Leadership & Learning w/Dr. JBT

Leading Change Through Listening: Building Trust, Buy-In, and Collaboration Special Guest: Sharon Ayala, Vice President for Marketing, Abilene Christian University

Change rarely fails because of strategy. It fails because of misalignment, lack of trust, and leaders moving too fast without truly listening.

In this episode of Leadership & Learning, Dr. JBT sits down with Sharon Ayala, Vice President for Marketing at Abilene Christian University, to explore what it really takes to lead meaningful change, especially when that change extends beyond your own department.

Sharon brings deep experience leading teams through disruption and transformation, reimagining marketing not simply as a service function, but as a driver of institutional momentum, influence, and growth. Throughout the conversation, she shares how clarity of vision, intentional listening, and cross-functional collaboration become essential leadership tools when the path forward is still emerging.

Together, they unpack what it looks like to:

• Gain buy-in from stakeholders outside your direct authority by building shared understanding rather than pushing agendas

• Create a collaborative mindset across departments with competing priorities

• Build trust with your own team by listening deeply both to what is said and what remains unspoken

• Identify the root problem before jumping to solutions, especially in moments of tension or resistance

• Lead change with confidence, even when outcomes are not yet fully defined

This episode is a powerful reminder that listening is not passive; it is one of the most strategic acts of leadership. When leaders slow down to listen well, they create clarity, alignment, and the conditions for others to move forward with confidence.

Whether you are leading a department, stepping into a new role, or navigating institutional change that requires influence across boundaries, this conversation offers practical insight and grounded wisdom for leading change that lasts.

🎧 Listen in and reflect: How often do you pause to truly listen before you lead?

In this episode of Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT, I explore key insights from What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith—a powerful reminder that the behaviors that helped us rise as leaders can quietly limit our impact at the next level.

Rather than focusing on competence or credentials, this conversation centers on behavioral awareness, relational impact, and the discipline of leadership growth.

Below highlights a few of the 20 behaviors that frequently surface at senior levels:

• Winning too much – when collaboration turns into competition

• Adding too much value – unintentionally shutting down others by always jumping in first

• Failing to listen – listening to respond instead of listening to understand

• Withholding recognition – assuming appreciation is implied rather than expressed

• Refusing to apologize – protecting ego at the expense of trust

These behaviors are rarely intentional—and often invisible to the leader—but they have a cumulative effect on culture, engagement, and trust.

Awareness alone is not enough. In this episode, I introduce a practical framework leaders can use to move from insight to action:

1. Notice the pattern – identify when and where the behavior shows up

2. Understand the cost – shift from intent to impact

3. Choose one behavior to work on – focus creates momentum

4. Replace, don't just remove – intentionally practice a new behavior

Leadership growth at this level is not about adding more skills; it's about letting go of habits that no longer serve.

What is one behavior that once helped you succeed but may now be limiting your leadership impact?

As leaders, we often measure growth by outcomes - titles, achievements, and wins we can point to. But real leadership growth rarely feels linear. More often, it happens in the uncomfortable space between who we were and who we are becoming.

In this reflective year-end episode, Dr. JBT introduces the practice of reflecting forward—looking back with honesty, not to dwell, but to learn and lead with greater intention. Drawing from a year shaped by personal loss, professional headwinds, and meaningful leadership lessons, she explores how vulnerability, trust, and discomfort can become catalysts for growth rather than signs of failure.

This episode invites you to pause, reflect, and consider how the experiences of the past year are shaping the leader you are becoming next.

Use these questions to guide your own year-end reflection or to prompt conversation with your team:

• Who was I as a leader at the beginning of this year?

• What strengths did I rely on the most?

• What moments stretched me the most—and what did they reveal about my leadership?

• Where did discomfort signal growth rather than failure?

• What leadership habits or instincts no longer serve me?

• Who am I becoming as a leader—and what behaviors must align with that future?

Whether you're closing out a challenging year or preparing for a season of change ahead, this episode will help you reflect with purpose and move forward with clarity.

Who are you becoming as a leader and are your daily choices aligned with that future?

In this episode of Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT, we unpack one of the four "I's" of transformational leadership: Intellectual Stimulation. This practice isn't about proving you're the smartest person in the room; it's about creating the environment where the best thinking can emerge.

