In this episode of The Military Leader Podcast, I sit down with Cal Walters—Army Ranger, JAG officer, professor of leadership, and host of The Intentional Leader Podcast, ranked in the top 1.5% of shows worldwide.

We dive into Cal's journey from long commutes and solo reflection to launching a global leadership platform. You'll hear how a desire to grow (and a nudge from his wife) led to a podcast that’s now shaped over 125 conversations with leaders across the military, business, and academic worlds.

We cover:

✅ Why self-leadership is the foundation of leading others

✅ How to start something meaningful—even if fear is holding you back

✅ Building a leadership brand without letting ego get in the way

✅ What Cal learned from interviewing General McChrystal, General Petraeus, and Patrick Lencioni

✅ The role of military prosecutors and the emotional weight of justice

✅ The difference between being nice and being kind in leadership

✅ Practical insights on how to manage tension instead of trying to solve it

If you're a leader looking to live and lead with more intention, this conversation will challenge and encourage you.

🔗 Explore Cal's work: https://www.calwalters.me

🎧 Subscribe to The Military Leader Podcast for more candid, practical leadership conversations. If you don’t have a leadership development program—start here.

Check out ⁠The Military Leader Blog⁠

Visit ⁠The Military Leader YouTube Channel⁠

Get ⁠The Military Leader book⁠ on Amazon

Leadership transitions can either build momentum—or break an organization. Juliet Funt shares how to get it right.

In this episode, Drew Steadman talks with bestselling author and organizational strategist Juliet Funt about two leadership challenges leaders everywhere face—whether they realize it or not.

First, they explore how modern work culture, endless taskers, and email overload are draining leaders' time, energy, and mission focus—and what we can do about it.

Then they dive into leadership transitions: those pivotal moments when one leader steps out and another steps in. Juliet shares powerful insights from her new research on military leadership handovers—and what it takes to step into a new role with clarity, humility, and intentionality.

If you’re leading through chaos or preparing for your next big move, this conversation is packed with practical lessons you can use right now.

Take Juliet's survey to support her research on leader transitions: https://wsaw.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6rl2oUbqccp8zxsFollow

Read Juliet's book, A Minute to Think

Check out The Military Leader Blog

Visit The Military Leader YouTube Channel

Get The Military Leader book on Amazon

Twenty years ago, you could get away with saying you're "just not a computer person." Leaders, even senior commanders, took pride in resisting the digital movement in the military and avoided any attempt to learn it or leverage it.

Today, the military's most prolific weapon system is Microsoft Office. We touch it more than any other system, and yet we have little to no instruction on how to maximize it.

Even a few years ago, powerful data tools were exquisite, expensive, and unavailable for leaders at the tactical level. That's no longer the case. Leaders at every level have access to programs and apps that can unlock unthinkable insight. New awareness and insight - potentially lifesaving insight - lies only on the other side of data.

We're going to talk about that in this episode, and how you can leverage data tools to augment your leadership and decision making.

And here are just a few of the questions that you could be answering if you brought some data tools into your unit:

All of these questions have been answered by units who pay attention to data and use the tools that are readily available. And the three guests today are pioneers of homegrown data innovation in military units.

Lieutenant Colonel Jon Bate commands 2-23 Infantry Battalion and uses his Stanford PhD experience to improve the unit systems and lethality of his battalion at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Lieutenant Colonel Erik Davis brings sixteen years of special operations experience and is an Army War College Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He’s also the author of the ‘Downrange Data’ Substack, where he shares his experiences using data to outmaneuver challenges in the field. 

Major Brett Reichert is an Infantry officer and current PhD candidate at Cornell, where he is studying how technology and automation are reshaping warfare. As the Brigade Executive Officer, Brett revolutionized our Brigade's systems and processes, and managed to plan and execute the brigade's three week field exercise without using a single PowerPoint slide.

Find this episode at The Military Leader.

Major General Leonard graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1992 and went on to become an F-16 and F-35 command pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours, to include 576 combat hours.

In his 31 year career, he commanded multiple fighter wings, served as a military assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, and in his last assignment, he led the standup of the US military's newest combatant command, US Space Command.

