Leadership & Motherhood

Summer is a unique season for working moms. 

While social media reminds us that we "only get 18 summers" with our kids, many executive moms are simultaneously leading teams, managing projects, running businesses, navigating camp schedules, and juggling childcare logistics. The result? A lot of pressure to make every moment count.

In this final episode of Season 2, Leanna explores how high-achieving women can approach summer with more intention and less pressure. Instead of focusing on creating the perfect summer experience, she invites listeners to focus on something much more powerful: how they want to show up during the moments that matter.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why the "18 summers" narrative can create unnecessary pressure and guilt

The difference between controlling external circumstances and choosing how you want to show up

How unrealistic expectations often lead to disappointment

Practical mindset shifts for staying calm and grounded when things don't go according to plan

Why curiosity is more helpful than self-criticism when reflecting on difficult moments

How to approach summer intentionally while balancing the realities of work and family life

Plus, Leanna shares a free Summer Guide designed specifically for executive moms who want to approach the season with greater clarity, alignment, and self-compassion.

Download the free Summer Guide, a framework for intentionally designing your summer. 

And if you’re ready to design your ideal career and life, The Executive Mom Reset can help you do just that. Book a Discovery Call with Leanna today. 

Thank you for being part of Season 2 of Leadership and Motherhood. We'll see you back soon for Season 3!

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with career and executive coach Maya Sharfi to explore what it truly means to grow your career in alignment with your life, not at the expense of it.

Maya shares how she supports high-achieving women, from manager to executive levels, in navigating promotions, career pivots, and redefining success. Drawing on her unique background in design and women’s empowerment, she brings a powerful blend of analytical thinking and deep personal insight to her coaching.

Together, they discuss how to advocate for yourself at work, recognize your value, and make intentional career decisions that increase fulfillment. This conversation is especially relevant for ambitious women who feel the tension between professional growth and personal alignment.

If you’re ready to stop climbing the ladder on autopilot and start building a career that actually supports your life, this episode will give you both perspective and practical direction.

Take advantage of Maya’s special gift for Leadership & Motherhood listeners, a 5-minute assessment to identify what is standing between you and your next career level!

Sign up for the Leadership & Motherhood mailing list.

In this powerful and perspective-shifting episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Anna Malaika Tubbs, renowned author, speaker, and advocate for examining the narratives that shape how we see ourselves and each other.

Anna shares her global upbringing and how it shaped her understanding of identity, belonging, and cultural storytelling. Together, they explore the importance of elevating voices and histories that have been overlooked or erased (particularly women’s and mother’s stories), and how storytelling can be a tool for connection, healing, and change.

This conversation goes beyond theory and into real life, touching on motherhood, raising children with awareness, and the responsibility we carry as leaders, parents, and individuals to question inherited narratives.

For high-achieving women, executive leaders, and mothers, this episode is both grounding and expansive, an invitation to think more critically, lead more intentionally, and bring more awareness to what stories are shaping our beliefs.

The impact of inherited narratives and cultural conditioning

Why storytelling matters in leadership, motherhood, and identity

Raising children with awareness, empathy, and intentionality

The importance of questioning systems and assumptions

How curiosity and compassion can create deeper human connection

What it means to lead and parent with greater consciousness

Connect with Anna Malaika Tubbs:

Anna Malaika Tubbs Official Website

@annamalaikatubbs on Instagram

Read New York Times Bestseller The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Brown Shaped a Nation 

Read instant New York Times Bestseller and USA Today National Bestseller Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us

Connect with Leanna Laskey McGrath:

Coach Leanna website 

Linkedin

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Lauren Cannata, a leader in the influencer marketing industry and mother of two, for a conversation about motherhood, career growth, work-life balance, and the intentional decisions that help high-achieving women create more sustainable and fulfilling lives.

Lauren shares how becoming a mother reshaped the way she approaches ambition, productivity, leadership, and success. Instead of feeling more chaotic, motherhood pushed her to become more intentional with her time, boundaries, and career decisions, ultimately creating more balance, clarity, and presence in both work and family life.

