Inspirational Leadership for People Managers, Executives & HR Leaders

The Winning Mindset for Leaders with Jason Lauritsen

Do you want to positively impact your people as a manager? It’s hard to be a good manager, and it takes work, but it also makes the job more meaningful and fun. To change how you show up and treat your people, you must be committed to setting your mindset correctly.

In this episode of the Inspirational Leadership podcast, I speak with Jason Lauritsen, who is transforming management as a keynote speaker, trainer, and author. He liberates managers from outdated and inhumane practices, so they can cultivate human potential at work and improve people’s lives. His experience ranges from startup CEO to Fortune 1000 executive. He also spent several years leading the Best Places to Work program for an HR technology company, where he gained deep insight into some of the best workplaces in the world. He has authored two books; Unlocking High Performance and Social Gravity.

Listen in to learn how to shift from the production mindset construct to the relationship, conversation, and cultivation mindset as a manager. You will also learn the power of embracing your privilege and choosing to use it for the benefit of the underprivileged.

Key Takeaways:

• How to improve our leadership by enhancing our ability to have conversations that matter.
• How to shift from a production mindset to relationship, conversation, and cultivation mindsets as managers.
• The importance of utilizing your privilege and voice to benefit the less privileged and marginalized people.
• The power of owning your faults and being accountable for how you show up as a person and a leader.

Standout Quotes:

• “At the heart of all of the issues that we have around leadership and management is the fundamental lack of relationship skills and specifically our inability to have the conversations that matter.”- Jason [9:22]
• “Privilege in of itself isn’t a bad thing; it’s what you do with it.”-Jason [32:44]

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/JasonLauritsen

How To Apply Branding Principles to Transform Your Leadership with Keka DasGupta

Have you ever thought about the brand principles of your favorite brand and how you can apply them in your own life? Brands focus on doing a lot of deep work to find a brand purpose and connect with people. Borrowing brand principles from brands you love and applying them to your life will help you tap into your emotions and connect with who you are and other people.

In this episode of the Inspirational Leadership podcast, I speak with Keka DasGupta, a Professional Speaker, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Trainer, Marketer, and Founder of the Art of Life-ing. Keka believes in moving people from helpless to helpful through a powerful, free currency called: Gratitude. As a 20-year award-winning PR/marketing veteran, Keka has dedicated her entire working life to studying the emotional undercurrents that connect people to people, and people to brands. She runs Gratitude workshops across North America for both students (with an anti-bullying focus) and corporate audiences (with a focus on building happy corporate cultures).

Listen in to learn the power of quiet leadership in transforming individual employees, workplaces, cultures, and brands holistically. You will also learn how to help your people believe in themselves unconditionally so they can bring out the best in themselves.

Key Takeaways:

• How giving ourselves permission to be our own advocate changes everything in our lives.
• The importance of allowing yourself to feel all the emotions and show up authentically.
• The power of quiet leadership in transforming workplaces, cultures, and brands holistically.
• How as a leader you can help your people believe in themselves unconditionally.

Standout Quotes:

• ‘If we start with ourselves and give ourselves permission to be our own advocate, it changes everything.”- Keka [7:40]
• “Quiet leadership is not just for introverts and not just for extroverts; it is a way of being.”- Keka [29:07]
• “The most successful CEOs are the ones who see potential in their people before those people even see it for themselves, and then they help them rise to that occasion.”- Keka [33:45]

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/KekaDasGupta

Creating Safe Spaces at Work with Farnoosh Brock

What are you doing as a leader to create a safe space for your people? It is crucial in these times for leaders to create safe spaces where their people can bring forth their feedback and concerns without fear. This helps them unload and feel heard and understood, which is, in turn, rewarding to the organization.

In this episode of the Inspirational Leadership podcast, I speak with Farnoosh Brock, a passionate keynote speaker, high-energy trainer, published author, and the founder of the Serving Mindset. Her mission is to bring the Serving Mindset to professionals and leaders, shifting from driving our interest agendas to serving powerfully in our ecosystem. She believes this shift is key to building our future workplaces and cultures and taking care of our highest asset – our people.

Listen in to learn the importance of centering the human element in the workplace for organizations to do right by their people. You will also learn the importance of working through your impostor syndrome to step into your power and own your expertise.

