Episode Summary

Most leaders moving through a hard season are doing exactly what the moment demands — keeping up, delivering, staying functional. What fewer are doing is asking the question that actually determines what they come out with on the other side.

In this episode, L. Michelle Smith draws on neuroscience and positive psychology to examine the difference between managing capacity and intentionally building it — and why that distinction is one of the most consequential decisions a leader can make, whether they know they are making it or not.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Why managing and building can look identical from the outside while producing completely different leaders on the other side of a hard season.

What Bruce McEwen’s research on chronic stress and the prefrontal cortex reveals about why pressure alone never produces growth — and what has to be added to make development possible.

How Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build Theory explains why even brief, intentional moments of reflection during a demanding season literally rewire a leader’s capacity over time.

What neuroplasticity research tells us about the specific conditions the brain requires to build new architecture — and why pressure without meaning and support is not one of them.

The two questions that activate entirely different parts of the brain, and why the one most leaders are asking is keeping them in survival mode.

A micropractice for shifting from management mode into intentional development — in ten minutes, before the weekend closes.

Research and References

Bruce McEwen — Chronic Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Architecture, Rockefeller University

Barbara Fredrickson — Broaden and Build Theory

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan — Self-Determination Theory

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The pressure you are under right now is not wasted if you decide it is building something. That decision is yours to make, and no circumstance can make it for you.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

What has managing capacity been costing you that building capacity could restore?

Go Deeper

Get your free leadership toolkit and subscribe to FlightPath:soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership development community for leaders who are serious about building while the pressure is on:lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Organizations: The Circle has an organizational membership tier designed for teams and enterprises investing in their leaders right now, not just during the quiet seasons. Link above.

Take the Heart-Centered Leader Assessment:SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Request L. Michelle for keynotes, workshops, or executive coaching:lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Subscribe to FlightPath, the weekly leadership newsletter in your inbox every Monday:soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

Connect on Substack for essays that go deeper than the podcast.

About Her Next Power Move

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture in a powerful ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle.

Thanks for reading Her Next Power Move! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Episode Summary

When did you last follow someone else?

Most high-achieving leaders never stop long enough to ask that question. And that silence is costing their teams more than they realize. In this episode, L. Michelle Smith draws from the final chapter of her bestselling book Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church to explore one of the most counterintuitive concepts in leadership development: the power of leading from behind.

Built on the positive psychology principle of power with over power over, this episode makes the case that sharing power is not a leadership risk. It is a leadership strategy and one of the fastest ways to re-engage a disengaged team.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Why leaders who are always out front cannot fully see what is behind them, and what that costs the people they lead.

The social science behind power with over power over, rooted in the work of Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley and the foundational theory of Mary Parker Follett.

How Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory explains why genuine autonomy is a fundamental human need, and what happens to performance when that need is met.

Why being a good follower is an emotional intelligence skill that most high achievers have never been asked to develop.

A micropractice for identifying the one decision you have been holding onto that someone on your team could own completely.

Research and References

Dacher Keltner — Power and Social Intelligence, UC Berkeley

Mary Parker Follett — Power With vs. Power Over

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan — Self-Determination Theory

L. Michelle Smith — Call and Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, Chapter 10

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The leader who knows when to step back is always more powerful than the one who never learned how.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

Who on your team is waiting for you to trust them enough to lead, and what is it actually costing you to keep holding that power?

Go Deeper

Get your free leadership toolkit and subscribe to FlightPath: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Pick up Call and Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church wherever fine books are sold.

Request L. Michelle for speaking, keynotes, or workshops: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Take the Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Subscribe to the FlightPath newsletter in your inbox every Monday: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

About Her Next Power Move

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture — in a powerful ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle. Subscribe at lmichellesmith.substack.com.

Episode Summary

Something shifted this week — and if you lead people, you need to pay attention to it.

A woman recently filed for religious accommodation based on her objection to using artificial intelligence at work. She won. The accommodation was granted. What was once a philosophical conversation has become an operational reality, and it arrived faster than most organizations were prepared to handle.

In this episode, L. Michelle Smith goes beyond the headlines to explore what this moment actually reveals about leadership. When people stop asking logistical questions and start raising moral ones, the playbook changes. The leaders who come out of this moment with strong cultures will be the ones who created space for those questions before they became HR filings.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

The accommodation case that signals a turning point in how organizations must think about AI mandates and the people carrying them out.

Why moral injury — first documented in military and medical contexts by researchers Jonathan Shay, Wendy Dean, and Simon Talbot — is now showing up in corporate environments where employees are repeatedly asked to act against their values.

What Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on AI and human dignity revealed about what employees have been feeling but could not yet say.

How to lead through genuine ethical uncertainty without shutting down progress or silencing the people who need to be heard.

A micropractice you can use before your next one-on-one to create the conditions for honest conversation before a concern becomes a complaint.

