Let Go & Lead with Maril MacDonald: Recent Episodes
Gagen MacDonald
As a leader, letting go doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Letting go to lead means encouraging your people toward mastery, infusing the workplace with a sense of purpose, allowing room for self-direction and giving others more autonomy in their jobs. In the Let Go & Lead podcast, Maril MacDonald, Founder and CEO of award winning strategy firm Gagen MacDonald, unpacks these topics and more in conversations with today’s business leaders, academics and creative thinkers.
Peter Mann, CEO and Founder of Oransi and author of the forthcoming book The Perception Revolution, joins Maril to explore what happens when organizational systems are built by one kind of brain and mistaken for universal. Diagnosed autistic at 55 after nearly four decades in leadership, including as a Navy combat veteran and Fortune 100 executive, Peter unpacks the "projection fallacy," the "25/25 problem," and his SHIELD framework for redesigning systems so psychological safety and cognitive diversity aren't the exception–but the default. It's a conversation about why “culture fit” often just means hiring people like us, and why the companies willing to let that go are the ones positioned to out-innovate everyone else.
Peter Mann
Oransi
The Perception Revolution
Joanna Lepore, Global Foresight Strategist and Executive Vice President of Foresight and Global Strategy at Dig Insights, joins Maril to explore what strategic foresight actually means in a business context and why most leaders misunderstand it. With experience building foresight practices from the ground up at Mars Wrigley and McDonald's, Jo challenges the assumption that looking ahead requires abandoning the present and makes the case that even a small amount of space to imagine can unlock better decisions.
Resources Mentioned:
Joanna Lepore
DIG Insights
Jo's Podcast, Looking Outside
Gagen MacDonald's Five Priorities for 2026 White Paper
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture
Divya Demato, CEO and co-founder ofGoodOps, joins Maril to discuss the intersection of supply chain sustainability and operational resilience. With over two decades of experience, Divya explains how business leaders navigate global disruptions and rethink their physical operations.
She highlights the importance of maintaining strong, collaborative relationships with suppliers. She also explores how teams use AI as an efficiency tool rather than a replacement for human expertise. Divya emphasizes the critical shift from moving fast and breaking things to moving smart and fixing things.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
01:01 Divya traces her career path and early understanding of global trade.
03:00 The motivation to start independent consulting to protect people and the planet.
06:54 Why leaders shift toward resilience over traditional linear sustainability models.
11:16 Applying the Gartner Hype Cycle to assess corporate sustainability maturity.
15:04 Unlocking fresh solutions by partnering directly with existing teams and suppliers.
18:41 The reality of fast consumer delivery expectations and supply chain impacts.
20:26 How human oversight ensures AI actually improves supply chain efficiency.
26:38 The necessary transition from breaking things to moving smart and fixing things.
29:23 Treating future generations and the natural world as vital business stakeholders.
Resources Mentioned:
Divya Demato
https://www.linkedin.com/in/divyakapasidemato/
GoodOps | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/goodops
GoodOps | Website
https://goodops.co/
Navigating Geopolitical Disruption: A Supportive Approach for Supply Chain Leaders
https://www.gagenmacdonald.com/blog/navigating-geopolitical-disruption-a-supportive-approach-for-supply-chain-leaders
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture
Mary Berner, president and CEO of Cumulus Media Inc., joins Maril to discuss transforming a toxic company culture into a major corporate asset. Drawing on her extensive background in media, Mary shares her journey of stepping into a struggling organization and using radical transparency to rebuild trust.
She details how open communication, regular employee surveys and vulnerability at the leadership level helped stabilize a massive workforce.
As Mary Burner's story reminds us, a leader's job has never been more complex. Each year, we publish Gagen McDonald's priorities paper to help leaders navigate this complexity and keep humans at the centre as they do. Download it on our site.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
01:58 Direct questions to employees uncover the real root of systemic issues.
05:08 Culture acts as a reservoir of trust when tough decisions arise.
08:29 Fixing a toxic culture requires a clear framework and measurable milestones.
13:59 Leaders build trust through honest answers and transparent survey results.
20:06 Organizational restructuring must reinforce the culture you want to build.
26:27 “Highest and best use” helps teams focus on what they can control.
29:35 Vulnerability from leaders strengthens connection and trust with employees.
Resources Mentioned:
Mary Berner
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-berner-a36b996b/
Cumulus Media Inc. | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/cumulus-media-llc/
Cumulus Media Inc. | Website
https://www.cumulusmedia.com/
Gagen MacDonald’s Five Priorities in 2026 for Human-Centric Leaders
https://www.gagenmacdonald.com/blog/white-paper-five-priorities-in-2026-for-human-centric-leaders
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
Tim Gabel, President and CEO of RTI International, joins Maril to reflect on leading a mission-driven scientific organization through growth, disruption and profound change. Drawing on more than four decades at RTI, Tim shares how purpose, transparency and disciplined decision-making shape his approach to leadership.
Tim explores the responsibility of moving from peer to CEO, the balance between science and art in leadership, and what it takes to guide people through uncertainty while staying grounded in values.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
04:41 A leadership journey shaped by mentorship, curiosity and long-term commitment.
07:21 Why moving from peer to CEO changes everything.
10:41 Blending scientific rigor with the human side of leadership.
13:49 Applying the Stockdale Paradox to lead with realism and hope.
16:58 Leading transparently through major federal funding cuts.
19:24 Turning crisis into an opportunity to redesign the organization.
23:26 Using purpose and a North Star goal to sustain morale and momentum.
26:20 Why leaders must let go of perfection and the past.
Resources Mentioned:
Tim Gabel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/timgabel/
RTI International | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rti-international/
RTI International | Website
https://www.rti.org/
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture
Mick Ebeling, Founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs, shares his journey from filmmaking to human-centered innovation. He talks about creating technology for real people and building teams around purpose rather than expertise.
Mick touches on egoless leadership, the power of storytelling and why solving for one person can unlock scalable impact. He also explores failure, change and how leaders can remove distractions to help teams do their best work.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
01:48 Meaningful innovation often begins with empathy for a real human problem.
04:41 Leaders can commit to ambitious goals before knowing how to achieve them.
11:03 Focusing on one person can create clarity and broader impact.
14:52 Failure plays a critical role in learning and long-term progress.
17:00 Removing ego helps teams stay aligned on purpose and outcomes.
20:49 Naivete and fresh perspectives can challenge limiting status quos.
23:48 Change is constant, and resisting it often creates more risk than embracing it.
28:45 Letting go of ego allows leaders to adapt, learn and lead more effectively.
Resources Mentioned:
Mick Ebeling
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickebeling/
Not Impossible Labs | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/not-impossible/
Not Impossible Labs | Website
http://www.notimpossible.com
TED Talks
https://www.ted.com/
Time Magazine
https://time.com/
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
https://www.moma.org/
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture
Dr. LuAna Boykins, transformation officer of Triple-S, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Puerto Rico, joins Maril to unpack what real change leadership looks like in healthcare operations. Drawing on her US Army background and years in service and pharma roles, LuAna approaches transformation with discipline, clarity and care for people.
LuAna explains how standards create stability before creativity, how asking hard questions improves decisions and how steady communication keeps teams grounded through shifts. She also shares practical ways we protect high performers, prevent burnout and build trust while modernizing member and provider experiences.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
05:25 In high-stakes work, basics come before creativity.
10:10 Transformation improves the experience through better systems and processes.
12:22 Address issues directly while separating facts from emotions.
14:17 Meeting people where they are helps protect high performers.
16:00 Leaders prevent burnout through early support and time off planning.
22:34 Change works better when experts have clear lanes and trust.
26:11 Clear guardrails help people stay aligned and keep learning.
30:54 Tough messages land better with the right messenger and a calm tone.
33:29 Trusting experts and removing barriers lets teams grow and deliver.
Resources Mentioned:
Dr. LuAna Boykins
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luana-boykins/
Triple-S | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grupo-triple-s/
Triple-S | Website
https://www.triplesmanagement.com
“Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman
https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Matter-More-Than/dp/055338371X
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture
Stephanie Kramer, chief human resources officer of L'Oréal North America, discusses leading with empathy and rigor as work practices change fast. She explains how her background in chemistry and marketing shapes a data-informed HR lens that keeps people first and results clear.
Stephanie and host Maril talk about building leaders, empowering managers and designing processes that reduce friction and scale care. Stephanie also discusses "Carry Strong," her research-driven guide to pregnancy and work, and why engagement, enablement and wellbeing mesh together in healthy cultures.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
02:25 Leadership careers often start with curiosity and a willingness to grow.
04:47 Understanding people is essential in any discipline, from marketing to human resources.