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of the human element in the workplace for organizations to do right by their people.
• How to bring empathy and compassion into difficult conversations to create safe spaces in the workplace.
• How to build a feedback culture where people air their concerns and feel heard and understood.
• How to work through your impostor syndrome to step into your power and own your expertise.

Standout Quotes:

• “The more successful I became in my career, the less fulfilled I was becoming on the inside.”– Farnoosh [2:06]
• “You can give some difficult feedback and still be compassionate; you separate the feedback from attacking the person.”– Farnoosh [19:00]

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/FarnooshBrock

How to Develop Pragmatic Optimism as a Leader with Dr. Daniel Monehin

What type of leader are you when faced with a crisis? Are you an optimist, or pessimist, or do you personalize the crisis? How you show up in a time of crisis is a strong predictor of the quality of the leadership that you have.

In this episode of the Inspirational Leadership podcast, I speak with Dr. Daniel Monehin, a leadership keynote speaker and adjunct professor. He uniquely combines real-world global leadership experience and rigorous empirical research. Dr. Daniel has had a 30-year career where he has held various leadership roles in diverse businesses, from start-ups to global businesses across wide-ranging industries.

Listen in to learn why you can never sidestep crisis response as a leader, plus how to develop the skill of pragmatic optimism. You will also learn the importance of taking a pause and asking questions to understand a crisis in your organization instead of being dismissive.

Key Takeaways:

• The power of being compelling in your message as a leader to influence people.
• How to take a pause and make your emotional side conscious to be able to lead with it.
• Learn to ask questions and be informed before you dismiss a crisis as a leader.
• How to harness goodwill from your people during a crisis by learning to externalize your feelings about it in a believable way.

Standout Quotes:

• “In leadership development, if people don’t believe you, they’re not going to take your message.”- Dr. Daniel
• “You cannot delegate crisis response as a leader, actually, crisis is nothing other than a test of leadership.”- Dr. Daniel [28:14]

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/DrDanielMonehin

Building An Organizational Strategy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Tara Robertson

How are you working towards connecting people in your organization as a leader? Do you have a working strategy in place on diversity, equity, and inclusion? For DEI to work in any organization, leaders must commit to a strategy aimed at connecting people and having them work together.

In this episode of the Inspirational Leadership podcast, I speak with Tara Robertson, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and leadership coach. She analyzes qualitative and quantitative HR data to diagnose what companies’ biggest diversity and inclusion issues are and works with internal stakeholders to co-design interventions based on research best practices and experience about what actually moves the needle.

Listen in to learn the importance of having an organizational strategy on diversity, equity, and inclusion. You will also learn how to be mindful and fully present in the way you show up as a leader to yourself and others.

Key Takeaways:

• The uncomfortable conversations we need to have to establish a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy.
• How to engage your body, heart, and spirit to help you notice when things are not working out.
• How to achieve mindfulness and be fully present for yourself and others around you.
• Learn and take action to disrupt discriminatory behavior in yourself and others.

Standout Quotes:

• “We need to collectively dream the future that we want.”- Tara [19:28]
• “We need to engage our hearts, spirits, and bodies; our bodies give us messages when things are not okay.”- Tara [23:22]

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/PodcastTaraRobertson

Finding and Hiring Exceptional Talent with Lou Adler

For this week’s Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Lou Adler who's The Sherlock Holmes of Recruitment and CEO and Founder of The Adler Group. He has over 1.4 Million followers on Linkedin and is one of the top bloggers on LinkedIn’s Influencer program writing about the latest trends in hiring, employment, and recruiting.

Lou is the author of the Amazon top-10 best-seller, Hire With Your Head and The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired. He has been featured on Fox News and his articles and posts can be found on Inc. Magazine, BusinessInsider, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.

Lou realized that the hiring process was broken so he invented what’s now famously known as the ‘Performance-based Hiring' model. With over 40 years in the recruiting industry, Lou's company ‘The Adler Group’ has trained over 40,000 hiring managers and placed over 1500 executives for many of the fastest-growing companies with clients including Disney, General Dynamics and Paycom.

In this episode we discuss how to focus on performance objectives when hiring, clarifying expectations, improving interview skills, assessing emotional intelligence and the most important interview question of all time.

