Leadership Happy Hour

Most people think the hard part of leading a startup is the strategy. My guest has lived the real one. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour I sit down with Kris Krustangel, a commercial executive who has built and scaled businesses from their first dollar of revenue, including strategic acquisitions worth nearly a billion dollars in combined value.

Kris is radically transparent and does not pull punches. We get into why ego quietly costs leaders more than they realize, the difference between confidence in your approach and confidence that you have all the answers, how he builds a culture where anyone can raise a hand regardless of title, and the three things he looks for before he ever says yes to a company.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You will leave with one move you can make Monday morning.

In this episode

• Why a path to profitability and low ego beat almost everything else
• Ego is the enemy: how it starts costing a leader before anyone names it
• Confidence in your approach versus confidence that you are the answer
• “Nobody has ever had success with tomorrow,” and what that means for how you lead
• The three moves that build a team that actually speaks up
• How transparent to get with bad news, and the urgent versus important test
• Performance and discovery: why performing earns you the right to be curious
• How he thinks about AI as an amplifier, not a replacement
• The three red flags before you join a startup

Timestamps

About the guest
Kris Krustangel is a commercial executive in medtech with a track record of turning innovation into real growth and enterprise value, including strategic acquisitions worth nearly a billion dollars in combined value. He has built and scaled disruptive businesses from their first dollar of revenue and leads teams through growth and transformation. Find him on LinkedIn.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Take the assessment
Ever been told you need to work on your executive presence, or that you are not quite ready for that next role? Head to coachbriggs.com and take the free Build Your Leadership Presence assessment, or apply to work with Alesia one on one.

0:00 Welcome and the executive presence question0:35 Why the hard part of a startup isn't the strategy1:02 Meet Kris Krustangel1:42 The through-line of startups that actually work3:05 Ego is the enemy: how it starts costing a leader4:14 How to get out of your own way5:09 Questions that reveal how a company really decides6:19 Confidence versus ego: where's the line7:56 "Nobody has ever had success with tomorrow"8:44 The three moves to build a team that speaks up12:35 Setting a vision people can actually feel14:11 Bad news: how transparent to get, and when15:28 Urgent versus important17:06 Performance and discovery: earning the right to be curious20:17 How much information to push up the chain23:02 AI as an amplifier, not a replacement25:40 The three red flags before you join a startup29:25 The one move to make Monday morning30:30 Where to find Kris30:54 Close: the person in the mirror

Most clinicians and executives treat LinkedIn like a digital resume, something they dust off only when they need a new job. My guest tonight says that’s leaving a fortune on the table. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Sheikh C. Ali, founder of SC Medical Media and a national speaker who has coached more than 60 clinicians and healthcare executives on how to build real authority on LinkedIn.

We get into why LinkedIn is an opportunity machine and not a digital resume, his 4 Ps of LinkedIn visibility, the three things that actually make a personal brand, the three dead giveaways of AI-written posts, and why fifteen minutes of commenting a day quietly beats posting every single day.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You’ll leave with one thing you can do Monday morning.

In this episode

• Why LinkedIn is an opportunity machine, not a digital resume
• The 4 Ps of LinkedIn visibility: Position, Polish, Publish, Pursue
• The three things that make a real personal brand
• The three dead giveaways of AI-written posts
• The three profile fixes to make tonight, starting with your headline
• The second-degree superpower hiding in the comment section
• How long it really takes before the payoff shows up

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and the executive presence question
00:37 LinkedIn is an opportunity machine, not a resume
01:52 From medical school to SC Medical Media
04:21 Why posting feels cringe, and how to get past it
06:26 The three dead giveaways of AI-written posts
07:29 What a personal brand really is
10:36 Visibility and the 4 Ps framework
11:31 Position: if you speak to everyone, you speak to no one
12:27 Polish: your profile is your CV, business card, and landing page
14:05 The three profile fixes to make tonight
16:05 Publish: post once a week and you’re in the top 3%
16:53 Pursue: outreach without the pitch slapping
17:58 How long before it pays off
19:50 An opportunity machine, not a business card
22:29 How often to post and comment, and the second-degree superpower
26:22 Why the fringe of your network lands your next job
27:27 Why executives in healthcare are behind
29:49 The one move to make Monday morning
30:41 Stop being a ghost