Research and References

Jonathan Shay — Moral Injury Framework

Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot — Moral Injury in Organizational Contexts

Pope Leo XIV — Magnifica Humanitas, Encyclical on Artificial Intelligence and Human Dignity

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The moment someone takes a moral objection to HR is the moment you find out whether your culture was ever really built for hard conversations. Build it before that moment arrives.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

What are the people on your team carrying about AI right now that they do not yet believe you are safe enough to hear?

Connect and Go Deeper

Read the full FlightPath essay that inspired this episode at lmichellesmith.substack.com

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership community — at lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Book a Summer Reset coaching session at cal.read.ai/coachlmichelle/30-min

Subscribe and Leave a Review

If this episode stayed with you, share it with a leader who needs it. And if you have not yet subscribed to Her Next Power Move, now is a good time. New episodes drop regularly wherever you listen to podcasts.

Episode Summary In this episode, host L. Michelle Smith dives into the essential elements of strategic leadership and the mindset shifts required for executive growth. Whether you are looking to level up in your current role or preparing for your next big power move, this conversation provides the insights needed to lead with purpose and authority.

Key Takeaways

* Lead with Strategy: Understanding how to pivot from operational management to high-level strategic thinking.

* Executive Presence: How to cultivate the growth necessary to command the room and lead effectively.

* Community Support: The importance of surrounding yourself with a “Circle” of leaders who challenge and support your professional evolution.

Connect & Grow If today’s episode resonated with you, don’t keep it to yourself! Share it with a leader in your network who needs to hear this message today.

Ready to go deeper into your leadership journey? Join our community and gain access to exclusive resources:

* Join The Circle: lmichellesmith.com/TheCircle

* Official Website: lmichellesmith.com

Subscribe & Review If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Her Next Power Move and leave a review to help other executive leaders find us.

It’s time you secured your copy of Call and Response. Learn more at https://lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak with a remarkable group of professional women about what it really means to find your voice in today’s work environment.

What emerged in that conversation was powerful: for many leaders, this is not fundamentally a communication problem. It is a clarity, confidence, and regulation problem shaped by stress, uncertainty, overload, and the growing demands of modern work.

That insight inspired a new high-octane masterclass inside SOAR Academy.

In this session, we will explore how to strengthen your voice, presence, and leadership in a workplace that can make even the most capable among us feel scattered. Drawing on leadership strategy, neuroscience, and the heart-centered principles behind my broader body of work, this fast-paced, laser-focused masterclass is designed to help you lead with greater steadiness, purpose, and intention.

This is for leaders who want to show up with more clarity in meetings, more confidence in high-stakes moments, and more command in environments that ask a lot of all of us.

If that speaks to where you are right now, I’d love to have you join me.

[Register Here]

With you in this work,

LMS

🎙️ Episode 23: The Space Between: Where Leadership Gets Lost and How to Finds it Again

You can say the right thing… and still not be heard the way you intended.

In this episode of Her Next Power Move, L. Michelle Smith explores the often overlooked space between what leaders say and how their message is actually received—especially in moments of change.

As organizations lean into AI, leaders are being asked to communicate with confidence about what’s possible. The messaging is clear. The intention is right. And still, something doesn’t fully land.

Why?

Because communication doesn’t end when something is said. It continues in how it is interpreted, filtered, and carried forward by the people who heard it.

Drawing from neuroscience and real-world leadership dynamics, this episode breaks down what is happening beneath the surface when teams hear about change—and why uncertainty, cognitive overload, and unspoken questions can quietly shape behavior.

This is not a messaging problem. It’s a meaning-making problem.

And how you lead in that space determines whether your team moves with you—or begins to pull away.

In this episode, you’ll explore:

Why people don’t hear your message the way you think they do

How the brain processes change, uncertainty, and perceived threat

What happens when questions go unspoken

The hidden cost of cognitive overload and constant task switching

How to close the gap between what is said and what is understood

Research & Insights Referenced:

NeuroLeadership Institute: Uncertainty activates threat responses in the brain

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Task switching can reduce productivity by up to 40% and increase errors

Foundational neuroscience on the amygdala and threat perception

Powerful Thought:

People don’t resist what you say.They resist what they think it means for them.

Powerful Question:

Where in your leadership are you communicating clearly… but not creating understanding?

Stay Connected:

If this episode resonated with you, and you’re ready to deepen how you lead in moments that matter, I invite you to explore The Circle—my leadership growth community.

This is where we do the deeper work:how you show up, how you’re experienced, and how you lead with intention in real time.

Learn more:👉 lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

NEW YORK CITY & NEW JERSEY:The Call and Response book tour will be in your area soon! Mark your calendar to sit with myself and Carla Harris for a conversation about how heart-centered leadership is built, why we need it today, and where those foundational lessons came from for the both of us and many other amazing corporate leaders that are at the top of their games today.Join us and special host Michael Hyter for the engaging and actionable conversation.6 p..- 7 p.m. ET Wednesday, May 6, 2026Barnes & Noble Upper East SideCome a little early to snag your seat and mingleI will sign books immediately following.

Head over to the Barnes & Noble UES Events Page to add this event to your calendar, and invite a friend or colleague to join us.

Learn more about Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, and the leadership platform inspired by it.

