Authentic Leadership: Being Real Without Being a Jerk explores what it truly means to “be yourself” as a leader without using authenticity as an excuse for bluntness, rigidity, or ego. In this episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani unpacks the core elements of authentic leadership—self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and a grounded moral compass—and shows how each one plays out in real organizational life.

Drawing on research and lived leadership tensions, she breaks down the “authenticity paradox”: why clinging to a fixed idea of “this is just who I am” can block growth, damage relationships, and quietly erode trust. Through concrete examples of leaders who are “too nice” to give feedback and leaders who hide harshness behind “brutal honesty,” Leili illustrates how good values (like connection, candor, or excellence) can turn into harm when they’re left unbalanced.

This conversation invites listeners to see authenticity not as unfiltered self-expression, but as alignment between values, behavior, and impact. You’ll walk away with language and frameworks to examine your own core values, spot where they can tip into their shadow side, and design a more honest, humble, and human way of leading. In short, this episode is for any leader who wants to be real and responsible—anchored in who they are, while still kind, open, and willing to grow.

#AuthenticLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ConsciousLeadership #EmotionalIntelligence #HumanCenteredLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #IntegrityOverScale #WomenInLeadership #WorkplaceCulture #LeadWithHumility #ValuesBasedLeadership

What does it take to build a company at a young age? In this episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani sits down with Jacob Labagh, an 18-year-old aerospace engineering student at Embry-Riddle and the founder of EX3D, a 3D printing network that connects makers, designers, and customers across the country.

Jacob and Leili met through Moonshot, where EX3D took third place. In this conversation, he walks through the real version of starting a business, not the polished one. He talks about the Etsy store that sparked the idea, the five business models his team cycled through before finding direction, and the months they spent stuck trying to figure out what they were actually selling. He also shares how he used AI tools like Base44 and Claude to build the website and connect the systems his team could not code on their own, and why he sees AI as a time multiplier rather than something to fear.

They get into the harder parts too. Jacob opens up about a 3D printing journalist who publicly doubted the business would ever scale, and how he learned to set that aside, keep building, and make peace with the possibility of failure. From there the conversation turns to leadership. Jacob describes catching his own control freak tendencies, then stepping back to give his team real ownership, and why servant leadership turned out to be the right fit for a company sitting between two different audiences.

If you are thinking about starting something of your own, Jacob's advice is worth the listen: do not start a company to make money. Start by finding a real problem and asking whether you are the right person to solve it.

Where to find Jacob:

Website: https://ex3dprints.com/

LinkedIn: Jacob Labagh

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ex3dprints

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ex3dprints/

YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/@EX3DPrints/shorts

Live your life InVivo.

#InVivoLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #ServantLeadership #Entrepreneurship #YoungEntrepreneur #StartupJourney #3DPrinting #EX3D #EmbryRiddle #Aerospace #SmallBusiness #AIforBusiness #TrialAndError #FoundersStory #PrescottAZ #SpaceTech #BusinessPodcast #LeadershipDevelopment

Maryam Parvaneh spent years inside corporate HR before walking away to start Culture Bloom HR, a consulting firm focused on building people strategies for growing companies. She has a master's in organization development and a belief that has shaped every role she's held: you cannot build a business without building the people first.

In this conversation, Maryam and Dr. Leili Sadaghiani talk about what corporate HR gets wrong, why AI will never replace the human side of people work, and the practical interview approach that has changed how she evaluates culture fit. She also gets candid about the harder reality of being a woman in corporate leadership, why women need to advocate for themselves louder than they think they should, and the difference between mentorship and sponsorship when you are trying to grow a career.

This episode is for anyone leading people, building a team, or rethinking how their organization actually treats the humans inside it.

─────────────────WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• Why HR is no longer just admin work, and what people strategy actually looks like now
• What AI can and cannot do inside HR processes
• How to interview for culture fit using a casual, coffee-first approach
• The role of organization development in blending psychology and business strategy
• How feedback Fridays create the conditions for real growth
• The difference between mentorship and sponsorship, and why women need both
• Practical networking advice for introverts who would rather stay home
• Why over-communicating is the most underrated leadership skill

─────────────────ABOUT THE GUEST

Maryam Parvaneh is the founder of Culture Bloom HR, a consulting firm specializing in fractional HR, people strategy, and organization development for growing businesses. She holds a master's in organization development and spent years in corporate HR before launching her own firm in January. Find her at culturebloomhr.com and on LinkedIn under her name. Email: [email protected]

─────────────────ABOUT THE HOST

Dr. Leili Sadaghiani is the founder of InVivo Leadership Strategies and host of Integrity Over Scale. She coaches high-performing women navigating director and senior director roles in male-dominated industries.

