Teams That Win

How do you reinvent your life and career after working at one place for over 20 years?

In this episode, Lacy Dicharry is joined by Dave Lombardo, who shares what it's like to go through a transformational career change, and what it takes to find your footing with a new team.

After twenty-four years as an armor officer in the Army and a stretch in Louisiana's construction industry, Dave joined the LSU Leadership Development Institute as Assistant Director of Operations. He is honest about the adjustments that include learning to read a new culture before trying to change it, figuring out what motivates people who come to work for very different reasons, and being comfortable in his own skin when a conversation is hard. He and Lacy also talk about how leaders earn influence without relying on authority, and why every leader is also a follower.

Show timestamps:

(0:00) What do you stand for?

(0:42) From the Army to LDI

(1:41) Finding purpose after a career change

(6:26) Every team has its own culture

(10:47) What motivates people at work

(13:45) What trust means to a team

(14:57) The research behind trust

(15:58) Why presence matters

(16:38) Earning influence without authority

(19:11) How good decisions get made

(21:32) Every leader is also a follower

(25:41) Advice for new leaders

(28:54) A heart of service

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https://www.lsu.edu/ldi/contact.php

Teams That Win is produced by the Leadership Development Institute at LSU. New episodes every three weeks.

How do you lead people whose jobs you have never done?
Beaux Jones went from environmental lawyer to general counsel to chief of staff, and now serves as President & CEO of The Water Institute. He leads geoscientists, biologists, ecologists, data engineers, social scientists, archaeologists and lawyers, each with their own training and their own norms for how people talk to each other.
In this episode, Lacy Dicharry talks with Beaux about what changes when your job stops being the work and becomes the people doing it, how his team turned a list of core values into a shared agreement they could hold each other to, and what it means to be vulnerable with a team that size.
(0:00) When you're really listening
(1:45) Inside The Water Institute
(4:14) One team, many disciplines
(7:48) From lawyer to CEO
(10:40) Leading a team through a loss
(17:13) Why clarity of mission comes first
(19:49) What do we mean when we say that?
(23:11) Accountability needs a shared agreement
(27:07) When your job stops being the work
(30:30) What vulnerability at work looks like
(35:29) The privilege of being open
(36:48) Be the trim tab
Learn more about The Water Institute at thewaterinstitute.org
This episode includes discussion of suicide and its impact in the workplace. If you or someone you know needs support, the 988 Lifeline is available by call or text at 988. The International Association for Suicide Prevention lists resources by country at iasp.info/suicidalthoughts
Teams That Win is produced by the Leadership Development Institute at LSU. New episodes every three weeks.
Watch on YouTube at LSU_LDI. Learn more at lsu.edu/ldi

"I can do more. But should I do more?"
That question is where Dr. Xavier Thompson's trouble with delegation started.
In this episode of Teams That Win, Lacy Dicharry talks with him about what keeps a body from breaking down, and what that has to do with keeping a team from breaking down. Dr. Thompson is an Assistant Professor of Sports Science in the School of Kinesiology at LSU, and his research focuses on athletic performance and injury prevention.
He explains why you don't repair a knee by working on the knee, why the most effective prevention is invisible by design, and why rest is part of performance rather than a break from it. He is also candid about his own struggle to hand work off, and the question a mentor gave him that changed it: what are the things that only you can do, versus the things you can do?
You'll also hear what the small warning signs look like before something breaks, why listening is a form of prevention, and the rule he gave himself to stop working late.
CHAPTERS
(0:00) "Should I do more?"
(0:13) Meet Dr. Xavier Thompson
(1:42) The recovery nobody prepares you for
(3:29) The pain we ignore, in bodies and on teams
(5:18) Prevention starts with clear communication
(6:58) Why you don't fix the knee at the knee
(8:19) Systems thinking and needs assessments
(9:09) Why athletes train more than they perform
(11:09) Why delegation is hard
(13:54) Understanding the why behind each person
(14:48) The myth that there is no time to teach
(16:23) Why rest is part of performance
(18:23) The check engine lights we ignore
(18:46) You can never prove prevention
(21:46) Listening is prevention
(24:33) Giving yourself rules
(27:15) What he wishes he had known about leading
(29:03) Common humanity, and the relief in it
Teams That Win is a podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. New episodes every three weeks.
Learn more about LDI: https://www.lsu.edu/ldi
#Leadership #Delegation #Burnout #TeamsThatWin #LSULeadership

How do you talk to someone about what they want to do with their life?

