LED: Leadership w/ Ed

Every leader says they value accountability. Melissa Ness calls it one of the greatest gifts you can give your people, and argues that skipping the hard conversation is not kindness but a disservice. After helping grow an Iowa PEO from 4,000 to 45,000 worksite employees through three acquisitions, Melissa founded Connectify HR and built it on purpose: values defined before the first hire, a team redrafted from people she’d spent years learning to trust, and a hiring standard of hungry, humble and smart over hard skills. She and Ed dig into what servant leadership really demands, why she overcommunicates with investors, what being the only woman in a room of 18 CEOs taught her about imposter syndrome, and the two things every leader needs before taking a big leap.

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Maria Volante spent more than two decades leading teams at Principal and Wells Fargo, then 14 more years coaching executives, before she finally listened to everyone telling her to start her own firm. For National Women's Small Business Month, she tells Ed how growing up with the fear of never having enough held her back, how selling shoes at the mall taught her where a sale really happens, and why she is out to kill the phrase imposter syndrome for good. She also shares the leadership credo she wrote in 1989 and still lives by, her advice for anyone ready to make the leap, and the jar of glass beads from her sister that turned every small win into something she could hear. Subscribe, like, and share if this one lands for you.

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Deb Koster spent 35 years building Devansoy from a two-person startup in Carroll, Iowa into one of the leading plant-based beverage manufacturers in the country, then had the discipline to hand it off on her own terms. She shares the arc of going from secretary to CEO, what it took to trust her gut on a million dollar equipment purchase with no contract in hand, how she spotted and developed her successor Tyler from his warehouse shift days, and why the hardest part of leaving was not the title but the identity. Equal parts entrepreneurship masterclass and leadership story, this one is for anyone who has ever built something from nothing and wondered what comes next.

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Kevin Eastman spent years inside one of the most celebrated dynasties in NBA history and brings that hard-won wisdom straight to the boardroom. As an assistant coach with the 2008 championship Boston Celtics, Kevin watched greatness get built from the ground up. He breaks down what actually made that Celtics team work, shares his REAL leadership framework, the Bill Russell lesson on three ways to lead, and why culture is actually third on the list behind values and people. This episode rewires how you think about fit, standards, and what it means to compete against yourself every single day.

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Chris Ash, defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, brings one of the most layered leadership journeys yet to LED. From winning a national championship at Ohio State under Urban Meyer to a head coaching stint at Rutgers to four years in the NFL, Chris has been tested at every level. The conversation covers what elite culture feels like the moment you walk in the building, why the best leaders are easy to follow but hard to please, and what resilience really looks like when the scoreboard does not go your way. https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipWithEd/videos #LED301 #LeadershipWithEd #EliteCultureWins #CoachingLeadership #ChrisAshNotreDame

Chris Mashburn, COO of Jorie AI, brings one of the most unconventional leadership journeys yet to LED. From fifteen years on the Texas Highway Patrol and running security detail for President George W. Bush, to founding tech companies, to now transforming healthcare revenue cycles with AI, Chris has operated in environments where bad decisions carry real consequences. The conversation covers how law enforcement shaped his decision making, why chain of command and innovation are not mutually exclusive, and how Jorie AI is keeping rural hospitals open and modernizing Medicare and Medicaid. Faith, family, and integrity are the throughline of everything he does.

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Cody Barbo, co-founder and CEO of Trust & Will, built a company solving a problem most people avoid until it is too late. What started as a coffee conversation about crypto and estate planning in 2017 now serves over 1.3 million families. Cody opens up about the messy realities of scaling a startup, from getting pushed out of his previous company to building a co-founder relationship that has lasted eight and a half years. The conversation covers brand building in an uncomfortable category, knowing when to let good people go, and why focus is the most underrated competitive advantage a founder can have. #LED301 #LeadershipWithEd #TrustAndWill #FounderMindset #BuildToScale Follow & Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipWithEd/videos

Leo Tucker, Managing Partner at Northwestern Mutual's Washington DC network office, brings thirty-five plus years of hard-earned leadership wisdom to one of the most candid and human conversations yet on what it means to truly lead. Leo never set out to be a leader. He was simply being a great contributor when opportunity found him. From there he built a philosophy rooted in culture, courageous truth-telling, and genuine care for the people under his stewardship. He opens up about his own unconscious bias he had to face head-on, the leaders who had the courage to tell him what he needed to hear, and why silence in leadership is just another form of lying. The conversation covers why culture leads when leadership is not in the room, how to identify the next generation of leaders, and why the definition of hell is hearing the truth too late. #LeadershipLegacy #TellTheTruthOnTime #CultureLeads #LeadershipWithEd #LED301

Mark Abbott, Founder of ninety.io and Creator of the EOS Framework brings four decades of pattern recognition across more than a hundred companies, thirty plus boards, and hundreds of coaching engagements to one of the most direct conversations yet on what separates businesses that scale from those that stall. He breaks down why the leader of leaders is the single greatest variable in any organization's success or failure, and why most companies get stuck under ten million in revenue for one reason: leadership. Mark shares his frameworks for identifying A players, diagnosing culture on sight, and navigating the five unavoidable stages of building an enduring business. He gets vulnerable about his own blind spots, covers the difference between being nice and being kind, and shares what the best leaders understand about people that average leaders consistently miss.

In this episode, Ed McGill interviews Yogi Roth about leadership, success, and the importance of competition, purpose, and mental health in sports and life. They explore how elite athletes and coaches cultivate excellence and resilience.