About the guest
Sheikh C. Ali is the founder of SC Medical Media and a national speaker who helps clinicians and healthcare executives build real authority on LinkedIn. A former medical student, he pivoted into building his own business and now coaches the people he came from on how to show up online as the authorities they are. Find him on LinkedIn (search Sheikh C. Ali, with the middle initial).

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Take the assessment
Ever been told you need to work on your executive presence, or that you’re not quite ready for that next role? Head to coachbriggs.com and take the free Build Your Leadership Presence assessment, or apply to work with Alesia one on one.

We all wear masks at work. The confident one, the busy one, the one who's got it all handled. But those masks have a cost, and most leaders never add it up. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Eric Himes, founder of The Inspired Culture, creator of the 50 Masks of Leadership, and author of the new book The Empty Chair.

Eric spent nearly two decades climbing to the top of a company he helped build to about a billion dollars, and learned the hard way what that climb can cost. We get into the masks leaders hide behind and the real price of wearing them, why even "I don't do masks" is its own mask, what a growth mindset actually looks like in practice, and how to measure culture in real time instead of guessing at it once a year.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make Monday morning.

In this episode

• The Empty Chair: why Eric wrote it, and what the empty chair really means
• The masks leaders hide behind, and the cost of wearing them
• Why even "I don't do masks" is its own mask
• The warning signs before leadership costs you
• What a growth mindset looks like in practice, not on a poster
• Measuring culture in real time instead of once a year

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and sponsor
00:44 Meet Eric Himes
01:41 The Empty Chair: the book and why he wrote it now
06:22 The warning signs before leadership costs you
12:01 The 50 masks leaders hide behind
16:47 "I don't do masks" is its own mask
18:11 Can you actually change your mask?
19:35 What growth mindset looks like in practice
23:15 Measuring culture in real time, not once a year
26:39 Inside the Inspired Culture Summit
29:06 The one change to make
29:38 Where to find Eric

About the guest
Eric Himes is the founder and CEO of The Inspired Culture, creator of the 50 Masks of Leadership framework, and author of The Empty Chair. After nearly two decades in executive leadership, he built The Inspired Culture to help organizations measure inspiration and growth in real time and reveal the blind spots leaders can't see on their own.

Eric's Website: https://yourpathinspired.com/

Inspired Culture Summit: https://yourpathinspired.com/summit/

The Empty Chair: https://yourpathinspired.com/empty-chair/

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by Build Your High-Performing Team. If you're a certified coach who wants to offer a team diagnostic in your practice, learn more at buildyourhighperformingteam.com.

You're not starting over. You're starting from experience. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Donna Moulds, founder of The Resilience Movement, on the question every big change eventually forces: who am I now?

Donna has spent over thirty-five years in leadership and workforce development, and she defines resilience not as motivation or a mindset, but as capacity, the emotional and identity foundations that let you keep going through change. In 2019 she walked 860 kilometers solo across Spain, and that experience became the backbone of her work. We get into the uncomfortable in-between when you've let go of an old identity but the new one isn't formed yet, how to choose what you keep and what you leave behind, and how to find what's still in your control when everything around you is shifting.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode:

• The confronting question behind every big change: who am I now?
• Why you're not starting over, you're starting from experience
• Moving through the identity in-between, grief, anxiety, and fear included
• Choosing what to keep and what to leave behind
• A practical tool for building capacity, not just motivation
• Finding what's still in your control when the ground is moving