When leaders dominate conversations or rush to provide answers, teams quickly retreat. Ideas fade. Innovation slows. And people stop taking ownership because they assume the leader already has the "right" solution. But when leaders shift from "I must know" to "We will figure this out together," everything changes: engagement rises, confidence grows, and teams begin to think more boldly.

In this episode, we explore what it looks like to cultivate curiosity, welcome experimentation, and normalize learning through trial and error. You'll hear real stories of team members developing their own solutions, discovering better processes, and gaining clarity not because they were told what to do but because they were empowered to think.

• Ask better questions that unlock deeper thinking

• Invite ideas early, rather than after decisions are made

• Celebrate effort and experimentation, not just perfect outcomes

• Model curiosity by admitting you don't have all the answers

• Respond to new ideas in ways that encourage more of them

These small shifts create psychological safety and help build a culture where people are willing to try, refine, and grow. Intellectual Stimulation isn't about expertise — it's about empowerment. It's about strengthening the thinkers on your team, not just the doers.

When was the last time you said, "That's a great idea — let's try it"? If it's been a while, this episode will help you reignite curiosity and multiply the intelligence around you.

If today's message resonated, share the episode with a colleague or someone you mentor. Let's keep building leaders who create environments where curiosity thrives and excellence follows.

Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT

In this episode of Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT, we explore one of the most powerful frameworks for elevating leadership beyond task management — The Four I's of Transformational Leadership:

Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration.

If you've ever wondered how to inspire deeper commitment, strengthen culture, or fuel real change, these Four I's offer a practical roadmap for doing just that.

• How Idealized Influence helps leaders model the behaviors they want to see

• Why Inspirational Motivation connects everyday work to purpose, hope, and shared vision

• How Intellectual Stimulation builds a culture of curiosity, innovation, and safe experimentation

• Why Individualized Consideration is essential for coaching, developing, and caring for people as individuals

Transformational leadership isn't about doing more; it's about leading with intention. When leaders model their values, share the "why," encourage new ideas, and invest in people, they create meaningful culture shifts that last.

Choose one of the Four I's to intentionally practice: Model → Inspire → Stretch → Care

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a colleague or someone you mentor. Let's keep growing leaders who lead with purpose and create impact that endures.

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In this episode of Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT, we explore a question every leader should ask:

What legacy am I building...today?

Inspired by the retirement celebration of John, a colleague and friend whose leadership has exemplified humility, consistency, and deeply lived values, this episode examines how the small choices we make each day shape the way people experience us, and ultimately, how they will remember us.

Legacy isn't formed at the end of a career. Legacy is created in real time. And whether we recognize it or not, we're writing our legacy in every meeting, every decision, every conversation, every moment of pressure, and every act of grace.

• How retirement celebrations reveal the true legacy a leader leaves behind

• Why daily decisions matter more than major accomplishments

• The difference between claiming values and living values

• A powerful reflection question: If your retirement party were today, what would you want people to say about you?

You don't build a legacy at the end. You build it every day. In the quiet choices no one sees, and in the consistent behaviors everyone feels.

Take five minutes today to reflect on the legacy you want to leave, and one step you can take right now to move toward the leader you want to become.

In this episode, Dr. JBT explores one of the most overlooked and most powerful dimensions of leadership: lateral influence.

New leaders often focus on leading their direct reports. But as you rise through the organization, your success depends less on positional authority and more on your ability to collaborate, align, and build trust with your peers.

Dr. JBT unpacks why leading across is just as important as leading down, and how strong peer relationships shape decision-making, culture, and overall organizational health. Through personal stories, practical insights, and a real example from her own leadership team, she illustrates how lateral leadership transforms competition into collaboration and silos into synergy.

• Why your first team isn't the one you lead; it's the peers you lead alongside.

• How rising in leadership increases your reliance on cross-departmental relationships.

• What happens when peers align around shared priorities instead of competing ones.

• Why lateral influence is essential when you have no authority, only trust and credibility.

• The subtle but powerful ways silos create friction, and how relationships dissolve them.

• Be Curious, Not Competitive Learn your peers' goals, challenges, and pressures before pushing your own priorities.

• Assume Positive Intent Most peers aren't resisting you; they're advocating for their teams. Start from trust.

• Share Credit Generously Celebrate collaboration. Name contributions. Build partnership over rivalry.

• Create Space to Connect Leadership happens in hallway conversations, coffee chats, and real friendships.

