The Leadership and Learning Podcast

Host Randy Goruk has a conversation with Russ Stephens, co-founder of Association of Professional Builders, a company dedicated to helping residential builders profitably grow their business.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why planning is a lost art and why it's important to achieve growth.

• The impact your mindset has on success.

• The top leadership attributes for success.

• What you encourage is what you tolerate.

• The difference between coaching and mentoring.

• The traps sales leaders should be on the lookout for.

• How you can leverage social media to effectively grow your business.

The conversation is geared to all leaders of all types of businesses.

In this episode, host Randy Goruk has an engaging conversation with the no BS Performance Coach Paul Glover. The two executive coaches talk about developing leaders. They run the table talking about:

• The importance of 360 – degree feedback surveys.
• Successes and failures of 360 – degree feedback surveys.
• Leadership attributes of importance.
• Leadership blind-spots and how to fix them.
• Employee engagement and how to achieve it.
• Coaching executives.
• Take-aways from Paul's book 'Work Quake'.

You will want to take notes listening to this conversation.

We take a deep dive into the topic of advocacy with advocacy expert, Roger Rickard, Founder and President of a company called Voices in Advocacy.

He has had a life-long passion of working with organizations who want to inspire, educate, engage, and activate their teams to become even better influential advocates.

Roger Rickard is clearly a leading expert in the Advocacy space.

Listen as he shares:

• How at an early age, he found his passion for government affairs and political science. Then learned the importance of "we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable".
• What advocacy really is.
• How an advocate and an activist can be similar but yet different.
• The difference between an advocate and a lobbyist.
• Seven habits of a highly effective advocate.
• How he at the age of 18, ran for political office against an incumbent who had the position for 22 years.
• The biggest mistake advocates make.
• Why some people don't get involved.
• Why leaders who aren't involved in issues, need to get involved

Steve Klessig, VP Architecture & Engineer of Wisconsin based Keller, Inc talks leadership with host Randy Goruk. Steve discusses, how he got started in the construction industry and the importance of his involvement in the community and the construction industry.

He talks a little about his role as the 2021 National Chair for Associated Builders and Contractors and the priorities for the Association.

He shares his views on work-life balance, advice for emerging leaders, the keys to building successful teams and his suggestions for the books to read for personal and professional growth. Lots of nuggets to pick up in this conversation.

Mass Timber is taking North America by storm. Impressive structures are popping up everywhere. Building codes are changing. New manufacturing plants are being built. Jobs are being created and it's an exciting time to be in the mass timber space.

In this episode, you'll hear Hardy Wentzel, CEO of Structurlam Mass Timber Corporation, provide a description of what mass timber is and why its popularity is rising.

He talks about the vision, mission and values he and his team of associates have embraced.

You'll hear about the production ramp up schedule for the new manufacturing plant in Conway, Arkansas how they were able to stay on schedule and budget despite the COVID 19 – pandemic.

4th Generation owner of Ward Lumber, Jay Ward describes how and why he took a family-owned business and turned it into an employee owned cooperative.

Listen, as he discusses ownership transition options and why the employee-owned coop was the best answer for Ward Lumber.

Jay is a great leader, and you'll find many things he said in this short conversation to be examples of exceptional leadership.

What does it take to be a Leader of Excellence ? This keynote presentation replay will clearly answer the question and leave no doubt in your mind of what you will need to do.

Everyone knows about the importance of being a good listener. However, in this fast -paced world of distractions, it is a challenge we are all faced with.

In this episode, host Randy Goruk shares a little content from his Coaching Skills Course and a handful of practical techniques and tips to becoming a more effective listener.

The shared values and practices of employees shape the culture of companies. Leaders have tremendous influence on those values and practices. Their influence comes from their controllable actions, inactions, behaviors, or the words they choose, or choose not to say.

Their influence can be positive and constructive in forming the company culture. Or their influence can be damaging and destructive to achieving the culture they desire.

In this podcast presentation participants will learn:

• What company culture is and how leaders create one that attracts and retains top talent.
• The actions leaders can take to support and reinforce their company culture.
• The mistakes leaders can make that undermine their company culture and how to avoid them.
• The actions leaders can take to repair a broken or damaged company culture.

Learn why there is such a big gap in time between this episode and the last episode of The Leadership and Learning Podcast ... and how it is now fixed.