Learn more: https://invivoleadershipstrategies.comListen to more episodes: https://invivoleadershipstrategies.com/podcastWork with Leili: https://invivoleadershipstrategies.com/contact

─────────────────CHAPTERS00:00 Introduction01:00 Maryam's journey from corporate HR to founding Culture Bloom04:00 Why she took the leap into consulting05:30 AI in HR: what it can do and what it never will06:30 The reality of being a woman in corporate leadership08:30 What has shaped Maryam's leadership10:30 Hiring for culture fit: how to actually do it well14:00 The coffee interview approach16:30 Organization development and the psychology of business22:30 Why feedback Fridays change everything24:30 Mentorship vs. sponsorship explained27:30 Why over-communicating is the most underrated leadership skill33:30 Networking advice for introverts37:30 The one person who knows 2,500 people38:30 How people have shown up for Maryam in her career42:30 Where to find Maryam

#IntegrityOverScale #Leadership #HRStrategy #CultureBuilding #WomenInLeadership #OrganizationDevelopment #PeopleStrategy

Your self-doubt isn't a defect. It's data.

In this solo episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani makes the case that the self-doubt and anxiety high-performing women carry in male-dominated industries isn't imposter syndrome to be fixed. It's a rational signal about the system you're operating in.

She walks through four patterns where executives blame themselves for internal doubt, and where the real issue is almost always structural: role clarity gaps, values-and-culture mismatch, scale-at-all-costs norms, and invisible labor. Then she gives you the five-step practice she uses with her coaching clients to read the signal, map it to the actual gap, and decide how to lead inside the reality you're actually in.

This episode is for directors, senior managers, and VPs who have the resume and the receipts and are still quietly wondering if they're missing something. You're not. You're picking up data your organization isn't honest enough to name yet.

Connect with Leili:

Website: https://www.invivoleadershipstrategies.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leilisadaghiani

Subscribe to The Behavior Brief: https://www.invivoleadershipstrategies.com

Alex Simmons spent 20 years at Microsoft before walking away to become a posture therapist. The pivot was not just career, it was his body finally getting the attention his career had been taking from it.

In this episode, Alex and Dr. Leili Sadaghiani talk about why excellent corporate performance can quietly cost you your health, what the Egoscue Method actually does, and the moment an 87-year-old client told him she could not find 15 minutes a day for herself.

Alex shares the car accident that shaped the next two decades of his body, the first session that took his pain from a 7 to a 5 in an hour, the spinal fusion he chose not to have at 30, and the leadership lesson he is now teaching his son in little league baseball: lead by example, and the rest follows.

If you are leading at a level that is taking more than it gives, this conversation is worth 36 minutes.

Connect with Dr. Leili Sadaghiani:

Website: https://www.invivoleadershipstrategies.com

Instagram: @invivoleadershipstrategies

Hustle culture sold us a lie dressed up as ambition — that depletion is proof of dedication and burnout is a resume credential. In this solo episode kicking off the rebrand to On Her Own Terms, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani pulls apart why so many high-achieving women are exhausted from over-performing and calling it excellence.

Leili unpacks how "I do hard work" quietly becomes "I am a hard worker" — fusing your worth to your output and making rest feel like failure. She walks through the neuroscience of why depleted leaders produce the lowest-leverage work, the real cost to your body, relationships, and self-trust, and the leadership shadow a dysregulated leader casts on their team.

You'll hear three behavioral anchors for sustainable leadership: building capacity instead of just output, making decisions from a regulated nervous system, and saying no to anything that doesn't build toward what you actually want. Plus a client story about an over-functioning executive who got sharper by subtracting — and an invitation to stop doing one thing this week that keeps you looking committed but is actually keeping you fragmented.

For the women leading in high-stakes environments who are ready to trade performative devotion for real, sustainable strength.

Learn more at invivoleadershipstrategies.com

Leading with Heart: Stephanie Fryar on Authentic Leadership and Hiring for Fit

Stephanie Fryar, Director of Sleep Apnea Options, joins Dr. Leili Sadaghiani of InVivo Leadership Strategies to talk about what it really takes to build a team from scratch — and lead it with humanity.

Stephanie shares how she grew from a "party of one" with a laptop and a notepad into director of a thriving practice, and the philosophy that's guided every hire, every hard conversation, and every weekly meeting: people first, titles second.

You'll hear:

• Why personality fit matters more than résumé in niche industries
• How she built genuine trust with the practice owner — and how that dynamic transformed her voice in her personal life, too
• The monthly lunch ritual that turned coworkers into a real team
• Pushing back on the myth that rooms full of women mean drama
• Why "do as I say, not as I do" is the fastest way to lose a team
• Leading through your own anxiety while making space for others'

This conversation reflects the InVivo philosophy: real transformation happens when leaders show up differently — choosing conscious over ego, humanity over power, especially under pressure.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━InVivo Leadership Strategies helps executive leaders turn strategy into lived behavior through conscious leadership, sponsorship, and adoption that actually sticks.

