How do you lead through uncertainty when the path forward isn’t clear?

Manoj Leelanivas has done it at extraordinary scale. Today he’s President of HP Solutions. Before HP, he helped lead a major transformation at Juniper Networks, moving into new markets, building belief across thousands of employees, and helping build a new enterprise business approaching $3B in revenue in 5 years!

In this episode, Manoj shares the leadership lessons behind that transformation, including why people don’t resist change...they resist uncertainty, how small wins can create momentum for massive change, and why speed with learning beats waiting for certainty.

He also shares the courageous question an employee asked that changed the way he leads, why he had to reinvent himself as he moved from engineer to business leader, and what he’s learning about innovation inside one of the world’s most iconic technology companies.

If you’re leading a team through change, making decisions without all the answers, or trying to turn disruption into growth, this conversation is for you.

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What happens when leaders face intense pressure to compromise short-term gains for long-term survival?

In this episode of Lead The Team, host Ben Fanning sits down with Mark Niemiec, Global Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Customer Experience.

Mark shares the story of a massive enterprise deal where his team walked away from a short-term commission boost to do the right thing for the business long-term—and why the customer’s head of procurement called days later to thank him for not "taking the bait."

• Don't Take the Bait: Why holding the line under extreme pressure builds enduring businesses.
• "Down and Out" Leadership: A game-changing framework learned at Cisco on pushing decision-making power to the front-line teams closest to the customer.
• Intellectual Honesty: The importance of holding "strong opinions, loosely held" and letting go of ideas when better facts arrive.
• The Premium on Judgment: Why high-level judgment and context are becoming the ultimate executive skills in the era of AI.
• Lead Through Influence: How to navigate culture and lead large teams without relying on command-and-control hierarchy.

• 00:00 – "Don't Take the Bait": The Deal That Missed the Quarter
• 00:34 – Intro: Mark Niemiec (Global CRO, SAP Customer Experience)
• 01:32 – Discovering "Down & Out Leadership" at Cisco
• 03:36 – Front-Line Empowerment vs. Centralized Control
• 06:58 – The High-Stakes Deal: Choosing Long-Term Survival Over Short-Term Cash
• 08:30 – "You Didn't Take the Bait": The Call from Procurement
• 10:35 – Lessons from a $20/hr Temp Job: Making an Impact Fast
• 13:18 – The #1 Trait Every Leader Needs: Intellectual Honesty
• 14:20 – Strong Opinions, Loosely Held
• 17:10 – What to Do When the Playbook Fails
• 19:02 – Yoga, Solitude, and Stoicism for Better Decision-Making
• 21:34 – Leading Through Influence at SAP
• 23:53 – AI & The Future of Leadership: Why Judgment is at a Premium
• 27:05 – Stoic Philosophy in Modern Business

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What does it really mean to take ownership as a leader?

In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Tony Ball, CEO of Entrust, to explore the leadership lessons that shaped his career—from working alongside Intel during one of the most demanding periods in technology history to leading a global cybersecurity company with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Tony shares how one defining experience taught him a principle he still lives by today:

Ben and Tony discuss:

• Why ownership is the foundation of great leadership
• Leading under intense pressure and scrutiny
• Building trust with customers and teams
• Why listening is a leader's greatest advantage
• Empowering teams through accountability
• Reverse mentoring and staying ahead in the AI era
• How setbacks and career pivots can become your greatest opportunities

Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or navigating your own career, this conversation offers practical insights on trust, ownership, resilience, and leading through change.

About Tony Ball

Tony Ball is the CEO of Entrust, a global leader in digital identity and cybersecurity serving organizations in more than 150 countries. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Tony has built a career helping organizations earn trust, navigate disruption, and lead through transformational change.

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What do you do when you inherit a problem everyone else has given up on?

Before helping build Grafana Labs into one of the world's leading infrastructure software companies, Anthony Woods inherited enterprise software that had already cost millions of dollars—and concluded it was never going to work. Instead of accepting it, he spent one weekend building a better solution. That single decision became the turning point that ultimately led him to co-found Grafana Labs, now a company valued in the billions.