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and sponsor
00:45 Meet Donna Moulds
01:58 Where "you're not starting over" came from
03:41 The question change forces: who am I now?
06:10 Her own turning point on the Camino
07:33 Figuring out what to keep and what to trust
09:19 Having the conversation with yourself (without walking across Spain)
11:51 Community question: the identity in-between
15:48 Reinvention starts with a decision you make for yourself
20:05 Building capacity: listening to your body
24:14 When change hits, finding what's still in your control
28:24 A practical tool you can use this week
31:02 The one thing to hold onto at the edge of a big change
31:46 Where to find Donna

About the guest
Donna Moulds is the founder of The Resilience Movement and a leadership and workforce development specialist with over thirty-five years helping people navigate change and build what comes next. She defines resilience as capacity, not motivation, and draws on decades of work and her own major life transitions, including walking 860 kilometers solo across the Camino de Santiago.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by Build Your High-Performing Team. If you're a certified coach who wants to offer a team diagnostic in your practice, learn more at buildyourhighperformingteam.com.

When everything's changing at once, what do your people actually need from you? In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Rick Lyman, who's spent thirty-five years helping leaders and organizations navigate change, as founder of Executive Consulting and Coaching and a coach in Harvard's executive education programs.

Rick makes a simple, uncomfortable case: most of what your team needs isn't a new program, it's your attention. We get into why so many change efforts fail and how to beat the odds, what psychological safety actually looks like day to day (including a simple empty-chair tactic to pull in every voice), why engagement is at its lowest in a decade, and the one mistake organizations make when building their next generation of leaders. He also shares the small shift in how you open a one-on-one that changes the whole conversation.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode

• What leaders are really worried about right now
• Why asking beats telling, and how to lead through inquiry
• The small change to your one-on-ones that changes everything
• Why so many change efforts fail, and how to make change stick
• What psychological safety looks like day to day
• The empty-chair tactic for including every voice
• Engagement, burnout, and "quiet cracking"
• The one mistake in building your next generation of leaders

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and sponsor
00:28 Meet Rick Lyman
01:27 What leaders are worrying about right now
03:20 The power of inquiry: asking instead of telling
09:14 A better opening question for your one-on-ones
11:17 What leaders get wrong when they lead change
15:58 Go slow to go fast: making change stick
17:19 Psychological safety: what it looks like day to day
19:36 The empty seat: a tactic for including every voice
24:00 Engagement, burnout, and quiet cracking
27:12 The mistake in building the next generation
29:14 The one thing to focus on
30:08 Where to find Rick

About the guest
Rick Lyman is the founder and president of Executive Consulting and Coaching, with thirty-five years helping leaders and organizations make real, lasting change. He previously led organizational development inside companies like Fidelity and Cisco, and he coaches leaders in Harvard's executive education programs.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by Build Your High-Performing Team. If you're a certified coach who wants to offer a team diagnostic in your practice, learn more at buildyourhighperformingteam.com.

I'll be honest: for a long time I didn't even know Chief of Staff was a real role. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Nicole Bryce, a strategy and operations leader and Chief of Staff, to pull back the curtain on one of the most interesting and fastest-growing seats in any organization.

Nicole has fifteen years turning messy, ambiguous priorities into clear plans and real results across financial services and shared services. We get into what a Chief of Staff actually does, why the role is suddenly everywhere, and how she made each move build the foundation for the next. She also makes the case that careers aren't ladders, they're more like climbing a wall, and that you don't have to be the smartest person in the room to lead it. We close on why culture matters just as much as the plan.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode:

• What a Chief of Staff actually is, and why the role is everywhere right now
• The difference between a Chief of Staff and the roles people confuse it with
• Why each role builds the foundation for the next, even the sideways ones
• Why you don't have to be the subject matter expert to lead
• How to position yourself to move into a Chief of Staff role
• Bringing structure to ambiguity, in practice
• Why culture matters as much as the plan

