I welcome back guest Colin Cooper to talk about leadership themes and styles in the first Gladiator movie. Colin is a fellow pop culture and leadership nerd, and we’ll be continuing the “leadership in the movies” series of podcast episodes, this time exploring a handful of key characters in Ridley Scott’s first Gladiator film from the year 2000 staring Russell Crowe.

In this episode, I interview Ruth Reitmeier about why new managers fail. Ruth is a fellow facilitator and certified coach, and serves as the Director of Coaching for Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. We’ll discuss the sobering statistics of how many new managers flounder, and explore how the mindsets and skills of a coaching-style of leadership can make new managers more successful.

In this episode, I talk with historian and author Dr. Rebecca Simon about the fascinating world of pirate leadership! We explore some of the surprising leadership best-practices of pirate captains, like democratic decision-making and written codes of conduct, while also delving into the darker side of their leadership tactics.

In this episode, I talk to Mickie Deveau about addressing change fatigue. Mickie’s the Director of the Leadership Institute at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and we’ll discuss some strategies for helping teams navigate change and manage change fatigue.

In this episode, I talk to Leah Leaves about team goal setting. We’ll discuss the value of doing collective goal setting and cover some best-practices for facilitating the team goal setting process to ensure you end up with effective goals and buy-in from your team.

In this episode, I welcome on Rodney Bass to discuss the topic of employee recognition. Rodney works for BI Worldwide, which helps companies design and deliver engagement programs for employees and customers. Rodney shares some helpful input and research on why to provide employee recognition and how to do it effectively.

In this episode, I welcome on Milly Lackey for a fun conversation about leadership styles in Harry Potter. Milly is the Director of Training and Development at the Engineering firm H2B, and she’s also a huge Harry Potter fan. We’ll talk about how various leadership styles and qualities show up in a handful of Harry Potter characters and what that tells us about being effective and influential leaders in the muggle world.

In this episode, I interview Dori Albora, the VP of Client Services at the healthcare marketing agency Unlock Health, about how to be a leader who empowers their team. We’ll discuss what it means to be an empowering-style leader, and talk through some approaches you can use to empower your employees to be their best.

In this episode, I interview marketing leader Corryn Williams about the topic of leading a remote team. We’ll discuss some of the challenges of managing remote workers, the adjustments leaders have to make to own approach, and cover some strategies for effectively communicating with a remote team.

In this episode, I interview guest Stephen Davis about a 5-step decision-making process he developed as part of his master’s thesis in arts leadership. Stephen is the Assistant General Manager for a theater company in Houston Texas called A.D. Players. We’ll discuss why decision-making is important in leadership, what makes it difficult, and we’ll review each of his 5 recommended steps for effectively making decisions.