Today’s guest is Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder of Allbirds, the world’s most comfortable shoe according to Time Magazine. His company is growing by leaps and bounds, and they’ve pioneered a truly sustainable shoe that people really love.

But all of it almost never happened. Fortunately, a few years ago, Joey had the courage to ask himself one really powerful question. And when he did, he got a healthy sense of urgency that NOW was the time to start a company that could make a significant impact on the problems surrounding climate change.

That healthy sense of urgency is something we can all use, even in our day-to-day lives, to help us figure out what we really want to focus on. In this conversation, you’ll hear how Joey tapped into it for himself, his team, and his company. Plus, you’ll get great insights on making business more sustainable, marketing your products’ differentiators, and lots more.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Niren Chaudhary, CEO of Panera.

Have you ever been absolutely overwhelmed by a challenge? Maybe it was a crisis … or a huge turnaround effort … or just a really complex problem you had to fix?

Those are the moments that define us as leaders.

And Niren Chaudhary can teach us so much about how to turn those challenging moments into defining wins.

When he took over at Panera in 2019, Niren had an uphill challenge to revitalize a fading brand. He made some big shifts and got the company back on track … And then – wham – the COVID crisis hit and they lost 50% of their business in a week. 

Talk about big challenges! In those moments, Niren says, we have “begin with the end in mind.” What does reality look once we get through that challenge? That big vision gives our teams the hope, optimism, and clarity they need to move through it. 

When it comes to tough situations, few people have more wisdom than Niren. This episode will inspire you to tackle your next big challenge.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today, you’ll see that business wisdom and leadership insight can come from ANY age – because our guest for this episode is 15-year-old Mikaila Ulmer, the Founder and CEO of Me and the Bees Lemonade.

Mikaila turned the lemonade stand she started as a four-year-old into a nationally distributed brand that has sold 2 million bottles of honey lemonade and is backed by Shark Tank investor Daymond John.

She is a fearless leader with a big heart who is wise beyond her years. And you are going to see your big ideas and dreams in a whole new way after you listen to this conversation.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe’s.

Have you ever taken over in a position after the previous person left under bad circumstances? 

If you have, then you know – those are some of the toughest situations to walk into.

Marvin is amazing for a lot of reasons … but check this out: in EVERY new role during his 25-year career, he has taken over for someone who’s been fired or forced out.

Now, that is a man who is not afraid of a tough assignment! 

Marvin was born as the son of sharecroppers and got his start as an hourly retail worker. He has risen through the ranks over the years with a ton of courage, taking the jobs other people didn’t want because he knew it was how he could prove his abilities.

Marvin is also one of the few Black Fortune 500 CEOs in our country, and it’s an honor to have him here to teach us that incredible things can happen when we are brave enough to tackle the tough assignments.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Lauren Hobart, President & CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods.

If you look at any job description for a leadership role, the one thing that’s ALWAYS going to be listed there is … drumroll, please … excellent communication skills.

In fact, we talk about communication skills in leadership so often that it’s easy to forget what it actually means to communicate well.

Today’s conversation with Lauren is the perfect reminder of what great communicators do. 

It’s not just about being well spoken – although Lauren certainly is. It’s more than that. 

Lauren sees communication as a way to connect with people. It’s a huge reason she has been tapped to take the reins at Dick’s Sporting Goods, making her one of only 41 women CEOs leading a Fortune 500 Company.

This conversation is a masterclass in great communication – how you can relate better to your direct reports, address conflict, get your vision across, and so much more. I can’t wait for you to learn how to communicate by making a connection.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is General Ray Odierno, the former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army – which is the top job in the Army. He retired in 2015 as a four-star general and now works in the private sector, consulting on minor little subjects like country risk and cybersecurity

Now it’s one thing to talk about trusting a leader in a workplace setting. But trusting a leader in the military goes up a whole other level, where the stakes can literally be life and death. 

After 39 years of military service, through three tours in Iraq, Ray is absolutely a leader people trust – and he knows how to help others become trustworthy leaders, too. 

He believes there are three key qualities, and we dig into each one in this incredible conversation.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks.

Do you ever feel like your organization is incredibly complex? Like it takes forever to get anything done?

It’s a pretty common issue, especially if you lead in a big or fast-growing organization.

Now, obviously, Starbucks is a massive company. They operate in 82 countries with 383,000 employees. But they’re still able to innovate and adapt quickly. In fact, they embrace the mantra that they can go from idea to action in 100 days. 

This works because Kevin uses something called distributed leadership – where employees are empowered to make decisions themselves but also given common values and strategies to guide them.

Kevin tells us how we can use the same principles to stop getting bogged down and instead unleash some really great energy and innovation in our own organizations. 

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Madeline Bell, President & CEO of the world-renowned Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Now you’ve probably heard how important it is for leaders to “walk the talk” – for our actions to sync up with our words.

After all, our people are only listening to us some of the time. But they are watching us all the time. What’s our tone? Our body language? Do we listen? Do we take time off? 

That kind of visibility can be a lot of pressure. But it’s also a huge opportunity to model the behaviors we want to see more of from our team. And a lot of us miss that opportunity.

But Madeline doesn’t! She knows how powerful her own behavior is for setting the tone at her hospital. She recognizes people watch her – and that visibility is an opportunity for her to shape a stronger culture.

And it has helped guide her team through a global pandemic – despite staff exhaustion, financial strain, and rapidly shifting information. And she’s still been a champion for the incredible medical innovation the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is known for.

So let’s dive in and see how she does it – and how we can also build stronger teams simply by modeling the right behaviors for them.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is Lindsey Johnson, Cofounder and CEO of Weezie Towels.

She and her co-founder Liz Eicholz are long-time friends who joined forces to build something really special.

At Weezie, they have made a unique product people love. They’ve created differentiators no one else has. They’ve wrapped it all up in fun, thoughtful branding. They’re making a splash everywhere from Forbes to Southern Living.

And it all started because Lindsey and her cofounder were really passionate about this problem of bad towels that were either not absorbent enough or not soft enough.

But they took that passion and added substance. Lindsey got a little obsessed with it – in a good way. She dove deep into the technical details of her category. As a result they have developed incredible product innovations that nobody else can rival. 

It’s amazing what can happen when a leader has big-picture passion about a problem, and then jumps into the tiny specific details of that problem. And hearing from Lindsey is a great way to learn for yourself how to pair passion with substance.

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

Today’s guest is John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. Yes, the legendary Coach Cal! 

I gotta tell you, if you’re listening to this podcast first thing in the morning, you can just skip the coffee. Coach Cal will get you fired up with just his passion and energy alone. 

But you know, there’s something even more powerful behind that enthusiasm – and that’s how much Coach Cal cares for his players. 

He is always pushing his guys to improve. He knows how to relate to each guy to draw out their best. He is a master at framing up a big goal, and you can see, in every decision, he is putting his players and their families first. 

It’s the foundation of every season, and it comes before the tactics and strategies. It’s a huge reason his teams continually do well, and it’s placed Coach Cal in the pantheon of college coaching legends.

When we truly care about our people – and they know that we truly care – good things happen. 

You’ll also learn:

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go 

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.