Level 10 Leaders

Ryan Castle sits down with Kyle Harkema, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at KMC Controls, scholar practitioner, and author of the newly released book "Strategic Clarity." Kyle unpacks the idea at the heart of his work: if your strategy isn't changing what people do on a Monday morning, it's not a strategy, it's a slogan. He explains why organisations don't execute strategy, they execute behaviour, and why so many leadership teams leave an offsite aligned and energised only to watch everything drift back to normal within weeks.

Kyle also explores why leadership's job is to create clarity, not certainty, and how great companies don't eliminate disagreement but instead build a shared decision framework that lets people make similar decisions even when the leader isn't in the room. He introduces the Strategic Orientation Index, a research-backed diagnostic that acts as both a mirror and a map for organisations, and shares real examples from KMC Controls of turning voice of customer insights into daily behaviour change across every department.

Useful links:
Connect with Kyle Harkema on LinkedIn
https://www.kylejharkema.com/

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This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Dr Mike Ashby, sharing where leaders should focus their energy to drive real team growth. Mike explains that developing a team isn't one size fits all. Give your top performers autonomy and high impact challenges, limit the drag from your bottom 20%, and pour your energy into the middle, where the biggest opportunity for progress sits. He also lays out how growth follows an S-curve, with beginners needing structure, intermediates needing balance, and experts needing fresh challenges. The result is a development approach that meets people where they are and keeps the whole team moving forward.

Connect with Dr Mike Ashby:
LinkedIn

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

Ryan Castle sits down with David Alsop, Chief Human Resources Officer at Ultradent Products, a founder-led dental manufacturing company ranked in Fortune's top ten Best Workplaces for large manufacturing and production for five consecutive years. David shares the philosophy behind his book "Making HR Matter," co-authored with Ted Forbes, and unpacks what it actually means to build HR strategy around business outcomes rather than HR tradition. He explores why the best leaders facilitate the room rather than dominate it, and how humility and feedback create the conditions for teams to innovate and grow together.

David also breaks down Ultradent's total wellness proposition, explaining why pay-led retention is little more than bribery, and what the convergence mindset looks like when individuals and organisations finally meet at their ignition point, where engagement and results come together.

Useful links:
Connect with David Alsop on LinkedIn
Making HR Matter

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Sara Reece of Workmind, sharing why understanding your operations has to come before any decision to automate them.

Sara explains that automation doesn't fix broken processes, it amplifies them, and that the real problem is usually leadership not understanding how the work actually gets done day to day. Her advice is to go to where the work happens, observe with humility, and map the real process before adding any technology. The result is smarter automation decisions, leaner workflows, and in some cases the realisation that no automation was needed at all.

Connect with Sara Reece:
LinkedIn

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

Ryan Castle sits down with Tanner Kinzler, CEO of Kinzler Corporation, a multi-generational, partially employee-owned construction services business operating across the United States. Tanner shares three interconnected leadership principles that have shaped how he builds for the long term: structure for alignment, ask for help and give it generously, and play the long game. He unpacks why the best outcomes rarely come from brilliant moves, how asking for help with humility creates a flywheel of generosity, and why walking away from misaligned customers is one of the clearest tests of whether your values are real.

Useful links:
Connect with Tanner Kinzler on LinkedIn
Kinzler Corporation

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Adam Law, sharing a practical approach to managing your issues list so your team meetings stay focused and productive.

Adam explains that reviewing the issues list before the meeting, resolving quick wins in advance, and filtering out topics that don't require full team discussion keeps meeting time locked on what actually moves the organisation forward. The result is fewer derailed meetings, sharper team focus, and a more intentional use of everyone's time.

Connect with Adam Law:
LinkedIn
SOS Care

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

Ryan Castle sits down with Mike Ashby, co-founder of Level 10 Leaders and newly published Forbes contributor, to make the case that most businesses don't have a strategy problem. They have a consistency problem. Drawing on 25+ years in organisational development, Mike argues that the real gap isn't strategy or innovation. It's the daily failure to do the vital few things that actually move the needle.

Mike unpacks why "surprise and delight" is a costly distraction, why dashboards stay green until they suddenly don't, and what the execution habit really looks like at the manager level. If your quarterly goals are always on track for 11 weeks and then mysteriously aren't, this episode will show you exactly why, and what to do about it.

Useful links:
Connect with Dr Mike Ashby on LinkedIn
Why Consistency Can Outpace Innovation In The Long Term, Forbes

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Jessica Sanchez, founder and CEO of Daughters of Both Sons, sharing how community leaders can escape burnout by building systems instead of carrying every piece of the mission alone.

Jessica reveals that burnout in community and service leadership rarely comes from a lack of passion. It comes from becoming the entire infrastructure for a mission by yourself. She unpacks the shift from survival-based leadership to systems-based leadership: creating processes, setting boundaries, and letting others share real responsibility. Because long-term impact isn't built by the person who burns out the fastest. It's built by leaders who create something sustainable enough to keep serving people long after the crisis moment passes.

Connect with Jessica Sanchez:
LinkedIn
daughtersofbothsuns.org

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

Ryan Castle sits down with Ken Bogard, nine-year EOS implementer and author of Know Honesty, to challenge everything you think you know about communication in business. Ken's core argument is deceptively simple, and most leadership teams are only doing half of it. He unpacks why honesty and openness are two completely different behaviours, why your scorecard is useless without courageous conversations around it, and how growing disconnection is quietly eroding trust on leadership teams even when everyone's technically "in the room."

Ken delivers three powerful insights: why removing the exceptions to honesty is the boldest move you can make, how to use data as a unifying force rather than a weapon, and why openness, not honesty, is the real secret sauce to human connection and high-performance teams. Whether you're running weekly Level 10 meetings, trying to get your scorecard to actually mean something, or just wondering why your team still isn't clicking, this episode is your playbook.

Useful links:
Connect with Ken Bogard on LinkedIn
Know Honesty website

Pursuit of Honesty Assessment

Know Honesty Book

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Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/

This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Justin Maust, expert EOS implementer, sharing three uphill mindsets every leader needs to break through ceilings faster and drive real team performance.

Justin highlights that success demands discipline, that whatever you tolerate you endorse, and that the speed of your vulnerability determines the speed of your breakthrough. By combining all three, leaders gain a practical framework for addressing mediocrity, having courageous conversations, and accelerating growth: in their teams, their businesses, and their lives.

Connect with Justin Maust:
LinkedIn

👉 FREE Resource: level10.us/execution - Execution Strength Diagnostic

Discover if your managers are driving results or letting commitments drift.

👉 Got a Level 10 Leaders podcast tip? - Submit your tip at lvl10.us/submit-tip

Where else you can find us

Website: https://www.level10leaders.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/level10leaders/