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome
00:35 Meet Nicole Bryce
01:28 What a Chief of Staff actually is
03:33 Chief of Staff vs the roles people confuse it with
04:26 Why each role builds the foundation for the next
05:42 You don't have to be the subject matter expert
07:03 Careers aren't ladders: the rock wall analogy
07:48 Positioning yourself for the role
11:49 What the role is really like day to day
13:12 Getting comfortable with ambiguity
14:54 Bringing structure to ambiguity, in practice
17:13 Why the role is getting so much attention now
18:33 How to move into a Chief of Staff role
21:15 How much should leaders communicate?
22:38 Why culture matters as much as the plan
25:16 Where to find Nicole

About the guest
Nicole Bryce is a strategy and operations leader and Chief of Staff with fifteen years driving enterprise transformation across financial services and shared services. A trusted advisor to C-suite executives, she's known for bringing structure to ambiguity, aligning leaders around what matters, and turning big ideas into strategies that get executed.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Work with Alesia: coachbriggs.com | New episodes weekly

You can't replace a six-figure salary by pricing like an intern. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Deb Boulanger, the Reliable Revenue Architect and host of the Life After Corporate podcast, on what it actually takes to leave corporate and build a business that pays you for your judgment.

Deb spent twenty years inside a major tech advisory firm before she walked away at the top, took a ten-day silent retreat, and built Life After Corporate. Since then she's guided hundreds of senior women through the leap. We get into what fractional work really is and how to find it, the difference between being hired for a project and retained for your expertise, why so many accomplished women underprice, and the shift from hustle to reliable revenue. Almost half of all new businesses last year were started by women, and Deb breaks down why that wave is happening now.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode

• What fractional and advisory work actually is, and how to find it
• The difference between being hired for a project and retained for your expertise
• Why accomplished women underprice, and how to stop
• Hustle versus building reliable, recurring revenue
• Why nearly half of new businesses are now started by women
• The one move to make if you're quietly planning your exit

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Leadership Happy Hour
00:36 Meet Deb Boulanger
01:40 What nobody tells you about leaving corporate
03:14 What fractional work actually is
05:40 Advice for making the move
08:41 Coaching yourself into the advisor seat
10:59 Learning to trust your own judgment
14:40 Why you don't hear your own value
16:16 The underpricing trap, and how to fix it
20:16 Why now: the wave of women going out on their own
24:05 Where fractional and advisory work comes from
24:19 Hustle vs reliable revenue
26:21 Getting booked for speaking and keynotes
27:41 One move if you're quietly planning your exit
28:36 The one thing Deb wants every woman to hear

About the guest
Deb Boulanger is the Reliable Revenue Architect for corporate women turned CEOs and host of the Life After Corporate podcast, with more than 250 episodes. After twenty years inside a major tech advisory firm, she built Life After Corporate to help senior women turn decades of expertise into advisory and fractional work they get retained for, not just hired for.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

You've read the book. Taken the course. Heard the advice. And you still haven't changed. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Jamison Jacobs, a Professional Certified Coach who coaches leaders and trains the coaches who coach them, to get at why knowing what to do is almost never enough.

Jamison makes the case that information was never the thing holding you back. The real work happens underneath, at the level of the beliefs and patterns quietly shaping your results. We get into what he listens for when a leader brings him a problem, how experience hardens into the beliefs that run your behavior, and why the leader who can't stop doing it all is usually protecting a story about what got them here. We also talk about what still makes a leader valuable in a world where AI makes information instant and endless.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode

• Why knowing what to do is almost never enough to change
• What a great coach listens for beneath the problem you bring
• How your experiences harden into the beliefs that drive your behavior
• Seeing the pattern that's quietly shaping your results
• Getting honest about what you actually value
• Why "doing it all" is so hard to let go of, and what it's really protecting
• What makes a leader valuable when AI makes information limitless

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Leadership Happy Hour
00:33 Meet Jamison Jacobs
01:15 Why knowing what to do is never enough
04:03 Coaching leaders vs training coaches
07:11 What "listening for what's underneath" really means
09:33 Getting past the belief that's in the way
13:19 How experience hardens into belief
15:56 Seeing the patterns driving your behavior
18:56 Getting clear on what you actually value
26:39 The belief that doing it all is what got you here
29:24 AI: what still makes a leader valuable
31:12 The one thing to shift on Monday
32:41 Where to find Jamison