09:56 Empowering managers strengthens trust and creates space for employees to thrive.
12:56 Transparency and accountability drive progress as technology reshapes how we work.
16:44 Clear and consistent processes create stability and enable meaningful human connection.
24:01 Sustainable leadership depends on setting priorities and maintaining personal balance.
29:35 Taking time for self-care ensures leaders can guide others with clarity and energy.
31:10 Being deliberate with time and decisions builds focus and long-term effectiveness.
Resources Mentioned:
Stephanie Kramer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniemaekramer/
L'Oréal North America | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lor%C3%A9al/
L'Oréal | Website
http://www.loreal.com
"Carry Strong" by Stephanie Kramer
https://www.amazon.com/Carry-Strong-Empowered-Navigating-Pregnancy/dp/014313728X
Fast Company
https://www.fastcompany.com/
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
#LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
Adrian Popa, associate professor of Gonzaga University, joins host Maril to discuss resilience, community and the deeper dimensions of leadership. Drawing from his experiences as an immigrant, clinician, researcher and educator, Adrian explores how leaders can navigate uncertainty with existential courage and servant leadership while fostering transformation at both personal and organizational levels.
Key Takeaways:
00:00 Introduction.
02:54 Personal transformation as a driver of organizational change.
10:54 Balancing personal agency with creating space for the autonomy of others.
14:12 The role of psychological courage in fostering self-sufficiency.
20:12 Measuring leadership success by the growth of others.
23:47 Building collaboration through trust, shared accountability and recognition.
30:09 Viewing adaptability as an essential aspect of hardiness.
34:58 Recognizing and nurturing the potential in others.
39:09 Using self-reflective questions to guide leadership choices.
Resources Mentioned:
Adrian Popa
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-b-popa/
Gonzaga University | LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/school/gonzaga-university/
Gonzaga University | Website
https://www.gonzaga.edu
"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4069.Man_s_Search_for_Meaning
"What is Servant Leadership?" by Robert K. Greenleaf
https://greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/
Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety
https://amycedmondson.com/
"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
—
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership developme nt. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
#LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
We speak with Jody Ono, faculty director of leadership programs at Hitotsubashi ICS, Hitachi University Business School. Jody has lived and worked in the US, Sweden and Japan, teaching MBA students and business leaders from around the world.
Maril and Jody explore how leadership is shaped by culture, how authenticity is interpreted differently across contexts and what it means to connect with others on a deeper level. We learn how Jody helps students and executives find their own leadership identity, build trust across cultures and lead with presence and purpose.
Key Takeaways:
02:54 Leadership looks different across cultures and context shapes everything. 10:36 Our early career environments shape who we become as leaders. 22:30 Purpose, not personality, drives real authenticity. 24:37 Leadership is an invitation, not a command. 31:02 Admitting we don’t know invites others to lead with us. 34:36 Power with others is replacing power over them. 42:31 We each have to shape our own leadership identity. 46:12 Leadership shows up in how we connect, not just how we perform.
Resources Mentioned:
Jody Ono https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodyono2025/
Hitotsubashi ICS, Hitachi University Business School | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/school/hitotsubashi-ics/
Hitotsubashi ICS (Hitotsubashi University Business School) | Website https://www.ics.hub.hit-u.ac.jp/
Texas A&M University – Center for Leadership Excellence https://www.tamuct.edu/mydegree/index.html?utm_source=Steel&utm_medium=Google_Ads&utm_campaign=mydegree&utm_id=brandV2&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22010237997&gbraid=0AAAAA-c7tLJjOCwPVdaAIMq52NlReb8fU&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjo7DBhCrARIsACWauSlnjimlfeJPw6SE3qbuIMojbnZeLu_wJJnpgTwjLd0_6RmPmSfKiAEaAtezEALw_wcB
The Bush School of Government and Public Service https://bush.tamu.edu/
G3 – Good Governance Group Japan https://g3.co/
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers. Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
#LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
Geoff Woods, author of "The AI-Driven Leader," joins Maril to discuss what it means to be a leader in the AI space. He explains how AI can be used to grow businesses, sharpen strategy and rethink how we lead.
Geoff shares how working with AI as a thought partner helps us solve bigger problems, ask better questions and create more value. He also walks through how mindset, clarity and collaboration drive results that matter.
Key Takeaways:
(00:00) Introduction. (01:37) Growth depends on aligning strategy, execution, people and technology (03:40) AI is a skill worth mastering, not delegating (08:31) Structure and clarity elevate AI use from tactical to strategic (13:30) Leadership is about communicating clearly and connecting ideas (17:06) AI can personalize insight and feedback for better decisions (26:52) Focus drives results more than volume (30:23) AI frees people to do more meaningful work (31:51) Letting go of old identities opens space for reinvention
Resources Mentioned:
Geoff Woods https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-woods-8534774/
"The AI-Driven Leader" https://www.linkedin.com/company/ai-thought-leadership/
AI Leadership | Website https://www.aileadership.com/
“The AI-Driven Leader” by Geoff Woods https://www.aileadership.com/book
The AI Leadership Collective https://www.aileadership.com/collective
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
#LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
Margery Kraus, founder and executive chairman of APCO, reflects on 40 years of leadership. She shares how APCO grew from a small team into a global advisory firm rooted in trust, values and innovation. Margery discusses building a culture that thrives across borders, letting go of control to develop future leaders and applying lessons from motherhood to business. She also looks ahead to what’s next, including bold thinking around education, youth opportunity and social change.
Key Takeaways: (00:28) Leadership journeys often begin with unexpected opportunities.
(03:04) An outside perspective can lead to more creative solutions.
(09:09) Culture is easier to scale when values are shared.
(11:30) Letting go of control is part of growing a company.
(21:33) Personal life lessons can influence leadership philosophies.
(23:02) Public praise and private feedback build trust and respect.
(26:31) Being underestimated can become a strategic advantage.
(33:45) Knowing when to step back is key to long-term success.
(36:19) Major change creates space for bold new ideas.
Resources Mentioned:
Margery Kraus https://www.linkedin.com/in/margerykraus/
APCO | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/apco-worldwide/
APCO | Website https://apcoworldwide.com/
“Roots and Wings” by Margery Kraus https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Wings-Lessons-Motherhood-Company/dp/168463024X
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD Let Go & Lead is a leadership platform created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience—for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world. Full episodes also available on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
#LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalChange #CorporateCulture #EmployeeEngagement
To survive over the long term, businesses must constantly innovate and transform. All too often, however, forces inside companies stifle this change.
Greg Larkin has built a career as an internal disruptor. In his view, anyone who seeks to innovate from within, to transform a legacy company, naturally comes into contact with obstructionists — with people who, for different reasons, act as barriers to change. Larkin has identified five key obstructionist archetypes, and he has a playbook of strategies for overcoming each one of them. He talks with Maril about his career journey; about his leadership community for disruptive executives, Pinstripes & Punks, and what it means to be a business punk; and ultimately, about why pushing against the norm, attempting to drive change and being a “punk” is an act of love, not an act of war, for a business.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
From the U.S. Air Force to higher education, General Jay Silveria’s leadership career has been as wide-ranging as they come. After leading pilots into combat and going viral for the anti-racist speech he made while Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Silveria now serves as the Executive Director of Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government & Public Service. The thread beneath all his experiences is that he’s a true servant leader — one who invests time in getting to know his people as a mission imperative.
He and Maril discuss why innovation starts with leaders, and a “bottom-up” approach to fostering innovation rarely gets the job done; why it’s so critical to de-brief and review not just after things go wrong, but after they succeed as well; and why a leader’s responsibility is to looking ahead, imagining contingencies and planning for what could go wrong.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In a world where so many M&A activities fail to deliver their promised results, Umayma Abubakar has firsthand knowledge of how to buck the trend, and truly create something new and better through all the change.
Starting in 2017, Abubakar helped lead one of the largest mergers in history, when Mubadala Development Company combined with International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) to form what is today known as Mubadala Investment Company. Maril talks with Abubakar, now Mubadala’s deputy chief communications officer, about the principles and practices that drove them through the merger, and what executives around the world can learn from their success. Over a wide-ranging conversation, they cover the importance of leading with respect and inclusivity; of tapping into the experts you already have in the room; of choosing your language carefully; of providing employees with a clear vision and path forward; and of deeply appreciating the many details and dimensions of the cultures you’re combining to truly get the best of both worlds.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com
Resilience is something Bonnie St. John knows in her core. The Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar became a Paralympic medalist by getting up after she’d fallen down in a very literal way, and since then, she has helped leaders and businesses understand the power in that truth. Over a wide-ranging conversation, she and Maril discuss how there is no one right way to be a leader; why purpose is so important to resilience; and why positivity is such a potent reinforcement mechanism — for locking in learning, for persevering within challenges and ultimately, for accomplishing our goals.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Work has been in a chaotic flux since COVID-19 began, but as Julia Hobsbawm reminds us, it wasn’t going that well before the pandemic, either.