Together, Leanna and Lauren explore the pressure many working moms and executive women feel to “do it all,” why boundaries are essential for preventing burnout, and how values-aligned career decisions can help women build lives that support both professional success and personal fulfillment. They also discuss the leadership skills motherhood strengthens, including empathy, patience, perspective, and prioritization, and why redefining success after motherhood can lead to a more grounded and meaningful life.

This episode is for ambitious women, working moms, leaders, and professionals who want to create more balance in motherhood without losing themselves, their goals, or their careers.

In this episode, listeners will learn:

How motherhood changes ambition and career priorities

Why boundaries are essential for work-life balance

How intentional career decisions can create more balance in motherhood

The leadership skills women develop through motherhood

How high-achieving women can redefine success after becoming mothers

Practical mindset shifts for reducing overwhelm and burnout

There are still a few spots left if you’d like to sign up to Try Coaching in observance of ICF’s International Coaching Week!

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, this episode creates space for a conversation that often goes unseen, especially among high achieving women.

Leanna sits down with Dr. Kelly Dries, a strengths-based leadership coach, to explore the complex and often hidden relationship between ambition, success, and mental health. Together, they unpack what it really looks like to be high functioning on the outside while struggling internally.

This conversation goes beyond surface-level discussions of burnout and productivity. It dives into the pressure to “hold it all together,” the identity of being the strong one, and the quiet belief that there isn’t room to not be okay. Dr. Dries shares her personal journey with depression, eating disorders, and recovery, and how those experiences shaped her work supporting high achieving women today.

They also explore the importance of emotional awareness, self-trust, and creating space to reconnect with yourself in a world that rewards constant achievement.

This episode is both honest and deeply human. If you’ve ever felt like you should be able to manage it all, or like there’s no room for your struggle, you are not alone.

Content warning: this episode contains discussion around topics including suicide, self harm, death, cancer, and eating disorders. Please take care of yourself.

If you need support, please reach out to someone you trust or contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Connect with Kelly and learn more about her RISE Women’s Leadership Group at https://www.kellydries.com/.

Connect with Leanna and sign up for a free Try Coaching session in May in observation of ICF’s International Coaching Week.

What do you do when something goes wrong at the worst possible moment? In this episode, I'm sharing a story from earlier this week — a flat tire, pouring rain, and a coaching mastermind I didn’t want to be late to — and the one sentence that kept me from completely spiraling.

That sentence: "This is my curriculum for today."

It sounds simple, but the shift it creates is profound. When we hit an unexpected obstacle, most of us default to resistance — why me, why now, this always happens — and without even realizing it, we hand over our power to the situation. This reframe does the opposite. It cuts through the drama, puts you back in the driver's seat (pun intended), and opens the door to something most people don't expect to feel in a hard moment: gratitude and genuine power.

In this episode I walk you through exactly what happened, how I handled it, and why the way we think about our circumstances determines not just how we feel, but how we show up — at work, at home, and everywhere in between. This one is for every high-achieving woman who has ever let a curveball derail her day, her mood, or her confidence.

In this episode you'll learn:

Why fighting against reality is always a losing battle — and what to do instead

How one sentence can interrupt a panic spiral before it takes over

The difference between things happening to you vs. for you

How your thoughts directly shape your emotions and your ability to show up powerfully

Why gratitude is accessible even in the most frustrating moments — and how to get there quickly

Coaching is the thing that’s helped me choose more empowering sentences to support me in these tough moments. If you’d like to experience the power of coaching for yourself, join me in May to celebrate ICF’s International Coaching Week with a “Try Coaching” session. It’s the one time a year I offer free 1:1 coaching. Sign up here.

What if the reason you feel overwhelmed isn’t just about your circumstances, but also how you’re thinking about them?

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath explores the shift from feeling stuck and out of control to becoming truly empowered in your life and leadership. Drawing from her own experience as a corporate executive and new mom, she shares how easy it is to fall into a pattern of overwhelm, even when you’ve created the life you thought you wanted.

