Inside Transformational Leadership

The Coaching Sugars are back for their final close-out-the-year show! Next week, December 12 at 11 am EST, the Coaching Sugars, Mike McGinley and Kirsten Olson, will consider 'Compromises, Earning A Living, and Being The Coach I Want To Be.' The Sugars think about the ways new structures at the International Coaching Federation, used for evaluating coaching, are necessary and important, and may also constrict the artistry of coaching, in a letter from an experienced coach. Next they listen in on a letter from a coach who considers whether to cancel a big contract to be the coach they dream of being. As always, The Coaching Sugars offer responses to coaching and leadership dilemmas that are not about giving the right answers with a lot of certainty and authority, but instead offering truthful, thoughtful, heart-full advice based on their own coaching and leadership. Real, compassionate coaching and leadership talk, served up straight on December 12. Join us!

The Coaching Sugars are back for two close-out-the-year shows! Next week, December 5, 2016 at 11 am EST, the Coaching Sugars, Mike McGinley and Kirsten Olson, will chew on something at the center of many of our lives right now: “Hearing and Honoring Difference, And Remaining True To You.” This week's show will kick off with some powerful, searching letters from our listeners. The Coaching Sugars will candidly consider how to hold space and be present with clients and colleagues when our belief systems are very different and what to do what to do when you feel overwhelmed in the face of national contraction. As always, The Coaching Sugars offer responses to coaching and leadership dilemmas that are not about giving the right answers with a lot of certainty and authority, but instead offering truthful, thoughtful, heart-full advice based on their own coaching and leadership. Real, compassionate coaching and leadership talk, served up straight on December 5. Join us!

Gary Corless, chief development officer of the Wounded Warrior Project and former CEO, has an ability we sometimes view as rare; the ability to really reflect on his experiences and to share the lessons he has learned back with the world. In the final show in our three-part series on culture in organizations, with guest host Randy Chittum, we talk with Gary about some of those lessons. We will hear how a leader actually creates and maintains culture. We will explore the benefits of a strong culture and the challenges of being a culture leader. Gary will also share his experiences of where culture comes from, how it can be implemented to be more than words on paper, and what happens when culture is “pressure tested.” Tapping into themes from the last two weeks, we will pull through threads about what happens when culture is overdone and what it means to attend to culture. As always, the focus is on leadership. We discuss all this and much more on November 28 at 11am EST, join us.

How do we know when we tip into an unconscious bias that excludes others? Do we use culture as the rationale? In the second show in a three-part series about culture in organizations with guest host Randy Chittum, we talk with Jackie Cranford about how unconscious bias is present in how we create culture. Join us as we talk with Jackie, adviser and talent strategist, about how culture may perpetuate some biases and how culture can also serve to interrupt the damage done by unconscious bias. We will revisit some of the topics addressed in last week’s episode, with Gerry McDonough, such as the “walking around definition” of culture and “how people survive, thrive, and fit in,” and get Jackie’s take on the subject. All of this, and more, will be discussed on November 21, 11am EST. Join Randy Chittum and Jackie Cranford for what promises to be an enlightening discussion.

According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends survey, organizational culture issues are now the number one challenge companies face around the world. The survey found that more than half of respondents say their organizations have either a poor program or no program at all to measure and improve culture. As coaches, we very often find leading culture to be a core challenge faced by the leaders we are coaching. We further find that leaders often operate with assumptions about culture that turn out to be inaccurate. In this week’s episode, guest host Randy Chittum will talk with Gerry McDonough, CEO of LeadFirst, a human capital consulting firm in DC. In this conversation, we will learn from LeadFirst’s culture studies now spanning more than thirty years, with almost 650 cultures studied and developed. Another key topic for discussion will be the impact of culture on performance and if there are cultural factors that indicate a greater likelihood of success.

There is a new world coming, a world that doesn’t exist yet, but one that we can prepare for all the same. It is a world that is even more fast-paced, interdependent and complex than we’ve ever seen before. It is a world that will need to be approached in a new way. This week’s guest, Neil Richardson, believes it is possible to prepare for this new world. Neil is a strategist and a public servant specializing in smart government advocacy and integral thinking. He is also the co-author of the recently released book, Preparing For A World That Doesn’t Exist-Yet. In this episode, join our host, Kate Ebner, for a conversation with Neil about his new book and how leaders can prepare for a world unlike any we’ve seen before.