The author, Bloomberg columnist and futurist of work has been researching connectivity, social health and humans’ relationship with technology since before the age of hybrid work. She talks with Maril about the ways work is changing — from new office models to technology developments to the norms of new generations — and what the best leaders can do to build productive, fulfilled, connected cultures through it all.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LetGoAndLead
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
At the heart of Chick-fil-A’s iconic culture is a simple but consistent focus on studying and developing good leaders.
Mark Miller, the former Vice President of High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, was there decades ago as the company first asked what it takes to be an effective leader. He was also there leading the charge as they worked to scale the learnings they found. He and Maril discuss the traits that set transformative leaders apart; the power of asking questions; why unclear aspiration is the root of so much organizational culture struggle; and why it’s so important for leaders to value both relationships and results.
LEARN ABOUT
2:56 The most critical competencies for a leader
8:09 How to avoid “leadership quicksand”
13:50 How leaders put curiosity into practice by asking good questions
20:04 The leader’s role in culture
24:19 Maintaining culture with a hybrid workforce
27:30 The importance of storytelling
34:17 Finding the balance between relationships and results
44:14 What leaders most need to let go of
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers. Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In a world increasingly driven by technology and data, is it possible to preserve the health of the human experience and the broader planet?
One of the first 100 employees of Netflix, Kate O’Neill has long innovated at the intersection of technology and humanity. In the view of O’Neill and her signature “strategic optimism,” the future is still ours to shape, and businesses have a bigger role to play than they’ve ever had in the past. She and Maril discuss the human specialty of meaning-making, and the ways it manifests into organizational purpose work; why there’s no such thing as being future-proof, only future-ready; and why it’s so critical for leaders to approach societal forces and global headwinds through an integrated, future-forward lens.
LEARN ABOUT:
2:03 The most significant change we’re going through right now
3:54 “Strategic optimism” and why it’s important
8:13 The biggest issues Kate believes companies are facing
11:17 The importance of the “in-between” spaces between questions and answers
16:19 On return-to-office debates and creating meaningful digital experiences
26:24 Scaling optimism and resilience in the face of fatigue
32:06 What leaders most need to let go of
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ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
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Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In Pulitzer-nominated sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ experience, great leaders are less in the business of winning than the business of teaching.
Over a wide-ranging conversation, Maril and Sally explore the leadership lessons Sally has learned from a career interviewing and writing about the world’s great athletes and coaches. They discuss why discipline is something that leaders can’t impose, but have to call up from within people; why it’s less important to take a popular position than a good position; and why leadership is less like holding the steering wheel and more like conducing an orchestra.
Learn about:
3:18 The leadership factor with the most impact 6:21 Why winning isn’t the only motivator for leaders
7:49 Why discipline is misunderstood and an interior construct
24:44 What leaders most need to let go of
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Sally Jenkins began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer. She was named the nation’s top sports columnist in 2001, 2003, 2010 and 2011 by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013, she won a first-place award from the AP for an investigative series co-written with Rick Maese on medical care in the NFL, titled “Do No Harm.” Jenkins is the author of 12 books, four of which were New York Times bestsellers, most recently the No.1 “Sum It Up” with legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt. She is also the author of “The Real All Americans,” the historical account of how the Carlisle Indian School took on the Ivy League powers in college football at the turn of the century and won. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian, GQ and Sports Illustrated. A native of Texas, Jenkins graduated from Stanford and lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
Honors and Awards: 2017 National Press Foundation Chairman's Citation; 2017 Best Sports Stories; 2013 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors for Investigative Series; 2011 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2011 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2010 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2008 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2007 Best Sports Stories; 2005 Inducted National Sports Writers and Sportscasters Hall of Fame (first woman); 2003 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 Sports Columnist of the year, Society of Professional Journalists.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
For Vada Manager, everything comes back to relationships. Throughout a career serving on countless Boards of Directors and advising everyone from Nelson Mandela to Nike founder Phil Knight to the New York Yankees’ George Steinbrenner, Manager has accumulated more than 14,000 contacts in his rolodex, and he’s quick to tout this number with students and mentees. Relationships, he says, come full circle — and his career has been driven by them. Nurturing those relationships through thoughtful gestures and regular contact means that you’re always top of mind for opportunities and your connections remain eager to assist you when they can.
Over a wide-ranging conversation, he and Maril discuss the evolving role of corporate Board members; what companies should ask before they get involved in ESG issues; and the strong culture and leadership that successful businesses of all sizes have in common. To Manager, the best leaders trust the people they hire, build cultures of high “failure tolerance” and remain humble enough to give all ideas the weight and consideration they deserve — no matter who they come from.
Learn about:
3:47 The importance of being prepared
6:55 Relationship building 101
12:30 How to work with the C-suite
17:35 How to be an effective board member
21:53 Lessons for leading in uncertain times
30:50 How leadership and culture intersect
38:58 What leaders need to let go of
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Vada O. Manager, member of APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council, is a premier global business and C-Suite strategist with unique expertise in sport and product brand marketing, mergers & acquisitions, crisis management, litigation communication, corporate governance and issues management. Savoy Magazine named Vada to its “Power 300 Most Influential Black Directors” in all three of its editions (2016, 2017 and 2021).
Mr. Manager manages the diversified investment arm/corporate advisory firm, Manager Global Holdings LLC (which includes the Manager Global Consulting Group LLC) and modest NBA franchise ownership interest via private equity. Prior to founding Manager Global Holdings, he was senior director of global issues management for Nike, Inc., where his broad portfolio of responsibilities included labor practices/global sourcing procedures; marketing communication support for subsidiaries; and crisis management for athletes, product recalls and corporate issues. During his 12-year tenure, in which the company experienced exponential growth, he served on the launch team of nike.com and strategized on new business acquisitions such as the Converse and Starter brands. He was among the early architects of Nike’s renewed corporate responsibility strategy and served as a member of the corporate leadership team, Nike’s most highly valued cohort of global executives. He was Nike’s senior crisis and issues strategist on issues such as the Olympics, the World Cup and company response and business resumption after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Prior to joining Nike, Mr. Manager was senior manager of global communications for Levi Strauss & Co, providing strategic communication counsel to the global leadership team as the company successfully launched and expanded its Dockers and SLATES brands. He was also a vice president at Powell Tate, where he co-managed accounts for key clients such as the PGA Tour, Major League Baseball and Court TV. While there, he also consulted the African National Congress in their transition to power in South Africa under newly elected President Nelson Mandela with sponsorship from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Manager served as vice president of public finance for a NYSE investment banking firm (acquired by Wedbush Securities) and as a senior communication professional on the team administering the Democratic National Convention (1992, 1996 and 2004) and the Commission on Presidential Debates (1992-1996). In 2023, he added ‘executive producer’ to his body of work for the documentary film: “Stewart Udall & The Politics of Beauty.”
A frequent presenter on business strategy and his pioneering concept of “issue marketing,” Mr. Manager has appeared on CNN, CNBC and NBC’s The Today Show, and has been quoted in various thought-leading global print publications. He has affiliations with several national and global organizations, including the American Council on Germany; the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) Civilian Public Affairs Committee (chair); the Issue Management Council (chair, 2007-2009); and the Arizona State University Alumni Council. Mr. Manager also serves on the board of directors (Chair, Governance & Nominating Committee) for lubricants company Valvoline Inc. (NYSE: VVV); a pre-IPO commercial unit of Fortune 500 Ashland, Inc., a specialty chemical company.
Mr. Manager holds a Bachelor of Science from the Arizona State University and is an inductee in its Hall of Fame (College of Liberal Arts, 2000) and member of its Board of Trustees. He also undertook post-graduate (non-degree) study at the London School of Economics.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
For researcher, professor and author Zach Mercurio, “mattering” is not a new buzz word: it’s a primal human survival instinct embedded in our brains from 6 million years of programming, and something businesses need to take very seriously. Zach is an expert in what makes work meaningful, and to him, the facts are clear: Meaningfulness is not developed through a program or initiative — it’s developed and maintained through human interactions. He and Maril discuss why it’s so important for people to know that they’re significant to others; why often, we blame humans for problems that are actually the fault of bad processes and systems; why your organizational purpose needs to be rooted in truth; why so much of Zach’s work involves taking the intuitive, common-sense ideas of natural leaders and trying to make them common practice.