HER NEXT POWER MOVEEpisode 22: Capacity Is an Inside JobHosted by L. Michelle Smith

In this first episode back since the end of 2025, L. Michelle reflects on what has come into sharper focus during her Call and Response book and media tour and introduces the deeper shift happening across her work: a stronger emphasis on heart-centered leadership.

This episode takes a closer look at capacity, but not from the usual team-performance angle. Instead, it explores a leader’s personal capacity: the inner room to think clearly, stay grounded, remain emotionally available, and lead with intention when life and work both feel demanding.

Drawing from neuroscience, positive psychology, and her evolving Leadership Revival framework, L. Michelle invites listeners to consider how pressure changes the way leaders think, respond, and relate. She also offers a reflective lens for noticing when leadership has become compressed by overextension, even when performance still looks strong on the surface.

If you have been carrying a lot, pushing through, and wondering why your leadership feels tighter than it used to, this episode will meet you there.

IN THIS EPISODE, L. MICHELLE EXPLORES:

Why capacity issues often show up in the leader before they show up in the team

How sustained pressure affects the brain and narrows leadership range

What heart-centered leadership asks of us in this season

Why internal capacity shapes relationships, judgment, and presence

A simple reflection to help you lead from a fuller place

LISTEN IF YOU ARE:

Leading while stretched thin

Feeling productive, but not especially spacious

Trying to show up well for others without losing yourself

Rethinking what sustainable leadership really requires

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Call and Response by L. Michelle Smith

Subscribe to Her Next Power Move on Substack

Learn more about coaching, workshops, and speaking at lmichellesmith.com

REFLECTION QUESTION:Where might the strain in your leadership be less about performance and more about capacity?

CONNECT WITH L. MICHELLE:Website: lmichellesmith.comSubstack: Her Next Power MoveBook: Call and Response

Seems befitting that a I leverage AI for my end-of-year wrap up, in a year where I integrated AI into my coach-facilitator and C-suite advisement practice. Her Next Power Move is officially in hiatus until the New Year, so take a listen to the podcast created with the data I fed the platform to create the audio and the visuals you see here.

This year wasn’t about visibility.It was about validity.I spent 2025 heads down—researching, testing, translating, and pressure-checking ideas in real leadership environments. No big splash. No rush to summarize the work before it was ready.This visual is a glimpse into Call & Response, the book's core premise and a framework rooted in cultural wisdom, applied science, and lived leadership practice translated into modern theory. Years of interviews. Nearly 200 citations. A lot of listening.A decade from concept to publication.And to think, it all started in 2016 when someone asked, "Where'd you learn to speak like that?" when writing a book about this was furthest from my mind!This isn't a trend. It's a sustainable body of work.Universities, companies and churches are already asking about curriculum.If you're also interested, I've got you. Just reach out.Educators: my publishers will work with you on text books, we're already receiving requests.

Alongside that work, I stayed in the classroom and in the field:– Continuing as adjunct faculty with the Executive Leadership Council Institute– Joining the faculty at The CaPP Institute to help prepare certified coaches for their ICF credentials– Onboarding as an Academy Partner with The Academy for Advancing Excellence as a coach and facilitatorNo big splash. Just alignment.The infographic I’m sharing is a snapshot of what that kind of year actually produces when you commit to substance over noise: leaders coached, insights delivered, programs built, and ideas translated into scalable impact.This wasn’t a year of visibility.It was a year of positioning.And I’m entering the next chapter clear, grounded, and ready.Next year, my team and I shift gears. Who's ready to join me?2026, let's go!

Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church is a collaboration between Amistad Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, the oldest and most storied publisher of Black voices in the nation and JVL Media, the imprint of Viola Davis, Julius Tennon and Lavaille Lavette.

Summary:As the year winds down, many high-performing leaders find themselves mentally drained in a way that sleep alone can’t fix. This episode breaks down the neuroscience of year-end fatigue—why your brain feels foggy, unfocused, or simply done—and why this season hits harder than any other quarter.

Grounded in research from cognitive science and positive psychology, we explore how chronic decision-making depletes the prefrontal cortex, how emotional residue builds through the year, and why stress narrows your perception just when clarity matters most.

You’ll learn how to shift from high output to high intention, simplify decisions, conserve cognitive energy, and reconnect to purpose so you can finish strong—without finishing yourself.

In this episode, you’ll learn:• Why Q4 is the most cognitively expensive quarter of the year• What neuroscience says about cognitive fatigue and emotional residue• How chronic stress reshapes attention, motivation, and clarity• Why “pushing through” actually sabotages performance• How micro-rest practices restore cognitive energy• A weekly micro-practice to regain control and clarity• A powerful thought and coaching question to carry forward

Micro-Practice:The Five-Minute Finish — a brief end-of-day ritual that restores clarity and reduces mental clutter.

Powerful Question:What is one thing you can stop doing this season that will help you finish the year with strength and clarity instead of depletion?

Call to Action:Preorder Call & Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church and learn how to build grounded, unshakeable leadership rooted in science and cultural wisdom.