Your peers are not obstacles to navigate; they are partners in achieving the mission. When you strengthen those relationships, you strengthen your influence, your leadership, and your entire organization.

In this Thanksgiving-week episode of Leadership & Learning, Dr. Jamie Brownlee-Turgeon explores what she calls the Gratitude Gap—the distance between what leaders feel and what they actually express. As the holiday season fills our schedules and drains our emotional bandwidth, even the most appreciative leaders can unintentionally slip into "gratitude silence," assuming people know they're valued while racing from meeting to meeting and goal to goal.

Jamie unpacks why this happens, how silence from a leader can be misinterpreted as indifference, and the real cost of unexpressed gratitude—lower engagement, increased burnout, and the slow erosion of trust. She also shares honest reflections from her own leadership journey and highlights what changes when leaders intentionally acknowledge the work and heart of their teams: belonging grows, motivation rises, and trust deepens.

The episode closes with simple, sustainable practices to close the Gratitude Gap, from micro-moments of appreciation to weekly habits that take less than ten minutes. Jamie challenges listeners to choose just one gratitude action this month, reminding us that "gratitude unspoken is gratitude wasted," and that the people we lead deserve to know they matter.

When Words Cross a Line

In this episode of Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT, Jamie shares two powerful leadership stories — one she wishes she could redo and one she's proud of — both centered around how to handle moments when someone says something inappropriate, rude, or disrespectful in the workplace.

These moments can catch any leader off guard. Do you address it immediately? Do you let it go? What's the right balance between confidence and composure?

Through her honest storytelling, Jamie invites listeners to reflect on their own leadership reactions and discover how humility, curiosity, and calmness can turn tense interactions into opportunities for growth and understanding.

• You're not alone. Every leader faces difficult or disrespectful moments, even experienced ones.

• Pause before reacting. You don't have to "win" the moment. Sometimes, ending a meeting or taking a break is the most powerful move you can make.

• Be comfortable with awkward. Growth and respect often start in uncomfortable conversations.

• Stay calm and curious. When emotions run high, choose to listen first. Curiosity disarms defensiveness.

• It's not always about you. People's frustration often stems from something deeper — loss, change, or misalignment — not necessarily your leadership.

• Ask, "Could it be me?" Humility opens the door to understanding.

1. When was the last time someone said something disrespectful or hurtful to you at work? How did you respond?

2. How comfortable are you with awkward silence or resistance in meetings?

3. What might change if, instead of reacting, you paused to ask, "What's really going on here?"

"You can't control what someone else says or does, but you can control your composure. Sometimes, what sounds like defiance is really disappointment, and what feels like conflict might just be a cry for clarity." — Dr. Jamie J. Brownlee-Turgeon

If you've ever been caught off guard by a team member's words, this episode will remind you that leadership isn't about being perfect, it's about being prepared to learn.

Podcast: Leadership & Learning with Dr. JBT

Episode Summary: In this episode, Dr. Jamie J. Brownlee-Turgeon explores what real advocacy looks like in the workplace, and why saying there's a need isn't enough. Too often, "advocacy" stops at awareness or conversation, when true advocacy requires evidence, effort, and follow-through.

Dr. JBT shares why she has a love-hate relationship with the word advocate, how leaders can move from talking about challenges to acting on them, and why the best advocates, at every level, combine conviction with data and persistence. Using real leadership examples, she unpacks how advocacy reveals what people value most and how great leaders listen beyond the complaint to solve for those values.

Key Takeaways:

• Advocacy isn't about noise; it's about movement.

• The best advocates support their case with data, clarity, and alignment to institutional goals.

• True advocacy is intentional: it's communication and action.

• Leaders must create cultures where advocacy is welcomed, not dismissed as a complaint.

• "People complain about that which they value" — listen for what matters most, not just what's said loudest.

Reflection Questions:

1. Where in your organization are you waiting for someone else to advocate for you — instead of taking action yourself?

2. How can you strengthen your advocacy through evidence, collaboration, and follow-through?

3. As a leader, how can you create an environment where people feel empowered to move from talking about the need to meeting the need?

Memorable Quote:

"Advocacy without action is noise. Advocacy with action creates progress." — Dr. JBT

Listen, Reflect, Lead. 🔗 Tune in to learn how to transform your advocacy into action and your action into impact.