Learn about:
6:39 Why people problems are often system problems
9:26 Creating environments where people matter
15:16 The difference between having purpose and being purposeful
25:07 How to create a meaningful purpose
28:06 Why mattering is as important as belonging
35:40 How leaders impact employee mattering
41:10 How invisible leaders transform organizations
45:20 Becoming a better leader by changing how you see people
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Zach Mercurio, Ph.D. works with individuals and organizations around the world to forge purposeful leaders who cultivate more meaning, motivation, well-being, and performance. He is a positive leadership and organizations researcher and Honorary Fellow of Psychology in the Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University. He is also the author of “The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose.” His research has been awarded by the Association for Talent Development and The Academy of Management and he contributes regularly to international media outlets.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Ann Powell, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, talks with Maril about her leadership journey. The culture of “radical inclusivity” Powell has shepherded at BMS has allowed the company to continuously and successfully transform the past several years, and Powell has learned a lot through the work. She and Maril discuss the evolution of HR from an administrative function to a strategic business function; why Powell sees storytelling as an absolutely critical skill for HR leaders; and what BMS is doing to promote workforce wellbeing — a topic that Powell believes will become a powerful competitive advantage and differentiator for the businesses that choose to prioritize it.
Learn about:
4:33 The evolution of culture and HR
11:43 Merging data and storytelling for impact
20:33 Building a radically inclusive culture
27:25 Creating an ecosystem for inclusivity
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Ann M. Powell is the global head of Human Resources for Bristol Myers Squibb. She is deeply committed to driving the company’s global capabilities in talent management, culture and organizational effectiveness while enabling an empowered workforce. She also currently serves as the executive sponsor of the Living Life Better company wellness program.
Ann partners across the company to foster an energized workforce and radically inclusive culture, where individuals are encouraged to exceed their potential and make innovative contributions for BMS patients and the global communities in which they live and work.
Ann’s expertise includes executive compensation, shaping culture, talent development, change management, team effectiveness, inclusion, diversity, learning design and delivery, talent attraction, labor relations, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and start-ups.
With a career spanning both international and domestic assignments, Ann has worked within the oil/gas, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, including Chevron, Dow and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Bristol Myers Squibb in 2013, Ann was the chief human resources officer for Shire Pharmaceuticals.
Ann earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in labor and industrial relations from the University of Minnesota.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Leadership expert, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer and bestselling author of Friendly Fire Scott A. Snook discusses what he’s learned over his time in the military and academia about what it takes to lead. Snook, a decorated veteran and victim of friendly fire himself, studies these incidents of tragedy as a way to make sense of — and ultimately prevent — organizational dysfunction. Among other things, they discuss why every leadership program should cover “followership” and the art of managing up; how leaders fundamentally cannot control outcomes, and can only shift the odds; the importance of finding the right balance between high challenge and high support; and why ultimately, what leaders need most is self-awareness and self-acceptance — or, in other words, to be both socially intelligent and secure.
Learn about:
11:42 How Scott describes leadership
14:13 The deep connection between leadership and “followership”
19:00 The organizational lessons from a “friendly fire” incident
23:45 Why your core values are so critical for leaders
28:58 The worst attribute in a leader
29:52 The intersection of high performance, high support and high challenge
38:22 Scott’s summary lessons for leaders
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Scott A. Snook graduated with honors from West Point, earning the Royal Society of Arts Award for the most outstanding overall cadet in his class. Following graduation, he was commissioned in the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he served in various command and staff positions for over 22 years, earning the rank of Colonel before retiring in 2002. He has led soldiers in combat. Among his military decorations are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Master Parachutist badge. He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar. Dr. Snook earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Organizational Behavior, winning the Sage-Louis Pondy Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management for his study of the Friendly Fire Shootdown in Northern Iraq. Until July of 2002, Colonel Snook served as an Academy Professor in the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department at the United States Military Academy. He also directed West Point's Center for Leadership and Organizations Research as well as its joint Master's Program in Leader Development.
Scott's passion is to help others live more "meaning-full" lives. More specifically, he is interested in unpacking and understanding transformational leader (human) development experiences --how to make the most out of life's curriculum, as well as how to create high-leverage/high-impact interventions to accelerate the growth of leaders.
Professor Snook's book Friendly Fire was selected by the Academy of Management to receive the 2002 Terry Award as the most influential book on managerial thinking published during the past two years. He has also co-authored a book that explores the role of "common sense" in leadership titled, Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life (2000) and co-edited The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being (2011). Most recently, he co-authored The Discover Your True North Fieldbook (2015), which is the primary text for “Authentic Leader Development,” the popular MBA elective he has taught for over 10 years. Professor Snook has shared his leadership insights in formal executive education programs at Harvard and with numerous corporate audiences around the world.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with bestselling author, world-class coach and CEO and Co-Founder of Disruption Advisors Whitney Johnson. After a successful career on Wall Street, Whitney had an epiphany: she wanted to apply the immense knowledge she’d gained from modeling and analyzing stock performance to see if the same rules could be applied to people. Over a wide-ranging conversation around disruption, Whitney speaks to the power of personal disruption; explains her S-curve model, which she uses to better understand how individuals change and grow; and walks through the seven accelerants of productive disruption. At Gagen MacDonald, we believe that transformation starts within, and Whitney’s work deeply reinforces the idea: to change an organization, you need to start by changing yourself.
Learn about:
7:07 Defining the S-curve of learning
10:30 The seven accelerants of personal disruption
14:37 How to disrupt yourself
21:07 How to deal with change detractors
26:22 Tackling current workforce disruptions
33:32 How the energy of disruption accelerates change
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Whitney Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Disruption Advisors, is a world-class coach, globally recognized thought leader, author, keynote speaker and consultant helping organizations operationalize a high-growth mindset in their leaders and teams.
Whitney is the WSJ, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling author of Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company (Harvard Business Press, 2022). She shares her passion for personal disruption, helping individuals transform their lives, careers, teams and companies through her keynote addresses; her popular podcast Disrupt Yourself; lectures at Harvard Business School’s Corporate Learning; the award-winning books How to Build an A Team, Disrupt Yourself and Dare, Dream, Do; and frequent article contributions to the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. Whitney is ranked a top talent coach by Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top 10 leading business thinkers in the world and named Inc.’s 200 Female Founders of 2023. She is co-founder of the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen, and a former award-winning stock analyst on Wall Street. She now applies her understanding of momentum and growth in stocks to people.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with bestselling author and lauded employee engagement expert Mark Crowley. Over 25 years, Crowley drove unprecedented success as a leader in the financial services industry by focusing on a simple but powerful idea: when human beings thrive, organizations thrive as well. He and Maril discuss the unprecedented opportunity leaders have right now to reinvent how we lead and manage people by focusing more on how we make people feel. When leaders trust in human connection and give people more emotional support, they allow themselves to set higher expectations, as well — driving well-being, engagement, retention and broader organizational success. With confidence gained from personal experience, Mark is passionate that any organization can see these business gains by leading in this manner.
Learn about:
3:30 The four keys to leading from the heart
23:33 Learning from cows about leading with love
27:55 The science of leading from the heart
31:04 Leading from the heart in a hybrid working world
36:36 The power of gratitude
43:08 Five qualities of good leaders
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Mark C. Crowley is an award-winning pioneer in human-centered leadership. He is the bestselling author of Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century and the host of the podcast Lead From The Heart. Over 25 years as a leader in the financial services industry, Mark drove record-breaking sales and profitability performance by focusing on emotional connection and people-first leadership. His experiences — as well as a growing body of scientific research — convinced him that the most successful way of motivating human beings in the workplace is to positively affect their hearts. Today, he speaks to global audiences and consults with companies around the idea that humans are not as rational as we think we are, and that changing how managers make employees feel is the best way to inspire organizational excellence.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with lauded author, scholar and Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, whose pioneering research into psychological safety has massively impacted the world of work. Amy breaks down what psychological safety is, what it isn’t and three key things leaders need to do to foster it.
Over a ranging conversation, she and Maril discuss the immense importance of leaders in the middle; why leaders need to maintain a beginner’s mind; and why psychological safety — or, as Amy defines it, “permission for candor” — must be balanced with a commitment to excellence for an organization to succeed.
Learn about:
3:30 How to build a learning organization
7:03 Creating an environment of psychological safety
12:56 The changing dynamics of modern teams
20:23 Key misconceptions about psychological safety
22:51 Fostering psychological safety in uncertain times
32:32 The science of “Failing Well”
37:55 What leaders need to let go of
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Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to successful enterprises contributing to societal betterment.
Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011 and most recently ranked #1 in 2021. She also received the Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019 and the Talent Award in 2017 from the organization. She focuses her research on teaming, psychological safety and organizational learning, and her articles have been published in various academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review.