When Netflix started out, it leased a warehouse from the US Postal Service for its inventory of movies and TV shows. Today, content is provided online. Regarded as a leader of innovation in the entertainment industry, Netflix has disrupted not only its business model and an entire industry, but also its own thinking. No longer is Netflix just streaming content--its creating its own shows. And just last week, Netflix expanded from 60 to 190 countries, streaming its content to the whole world. As vice president of product innovation, it is Todd Yellin's job to understand what Netflix's 70 million global members are watching. Offering thousands of titles, Netflix works hard to make content discovery easy, putting the right title in front of each member at the right time. Join Host Kate Ebner as she explores with Todd how to understand disruption as a catalyst for creativity, innovation and breakthroughs--and what he has learned about the power of disruption for a leadership team.

When you’re faced with a tough problem, great leadership skills become essential. This has never been more true as in the case of the DC Metro. In the 1970’s, the DC Metro was a modern marvel – an architectural and engineering masterpiece. But overtime, the quality of the metro has declined. Today, the DC metro faces many issues, such as regular train delays, faulty equipment, decreasing ridership and a lack of funding. Enter Paul Wiedefeld, a leader with over 35 years of experience in managing transportation systems. Since starting as GM of the DC metro last winter, Paul has already implemented various plans to improve the overall quality of the metro, and to ensure it continues to safely transport DC residents long into the future. Join us on Monday, October 17th at 11am EST, as host Kate Ebner talks to Paul about what it takes to be a strong leader in the face of a very challenging assignment.

What if someone offered you a blueprint for success? What if someone could give you a set of simple yet powerful tools that would enable you think and act more effectively, in order to achieve your most important Results and improve your overall well-being. The book, 'Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence: How Extraordinary Leaders Build Relationships, Shape Culture, and Drive Breakthrough Results' offers this blueprint. Written by this week’s guests, Vinay Kumar and Chalmers Brothers, the book outlines the tools and how to use them to excel as a leader. Join us on Monday at 11pm EST to uncover how exactly we can empower ourselves to become great leaders.

Over the past thirty five years, mindfulness and meditation have gone from being seen as out there to being practiced by everyone from professional athletes, like Michael Jordan, to soldiers in the U.S. Military to business leaders. In the fast-paced world of today, mindfulness and meditation are fast becoming mainstream in the world of work and leadership, practiced by organizations from Google to Goldman Sachs. Step back with us to explore what these concepts really mean in theory and in practice and why these practices for leaders are here to stay. Join Host Sheryl Phillips for an in-depth conversation with the renowned mindfulness teacher, Tara Brach, clinical psychologist and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC (IMCW), to learn strategies that will support your growth as a transformational leader. In addition to numerous articles, videos, and hundreds of recorded talks, Tara Brach is the author of the book Radical Acceptance and True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart.

Designed to explore common coaching dilemmas, Georgetown coaches Mike McGinley and Kirsten Olson, inspired by Cheryl Strayed's advice column, 'Dear Sugar,' are The Coaching Sugars. They offer soulful, compassionate and REAL coaching advice to coaches and leaders. In the third show of the 3-part series, The Coaching Sugars will shine some light into a situation we all have faced: Are you avoiding a hard conversation with your client? What do you do when there is something that must be discussed and faced, but you aren't sure how to bring it forward? Learn from the firsthand experience of The Coaching Sugars as they share thoughts on what it means to be authentic, living our coaching purpose--and deal real time with a problem at hand. Bring your issues to The Coaching Sugars and join in for the final program in the series. Call ins are welcome!

Designed to explore common coaching dilemmas following a format inspired by Cheryl Strayed's 'Dear Sugar' advice column, Georgetown leadership coaches Mike McGinley and Kirsten Olson, aka 'The Coaching Sugars,' offer soulful, compassionate and REAL coaching advice to coaches and leaders. In the second of three special shows, The Coaching Sugars explore those intense, real, supremely tangly coaching dilemmas we all feel, and sometimes hesitate to explore. This show focuses on working with difficult clients. Do you dread meeting THAT client? Are there issues you find yourself avoiding in your coaching relationship? Bring your issues to The Coaching Sugars, and jump in with Kirsten and Mike! These highly interactive shows encourage call-ins and letters. The Coaching Sugars sure as heck don't have the 'right' answers. But they share thoughts on trying to be authentic, living our coaching purpose--and deal real time with the problem at hand.