Through a powerful comparison of two women with identical circumstances but completely different experiences, Leanna reveals the real difference maker: mindset.

You’ll learn how to recognize when you’re operating from a disempowered place, the subtle ways it shows up in your thoughts and stories, and how to shift back into control, starting with what’s already within your power.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, stretched thin, or like life is happening to you, this episode will help you reconnect with your agency and take your power back.

🎯 Ready to go from overwhelmed to empowered? Free “Try Coaching” sessions are available this May. Come experience the shift for yourself. Schedule Now!

This episode is a candid, thought-provoking conversation with three executive mom friends: Leanna Laskey McGrath, Annemieke Rice, and Andrea Palmer, on what happens when high-achieving women can no longer rely on the same habits, identities, and definitions of success that once drove them.

Together, they explore the shift from effort-based value to experience-based leadership, and why motherhood doesn’t diminish ambition, but transforms it.

This conversation challenges the idea that success comes from pushing harder, and instead invites a more nuanced question: What actually matters in this season of your life?

They discuss:

Why “doing what’s right for you right now” is more powerful than planning for forever

How motherhood expands your capacity and your leadership

The redefinition of value beyond hard work and long hours

Choosing presence over urgency (and why you’ll “lose the time” either way)

The role of aligned environments in making success sustainable

Turning up joy instead of trying to eliminate difficulty

The idea that there isn’t one path to fulfillment, leadership, or contribution

At its core, this episode is about self-trust, seasons, agency, and the courage to choose a version of success that reflects who you are now, not who you used to be.

Connect with Annemieke here.

Connect with Andrea here.

Last call for April "Defining Enough” Mini-Sessions! If you are constantly feeling like you’re not giving enough at work and/or at home, join me for a free 45 minute mini session. You’ll walk away feeling a little lighter and a lot more empowered. Register now!

What if enjoying your life wasn’t about changing your circumstances, but changing how you think about them?

In this episode, Executive Coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Camille Jaramis, an Australian entrepreneur, full-time professional, and mom, who is intentionally building a life that reflects what matters most to her. 

She works very hard. She’s building a platform to support parents. She’s building her family and raising her kids. She’s living her life.

But what stands out most isn’t everything she’s doing; rather, it’s how she’s thinking and approaching it all.

Camille brings a grounded, intentional approach to life, work, and motherhood. She doesn’t wait for the perfect conditions to feel fulfilled. She takes ownership of how she spends her time, how she prioritizes, and how she experiences her life. She’s done the work to understand herself, and she uses that clarity to deliberately design a life she actually enjoys.

This conversation explores the mindset behind that way of living. The belief that her life is hers to shape, that she can add real value to the world, and that hard work and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive.

If you’re a high-achieving woman who wants to pursue meaningful goals and feel present and fulfilled in your life, this episode will challenge you to think differently about what’s possible.

Check out what Camille is building to support parents and listen to her podcast here.

Leanna is offering a free coaching mini session in the month of April. Book now!

We’ve all heard plenty of advice when it comes to our health: what to eat, how to move, how to take care of ourselves. And for many high-achieving women, the challenge isn’t a lack of information… it’s actually following through.

In this episode, Leanna is joined by Dr. Meghan Garcia-Webb, a triple board-certified physician and certified life coach, to explore the missing piece in women’s health. We talk about the gap between knowing and doing, why traditional approaches often fall short, and what actually drives sustainable behavior change.

This conversation goes beyond surface-level advice and into the mindset, patterns, and internal barriers that can keep even the most driven women feeling stuck. Dr. Garcia-Webb shares a more compassionate and realistic approach to health, one that supports long-term change without relying on willpower alone.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated with your ability to stay consistent or wondered why “knowing better” hasn’t translated into doing better, this episode will give you a new perspective.

Visit Dr. Meghan’s website and follow her YouTube channel for more information.

Leanna is offering a free coaching mini session in the month of April. Book now!