by Pete Behrens
A year ago, we began a journey of how to share more leadership stories with more people to help articulate the incredible changes and incredible pace of change in the world of work. Every aspect of business is being disrupted - marketing, finance, operations, development, manufacturing, and more. Leaders and organizations unable to reinvent themself are being left behind. And this is not simply from a COVID Response perspective. While COVID prompted a massive change to where and how we work, many of these industry trends were evident well before.
Connecting Leaders and Experts
The unique format of our episodes combines interesting leadership stories with expert analysis. What makes a leadership story interesting for us? We are seeking a couple of perspectives. First, leaders facing and/or overcoming challenges in the face of change. Second, leaders exploring new ways of approaching common business situations. Occasionally we highlight the stories and perspectives of interesting people.
One of the benefits of creating a successful podcast is the podcast promotion industry connecting us to interesting people across the globe. Each week we receive requests by agents of interesting people to highlight their latest book or unique approach to transforming the world of work and leadership. We appreciate the connections and the interest. We also challenge the experts to bring forward leaders to share their story of how the leader improved through the expert’s approach. Thus, telling the story through the leader’s eyes and adding expert perspectives to it.
I want to thank all of the leaders who have trusted us to share their stories:
Joshua Foreman,
Travis Matthews,
Crystal Mills,
Von Rhea,
Henriette Kamfer,
Ameet Kallarackal,
Andy Slain, and
Liz Dudley. I also want to thank the experts for joining the story exploration and sharing their wisdom in helping us (re)learn:
Karen Kemerling,
Rachel Weston Rowell,
Jasmine Keel,
Jasmine Kernaleguen,
Melissa Uribes,
Dean Leffingwell,
Mirko Kleiner,
Eric Engelmann,
Brad Swanson, and
Luke Hohmann.
(Re)Learning from Leadership Stories
Why do we request hearing directly from leaders and their authentic stories? At the heart of learning is storytelling. In fact, senior contributor to Forbes and author of multiple leadership books including
The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, Stephen Denning in his Forbes article
The Basics of Leadership Storytelling states:
Why storytelling?
Nothing else works.
Slides leave listeners dazed. Prose remains unread. Reasons don’t change behavior. When it comes to inspiring people to embrace some strange new change in behavior, storytelling isn’t just better than the other tools. It’s the only thing that works.
Through season one, we have heard some fascinating stories from leaders who are pushing at the edges of their own comfort zone to find new paths, new approaches, new learning, and new growth.
Innovating Startups - We heard from two very interesting innovator CEOs at different points in their careers. In
Choosing Risk, Ameet Kallarackal is a first time startup CEO punching way above his weight class. In
Gambling on Leaders, Eric Engelmann shares his story as an experienced startup CEO leveraging his early mistakes to help guide and develop today’s startup leaders.
Finding Purpose - We talked with three fascinating people on the journey of leadership. Dean Leffingwell shares his personal leadership journey of improving the world of work in
A Lifelong Pursuit of Better. Andy Slain shares his personal journey from career leader toward
Finding a New Purpose - exploring sabbatical, retirement and a new career path. And Jasmine Keel shares the latest research in leadership through the exploration of what
The Future Leader looks like.
Changing Finance - In two very diverse stories in finance,
Shattering Bottlenecks and
Developing Engaged Communities challenge traditional mindsets on financial processes. While each addresses very different ends of the financial spectrum from multi-million dollar procurement processes to making financial decisions, they both share common bonds in collaboration, empowerment and ownership.
Middle Management - Our favorite stories come from the everyday leader. Most leaders find themself in one of the most challenging leadership positions between top management and the practitioners doing the work. In
Leading from the Middle, Travis Matthews shares how he influenced a change initiative from this position. In
Connecting in a Disconnected World, Von Rhea shares how he connects, engages and empowers across a global landscape. In
Rebuilding Your Leadership Habits, Crystal Mills shares the impact of COVID on her leadership development. And in
Navigating a New Boss, Joshua Foreman shares his challenging story of working effectively under a new manager.
Learning About the Podcast Market
I was fascinated to learn about the landscape of podcasting and specifically about the massive graveyard of podcasts. With over 2M podcasts listed, only about 550K or 25% are active according to
Podcast Insights. Our initial goal was to get into the top 10% of podcasts, recognizing there are many popular culture podcasts that have been around for many years and seeking to impact a more niche audience focused on leaders and potential leaders.