In this episode of Lead the Team, Anthony shares the leadership lessons behind innovation, confidence, and building organizations where great people do their best work.

You'll learn:

• Why your biggest career opportunity may be hiding inside your biggest problem.
• How one manager's belief can change someone's entire career.
• Why the best leaders create environments where people are encouraged to experiment and fail.
• How Grafana built a thriving remote-first culture across the globe.
• Why solving problems—not titles—is the fastest path to leadership.

Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or looking for the confidence to take your next bold step, Anthony's story is a reminder that extraordinary careers often begin with one decision to solve a problem no one else will.

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When Phong Nguyen stepped into the CEO role at Modus—a technology platform processing over $2 Billion annually in driver reimbursements—he skipped the victory lap and did something his team was terrified to arrange: he got on a call with one of their biggest, angriest ex-customers.

The client "ripped them a new one," exposing a hard reality: Modus had lost its innovation edge and treated them transactionally. But instead of getting defensive, Fong took a walk to cool down, gathered his leadership team, and used that uncomfortable call to recalibrate the company’s "true north". Within 12 months, they won that customer back.

In this episode of Lead The Team, host Ben Fanning sits down with Phong Nguyen to discuss:

• The Ex-Customer Playbook: Why calling lost accounts yields the rawest, most valuable strategic data.
• Customer Centricity vs. Customer Success: Why true customer focus is a business strategy, not a metrics-driven department.
• Leading Through Perspective: How growing up as a Vietnamese refugee shaped his long-term view on work ethic, discipline, and opportunity.
• "Liked vs. Respected": The screaming match early in his career that forced him to develop his own philosophy on modern management.
• Uncovering Hidden Signals: Moving past surface-level KPIs to align with actual customer business outcomes.

Resources & Links

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Every leader eventually faces a moment when the numbers stop making sense.

For Amit Bendov, Co-Founder and CEO of Gong, that moment came during what he calls "the quarter from hell." Sales were collapsing, investors were asking tough questions, and every report looked normal. The CRM had data—but none of the answers.

That painful experience sparked an idea that would become Gong, one of the world's leading AI-powered revenue platforms, now generating more than $500 million in annual recurring revenue.

In this episode of Lead the Team, Amit shares the leadership lessons behind that defining moment and explains how AI is changing the way leaders understand customers, coach teams, and make better decisions.

• Why "the quarter from hell" became the origin story of Gong
• The leadership blind spot that almost every executive faces
• Why traditional CRM systems fail when leaders need answers most
• How AI helps leaders spot problems before it's too late
• The operating rhythm used by elite sales organizations
• The hiring traits Amit looks for in future leaders
• Why ownership and curiosity separate great leaders from everyone else

Whether you're a CEO, founder, executive, sales leader, or entrepreneur, this conversation offers practical lessons on leading through uncertainty, building better teams, and using AI to create a lasting competitive advantage.

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AI isn't just transforming business—it's transforming cyberattacks.

In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Dennis Kozak, CEO of Ivanti, to discuss why artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity faster than most organizations can adapt. After leading companies through cloud computing, mobile, remote work, cybersecurity, and now AI, Dennis explains the leadership principles that remain constant even as technology rapidly evolves.

He shares the story of a company that unknowingly allowed attackers to remain inside its systems for more than a year—even though the security patch already existed. The lesson isn't just about technology. It's about leadership, prioritization, and preparing organizations for a future where AI accelerates both innovation and risk.

You'll also learn:

• Why AI is changing cybersecurity forever

• How executives should think about AI adoption and risk

• The leadership mistake that leaves organizations vulnerable

• Why companies fail to deploy critical security patches

• How to balance long-term strategy with constant operational fires

• What separates future executives from everyone else

• Why curiosity and adaptability matter more than expertise in the AI era

If you're a CEO, executive, technology leader, or anyone responsible for navigating AI transformation, this conversation offers practical leadership lessons for one of the fastest-changing business environments in history.

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Chris Hillabrant was only days into a new role in New York when the September 11 attacks changed everything.

As communications infrastructure across Manhattan began to fail, his team discovered they had one cell site still standing.

