the Stop the Bleed and other efforts to put tourniquets in the hands of the general public. Recent research, however, shows that it isn’t as easy as putting kits on the wall in public spaces. Training matters.
How do you work with the media in a crisis? This is one aspect that continually vexes practitioners. Lisa Hughes is part of WBZ-TV’s team coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings and was on the media bridge at the time of the explosions. She was one of the first journalists reporting from the scene and has covered just about every major news event in Boston over the past 19 years. Take a listen to what she has to say.
The spectacular July 4th Celebration with the Boston Pops is a tradition that began with Arthur Fiedler in 1929, and the greater Boston area has used events such as this as opportunities to train and learn. The high profile event draws crowds that swell to about a half-million people on the Charles River Esplanade with celebrants aligning parks and neighborhoods along both sides of the river. So how does the city and the MSP plan and prepare to keep everyone safe?
Today, in an instant, leaders can find themselves face-to-face with crisis. An active shooter. A media controversy. A data breach. This book takes you to the front lines of some of the toughest decisions facing our nations leaders. Leonard Marcus, founding Co-Director and Eric McNulty, Associate Director of the NPLI and two of the four authors, discuss the book, its’ fifteen years of research, and the pragmatic model and methods of Meta-Leadership.
Building a powerful culture on your team and in your organization can be tough, particularly in large institutions such as government agencies and legacy corporations. Yet there are steps that anyone can take that can make an enormous difference. Chief talent officer, Patty McCord at Netflix helped create the Netflix Culture Deck that has been viewed online more than 15 million times.
Universities are microcosms of the communities in which they reside and often present health, safety, and security issues as complex as those found in major urban areas. Darryl Darnell, Senior Associate Vice President for Safety & Security and Superintendent of Police at George Washington University and Kelly Nee, Chief of Police at Boston University discuss the issue with the NPLI.
Trucks ramming into crowds. Bombs in the marketplace. Active shooters in schools and workplaces. Passive and active security measures are ever more present. Violent extremism has become part of the fabric of our lives. In this podcast we discuss combating violent extremism with our guest, Farah Pandith. She’s going to share her thinking and counter-intuitive views on how we do that and give us a preview of her new book, How We Win.
Welcome to the latest episode Leader ReadyCast. This month, the NPLI marks its' 15th anniversary. In this episode we look back at the program’s greatest hits—and look forward at what is next to come. Our guests today are Dr. Leonard Marcus, founding co-director of the NPLI, and Rich Serino, a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the NPLI. Both have been with the program since the beginning; Dr. Marcus as one of the original faculty and Mr. Serino a participant of the NPLI Executive Education Program (EEP), Cohort I.
The NPLI now boasts more than 800 alumni from the NPLI EEP and thousands more have been trained in meta-leadership through other symposia and initiatives across the country and around the globe. Many of these individuals being trained by the NPLI are leading today's preparedness and response efforts.
Welcome to the latest episode Leader ReadyCast. I’m your host, Eric McNulty, and my guest today is Dr. Eric Goralnick. Dr. Goralnick is Medical Director of Emergency Preparedness, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School; and Instructor of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has also spoken to cohorts of the NPLI executive education program on his experiences in the Boston Marathon bombing response. He has developed deep expertise on the intersection of emergency medicine with disaster preparedness and response.
Today, we’re going to speak with Eric about building a culture of preparedness, educating the public—and the limits of relying upon the public in a response, and understanding the dynamics of active shooter and other mass casualty events.
Welcome to the latest edition of Leader ReadyCast. I am your host, Eric McNulty. My guest today is Dr. Murray Nossel and our topic is storytelling. One of the more frequent concerns that I hear from NPLI participants is that the media fails to “tell our story.” Whether in the aftermath of a human or manmade disaster, it seems that government responders are cast as inefficient, inept, and at times uncaring. That doesn’t reflect the people that I know and so when I saw Dr. Nossel’s book, Powered by Storytelling, I knew he would have valuable insights to share.
Dr. Nossel has been helping organizations craft and present stories for more than 30 years. His firm is Narativ (one R, no E) and its clients include everyone from The Walt Disney Company to UNICEF. He is an Oscar-nominated documentary film maker and a co-star of the storytelling performance, Two Men Talking that has been on stage in Edinburgh, London, and New York. He’s a fascinating individual with a lot to teach us about stories and why they are so important.
Brian Hastings, Director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency discusses his NPLI EEP team project on combating opioid addiction. The NPLI Executive Education Program team project has become an enduring initiative as he has transitioned from the military to leading a civilian agency.
Marcus Coleman, Jr., Acting Deputy Director of the DHS Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, shares his leadership experience, dispels false assumptions, and points to opportunities to increase the impact of these vital organizations through programs such as FEMA’s Voluntary Agency Liaisons.
In this episode of Leader ReadyCast we explore the evolving role of non-governmental organizations in disaster response with Jono Anzalone, Vice President for International Services at the American Red Cross. He shares his first-hand leadership experiences in both domestic and international response efforts. Anzalone is an alumnus of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative and was the recipient of our 2017 Meta-Leader of the Year Award.
Today, leaders confront declining trust and escalating risk in a time of seeming constant turbulence. In this episode of Leader ReadyCast, we discuss how leaders can prepare for and deal with these vexing challenges with Harlan Loeb, Global Chair for Crisis and Reputation Risk at Edelman, the global public relations firm. Loeb, also a professor of Crisis Litigation and the Court of Public Opinion at Northwestern University and a lecturer and Ford Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, offers concrete insights useful for leaders in any sector.
From flu to unusual threats such as Ebola to the possibility of a chemical or other unconventional attack, public health leaders sit in a unique perch in the world of emergency preparedness and response. Dr. Suzet McKinney, CEO of the Illinois Medical District, program faculty at the NPLI, and co-author of the new book, Public Health Emergency Preparedness explains that they must be familiar with a complex array of possible threats and, when an incident occurs, skillfully lead their peers, political officials, and the general public who may not fully understand the threat and its consequences.
In this episode of Leader ReadyCast we look back at the unprecedented 2017 hurricane season with Richard Serino, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard, former Deputy Administrator of FEMA, and former Chief of EMS in Boston. Serino shares what the responses to Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria tell us as we look forward to 2018 and beyond. We explore lessons that should be applied as communities face more extreme weather events.