🌐 https://www.invivoleadershipstrategies.com📅 Book a Strategic Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/invivols📥 Free: Executive Sponsorship Readiness Check — https://www.invivoleadershipstrategies.com/12-item-executive-sponsorship-readiness-check

Follow InVivo on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @InVivoLeadershipStrategies.

You are highly capable. You are perceptive. You care about doing good work. And somewhere along the way, you stopped leading from your own judgment -- and started calibrating to the room.

This is not a confidence problem. It is a pattern. And it is one of the most quietly costly dynamics in leadership today.

In this episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani breaks down external validation -- where it actually comes from, why it develops in the most capable leaders, and what it is costing you in clarity, decisiveness, and organizational impact. Drawing on eight research sources including Harvard Business Review and McKinsey, Leili covers the structural forces that amplify this pattern for women, the compounding effect of gendered ageism across every career stage, and five evidence-based practices for rebuilding internal authority without losing the awareness that makes you effective.

Topics covered:

• Why external validation is a logical response to inconsistent workplaces -- not a personal flaw
• The hidden cost: eroded decisiveness, reactive thinking, and the direction your team is not getting
• Role incongruity bias, double-bind dynamics, and why the most adaptive leaders are often the most dependent on external signals
• Why there is no right age to be a woman in a leadership role -- and how that feeds the pattern across an entire career
• Five practices: form your view first, evaluate rather than accept feedback, build a strengths record, communicate more simply, keep promises to yourself
• The question shift that moves you from self-monitoring to leadership

If you are a senior leader, CHRO, or organizational change practitioner navigating complex environments, this episode is built for you.

Find us at invivoleadershipstrategies.com or reach out directly at invivoleadershipstrategies.com/contact.

Subscribe, share with someone who needs to hear it, and leave a review to help other leaders find the show.

You are highly capable. You are perceptive. You care about doing good work. And somewhere along the way, you stopped leading from your own judgment -- and started calibrating to the room.

This is not a confidence problem. It is a pattern. And it is one of the most quietly costly dynamics in leadership today.

In this episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani breaks down external validation -- where it actually comes from, why it develops in the most capable leaders, and what it is costing you in clarity, decisiveness, and organizational impact. Drawing on eight research sources including Harvard Business Review and McKinsey, Leili covers the structural forces that amplify this pattern for women, the compounding effect of gendered ageism across every career stage, and five evidence-based practices for rebuilding internal authority without losing the awareness that makes you effective.

Topics covered:

• Why external validation is a logical response to inconsistent workplaces -- not a personal flaw
• The hidden cost: eroded decisiveness, reactive thinking, and the direction your team is not getting
• Role incongruity bias, double-bind dynamics, and why the most adaptive leaders are often the most dependent on external signals
• Why there is no right age to be a woman in a leadership role -- and how that feeds the pattern across an entire career
• Five practices: form your view first, evaluate rather than accept feedback, build a strengths record, communicate more simply, keep promises to yourself
• The question shift that moves you from self-monitoring to leadership

If you are a senior leader, CHRO, or organizational change practitioner navigating complex environments, this episode is built for you.

Find us at invivoleadershipstrategies.com or reach out directly at invivoleadershipstrategies.com/contact.

Subscribe, share with someone who needs to hear it, and leave a review to help other leaders find the show.

BlackBerry built the smartphone category from the ground up. Market cap over $60 billion. Revenue peaking at $20 billion. A device so beloved it earned the nickname CrackBerry -- carried by executives, presidents, and Wall Street alike.

Then came the iPhone. And in five years, BlackBerry went from category dominance to 0.2% global market share.

In this episode, Dr. Leili Sadaghiani does a full case analysis of the rise and fall of BlackBerry -- not as a technology story, but as a leadership story. She walks through the founding integrity that made BlackBerry great, the moment the iPhone changed everything (and what RIM's co-CEOs said privately versus publicly), the cascade of strategic failures that followed, and the five lessons every leader needs to take from this collapse.

Topics covered:

• Why the gap between private truth and public communication is where organizational collapse begins
• The three assumptions BlackBerry never challenged -- and how each was invalidated by the market
• Innovation theater versus innovation integrity -- and what the BlackBerry Storm reveals about building from fear
• The anonymous 2011 employee letter that exposed the culture breakdown from the inside
• The BBM cross-platform decision that RIM passed on -- and why WhatsApp sold for $19 billion
• Five leadership lessons: integrity means loyalty to reality, dominance distorts feedback, and platforms beat products

If your organization is navigating disruption right now -- whether from AI, new competitors, or a shifting market -- this episode is the case study you need.

Find us at invivoleadershipstrategies.com or reach out directly at invivoleadershipstrategies.com/contact.

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a leader who needs to hear it.