Her book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (Wiley), published in 2019, has been translated into 15 languages. Edmondson's upcoming book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (Atria), offers a framework for wise thinking, discussion and practice of failure, utilizing human fallibility as a tool for personal and organizational growth. The release date is set for September 5, 2023.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with Sylvia Burwell, the 15th president of American University. She shares the leadership principles that have guided her through an impressive and wide-ranging leadership career — from serving as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration to Chief Operating Officer at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to her current role as the first woman to lead American University.
Sylvia and Maril discuss the importance, for a leader, of creating a leadership team that doesn’t look like you, with true diversity of perspective; of being a calm, optimistic presence during crisis; and of taking it on yourself to “see around the corner” as a leader — to ensure your energy goes more toward anticipating the future than preserving the past.
Learn about:
10:55 Three critical leadership principles
12:01 The key elements of great teams
14:52 How inclusion creates excellence
22:10 The role of community to build alignment
27:44 The role of emotions in decision-making
33:50 What leaders need to let go of
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Sylvia M. Burwell is American University's 15th president and the first woman to serve as president. A visionary leader with experience in the public and private sectors, President Burwell brings to American University a commitment to education and research, the ability to manage large and complex organizations, and experience helping to advance solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Burwell joined AU on June 1, 2017.
Burwell has held two cabinet positions in the United States government. She served as the 22nd secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017. During her tenure, she managed a trillion-dollar department that includes the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and the Medicaid and Medicare programs; oversaw the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act; and led the department’s responses to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks. Before that, she served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, working with Congress to negotiate a two-year budget deal following the 2013 government shutdown. In both roles she was known as a leader who worked successfully across the aisle and focused on delivering results for the American people.
Her additional government experience is extensive and includes roles as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, deputy chief of staff to the president, chief of staff to the secretary of the Treasury, and special assistant to the director of the National Economic Council.
Burwell has held leadership positions at two of the largest foundations in the world. She served 11 years at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, including roles as the chief operating officer and president of the Global Development Program. She then served as president of the Walmart Foundation and ran its global Women’s Economic Empowerment efforts. Her private sector experience includes service on the Board of Directors of MetLife.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard University and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
A second-generation Greek American, Burwell is a native of Hinton, West Virginia. She and her husband Stephen Burwell are the parents of two young children.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with Wendy Short Bartie, Senior Vice President & Chief of Staff to the CEO at Bristol Myers Squibb. The gift for leadership that has made Wendy such a fast riser in the pharmaceutical industry, since leaving her original legal career, shines throughout this vibrant conversation.
They discuss Wendy’s journey as a leader, and how her focus has shifted, over time, from practicing leadership to preparing others to be great leaders; why empathy has a lot to do with understanding gaps between intention and impact; and the crucial role of the leader as “air traffic controller” — the person who actively creates space for a diversity of perspectives and opinions — during meetings.
Learn about:
4:58 Building a leadership legacy in an organization
8:32 Leading using the skill of influence
9:16 The power of listening
11:09 The power to S.P.E.A.K. like a leader
16:09 Mentoring and growing great leaders
19:34: The power of an “I Love Me” letter
23:36 The critical leadership art of meeting management
26:04 Being attentive on mental health
36:32 Teambuilding in a hybrid/remote environment
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Wendy Short Bartie is the Senior Vice President and Head of US Oncology. In this capacity, Wendy is responsible for leading the strategy and operations for solid tumor program in the US market.
A compassionate and strategic leader, her career journey has taken many turns, but her path has always been clear – the commitment to help people - first as a lawyer/public defender, and then as a pharmaceutical industry professional, continuing to act as a voice for those with unmet needs and unequal access.
Prior to joining BMS, Wendy was Vice President and Head of Commercial Operations for US Oncology at Merck. In this capacity, Wendy was responsible for leading the Sales, Key Accounts, Market Access, Pricing and Policy organizations within the US Business Unit. Previously, Wendy served as Associate Vice-President of Global Marketing for Genitourinary Cancers (GU), including renal cell carcinoma, prostate cancer and bladder cancer and as the Global Disease Lead for Women’s Cancer. Prior to joining Merck, Wendy held a range of commercial roles with increasing responsibility in sales, business analytics and marketing in cardiovascular neuroscience, osteoporosis, lung cancer, supportive care and chronic myeloid leukemia at various companies including Novartis, Heron Therapeutics, Johnson and Johnson, Pharmacia and Abbott Labs.
Prior to her career in pharma, Wendy was a Public Defender in Washington, DC and Bronx, New York.
Wendy received her Bachelor of Arts from Clark Atlanta University and her Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago, School of Law.
Wendy is an HBA Rising Star and was recognized by HBA as a Luminary in 2020.
Wendy’s favorite hobbies include painting and reading. When Wendy isn’t working, painting and reading, she is serving as Vice President for the Greater Essex County Chapter of Jack and Jill Incorporated and doing philanthropic work to limit the digital divide for children without access to personal computers or internet.
Wendy, her husband, Jared, an attorney, and her daughter, Madison, and the family dog, Joy reside in West Orange, New Jersey.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril and renowned author and leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith continue their discussion about Marshall’s book, The Earned Life. In this episode, their focus turns to leadership.
They discuss the five key factors about leading today, how leaders can productively disagree; why when you’re leading knowledge workers, you can’t lead by telling; and the value of asking — today — what will matter most to your 95-year-old self. Across Marshall’s insights and anecdotes, the conversation returns repeatedly to the importance of maintaining perspective, trusting the process, telling the truth, and protecting your peace.
Learn about:
4:23 Advice for leaders struggling to meet goals
6:44 The subtle art of making a positive difference
11:39 The Five Key Factors to Leading Today
20:06 How to truly get engagement
22:20 Are leaders made or born?
23:53 Leadership requirements for today’s environment
26:15 What leaders most need to let go of
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Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a member of the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame. He is the only two-time Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker in the World. He has been ranked as the World’s #1 Executive Coach and Top Ten Business Thinker for eight years. Marshall was chosen as the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Award for Leadership by the Harvard Institute of Coaching.
Dr. Goldsmith, a New York Times #1 bestselling author, has written or edited 51 books which have sold over 3 million copies, been translated into 32 languages and become bestsellers in 12 countries. Amazon recently recognized the ‘100 Best Leadership & Success Books Ever Written’ — and included Marshall’s Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He is the only living author with two books on the list. His other bestsellers include: MOJO, Succession: Are You Ready?, The Leader of the Future and How Women Rise (with lead author Sally Helgesen). His new NYT bestseller, The Earned Life, is an Amazon Editor’s Choice for Book of the Year So Far in 2022.
Marshall’s acknowledgements include: Global Gurus — Corps D ’Elite Award for Lifetime Contribution in both Leadership and Coaching, Harvard Business Review — World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Institute for Management Studies — Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching, American Management Association — 50 great thinkers who have influenced the field of management and BusinessWeek — 50 great leaders in America. His life is featured in the documentary movie, The Earned Life, and the New Yorker profile, “The Better Boss.”
Dr. Goldsmith served as a Professor of Management Practice at the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business. His doctoral degree is from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he was the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. His MBA is from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, where he was the Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year. He is one of a select few executive coaches who has worked with over 200 major CEOs and their management teams. He served on the Advisory Board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years. He has been a volunteer teacher for U.S. Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives and leaders of the International and American Red Cross — where he was a National Volunteer of the Year.
Dr. Goldsmith has over 1.4 million followers on LinkedIn and over 3 million views on YouTube. Hundreds of his articles, interviews, columns and videos are available (at no charge) online at www.MarshallGoldsmith.com. People from around the world have viewed, read, listened to, downloaded or shared his resources tens of millions of times.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, renowned author and leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith talks with Maril about the hard work of becoming a better leader — work that is, in his words, “incredibly easy to understand and difficult to do.”
Across this wide-ranging conversation, Marshall and Maril touch on cognitive dissonance theory, and the “superstition trap” that leaders often fall into. Marshall introduces the idea of happiness as a product of alignment between aspirations, ambitions and day-to-day actions; and the deep mindset shift to go from being a high individual achiever to an effective leader of an organization.
Learn about:
7:39 The Building Blocks of Discipline from “The Earned Life”
13:18 Finding true happiness
19:16 Motivating behavioral change in your people
21:49 Why following up is vital to making change happen
25:50 The path to achieving genuine success
29:36 Why results are a poor measure of success
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Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a member of the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame. He is the only two-time recipient of the Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker in the World. He has been ranked as the World’s #1 Executive Coach and Top Ten Business Thinker for eight years. Marshall was chosen as the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Award for Leadership by the Harvard Institute of Coaching.