It’s not often that you find a leader who can be both no nonsense and positive and reinforcing at the same time. But listen to the way Major General Leonard shares the stories and lessons from his career.

You can tell he’s totally committed to getting the job done. But you can also tell he cares about the people he leads. This is the kind of leader that we all hope to serve with, and need to learn from.

Take the Next Step

Follow The Military Leader

Blog: www.themilitaryleader.com

Book: The Military Leader on Amazon

 "I was sitting on an aircraft with some of the finest Americans we've ever put in uniform, with enormous confidence in knowing that when this ramp drops, this group right here will figure it out."

I'm honored to share my conversation with fellow "Tomahawk" commander and respected Infantry leader, Colonel Teddy Kleisner. Throughout his career, Teddy Kleisner has inspired formations of Soldiers with his relatable leadership style and his pragmatic, history-centered approach to professional development and tough training. 

In this episode, Teddy discusses the experiences and lessons that shaped his early career, leading up to his command of 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, where he led the no-notice deployment in support of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Take the Next Step

1. Put these lessons and insight into practice as you lead.
2. Pass this episode on to your team for their own development. If you find it valuable, they will, too.
3. Share this conversation on social media for the other leaders in your network who will appreciate it.

Follow The Military Leader

Blog: www.themilitaryleader.com

Book: The Military Leader on Amazon

In this episode, we go behind the scenes to see how the Army selects its senior commanders and shapes talent for the future.

Colonel Bob O'Brien is the Director of the US Army's Command Assessment Program (CAP), which is the yearly selection crucible that Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels, and Sergeants Major must pass through to compete for command of the Army's battalions and brigades. Colonel O'Brien is an Infantry officer who has deployed multiple times and commanded at the O5 and O6 levels. He is a founding member of CAP, as well as an International Coaching Federation Certified Executive Coach.

We talk about the whiteboard origin story of the program, the scienced-based evaluation methods it incorporates, and the program's extensive effort to remove bias from the evaluators.

Colonel O'Brien also shares what leaders can do to prepare for their own assessment, so if you hope to attend CAP in the future, or if you are involved in any aspect of talent management for your team or company, then you definitely want to listen to the end.

You can connect with Bob O'Brien on LinkedIn. 

Follow the Army Command Assessment Program on LinkedIn and visit the website at https://talent.army.mil/cap/.

Find this and other episodes of The Military Leader Podcast at themilitaryleader.com/podcast/. 

"If you bring a cell phone to NTC, you'll be found and targeted."

In this episode, we get an inside look at how the Army's National Training Center creates tough, realistic training rotations to ensure that Soldiers and units are ready to win the first fight.

Guest

Major General Curt Taylor is the Commanding General of the National Training Center (NTC) and Fort Irwin, California. NTC is the Army's premier training center and one of the three installations solely dedicated to making the Army's units and leaders ready for the next fight.

Episode Summary

In this episode, we discuss:

• How NTC adapts its training rotations to account for the evolving character of war
• What lessons to take away from the conflicts in Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabach, and Gaza
• How NTC uses cell phone data to locate units during rotation
• Why it is important for commanders to develop an instinct for opportunity and then act decisively to seize it
• How leaders can succumb to information overload and how to avoid "paralysis by analysis"
• What rotational units will experience in the environment of contested logistics
• The unseen benefits of serving at the National Training Center

 Take the Next Step

1. Put these lessons and insight into practice as you lead.
2. Pass this episode on to your team for their own development. If you find it valuable, they will, too.
3. Share this conversation on social media for the other leaders in your network who will appreciate it.

NTC YouTube Channels

https://youtube.com/@tactalks-operationsgroupntc?si=J5k48Xei7bP09mF4

https://youtube.com/@ntcupdate?si=DBZAqGcvceTyh3yM

Follow The Military Leader

Episode: www.themilitaryleader.com/podcast/taylor-ntc

Blog: www.themilitaryleader.com

Book: The Military Leader on Amazon

Major General Taylor's Biography

BG Curt Taylor graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in May 1994 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Armor branch.  Over the last twenty-five years, he has served in various command and staff positions in Armored, Cavalry, and Infantry formations up through brigade combat team.  His combat service includes two tours in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq.

