A New Venture: The Leading Forward Podcast

All around us, it seems we see breakdowns of leadership. In some cases, it is due to burnout—leaders simply tapping out, seemingly with nothing left to give. In other cases, it’s due to a moral bomb out, where leaders forfeit their credibility and trust to lead. However, in both of these, there is always a long path leading toward the cliff. Most of the time, that path is one that gradually led a leader further and further adrift into unhealthy patterns. When that happens, their collapse is only a matter of time. And the cost to their organizations is massive.

I’ve reflected a lot on this in recent years, as we’ve all watched very public examples of these trends. At the same time, most of us are aware of countless instances where the same dynamics are at work, but simply in an early stage of development (or deformation, to be more precise). 

So what can we do to build healthy leaders for healthy organizations? Is there wisdom available for us? That’s the focus of a new podcast I’m thrilled to be part of. Leading Forward officially launches today, with three complete episodes out now. A couple of times a month, the podcast will release a new episode featuring an interview with a leader in their industry, a biographer of great leaders, or a careful thinker who has something valuable to say. Our hope is that each episode also delivers something immediately applicable for listeners, something that they can implement in their life and work right away and see real benefit. 

We’ve recorded quite a few episodes already and are looking forward to rolling those out very soon. But the best part of the whole experience has been collaborating with our hosting team, which includes Ben Dockery, Andrea McDaniel Smith, and Vivek Sarin.

The first three episodes are out now, featuring interviews with Michael Lindsay (President of Taylor University), Dave Evans (Co-Founder of the Stanford Life Design Lab), and Kelli Masters (President of KMM Sports and a leading NFL agent). We hope you’ll find each of them interesting and helpful. Help us get out the word by rating and reviewing the episodes and share the podcast with a friend. And thanks for listening.