Dr. Goldsmith, a New York Times #1 bestselling author, has written or edited 51 books which have sold over 3 million copies, been translated into 32 languages and become bestsellers in 12 countries. Amazon recently recognized the ‘100 Best Leadership & Success Books Ever Written’ — and included Marshall’s Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He is the only living author with two books on the list. His other bestsellers include: MOJO, Succession: Are You Ready?, The Leader of the Future and How Women Rise (with lead author Sally Helgesen). His new NYT bestseller, The Earned Life, is an Amazon Editor’s Choice for Book of the Year So Far in 2022.
Marshall’s acknowledgements include: Global Gurus — Corps D ’Elite Award for Lifetime Contribution in both Leadership and Coaching, Harvard Business Review — World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Institute for Management Studies — Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching, American Management Association — 50 great thinkers who have influenced the field of management and BusinessWeek — 50 great leaders in America. His life is featured in the documentary movie, The Earned Life, and the New Yorker profile, “The Better Boss.”
Dr. Goldsmith served as a Professor of Management Practice at the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business. His doctoral degree is from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he was the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. His MBA is from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, where he was the Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year. He is one of a select few executive coaches who has worked with over 200 major CEOs and their management teams. He served on the Advisory Board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years. He has been a volunteer teacher for U.S. Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives and leaders of the International and American Red Cross — where he was a National Volunteer of the Year.
Dr. Goldsmith has over 1.4 million followers on LinkedIn and over 3 million views on YouTube. Hundreds of his articles, interviews, columns and videos are available (at no charge) online at www.MarshallGoldsmith.com. People from around the world have viewed, read, listened to, downloaded or shared his resources tens of millions of times.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation, and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
To date, Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm, and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement.
Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Jeremy Dean, Founder and Master Gamemaker at riders&elephants, talks with Maril about the elephant in the room of corporate culture: emotion.
Emotion is core to belief, which is core to motivating people. Yet often, when undertaking a culture change or business transformation, leaders will start by thinking about the values and behaviors they desire; not how they want people to feel. Why is this? Because emotions are hard to talk about. Jeremy’s organization has found success making it easier through an unusual method: “gamifying” the conversation through a card game for organizations.
Learn about:
3:58 What is emotional culture?
6:01 How emotions govern beliefs and behaviors
7:34 The importance of discussing unpleasant emotions
11:45 How to “gamify” the emotion discussion
21:56 Understanding emotional sub-cultures in an organization
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Jeremy is the Founder and Master Gamemaker at riders&elephants. R&E design games to help people express themselves through simple, powerful words. Jeremy is on a mission to humanize the workplace. R&E games are used by people in some of the biggest and most inspiring organizations on the planet.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, accomplished change leader and founder and CEO of We Need Social Celine Schillinger talks with Maril about the relational leadership skills required in today’s business world — and how much those differ from what we’ve been taught to value in leaders.
Schillinger, the author of Dare to Un-lead, sees eye-to-eye with Maril’s people-first lens on change leadership. The two discuss the vulnerability and self-effacement required to create movements inside companies, the immense power of co-creating solutions with employees and how often, the best way to improve business outcomes is simply to prioritize building a community of people who care for each other.
Learn about:
10:54 Why the typical change approach has no heart
14:18 How companies can co-create change
18:47 How “Un-leading” differs from traditional leadership
25:25 Why leaders need to evolve to “Un-lead”
36:28 Creating movements in a hybrid world
55:55 Takeaways from the episode
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A pioneering voice in Engagement Leadership, Celine has been recognized multiple times for her large-scale innovative engagement initiatives in the corporate world. Prior to her 17 years’ experience in the pharma industry across Business Operations, Marketing and Industrial Quality, Celine worked with communications, defense and trading companies. Hanoi, Vietnam, Beijing, China and Boston, USA were once called home.
From Boston, Celine led a transformation movement at pharma giant Sanofi, impacting a change population of 10,000 people across Industrial Operations and Quality functions worldwide. Celine now works from France as an Engagement Leadership consultant, helping clients with new leadership strategies that mobilize internal or external stakeholders, enable corporate transformation and boost business value. Celine’s journey led her to founding We Need Social.
A TEDx speaker, Celine was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit by the French government for her workplace change efforts. Lessons from her journey in change are captured in Celine’s first book, published in June 2022: Dare to Un-Lead: The Art of Relational Leadership in a Fragmented World. Celine and her husband Leo are parents to Gustave (17) and Violette (12). In her free time, Celine loves to row on the beautiful Saône River, nearby her home.
Her articles and ideas can be found in various well-respected media and podcasts.
Celine’s keynotes and speeches span multiple change, organizational transformation and leadership topics. She is featured extensively in major media articles.
Multiple outstanding book reviews to include this one: “This book SHOULD BE taught in business schools, b/c what she says is a complete flip of the typical #leadership theories we usually get in today’s world of work”
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
—
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Innovisor Founder and CEO Jeppe Hansgaard talks with Maril about how influence really works within organizations. Diving into the field of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), they discuss the enormous impact that a few employees have on the success of their entire organizations — Innovisor has shown that just 3 percent of your employees can impact up to 90 percent of change — and how rarely leaders can guess who those people really are within their own ranks. Jeppe and Maril explore the different ways that networks change as you progress up organizations; how Gagen’s Six Levers of Culture can go hand-in-hand with ONA; and the promise of network analysis as a boon for human connection, belonging and organizational agility.
Learn about:
5:23 How 3% of your employees impact 90% of change
9:54 How COVID-19 has changed organizational networks
11:23 Understanding gender in informal networks
14:39 How Gagen’s Six Levers of Culture connect to organizational network analysis
20:05 Assisting the “Lost Generation” inside your organization
25:27 The impact of Organizational Network Analysis on Mergers & Acquisitions
33:06 The most influential person in the organization
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Jeppe Vilstrup Hansgaard is the Founder and CEO of Innovisor, a boutique advisory within organizational network analysis and change analytics that has a bold vision to eliminate change failure.
Jeppe has working experience from across five continents, including from many U.S. companies such as Chevron, Caterpillar and Eli Lilly. He is a frequent speaker to executive groups, leadership programs and business schools around the world. His and Innovisor’ s groundbreaking work has been featured in more than 15 leadership books, including Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Jeppe holds an Executive MBA from Henley Business School, U.K., and a Certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from the Stanford Center for Professional Development.
Jeppe is the proud dad of three kids, and spends most of his spare time helping out in the local track & field community.
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, business leader, writer and speaker Niven Postma speaks with Maril about the importance of recognizing and navigating office politics. She and Maril talk about Niven’s journey toward focusing on office politics — one which, ironically enough, began with her getting fired — and proceed into a wide-ranging conversation about the balancing acts of leadership. They discuss the “tough empathy” that leaders must find, what it takes to get politically smart in the workplace and how Niven’s ideas sync with Gagen’s Three Things that Change Everything framework.
Learn about:
Niven and Maril explore…
13:51 The difference between Control and Controls (social 1)
17:55 Balancing control and letting go
18:29 Tough empathy: compassion + accountability
20:47 How to build mutual commitment
29:04 Why political intelligence is as critical as EQ & IQ (social 2)
33:59 How leaders contribute to office politics
38:59 Office politics in a remote/hybrid world
Niven Postma has held executive positions since she was 29, in a career that has spanned multiple sectors and roles. Before starting up her own consultancy and embarking on her PhD, her positions included being CEO of the Businesswomen’s Association, Head of the SARB Academy at the South African Reserve Bank and Head of Leadership and Culture for the Standard Bank Group (the largest bank by assets in Africa). She is a Harvard Business Review and Inc. Africa contributor, a strategy and culture facilitator for clients in industries as diverse as financial services, retail, media and manufacturing and an expert lecturer and facilitator on women’s leadership development programs around the world. She is also the Chairman of the Board of Cotlands, an NGO that does cutting-edge work in the Early Childhood Development space in South Africa and beyond.
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, entrepreneur, best-selling author and speaker Seth Godin talks with Maril about reinvention, and we can better lead our teams through change. They discuss the challenge — and benefit — of letting go of sunk costs, the difference between managing and leading change, how impostor syndrome can be a good thing for leaders and why tension is necessary to drive change. Listen to the full episode below.
Learn about:
4:42 The illusion that companies need to let go of
8:17 The mindset that fuels the imagination
9:57 Advice for leaders leading large transformations
12:01 Why impostor syndrome can be productive for leaders
19:22 How Seth navigates the overcrowded media landscape
26:25 Why tension is necessary to lead change
Seth Godin is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, teacher, speaker, podcaster and world-renowned expert on creativity and creative entrepreneurship. He has launched one of the most popular blogs in the world, seths.blog, and written 20 best-selling books.