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/PodcastLouAdler

The Value of a Progressive Workplace with Sudha Dwivedi

For this week’s Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Sudha Dwivedi, who’s the Chief Human Resources Officer at Teranet and is responsible for leading their global HR team.

She is a passionate champion of inclusion and diversity, ensuring Teranet is a progressive workplace where everyone has a seat at the table and that all voices are heard. Sudha specializes in creating large-scale employee engagement and development programs that bring Teranet’s culture of continuous learning to life throughout the employee’s tenure with the company. Sudha implements talent management strategies that drive the achievement of their business goals.

A native Montrealer, Sudha holds an MBA from Concordia University and a Bachelor’s degree from McGill. She is also a certified Leadership and Life Skills coach. Having lived with her husband and two sons in the Toronto area for more than 20 years, she will root for the Blue Jays and Raptors, yet remains a committed Habs fan.

In this episode we discuss how to support people bringing their whole selves to work, making values and culture the operating model, creating systemic change, advancing marginalized groups, taking a grassroots approach and embracing vulnerability.

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/SudhaDwivedi

How to Successfully Change Careers with Angela Champ

For this week's Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Angela Champ, who's the Head of HR at Alpine Building Maintenance and has worked in various senior level HR positions over the last 20 + years. She’s passionate about lifelong learning and inspiring others to achieve their best potential. She writes, blogs and speaks on a variety of leadership, professional development and personal growth topics.

Named as one of Canada’s top 20 HR leaders on the HRD Global 100 and on The Most Inclusive HR Influencer list, Angela is a popular and a frequent conference and keynote speaker. She is a member of the University of Calgary Human Resources Management Certificate Advisory Council, and has been a frequent guest lecturer at colleges and universities including Mount Royal University, University of the Fraser Valley, and St. Clair College.

Her newest book is called - The Squiggly Line Career: How Changing Professions Can Advance a Career in Unexpected Ways. Angela is an advocate of advancing women in the workforce, founding the ICBC Women's Network, which ran for 10 years, and is currently the President of Lean In Vancouver Network.

In this episode we discuss how to find a job that energizes you and is a fit for your strengths and talents, thinking beyond your job title, questions to help you get clarity on your dream job and how to demonstrate that you're coachable, learning agile and emotionally intelligent (and how companies can expand their talent pool).

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/AngelaChamp

How Connection Drives Results with Dr. Michelle K. Johnston

For this month’s Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Dr. Michelle K. Johnston, who's a management professor, executive coach, and leadership expert helping leaders achieve results through meaningful connection. She is an award-winning professor studying leadership and business communication, and her research has shown a clear link between a team’s effective communication and its positive financial performance. 

Michelle is a celebrated keynote speaker presenting at conferences and events nationwide. She received her Ph.D in Communication from Louisiana State University, and she was named to the prestigious 100 Coaches group, which consists of the top executive coaches around the world. 

Michelle serves as the Gaston Chair of Business at Loyola University New Orleans where she teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the College of Business. She lives in her beloved city of New Orleans, Louisiana, with her daughter, Elizabeth. The Seismic Shift in Leadership is her first book. 

In this episode we discuss how to lead with compassion, let go of the mask of perfection, share your story, retain top performers and create meaningful connection.

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/DrMichelleKJohnston

Principles for Sustainable Success with Alan Stein Jr.

For this month's Inspirational Leadership Podcast I spoke with Alan Stein, Jr. who's an experienced keynote speaker and author. At his core, he’s a performance coach with a passion for helping others change behaviors. He spent 15+ years working with the highest performing basketball players on the planet (including NBA superstars Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant). Through his customized programs, he transfers his unique expertise to maximize both individual and organizational performance.

Alan is a dynamic storyteller who delivers practical, actionable lessons that can be implemented immediately. He teaches proven principles on how to utilize the same approaches in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level. His previous clients include American Express, Pepsi, Sabra, Starbucks, Charles Schwab, Penn State Football, and many more. The strategies from Alan’s books, are implemented by both corporate and sports teams around the world.

In this episode we discuss how to effectively work through stress, stagnation and burnout, honoring your core values, why companies MUST train, develop and coach their workforce and how your emotions are designed to inform you, not direct you.

⇢ Get full show notes and more information here: https://bit.ly/PodcastAlanSteinJr