Dr. Jennifer Curry has two rules. In this episode of Teams That Win, Lacy Dicharry talks with her about seeing potential in people and what it takes to help someone find work that fits.
Curry frames career readiness as a question of identity first: your interests, your values, and what motivates you. From there she shares the two practices she uses with everyone she meets, protecting the dreams people share with you and becoming an excellent interviewer who asks good questions.

You'll also hear why burnout often comes from a role that no longer fits the person in it, what she means by calling all of us career chameleons, and why neurodivergent thinkers bring creativity a team can build on.

Dr. Jennifer Curry is a faculty member in the Counselor Education Program at LSU's College of Human Sciences & Education, and a lead expert consultant on the PBS Kids series Skillsville.

CHAPTERS
(0:00) Meet Dr. Jennifer Curry
(0:33) Lacy's path as a first-generation student
(1:33) Why career readiness starts with identity
(3:26) How Curry found this work
(4:36) Why careers give people hope
(6:07) How we rule ourselves out of careers
(8:06) Skillsville and early exposure
(11:17) What the research found
(13:13) Rule one: don't be a dream squasher
(15:25) Rule two: be an excellent interviewer
(16:08) Burnout when the role stops fitting
(17:11) Becoming a career chameleon
(20:51) What each generation brings to work
(25:06) Neurodiversity and how we hire
(27:09) What parents and mentors can do
(30:42) A challenge to employers

Teams That Win is a podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. New episodes every three weeks.
Learn more about LDI: https://www.lsu.edu/ldi

What makes a team great? Google studied more than 100 of its own teams to find out, and the answer was psychological safety.
In this episode, Natasha Simoneaux joins host Lacy Dicharry to get into team science: the idea that how people work together matters more than how talented they are on paper. Natasha is the Business & Operations Manager at LSU's Leadership Development Institute and has spent decades leading retail, service, and operations teams.
Together they break down what psychological safety is and the myths around it, the four stages that build it (inclusion, learner, contributor, and challenger), how safety and accountability work together, and why inviting your team to challenge you makes you a stronger leader. You will hear where trust begins, how to tell whether your team feels safe, and how to move a team from comfortable to doing its best work.
Whether you lead a team at work, run a shift, or are stepping into your first management role, this conversation gives you a practical way to think about building a team that performs.
Teams That Win is a podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. New episodes every three weeks.
Chapters:
(0:00) Why inviting feedback makes you a stronger leader
(0:41) What "emergent states" means in team science
(1:21) What Google's Project Aristotle found about great teams
(2:05) Inputs, mediators, and outputs: a model for leaders
(3:01) Trust, clarity, and why ambiguity erodes a team
(4:26) Assume good intent while you build trust
(5:32) The myths and signs of psychological safety
(7:45) Stage 1: inclusion safety
(9:35) Stage 2: learner safety
(11:43) Safety and accountability: the four-quadrant map
(14:42) Natasha's story: when being liked got in the way
(16:08) Stages 3 and 4: contributor and challenger safety
(18:10) How strong teams avoid groupthink
(19:34) The leader's role, and the biggest takeaway
(22:15) How LDI helps teams grow
Referenced in this episode: the four-zone chart of psychological safety and accountability (apathy, anxiety, comfort, and learning) from Amy Edmondson's book The Fearless Organization. Learn more at https://www.fearlessorganization.com
Subscribe to Teams That Win wherever you listen to podcasts.
lsu.edu/ldi | @LSU_LDI

High-performance environments demand everything from the people inside them. Shelly Mullenix learned that taking care of your team starts with being honest about what you're qualified to give.

Shelly spent decades as a certified athletic trainer at LSU before realizing she was operating beyond her training in mental health. So she went back to school for her MSW. In this conversation with Lacy Dicharry, she shares what it means to be the person between the athlete and the coach, the championship moment that was really about the teammate they lost, and the Hurricane Katrina speech that turned a locker room full of grieving players toward the field.