His 2018 book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in many countries. His most recent book, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, is a handbook for creative professionals and creatives looking to make and share creative work.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Dani Brown, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Whirlpool Corporation, speaks with Maril about the ins and outs of digital transformation. They discuss the vital role that the human side of business plays in all change management, the power of leading with “Why” and the new developments in technology and systems thinking that are helping the most innovative corporations adapt and stay ahead. Listen to the full episode below.
Learn about:
7:08 How to build trust and credibility when leading a transformation
10:21 The importance of listening as a leadership skill
20:10 Untapped opportunities within digital transformations
22:03 How Whirlpool enables cross-functional collaboration
24:37 New technology opportunities leaders should have on their radars
Dani leads the Global Information Systems division of Whirlpool, spearheading the household brand’s technology portfolio. Previously, she was vice president and CIO at Brunswick Corporation. Prior to that, she served in various leadership roles at DuPont.
Dani is a member of the board for the PRA Group, a global leader in acquiring and collecting nonperforming loans. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Science in Information Systems from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from Drexel University. As a Six Sigma Black Belt, Dani is internationally recognized as a professional advanced in process improvement tools and techniques.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Juan Carlos Cruz, accomplished corporate communications executive and prominent advocate against sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, speaks with Maril about the transformative power of truth. They cover how shedding light on the truth of his childhood abuse has helped him grow and thrive; the origins of his advocacy and close friendship with Pope Francis; how purpose and passion beyond work have made him better at his job; and advice for corporate leaders looking to cultivate trust in their cultures and brands. Listen to the full episode below.
Learn about:
8:50 The power of speaking your truth
16:01 How passion and purpose outside of work can fuel career success
17:15 The authenticity of Pope Francis’s leadership
22:46 The vital importance of sincerity in modern corporate communication
27:01 Advice for leaders to increase trust in their businesses
29:35 What Juan Carlos believes leaders most need to let go of
Juan Carlos Cruz is the author of the 2014 book, El Fin de la Inocencia, in which he shares his story of childhood abuse by a priest in his native Chile. He’s the co-founder of Fundación Para la Confianza, a global survivor support organization that helps survivors and their families. In addition, Cruz serves as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, a role to which Pope Francis appointed him. Cruz received of the 2015 Ellis Island Medal of Honor for humanitarian work around the world.
Apart from his advocacy work, Juan Carlos is a communications executive. Currently, he is the Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs at Livent, a global lithium technology company. He previously served as Head of Global Communications and Brand – Agriculture for DuPont, and Head of Communications for Manpower Group.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Shaunta Vaughn, founder of the women’s leadership forum STRIDE, speaks with Maril about learning to lead using your unique talents. They dive into how the process of honing leadership skills differs for women and men, how Shaunta has launched and continued to nurture STRIDE and the importance of having a “personal board of directors” invested in your success to guide you. Listen to the full episode below.
Learn about:
12:25 Principles of the “Old Boys” network that women can borrow
14:41 Taking a group from a lunch-and-learn to a formal network
17:15 Why every woman’s leadership journey is sacred
20:57 Choosing the right people for your personal board of directors
23:50 Transactional networking versus building a network
29:34 Letting go of leading from the basis of someone else’s story
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
In the second part of his conversation on Let Go & Lead, world-renowned speaker and author Scott Halfordspeaks with Maril about good storytelling put to practice. They dive into strategies for crafting better stories, common pitfalls to avoid when telling them, the importance of mining your life for personal stories and a lot more — all grounded in neuroscience and the goal of better inspiring those we lead. Find the episode below.
2:07 Ways to make strategy presentations more engaging
9:57 The hallmark of a good leader in today’s world
13:21 The mechanics of good stories and what to focus on when crafting them
24:31 Why leaders should share personal stories
25:19 “Mining” your life for stories that resonate with employees
28:37 Common pitfalls to avoid when telling stories
Listen to the first part of Scott’s conversation with Maril here.
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
The human brain is wired to focus far more on dangers than on positive information. This is a reality business leaders navigate every day, as they work to be intentional, clear and engaging in their communications. It’s also where Scott Halford can help. Scott sees effective storytelling as a key part of leadership, and he believes that with deeper knowledge of neuroscience, we can get a lot better at both.
Scott is an internationally renowned keynote speaker, educator and advisor. He works worldwide to educate audiences about emotional intelligence, the neuroscience of achievement, effective performance and the success we create when we understand the intricacies of human interaction. He’s the author of the bestselling books Be a Shortcut and Activate Your Brain.
Scott has been telling stories throughout his career — first as an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer and then as a professional speaker. He’s recognized as a Certified Speaking Professional by the National Speakers Association, and in 2014, the group inducted him into the NSA Speaker Hall of Fame.
Scott holds an executive master’s degree from the NeuroLeadership Institute and is the president of SG Halford, Inc.
Learn about:
4:19 - How storytelling triggers positive brain chemicals to induce certain feelings
6:10 - The neurochemicals to focus on when delivering a story or speech
8:55 - Applying a storytelling lens to business contexts
11:56 - How inspiration moves us better than motivation alone
20:29 - Leading and communicating with teams through downturns and uncertainty
22:50 - Dealing with lack of control through a neuroscience lens
30:53 - The personal goal Scott believes should be every leader’s holy grail
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
A workplace with four to five different generations of employees can be a challenge. Dr. Candace Steele Flippin knows it is also an opportunity.
Candace is an expert on the multigenerational workforce, as well as a Senior Vice President and the Chief Communications Officer at Acuity Brands, a leading industrial technology company based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an accomplished communications executive widely recognized for her transformational leadership in the industrial, financial services, medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical industries.
Since 2016, Candace has been a Research Fellow at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, an appointed role. She uses her unique background as a communications executive, researcher and author to provide practical career insights on the future of the multigenerational workplace. She has been featured on Forbes, CNBC, CBS, and Today.com and named as one of the Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America by Savoy Magazine.
Candace earned her Doctor of Management at Case Western Reserve University, her MBA from Johns Hopkins University, and her BA from the University of Michigan. She also holds an Accreditation in Public Relations.
Learn about:
7:54 — How younger generations are changing the workplace
10:04 — What Millennials value more than work-life balance
14:45 — Generational differences in interpersonal communication
16:21 — Attitudes toward remote work and the different priorities around returning to offices
21:31 — The keys to retaining top talent from younger generations
22:40 — Shifting expectations around rewards, recognition and demonstrated mastery
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
For Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, now is the time to go beyond new policies and procedures at companies. It’s the time where, as a leader, you must re-assess and re-articulate your organization’s unique culture, vision and employee value proposition to attract and keep the best talent.
As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Johnny is a sought-after voice on an array of matters regarding work, workers and the workplace. He is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, “Ask HR.”
Johnny is a member of the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and chairs the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Among his many accolades is being named Professional Society CEO of the Year by CEO Update in 2021.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Johnny speaks with Maril about the dynamics that are reshaping the employer-employee relationship, and the new levels of transparency required to build trust between the two. He and Maril explore the trends he sees shaping the workplace, the different facets of diversity, equity and inclusion that businesses need to consider, the rise of employee activism and even his experiences in law and with the Trump White House.
Learn about:
6:30 — Driving return-to-workplace decisions through your employee value proposition (EVP)
17:26 — The core trends reshaping our workplaces
21:36 — Approaching DE&I policies for your organization through the lens of justice and fairness
32:10 — Developing a winning mindset, no matter your background, that can help you and your organization thrive
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Bill Novelli, the founder of Business for Impact at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, is always asking, “What’s next?”
A master of reinvention, Bill’s career has taken him in a number of directions — from helping to create the concept of social marketing to co-founding his own public relations firm, Porter Novelli, to serving as CEO of the AARP. Bill’s latest book, Good Business: TheTalk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World,challenges all of us to change the world for the better and is a blueprint for tackling today's critical issues.
In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Bill talks with Maril about doing well while doing good. He and Maril explore the courage and curiosity required to lean into reinvention, how to balance making a meaningful change versus taking an unwarranted risk, the key characteristics of successful transformations and even the state of our political climate.
Learn about:
6:41 — Inspiring reinvention within your work and life
8:48 — Finding the balance between embracing change and avoiding unwarranted risk
12:14 — The characteristics of successful transformations and how to build coalitions
18:09 — Making “enlightened self-interest” work for you and your communities
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Let Go & Lead is a leadership community founded by Maril MacDonald, CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, more than a decade ago. It explores how leaders inspire change and transformation in an environment in which they possess diminishing control.
