Podcast | Grow Strong Leaders

252: How to Help Transitioning Leaders Succeed

What causes so many leaders to fail when they are transitioning to a senior leadership role? Robert Witherspoon reveals important reasons, based on his decades of experience coaching leaders in transition. What he shares can help your organization avoid those pitfalls and instead ensure success.

Robert is a leadership coach for top executives, and he’s been serving leaders in business and government since 1990. He specializes in C-Suite and Leadership Transition Coaching.

Robert is the lead author, along with Randy White, of Four Essential Ways That Coaching Can Help Executives, the first field guide to executive coaching, published by the Center for Creative Leadership in 1997. Robert has been doing this work well before executive coaching and leadership development became popular boardroom language. Today he is considered a pioneer in the coaching profession.

His mission is to provide immediate impact, measurable results, and sustainable success. He achieves this by helping leaders develop their leadership skills and facilitating their transitions to new roles.

You’ll discover:

What Leadership Transition is and why it matters
Some of the key transitions that have major impact on an organization
What’s often missing before a leader moves into a new position
The role of robust assessments in identifying potential challenges for the leader

Watch the episode:

Connect with Robert

Robert’s Website

Performance & Leadership

Connect with Your Team

Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

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Peer Coaching Made Simple

How to Do the 6 Things That Matter Most When Helping Someone Improve a Skill

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251: Leadership Practices of Successful Start-ups

What do the best founders do when leading others to fulfill the company’s mission? You’ll find out in this valuable conversation with Raja Skogland, who’s based in Norway.

Raja is not only an entrepreneur herself, she has also invested in more than 70 start-ups and small businesses. She’s observed firsthand—and also practices herself—the leadership skills necessary for building a successful company.

Raja is the Founder and Chair of The Visionary Company & VC. She’s created an ecosystem of experts, board members, investors, and serial entrepreneurs. Their purpose is to help startups, scale-ups, and small- to medium-size businesses raise money and build profitable, scalable businesses. Raja is also a Board Member of NorBAN, the Norwegian Business Angel Network.

You’ll discover:

How Raja’s experiences in the business world led her to the work she does today
Why Raja works on her mindset on a continuous basis and encourages entrepreneurs to do the same
The power of surrounding yourself with “friend clients”
Key leadership skills needed to run a successful business or team
How Raja applies these skills with her children and with her team

Watch the episode:

Connect with Raja

Raja’s Resources

Websites

Raja Skogland Blog

The Visionary VC

Connect with Your Team

Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

Order from Amazon

Peer Coaching Made Simple

How to Do the 6 Things That Matter Most When Helping Someone Improve a Skill

Order from Amazon

250: What It Takes to Improve High-Impact Communication Skills

To celebrate Episode #250, Meredith invited her business partner of 32 years, Dr. Denny Coates, to be her guest and discuss insights they’ve acquired around skill development and behavior change.

Denny and Meredith were introduced to each other in 1990 and met for breakfast to get acquainted. Three hours later, they were still talking. They are still fascinated with each other’s thinking as they’ve evolved as individuals and as a company over the past 3 decades

Denny is CEO of Grow Strong Leaders and is the primary author of the company’s products and books. He’s a graduate of West Point and the Army Ranger School and earned his Ph.D. from Duke University. He served on the faculties of the United States Military Academy, the Armed Forces Staff College, the College of William and Mary, and the Center for Creative Leadership.

You’ll discover:

How knowledge and skills are different
What it takes to establish a skill so you use it automatically
Why it’s important to focus on improving just one skill at a time
How to provide coaching to every person in an organization
What the peer coaching process looks like

Watch the episode:

Connect with Denny

Denny’s Resources

Websites

Books

Connect with Your Team: Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

Peer Coaching Made Simple

Books for Parents

Connect with Your Team

Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

Order from Amazon

Peer Coaching Made Simple

How to Do the 6 Things That Matter Most When Helping Someone Improve a Skill

Order from Amazon

249: Developing a Champion’s Mind

You may think that success requires striving and pushing hard. Dr. Jeff Spencer dispels that notion and presents an alternate approach that results in a joyful life. You’ll want to take notes as you listen to this amazing man drop nugget after nugget of wisdom.

