As we kick off Season 9 of the Global Leadership Podcast, Whitney Putnam sits down with GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft to hear about some of his favorite moments from the 2025 Global Leadership Summit. David also shares wisdom regarding why it’s so important for leaders to own their own leadership growth and development.  

With the 2025 Global Leadership Summit just a few weeks away, GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft sits down with Senior Vice President, Summit Experiences, Lori Hermann. to talk about how she leads the people that create and execute the world’s premier leadership event year after year. They also explore how leaders can get the most out of an event like the Summit, and which speakers they are looking forward to hearing.  

Dr. James Hewitt is a human performance scientist who works with some of the world's top businesses to bring about sustainable high-performance through science-backed strategies. In this conversation with GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft, James shares the connection between knowledge work and high performance activities like professional cycling and Formula 1 racing, and some simple steps that we can take to meet the demands of leadership. 

Developing, casting, and protecting an organization’s vision is one of the most critical functions of a leader. In this episode, GLN VP of Marketing Whitney Putnam asks President and CEO David Ashcraft to share what he’s learned about vision from his decades of leading. As always, you’ll find David’s insights to be practical, concise, and very clear. We hope you enjoy these tips on how to effectively share vision with your team. 

How often do you struggle to navigate the desire to contribute high-impact, important work for your organization, and the seemingly constant demands on your attention from email, messages, and other activities? As a voice in the battle against busyness, Juliet Funt helps organizations release their people so that they can give themselves to their most important, high-impact work. In this conversation with David Ashcraft, Juliet explains some of the mindset shifts that leaders need to undergo in order to be champions for “white space,” and to minimize unnecessary busywork in their organizations.

In this second part of a two-part episode, GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft continues his conversation with author and consultant Les McKeown on the lifecycle stages of organizations, and the different ways leaders can respond in order to meet the unique challenges of each stage

What does it take for a new organization to succeed? After launching numerous companies, Les McKeown began to identify some common patterns that new ventures all seemed to go through, releasing his findings in his book, Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization on the Growth Track—and Keeping it There. He recently sat down with the GLN’s own David Ashcraft to go deeper into the six stages in the lifecycle of an organization, and how leaders can respond in each of them. This is the first part of a two-part episode.

As a pilot of a U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter plane, Carey Lohrenz learned the importance of being able to focus when the stakes are high. In this conversation with Jason Jaggard, she shares some of the simple tools that can help leaders in every situation learn to pursue excellence, plan effectively, and gain clarity on their “span of control.”

Part of the work of leadership is about achieving and maintaining clarity: on your personal vocation, on your organization’s purpose and mission, and on the most important activities to achieve results. Moreover, clarity helps us navigate the curveballs and unexpected challenges that life inevitably brings our way. We are kicking off this month of talking about de-cluttering leadership by hearing from GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft. David shares some of the strategies and activities that help him to stay focused and lead with simplicity and clarity.

What does it truly mean to be resilient? In this episode, GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft interviews top management thinker, organizational psychologist and self-awareness expert Dr. Tasha Eurich. Together they unpack Tasha’s latest book, Shatterproof, and discuss how leaders today—she calls them “stressed-out strivers”—can move beyond mere resilience and learn to thrive in our modern world.