The Let Go & Lead conversation series has existed in several iterations, from video interviews to its current form as a podcast, now in season 4. Over the years, Maril has conducted more than 70 interviews with business leaders, academics and creative thinkers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, best-selling authors Mitch Albom and Dan Pink, Hyatt CHRO Malaika Myers and American Medical Association CEO James Madara. At its core, Let Go & Lead remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Gaf7JXOckZMtkpsMtnjAj?si=WZjZkvfLTX2T4eaeB1PO2A
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9sZXRnb2xlYWQubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/let-go-lead
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Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Danielle Merfeld, Chief Technology Officer for GE Renewable Energy, is a true convener who models shared power and confidently elevates others within her organization. Known for leading teams of experts who possess very different technical expertise than she does, Danielle understands where she adds value to get things done. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Danielle shares techniques for breaking down organizational silos, leading through change, releasing control and igniting debate when leading remotely.
When Blake Jones co-founded Namasté Solar, he set out to transform both the energy industry and business itself. Determined to build a company that practices conscientious business, Blake and his co-founders wanted to positively impact each stakeholder group, from employees and customers to community, investors, the environment and partners. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Blake shares the key leadership and cultural tenets that have sustained Namasté Solar over the years, as well as what’s changed and evolved as the company has grown and scaled.
Michele Skerl, a renowned horsemanship teacher, horse trainer and breeder, and MaryCay Durrant, a skilled facilitator and sought after executive business transformation coach, share a passion for bringing out the best in leaders through horses. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, MaryCay and Michele reveal how horses can help leaders live into their authenticity, ignite energy and build trust.
Commander Rorke Denver has led Navy SEAL special-forces missions around the world and run every phase of Navy SEAL training. Today, as Founder of Ever Onward, Rorke uses SEAL principles to call leaders to take action and be bold so they can perform at their highest levels. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Rorke shares stories that underscore the importance of clear decision making, calm and composed leadership, training for extreme scenarios and building mental fortitude to strengthen personal resilience.
Francesca Gino, award winning-expert on the psychology of organizations, professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Rebel Talent: Why it Pays to Break the Rules in Work and Life,” shares that not only do rebels have a bad reputation, but they are arguably the best suited to lead business forward in a world of continual disruption. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Francesca shares stories from rebel leaders, tips on how to hire effectively for rebel characteristics and how to spark constructive rebelliousness within an organization.
Richard Sheridan, CEO, Co-founder & Chief Storyteller, Menlo Innovations, launched the software firm in 2001 with the intention of creating a joyful work environment that people loved. He knew things could be better and that work could be filled with camaraderie, energy, creativity and productivity. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Rich and Maril discuss how to create and sustain human energy in the workplace, share how leading with joy increases fulfillment and builds trust and offer how anyone can begin making cultural changes within his or her organization.
Malaika Myers, Hyatt’s Chief Human Resources Officer, is a beacon for the company’s purpose: to care for people so they can be their best. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, recorded prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaika shares how Hyatt’s purpose is lived each day, offers practical tips on creating a culture of belonging and challenges us all to turn fear into love.
Dr. James Madara, CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association, joins Maril for the kick-off of Let Go & Lead’s third season. In their conversation, recorded just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, they discuss how the AMA captures and champions physician voices from across the nation. Dr. Madara shares insights on connected power, effectively leading multiple stakeholder groups and adapting to new environments with curiosity and humility.
We’re excited to share that the third season of Let Go & Lead will premiere on April 14. We have some fantastic guests for you, including award winning organizational psychologist Francesca Gino, Hyatt’s Chief Human Resources Officer Malaika Myers and U.S. Navy SEAL Commander Rorke Denver. Thanks for listening and for being a part of the Let Go & Lead community!
Tom Wilson, Chair, President and CEO of Allstate, is passionate about the purpose of individuals and the purpose of business. He recently shared the stage with Maril at an Executives’ Club of Chicago event. Their conversation, released here as the Season 2 finale of Let Go & Lead, dives into leading through change, balancing visionary leadership with detail oriented execution, making effective decisions and of course, leading with purpose at Allstate.
Jenn Hulett, Vice President of People for Ericsson North America, shares her region’s transformation story. Following a downturn, and harnessing the team’s energy and readiness to change, Jenn led the development of the team’s transformation strategy, putting the business on a path to long-term success. In this episode, Jenn shares how this journey began, progressed and also coincided with her own personal transformation journey.
Devry Boughner Vorwerk, CEO of DevryBV Sustainable Strategies and former head of Global Corporate Affairs and Communication at Cargill, is known for her courageous leadership and expertise building coalitions at the intersection of government, NGOs and the private sector. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Devry shares what makes a successful coalition, the distinction between a coalition and a movement and how she sees the future of leadership.
Peggy Alford, SVP of Core Markets at PayPal, has had a big year. She returned to PayPal after a stint with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and was named to Facebook’s Board of Directors. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Peggy, who is known for curating strong, diverse, high performing teams, shares her tips on leading, coaching and mentoring others in today’s world of accelerated digital transformation and growth.
Dave Hollis, CEO of The Hollis Company, gets to work alongside his wife, New York Times best-selling author Rachel Hollis, every day. As a senior executive at the Walt Disney Company, Dave had a career that looked great on paper, yet deep down he yearned for something deeper. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Dave shares his journey from Disney to The Hollis Company, how he’s moving from a fixed mindset to growth mindset and how success must be defined by oneself, not others.
Ginger Hardage, CEO of Unstoppable Cultures and former SVP of Culture at Southwest Airlines, knows a thing or two about building and sustaining the healthy, authentic and world-famous organizational culture at Southwest. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Ginger showcases how deliberately investing in culture can differentiate an organization, build authentic brand zealots and deliver positive business results.
Jeff Jones, CEO of H&R Block, is leading the company through a massive cultural transformation. He’s redefining leadership expectations in surprising and inspiring ways, setting a tone and activating a culture. Drawing on his experiences at Target, Uber and Coca-Cola, Jeff is taking his team on a journey unlike any before.
Daniel Pink, New York Times bestselling author, joins Maril as she kicks off Let Go & Lead’s second season. They discuss the research behind Dan’s latest book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, which examines the psychology, biology and economics of timing. Dan shares his top timing tips for leaders, what business leaders can learn from choral singers and more.
We’re thrilled to share that the second season of Let Go & Lead will premiere on October 1. Each Tuesday, look for new interviews with featured guests, including New York Times Best Selling Author Daniel Pink, H&R Block CEO Jeff Jones and PayPal SVP and Facebook Director Peggy Alford. Thanks for listening and for being a part of the Let Go & Lead community!
People analytics expert Michael Walsh helps organizations improve employee retention, rethink succession planning and elevate talent through data. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Michael and Maril discuss what a strong people analytics team looks like, why it’s critical not to broad-brush demographic assumptions and how people analytics can strengthen diversity and inclusion efforts.
Kristy Wallace, CEO of the Ellevate Network, is passionate about partnering with businesses to create true cultures of inclusion. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Kristy shares how leaders can take a big step toward creating a culture where all types of people can succeed by making a few simple behavior changes.
Darcy Winslow, President & Founder of the Academy for Systems Change, found her calling after leading five large-scale change efforts at Nike. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Darcy and Maril talk all things systems thinking and leadership, including the importance of embracing a creative orientation, navigating the complex vs. complicated and that leaders are not defined by jobs or companies, but shaped by their purpose and work.
John Renehan, Pratt & Whitney Executive Director of Digital Solutions, is a practitioner of leadership. In actively establishing spaces for open dialogue, listening to others and elevating the experts in the room, John creates a culture of shared power in the workplace. In this episode of Let Go & Lead, John and Maril discuss his guiding leadership practices, the importance of embracing humanity in the midst of change and how simple gestures can result in powerful outcomes.
Glenda Eoyang, Founding Executive Director of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute, helps leaders build up their capacity for chaos. In using models and methods to understand patterns of chaos, Glenda shares how organizations can best navigate forward using practical, predictable structures.
Dorri McWhorter, CEO of the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, shares her journey of evolving the 140-year old social service agency into a 21st century social enterprise. In the third episode of Let Go & Lead, Dorri reveals how she led her team through this transformation, growing the $10 million organization, which was losing $1 million a year, into the vibrant, robust, $23 million enterprise it is today.
Kathryn Petralia, President & co-founder of Kabbage, shares her story of creating a compassionate culture that defies hierarchy, embraces individuality and celebrates humanity. In the second episode of Let Go & Lead, Kathryn reflects on her leadership journey, explores how culture and values manifest and reveals how employers can screen for self-awareness.
Aaron Hurst, expert on the science of purpose at work, joins Maril for the launch episode of Let Go & Lead. Aaron’s the CEO and co-founder of Imperative, a technology platform for leaders in the new economy. Maril and Aaron talk all things purpose, meaning and fulfillment. Aaron shares his story, debunks the most common myths of purpose and reveals his groundswell movement towards a world full of workplaces with fulfilled employees.