Designed to explore common coaching dilemmas, Georgetown coaches Mike McGinley and Kirsten Olson -'The Coaching Sugars'- offer soulful, compassionate and REAL coaching advice for coaches and leaders. Inspired by Cheryl Strayed's 'Dear Sugar' advice column, The Coaching Sugars, Mike and Kirsten will drawn from the coaching files of their friends, colleagues and own experiences to explore those intense, real, supremely tangy coaching dilemmas that coaches feel, yet sometimes hesitate to explore. Coaches are trained not to give advice, but The Coaching Sugars are all about helping. In this first show in this 3-part series, McGinley and Olson will take a look at what happens when coaching isn't working, yet you are contracted to complete the engagement. Join for insights, solutions, wisdoms and the good humor of colleagues who are open to sharing what they know with the rest of us. This show encourages engagement with listeners so plan to call in with your question.

At a time when leaders are mostly living (dying) according to the well-known template called “Push, Drive, Get Results,” this radio hour with leadership coaches Jim Anderson and Dan Holden will be rich with provocative conversation about the framework they call “Rest, Release, and Allow” – a container that flies in the face of typical leadership development work. Both Jim and Dan are authors of books and articles, and they founded The Refiner’s Playground, a now sustainable “experiment” with leaders who want a more authentic life. Both are deeply skilled in the Leadership Circle Framework, which has been a grounding force in their thinking. Join Guest Host Chris Wahl for an inspiring conversation about committing to wake up to the leadership possibilities of resting, releasing, and allowing, as not only an antidote to the habits that got you here, but as a way of being that promotes power and satisfaction in the present.

If you are like most leaders today, you face complex and unpredictable challenges. Often, people engage coaches to help them navigate unfamiliar territory for which they feel unprepared. Join Host Kate Ebner and ITL faculty member, author and renowned leadership coach Doug Silsbee for an in-depth conversation about how leading complexity can actually enable significant personal growth. Learn about new ways of 'seeing, being, sensing and doing' that can help you to take new actions and find your way as a leader. Doug and Kate will examine how meeting your current challenges help you discover how to move beyond overwhelm to create personal strategies that help you tolerate the the dissonance of meeting big challenges and instead thrive in complexity.

For most organizations, diversity is a deceptively simple label that masks a great deal of uncertainty and frustration. A Harvard-educated lawyer whose TED talk, “How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Toward Them” has inspired almost a million viewers, Vernā Myers’ driving mission is to help law firms and other organizations succeed at diversity: to help them transform diversity from a painfully elusive human resources goal into a real, positive, invigorating fact of life – a feature that inspires new thinking, attracts new talent, and opens the door to new business. Join Host Kate Ebner and the engaging author, facilitator and strategic adviser Vernā Myers for a conversation about how to overcome unconscious bias and make diversity and inclusion meaningful in your organization.

In today's world of increasing interdependency and complexity, leaders must utilize problem solving as well as 'both and thinking' to address the most strategic challenges and opportunities. Often, these challenges and opportunities take the form of polarities, which might be described simply as 'wicked problems' or 'chronic tensions' or 'dilemmas' or 'paradoxes.' The research is clear: leaders, teams and organizations that leverage polarities well outperform those who don't. Join Host Kate Ebner and guests Dr. Barry Johnson and Kelly Lewis to discover how to leverage your most strategic polarities to become more innovative, agile, profitable and competitive immediately and over time WHILE caring for your employees, your community and our environment.

Join Host Lee Ann Wurster-Naefe for a conversation with Holly Williams, author, coach, entrepreneur and member of the ITL faculty, as they explore the transformational nature of group and team coaching. Going behind the scenes of her book, Being Coached, Holly will share her thinking, wisdom and experience in working with groups of leaders across business, government and the non-profit sectors. You’ll learn what group coaching is, how it works, and what it brings to leaders and organizations. Listeners will get a chance to come inside the stories of leaders who have had a group coaching experience.

Every day, executives confront high stakes situations that require both strategic decision-making and efficient organization, but how do leaders know which paths will lead to success? Join Host Kate Ebner for a conversation with Larry Hirschhorn, acclaimed author and recognized expert on the internal psychodynamics of organizations. He was the 2008 recipient of the Eliot Jaques award from the Society of Consulting Psychology, and is a founding member and former president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. Hirschhorn will highlight the key choices that leaders can make and how, by working effectively with skilled consultants, they can achieve their organizational and business goals. Join the conversation to learn how you can maximize consulting to create positive outcomes such as heightened teamwork and collaboration, innovation, and an atmosphere of success that can be transformative.