In 2010, MG Taylor commanded 3-66 AR in Grafenwoehr, GE and deployed with it to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.  Following battalion command, he served as the Brigade Senior Trainer at the JMRC in Hohenfels, GE.  Following senior service college, he served as the Director of the Commander's Initiatives Group at Fort Leavenworth focused on the development of innovative approaches to talent management and leader development across the Army.  In that capacity, he also served as the director of Strategic Assessment for the CSA 39 Transition Team in 2015.

From 2015 to 2017, MG Taylor commanded 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Carson, Colorado which transformed during his command into a Reconnaissance and Security Brigade Combat Team and executed a series of exercises to demonstrate the ability of a Brigade Combat Team to perform the traditional roles of operational cavalry on the 21st Century battlefield.

Following Brigade Command, MG Taylor served as the Chief of Staff of Fort Riley Kansas and the 1st Infantry Division where he oversaw the deployment of multiple combat brigades to Europe and execution of a large-scale Warfighter exercise.

From June 2019 to April 2021, MG Taylor commanded the Army’s newest combat brigade, the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade consisting of specially-selected and uniquely trained combat advisors oriented on the INDOPACOM area of operations. 

In April 2021, MG Taylor assumed command of the National Training Center and Fort Irwin. 

MG Taylor has two Masters Degrees in Security Studies.

The Army is radically changing its personnel and talent management systems and Major General JP McGee, head of the Army Talent Management Task Force, is in charge of making it happen.

From AIM 2.0 and the Battalion Command Assessment Program...to brevet promotions and direct commissioning, MG McGee gives an inside look at the major personnel and talent initiatives coming to the US Army. 

Stay connected to talent.army.mil for the latest on Army Talent Management.

Michael Bungay Stanier is an author, speaker, and innovative thinker in the world of coaching and leadership. His most popular book, The Coaching Habit, is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller and presents a powerful framework for helping leaders make meaningful connections by becoming more coachlike. 

In this conversation, he highlights how easy it is for leaders to jump straight into advice-giving and why this is a destructive habit to fall into. Michael encourages leaders to stay curious just a little bit longer and jump to advice-giving just a little more slowly.

Books by Michael Bungay Stanier:

The Coaching Habit

The Advice Trap

Do More Great Work

Links to references mentioned in the show:

Box of Crayons

David Marquet’s Turn The Ship Around!

The Habit Share App

Follow the Military on Twitter: @mil_LEADER

Like the Military Leader on Facebook: @MilitaryLeader

Want to hear a specific topic covered in the podcast? Leave a suggestion in the form of a rating and review on iTunes. 

This episode features passionate world changer and good friend of nearly twenty years, Noble Gibbens. Noble is a West Point graduate, successful entrepreneur, speaker, personal mentor, and business coach who learns, lives, and breathes leader development.

As the energetic son of an emergency room doctor, Noble Gibbens developed an insatiable love of learning partly because his parents bribed him with ice cream to take copious notes in church. Years later as an Infantry Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, he sought professional advice everywhere he could, including from senior leaders that lieutenants typically try to avoid. Following the Army, Noble threw his energy and passion into multiple businesses and has built a coaching network that is hundreds strong.

In this conversation, Noble talks about the mentors, authors, and resources that shaped him into the leader he is today, then makes a strong case for questioning those very leader development inputs in favor of finding one's own set of leadership beliefs and authentic voice. Then he hits home by challenging leaders to recognize that the areas they are most comfortable in are exactly the areas in which they are least willing to learn.

If you want to stay in your comfort zone, skip this episode.

Watch our conversation on video at the episode show page!

Join the Facebook mentorship group we discuss in this episode,
The 360 Movement Personal Growth Tribe

And you should definitely check out EQ for Entrepreneurs EQ for Entrepreneurs at EQforEntrepreneurs.com and on Facebook, Instagram, & YouTube