Chapters:
(0:00) Introduction: Shelly Mullenix, LSU Health & Wellness
(1:22) Wellbeing as the foundation of leadership
(4:13) Mediating between a coach and an athlete
(6:02) How rest improves team performance
(7:33) Supporting someone through a hard moment
(10:02) Leadership skills that aren't taught
(12:24) Dedicating a season: the Jeff Boss story
(16:01 ) Leadership during Hurricane Katrina
(23:02) Naming emotions and building a shared vision
(25:35) Relationships, authenticity, and caring leadership

Shelly Mullenix is Senior Associate Athletic Director for Health & Wellness at LSU Athletics.

Subscribe to Teams That Win wherever you listen to podcasts.
lsu.edu/ldi | @LSU_LDI

Why do we feel like we have to be the smartest or toughest person in the room when we step into a leadership role?

Jerry Monier from LSU spent 33 years in public safety figuring that out. In this episode, he talks about what finally changed his mind and what it made possible for the people around him.

He walks through the buddy-to-boss transition and why it is one of the hardest shifts in any career. He explains the difference between capacity, the ability to absorb and respond, and capability, the ability to get things done. He shares the network standard he holds himself to, where he should be able to answer almost any question after no more than three phone calls. And he makes the case that letting go of the need to prove yourself is what makes the people around you stronger.

Teams That Win is a leadership podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. New episodes every three weeks.

(00:00) Why We Feel We Have to Prove Ourselves
(00:14) Welcome to Teams That Win
(00:36) Meet Jerry Monier
(02:26) From Buddy to Boss: The Hardest Shift
(03:31) The Ms. Emma Food Bank Lesson
(05:59) Capacity vs. Capability
(13:18) The Competency No One Talks About
(14:23) The Three Phone Calls Principle
(15:24) Why You Don't Have to Know It All
(16:01) CliftonStrengths and Your Team
(21:31) Closing

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Becoming a better leader is a skill, and like any skill, it can be learned and practiced. Lacy Dicharry shares the model that helps leaders continue to grow, why so much training often don't lead to long-term results, and what we can do differently to connect with our teams starting tomorrow.

In Episode 1 of Teams That Win, Lacy Dicharry, Senior Director of LSU's Leadership Development Institute, walks through the 70-20-10 model with Juan Vélez Court: 10% of leadership development happens in training, 20% in the coaching and application that follows, and 70% in the hands-on work itself. She explains why so much training never translates back to the job when that 20% is missing, and why becoming a better leader is partly about learning new things and partly about unlearning old ones.

She names why change is physically painful and the brain has to work to absorb it, walks through why the "stuff sandwich" approach to feedback backfires, and shares the story of a hospital executive called in to lead a major system rollout. His technical skills were strong. His team was on the verge of walking out because no one had helped him with the human side of the work. The episode closes on the idea the show is built around: building teams that win is both an art and a science.

Teams That Win is a podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. New episodes every three weeks.

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Why Change Feels Physically Painful
(00:30) Lacy Dicharry, LDI Senior Director
(00:46) The 12-Year Wait to Launch This Podcast
(03:08) The Person Behind the Leadership Title
(05:13) Where Lacy's Drive Comes From
(07:03) Preview: Jerry Monier, Shelly Mullenix, Dr. Jen Curry
(09:49) What LDI Does for Leaders Every Day
(14:19) Why the Feedback Sandwich Backfires
(17:01) The 90/10 Training Gap in Most Workplaces
(20:43) Delegation and the Human Side of Change
(27:32) What Teams That Win Will Cover

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lsu_ldiLearn more about LDI: https://www.lsu.edu/ldi

#Leadership #TeamsThatWin #LeadershipDevelopment #LacyDicharry #LSU

Leaders from public safety, athletics, education, and team science share what they learned in the moments no training could prepare them for. The podcast launches officially on May 5th, 2026.

Teams That Win is a podcast from LSU's Leadership Development Institute. Hosted by Lacy Dicharry, each episode sits inside a leadership moment that tested someone and draws out what the rest of us can take with us.

Guests include a 33-year public safety veteran who built a leadership academy from scratch, an athletic director who went back to school because she knew she was operating beyond her training, a business operations manager who admits her first goal as a new leader was to get her team to like her, and a faculty researcher studying why children stop believing they belong in certain careers before they ever try.

This is a leadership podcast. The stories come from every sector because leadership does too.

Subscribe to Teams That Win wherever you listen to podcasts.

lsu.edu/ldi | @LSU_LDI