Leadership & Motherhood

If you’ve ever ended a full, productive day and still thought “it’s not enough” or “I should’ve done more,” this episode is for you.

In this solo episode, Executive Coach Leanna Laskey McGrath unpacks one of the most common (and invisible) patterns she sees in high-achieving women: the constant feeling of falling short, even when you’re doing everything right.

The root issue? Most high achievers have never actually defined what “enough” means, so their brain keeps moving the goalposts to keep them focused.

Through a powerful client story and practical coaching tools, Leanna explores:

Why your default will always be “never enough” (and why that’s not your fault)

How the “inner critic” or “drill sergeant” keeps you stuck in overdrive

The difference between your absolute best and your relative best

A simple daily practice to define success on your terms

This episode will challenge how you think about productivity, performance, and self-worth, and help you start closing the gap between what you’ve done and what you believe you should have done.

If you’re ready to feel more grounded, more intentional, and finally enough, this is your starting point.

🎯 Leanna is offering a limited number of free April mini sessions to get personalized support on defining enough. Sign up at coachleanna.com!

So many women live with debilitating pain that no test can explain. This is Leanna’s story and her journey to finding answers and solutions.

Despite multiple ER visits, specialist referrals, scans, and procedures, everything continued to come back “normal.” With no clear answers, she began to question her own experience—and eventually, like so many women, started to accept the pain as something she might have to live with.

In this deeply personal episode, Leanna shares her six-year journey to a diagnosis of endometriosis and adenomyosis, and the moment everything changed when she was finally referred to a doctor who listened differently and was able to determine the underlying issue and provided a solution.

She is joined by that doctor: Dr. Nicole Donnellan, a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon and Director of the UPMC Magee Women’s Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain Center. Dr. Donnellan specializes in the treatment of complex pelvic pain conditions and is a leading advocate for advancing research and care in women’s health.

Together, they explore the challenges of diagnosing endometriosis, why so many women go years—sometimes decades—without answers, and the limitations of current diagnostic tools. They also discuss the wide range of symptoms associated with endometriosis and adenomyosis, the role of pelvic floor physical therapy, and the importance of patient advocacy.

This episode sheds light on a condition that affects millions of women, yet remains widely misunderstood and underdiagnosed.

For anyone navigating unexplained pain, questioning “normal” test results, or seeking answers, this conversation offers both validation and hope.

Connect with Dr. Donnellan.

Connect with Leanna

To learn more about Leadership & Motherhood and join the initiative, visit leadershipandmotherhood.info and sign up to receive updates.

In this episode, executive coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with mindset and meditation coach Nemisha Patel Owen to explore what it really means to live an aligned life.

After 18 years climbing the corporate ladder in a highly male-dominated engineering environment at NATS, the UK’s air traffic control provider, Nemisha appeared successful by every traditional measure: an MBA, promotions, and leadership roles in a prestigious field. But internally, something felt off.

When a major health crisis forced her to slow down, Nemisha began questioning the path she had worked so hard to build. That moment of disruption became the catalyst for redefining success, ambition, and what it means to truly live in alignment for her.

In this conversation, we discuss cultural expectations, identity, motherhood as a catalyst for change, and the quiet inner voice many high-achieving women experience when their external success no longer matches their internal truth.

If you’ve ever felt successful on paper but unsettled inside, this episode offers a powerful reminder that alignment—not approval—is the foundation of a fulfilling life and career.

Connect with Nemisha on Instagram and other socials as nemisha.patelowen, practice YogaLife with Nemisha on YouTube, listen to her podcast, Live Your True Self, and join her free Introduction to Meditation: 6-week Course to Inner Calm.

Connect with Leanna

To learn more about Leadership & Motherhood and join the initiative, visit leadershipandmotherhood.info and sign up to receive updates.

In this special episode of Leadership and Motherhood honoring Women’s History Month, Leanna sits down with executive leadership coach Loretta Stagnitto and her daughter, fractional marketing executive Annie Ricci, for a powerful cross-generational conversation about ambition, identity, and defining success on your own terms.

Loretta shares her journey from corporate VP in Silicon Valley to building her own executive coaching business after burnout and motherhood reshaped her priorities. Annie reflects on growing up watching her mother lead, and how that example shaped her own path from corporate marketing to launching a fractional consulting business.

