The Leader Fast Lane

Leslie Reed draws on three decades of public service—including five assignments as a USAID Mission Director—to explain why effective leadership begins with listening, trust, and a willingness to hear difficult feedback. She shares lessons from leading across cultures, developing leaders at every level, navigating complex organizations, and sustaining communication and community during the extraordinarily difficult final months of USAID. 

In this episode, I speak with Will Rodriguez, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, as he shares how lessons from the Marine Corps, manufacturing, healthcare, and higher education shaped his approach to servant leadership, adaptability, and data-informed decision-making. He offers practical insights on making difficult decisions, creating room for people to learn from mistakes, building relationships across an organization, and leading with fairness, consistency, and humility.

James Mauldin, Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer for the Texas Tech University System, shares leadership lessons drawn from a career spanning corporate operations, municipal government, aviation, higher education, and the Navy Reserves. He discusses leading through uncertainty, building trust before difficult decisions arise, creating a culture where bad news travels quickly, and developing people by giving them meaningful opportunities to stretch. 

A former colleague Ryan Walther joins The Leader Fast Lane to share lessons from two decades of international development work across countries, cultures, and functions. Drawing on his leadership at USAID, Ryan explores how leaders can pursue demanding results while investing in people, remain steady amid uncertainty, build trust across cultural and professional boundaries, and combine evidence with sound judgment. 

In this episode of The Leader Fast Lane, Texas Tech University System Chancellor Emeritus Dr. Tedd Mitchell reflects on a leadership journey spanning medicine, business, higher education, and public service. He shares practical insights on building a values-based culture, earning trust, making consequential decisions with incomplete information, and developing leaders whose influence extends far beyond the organization.

Retired U.S. Ambassador Art Brown joins The Leader Fast Lane to share lessons from a 34-year public-service career that took him from Peace Corps volunteer in Benin to USAID Mission Director and U.S. Ambassador. We discuss leading across cultures, listening before acting, emotional intelligence, making consequential decisions with incomplete information, developing future leaders, and why Art believes effective leadership “takes elbow grease.”

Andrea Sparks joins The Leader Fast Lane to share leadership lessons from a career devoted to protecting vulnerable children, including her work helping build Texas’ response to child sex trafficking. We discuss servant leadership, the importance of listening and collaboration when tackling complex problems, having the humility to pivot when an approach isn’t working, and sustaining yourself while doing difficult, high-stakes work.

In this episode of The Leader Fast Lane, Dr. Rick Lange, founding president of Texas Tech Health El Paso, shares lessons from building a university, leading through failure, and creating a culture of excellence from the ground up. We explore why the best leaders embrace humility, build trust, develop great teams, and practice servant leadership—offering practical insights that leaders in any field can apply immediately.

Namatai Kwekweza has endured arrest, intimidation, and imprisonment for standing up for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe. Yet her leadership lessons extend far beyond activism, offering powerful insights on courage, community, reading, and developing the inner resilience needed to lead through uncertainty. This conversation is a compelling reminder that extraordinary leadership begins with ordinary people who choose to keep moving forward despite fear. 

What does it take to lead one of the nation's premier academic health institutions? In this episode of Leader Fast Lane, TTUHSC President Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman shares lessons from her journey as a first-generation college student to becoming the first female president in the Texas Tech University System. We discuss trust, influence without authority, embracing failure as a catalyst for innovation, and why the simple discipline of listening may be the most powerful leadership skill of all.