About the guest
Jamison Jacobs is the founder and CEO of JJacobs Coaching and a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. He coaches executives, founders, and high performers through leadership transitions and identity shifts, and for more than seven years he has also trained and developed coaches through a year-long professional program. His work goes after the goals that matter while addressing the patterns and beliefs quietly standing in the way.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Most of us learn leadership the hard way, one painful lesson at a time, over years. My guest has thirty of those years, and he's here to hand you the shortcuts. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Kevin Gregar, a retiring Army colonel who spent more than three decades getting the best out of people, to talk about what actually changes when you lead for that long.

We get into how to pull real value from different perspectives when you're solving hard problems, what worked thirty years ago that would fail badly today, and the moment Kevin learned that rigorous process means nothing without genuine care for people. He also makes the case that too many leaders are bolting AI onto broken process, and what to do instead.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode

• The shift from doing the work to leading the people
• Bringing in different perspectives when you're solving complex problems
• Using difference when the stakes are high and the clock's running
• What worked thirty years ago that fails today
• Why process means nothing without genuine care for people
• Where to start with AI if you feel behind, and why process comes first
• The one painful lesson you can skip

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Leadership Happy Hour00:42 Meet Kevin Gregar01:33 Looking back after thirty years in uniform02:19 The shift from doing to leading: empower, then get out of the way05:50 Why consistency and having their back changes everything07:48 Solving complex problems: bringing in different perspectives10:20 Using difference when the stakes are high14:33 What worked thirty years ago that fails today18:56 Process versus people: when process alone isn't enough24:34 AI: where to start if you feel behind27:11 Get the process right before you add AI28:07 The one painful lesson you can skip30:17 Thanks and close

About the guest
Kevin Gregar is a retiring U.S. Army colonel who spent more than thirty years in uniform, twenty-six as an officer, leading everything from small teams to large global commands, including running a $5.4 billion industrial operation across 23 facilities. He pairs rigorous process and accountability with genuine care for the people doing the work, and he's an early adopter of AI in enterprise operations.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Links
Work with Alesia: coachbriggs.com | New episodes every week

Think sales isn't your job? If you lead, you're selling all day long. Your ideas, your decisions, your timelines, your team's work, and yourself. In this episode of Leadership Happy Hour, I sit down with Kat Hurd, a sales strategist and leadership coach who spent nearly twenty years in medical device sales, to unpack what most leaders get wrong about influence.

Kat went from Clinical Specialist to Rep of the Year, grew a $500K territory into $6.5 million, and scaled a team from zero to fifty-five before stepping out to coach. We get into building influence before you have the title, why the way you speak and strategize shapes the opportunities you get, and the systems that make success repeatable instead of accidental. She also shares one of the hardest lessons in the jump from top performer to leader: you're not there to make your team carbon copies of you, you're there to make them better than you.

Grab a drink and pull up a seat. You'll leave with one move you can make this week.

In this episode

• Why you're always selling, even when you're not in a sales role
• Building influence before you ever get the title
• How the way you speak and strategize shapes your opportunities
• The systems that make success repeatable, not accidental
• Winning big without burning out
• The shift from top performer to leader: coaching people to be better than you, not copies of you

About the guest
Kat Hurd is a sales strategist and leadership coach who spent nearly twenty years in medical device sales, going from Clinical Specialist to Rep of the Year, growing a $500K territory into $6.5 million, and leading a $25 million portfolio before scaling a sales team from zero to fifty-five as an Area Vice President. Today she helps high performers win big without burning out and opens more doors for women in the device world.

About the host
Alesia Briggs is a Certified Executive Coach and founder of Briggs Consulting. Leadership Happy Hour is her show where leaders pour a drink, skip the theory, and talk about what actually makes them better. Find her at coachbriggs.com.

Links
Work with Alesia: coachbriggs.com | New episodes every week