Together, they explore:

How our identities get wrapped up in corporate titles

What happens when our ambition doesn’t align with the corporate ladder

The grief and growth that come with career transitions

The subtle expectations firstborn daughters carry

How the example we set quietly shapes our children’s beliefs about work and possibility

This is a conversation about generational evolution, how each woman learns from the one before her, keeps what resonates, and consciously chooses her own version of success.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re setting the “right” example for your children, this episode will remind you: they are always watching and they are learning from the example we set.

Connect with Loretta

Connect with Annie

Connect with Leanna

To learn more about Leadership & Motherhood and join the initiative, visit leadershipandmotherhood.info and sign up to receive updates.

In this first interview on Leadership and Motherhood, executive coach Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with top-performing NYC real estate leader Rebecca Blacker to explore the real challenges high-achieving executive women and mothers face.

From people pleasing and mom guilt to delegation struggles and confidence at work, this conversation dives deep into the tension between building a successful career and being the present, engaged mom you want to be. Rebecca shares how becoming a mother became the catalyst for a major career transition when she chose not to step back, but instead, to lean into more aligned, fulfilling leadership and work.

If you’re an executive woman navigating work-life balance, managing a team, building confidence, and raising a family, this episode offers honest insight, practical reflection, and reassurance that you’re not alone.

Connect with Rebecca

Connect with Leanna 

Let us know what you think about the new show! Click the microphone on the bottom right to record a voice message. We want to hear from you!

Welcome to the very first episode of Leadership and Motherhood!

After 2.5 years and 153 episodes, The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast has evolved into something bigger.

In this episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath, Executive Coach for Moms, shares why she made the intentional decision to end her previous show. It was not because she stopped loving podcasting, but because she felt called to create something more aligned, more expansive, and more impactful.

Leadership and Motherhood is not just a podcast. It’s a movement.

Launched intentionally on March 1st to kick off Women’s History Month, this new initiative exists to:

Elevate women’s voices

Redefine motherhood as a leadership advantage

Inspire women to create lives and careers they truly desire

If you’ve ever felt disoriented after becoming a mom…If you’ve questioned your value at work…If you’ve wondered whether it’s possible to feel fulfilled in both career and motherhood…

You are in the right place.

This podcast will bring you real conversations, mindset shifts, leadership tools, and inspiring stories from women who are navigating both worlds… not perfectly, but intentionally.

Because you have one precious life.

And you deserve to build it on purpose. You deserve to love it.

Subscribe, connect with Leanna on LinkedIn , and join the Leadership and Motherhood movement.

Let’s change the conversation. Together.

You are listening to the final episode of The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast as we know it. It’s the end of an era! A huge thank you to everyone who has made this podcast such a huge success and this journey so much fun.

Listen to hear a little bit about what’s next, and in the meantime, here are three things you can do right now:

1. Follow the show to receive future updates.
2. Rate and review the show on Apple and Spotify, or wherever you get your Podcasts, to help others gain access.
3. Go back and listen to some old episodes, either to revisit or to hear what you’ve missed.

Rather than an ending, this episode marks an evolution, an acknowledgment of growth, change, and the need to create something even more aligned with the work ahead. Thank you for being a part of the journey!

Sign up to hear more about the new show. https://www.coachleanna.com/connect

Full transcript available here.

Connect with Leanna here.

This episode is a grounding conversation for high-achieving women who want to stay ambitious without becoming emotionally hijacked by everything happening in the world. Leanna explores how to remain informed without burning out your nervous system, why timing and intentionality matter when consuming news, and how external chaos can quietly pull you off track from goals that deeply matter to you. She introduces the mindset shift of who before how, inviting you to stop asking how to reach your goals and instead focus on who you need to become to create them in order to create clarity, momentum, and resilience, even in imperfect circumstances. This episode encourages you to start embodying your next evolution today; imperfectly, intentionally, and in the midst of real life challenges, so you can continue building momentum toward the life and leadership you truly want.

Full transcript available here.

Connect with Leanna here.

Join Leanna for the third annual January Reset for high achieving women, where you’ll learn new strategies and be supported in achieving your 2026 goals, no matter the circumstances of the world and our lives this year.

When life gets busy, even the most successful executive moms can find themselves quietly drifting away from their goals, not because they don’t care, but because the strategies they’ve been taught are missing some important mindset components.

In this episode, executive coach Leanna breaks down why motivation fades when life gets full, what’s actually happening beneath the surface, and what truly helps you stay connected to your goals without relying on perfection or burnout. If you want sustainable progress that works with your life rather than not against it, this episode is for you.

Join Leanna for the January Reset, where you’ll learn new strategies and be supported in achieving your 2026 goals.