What happened over the next 72 hours became one of the defining leadership moments of his career. Technicians drove into the city, manually hauled thousand-pound equipment dozens of stories to triple the site's capacity, opened the network to competitors, redirected hundreds of surrounding antennas toward Manhattan, and helped provide 10,000 cell phones to first responders coordinating rescue efforts.

Now the President and CEO of Crown Castle, Chris shares the leadership lessons that crisis forged—and how they continue to shape the way he builds teams today.

In this episode, Chris discusses:

• What leading through the chaos of 9/11 taught him about communication and trust
• Why preparation is only the starting point—and adaptability wins in a crisis
• The leadership decision to help competitors when lives were on the line
• How to develop leaders who are ready before the crisis arrives
• Why the best career opportunities are often the hardest assignments
• The importance of succession planning and building a deep leadership bench
• The surprising childhood failure that taught him to obsess over customers
• Why raising your hand for difficult challenges has shaped every stage of his career

Whether you're leading a global organization or a small team, this conversation is a masterclass in leading with clarity, courage, and purpose when the stakes couldn't be higher.

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What does it take to make the kind of decision that changes how you lead forever?

In this episode of Lead The Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Doug Braun, CEO of eProductivity Software (EPS), to discuss the leadership experiences that shaped his philosophy long before he became CEO.

Doug shares the unforgettable story of a company making the difficult decision to walk away from a customer representing nearly half of its revenue, and how witnessing that moment taught him one of the most important lessons of his career: great leaders choose long-term success over short-term comfort.

The conversation also explores leading through acquisitions, building trust across organizations, embracing AI, and why Doug believes every leader should spend more time listening than talking.

Whether you're a CEO, executive, entrepreneur, or aspiring leader, you'll walk away with practical insights on courageous decision-making, leadership under pressure, organizational transformation, and building cultures where people can thrive.

In this episode:

• The leadership decision that shaped Doug's career
• Why great leaders choose "fast pain" over "slow pain"
• Building trust during mergers and acquisitions
• Leading people through uncertainty and change
• How AI is transforming leadership and manufacturing
• Practical leadership lessons every executive can apply

If you enjoy conversations about leadership, business, AI, and executive performance, be sure to follow Lead The Team for new episodes featuring world-class leaders and actionable insights.

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What do you do when the business model that made you billions faces sudden, total obsolescence?

Most executive leaders miscalculate technological shifts—they either panic and move too early, or ignore the noise and move too late. In this episode of Lead the Team, host Ben Fanning sits down with Joe Walsh, Chairman and CEO of Thryv, to break down the tactical frameworks required to lead a legacy brand through the absolute chaos of print, digital, SaaS, and now AI revolutions.

Joe famously scaled Yellow Book from $38 million to a $2 billion national powerhouse by dismantling an entrenched phone company monopoly. But his greatest leadership test wasn't storming the castle—it was repeatedly reinventing the business when the entire technological landscape shifted underneath him.

If you are currently navigating massive industry uncertainty, AI implementation, or market disruption, this conversation serves as your executive blueprint for the new rules of survival.

00:00 – The Real Definition of a CEO: Predicting the Future for Your People

04:08 – The Danger of the Bleeding Edge: Why the Second Mouse Gets the Cheese

07:16 – Shattering a Monopoly: The Hertz-Avis Strategy That Scaled Yellow Book to $2B

11:31 – The Core Principles of Value: Giving Proof and Credibility in Advance

14:43 – The NASDAQ Turnaround: Converting a Dying Print Giant into an MRR Machine

19:43 – Managing Wall Street & Fighting Legacy Inertia Simultaneously

25:36 – Corporate Blindspots: Why Enterprise Missed the Main Street Tech Boom

33:38 – The AI Landscape for Local Business: Democratization vs. Tech Debt

37:37 – Leading Through the Blur: The Golden Rule of Modern Disruption

41:17 – "Stay Calm and Carry On": Overcoming Executive Overwhelm

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• Connect with Thryv: Discover how Joe and his team help Main Street businesses win with modern software.

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