Jeff builds champions. He has spent more than 400,000 hours mastering the art and science of full potential play. His extraordinary track record helping athletes win gold medals, entrepreneurs dominate their fields, and business titans become iconic come from his experience as an Olympic cyclist, author, hot glass artist, sports scientist, doctor, husband and father.

Jeff’s clients include Tiger Woods, U2, Nike, Hitachi and Bulletproof. His proudest achievement is the raising of his adopted daughter, Kin, with his wife Kristina.

You’ll discover:

The difference between a human mindset and a champion mind
Why a state of Receivership beats hard work every time
What’s required to play the long game in life
Jeff’s definition of Imposter Syndrome that’s sure to resonate with you
Why Jeff “answers callings” instead of chasing dreams or goals

Watch the episode:

Connect with Dr. Jeff

Dr. Jeff’s Resources

Website

Dr. Jeff Spencer

Book

Turn It Up!: How to Perform at Your Highest Level for a Lifetime

Connect with Your Team

Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

Order from Amazon

Peer Coaching Made Simple

How to Do the 6 Things That Matter Most When Helping Someone Improve a Skill

Order from Amazon

248: How to Become Unflappable

Did you know that stress is actually something we create in our own minds? It’s true! And Dr. Bridget Cooper shares specific Stress Busters that can help you become calmer in the face of any challenge. This is a must-listen episode if you’d like to ditch the drama in your life while maintaining your inner peace and personal power.

Bridget, or Dr. B as she’s called by her clients, is a cage rattler. Over the past 20+ years, she’s helped teams and leaders think and communicate more clearly so they can navigate problems proactively and effectively. She works with clients to overcome the attitudes and behavior patterns that derail their success by offering down-to-earth insights and action plans.

Bridget does this through coaching, corporate consulting, and leading workshops that guide people to live more authentic, peaceful, and powerful lives. Her mission is to change the world, one life at a time. She has also done this in her new book, Unflappable: How Smart People Quit Overthinking, Ditch the Drama, & Thrive at Work, which is packed with practical suggestions you can start implementing right away.

You’ll discover:

Why Unflappable is the perfect title for her book
How we create stress and what we can do to reduce it
The benefits of creating a “bubble” in conflict situations
Why it’s important to create a Professional Avatar and why Bridget calls it “the holy grail”
The power of using the “Meet Them Where They Are” strateg

Watch the episode:

Connect with Dr. B

Dr. B’s Resources

Websites

DrBridgetCooper

Books

Unflappable: How Smart People Quit Overthinking, Ditch the Drama, & Thrive at Work

Pain Rebel: How We Take Our Power Back

Connect with Your Team

Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills

Order from Amazon

Peer Coaching Made Simple

How to Do the 6 Things That Matter Most When Helping Someone Improve a Skill

Order from Amazon

247: Becoming Coachable As a Leader

What does it take to be someone who can benefit from coaching? Jacquelyn Lane and Scott Osman share the qualities that are essential to make the most of the coaching process.

Scott and Jacquelyn are the two lead authors of the new book, Becoming Coachable: Unleashing the Power of Executive Coaching to Transform Your Leadership and Life. Their co-author is Marshall Goldsmith, a familiar name to everyone in the business world.

Scott is the founder and CEO of the 100 Coaches Agency and Jacquelyn is the president. Together they designed a proprietary curation process for matching leaders and executive coaches for an extraordinary experience.

Scott co-founded the 100 Coaches Community with Marshall Goldsmith in 2016, and Jacquelyn is a critical pillar in that Community of coaches.

They are committed to not just elevating the quality of leadership, they are also focused on guiding leaders to elevate everyone in their organization so that every person flourishes.

You’ll discover:

How Scott and Jacquelyn have worked on becoming coachable themselves
The 4 qualities required for someone to become open to coaching
The distinction they make between Rising and Flourishing
Why flourishing (for self and for others) is the ultimate goal of coaching
Examples of CEOs who’ve turned around companies based on their own coaching experiences