Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Connection Over Loneliness
Listen in to this episode of Illustrating Leadership, where we speak with Vicki Bradley, founder and CEO of Women in Leadership Empowered and Chief Executive Coach at Vicki Bradley and Company.
Vicki’s work is rooted in service, advocacy, and helping women bring their authentic voices not just to the table, but to the world. After years in corporate environments, she realized that the work she cared most about was helping women navigate complexity, trust themselves, and lead with greater confidence.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Developing Your People
In this episode of Illustrating Leadership, I get to sit down and chat with Sharon Justice, People Strategist and Founder of Justice Leadership.
Sharon has spent her career on the people side of busines, first in human resources for large financial services firms, then in the college classroom helping emerging professionals prepare for the workforce, and now through her consulting practice supporting small to mid-sized business leaders.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Presence
Today we're sitting down with Carolyn Robistow, a private practice therapist and group offer strategist, and someone who has become a meaningful person in my life over the last year. Carolyn is thoughtful, funny, deeply insightful, and able to move from boat life to brain spotting to leadership wisdom in a way that feels both completely unexpected and exactly right.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: The Relationships That Matter
In this episode of Illustrating Leadership, I got to talk with with Shoshana Allice, a neuro-inclusive leadership coach and the founder of Decolonizing Leadership.
Shoshana has spent nearly 30 years in leadership development, and her work has become increasingly focused on the intersection of neurodivergence and leadership. Through her own late-diagnosed neurodivergence, her family experience, and her work with clients, she has developed a deep commitment to helping people rethink what leadership can look like.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Creating Opportunity
In this episode of Illustrating Leadership, I had the joy of talking with Eboné Bell, a speaker, storyteller, facilitator, and voiceover artist whose work centers on leadership, confidence, allyship, belonging, and connection.
And connection really is the thread.
Eboné chose to highlight Madam C.J. Walker, an entrepreneur and community builder whose leadership continues to inspire her. What stood out most was not only Madam Walker’s business success, but the way she used that success to create opportunity for others.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Learning Agility
Learning agility is the ability to learn from experience and apply those lessons to new and unfamiliar situations.
Research suggests it can be more predictive of leadership effectiveness than emotional intelligence or cognitive ability alone.
The most important part is this. It is learnable.
Leadership growth does not come from consuming more content alone. It comes from reflection. From asking better questions after things go well and after they do not.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Loneliness
“It’s lonely at the top.”
It is a phrase most leaders have heard and many have quietly felt.
Especially for new and emerging leaders, that loneliness can feel heavy. You are the one people come to for answers. You are expected to project confidence and clarity, even when you feel unsure, overwhelmed, or exhausted. You carry confidential information you cannot fully share. You navigate decisions others never see.
Over time, leadership can begin to feel isolating.
But leadership does not have to be lonely.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Aligning Your Inner & Outer Life
Some of the most impactful leaders in our lives do not come with titles, corner offices, or formal authority.
They enter our lives through relationship.
They challenge us, ground us, mirror us, and sometimes even break our hearts before helping us put ourselves back together with more clarity, self-trust, and wholeness.
That truth sat at the center of this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, where I had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Brenda Brummond, an intuitive business coach for female entrepreneurs. What unfolded was not just a conversation about leadership, but about evolution, forgiveness, grounding, and the balance between ambition and inner alignment.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Leading People with Personality Types Different Than Yours
One of the most important and most overlooked truths about leadership is this:
your team does not think like you.
And while that realization can feel uncomfortable at first, it is actually one of your greatest opportunities as a leader.
Leadership is not about getting everyone to work the way you do. It is about understanding how they work and creating the conditions for each person to thrive.
In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I explore what it really means to lead different personality types with awareness, empathy, and flexibility, without losing your own leadership identity in the process.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Authenticity Leads to Trust
In this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I sat down with Cindy Spratt, a holistic nutritionist who supports women in rebuilding peaceful relationships with food, body, and self. Cindy’s story offers a powerful reminder that leadership is not about fitting into a predefined mold. It is about knowing who you are, honoring your values, and creating trust through authenticity.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Find Your Guiding Light
When leadership feels steady, it’s easy to move forward with confidence. But most leaders don’t struggle when things are going well — they struggle when things feel messy, unclear, stressful, or conflicting. When you’re pulled in too many directions, when decisions feel heavier than usual, or when something simply hasn’t gone well in your organization or business.
In those moments, it’s tempting to look for more information. Another article. Another framework. Another opinion.
But what gets leaders through those seasons isn’t more information.
It’s clarity.
It’s alignment.
It’s having a guiding light.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Reframing Failure
In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I explore one of the most important and least discussed realities of leadership: failure. Every leader will experience it. The question is not if it will happen, but how you respond when it does.
Failure does not mean you are a bad leader. It does not define your character, your capability, or your future. What it does offer is an invitation to reflect, learn, and lead with integrity and resilience.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Belief Sparks Possibility
In this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I spoke with Pam Miller, a Life and Health Transitional Coach whose leadership story perfectly illustrates the transformative power of one person’s belief. Pam shared a defining moment from her twenties. A moment when fear was holding her back, her confidence was shrinking, and she fully intended to say no to an opportunity that terrified her.
But one leader saw something in her she couldn’t yet see in herself. That single moment changed the entire trajectory of her life.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Trusting Yourself as a Leader
In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I dive into one of the most essential, and most underrated, leadership skills you can ever develop: self-trust. Leadership will always include moments where the decision, the responsibility, or the next step ultimately rests on you. And in those moments, the voice you trust matters.
But for many new and emerging leaders, that inner voice is clouded by fear, doubt, overthinking, or the urge to please others. In this episode, I walk through how to recognize and redirect your saboteurs, tune into your intuition, release people-pleasing patterns, and rebuild the confidence to trust yourself again.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Leading with Softness
In this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I had the joy of speaking with Jodi Gagne, Energy coach, EFT practitioner, and former theater stage manager and wedding planner. Jodi’s career path is anything but linear, and that’s exactly what makes her leadership insights so powerful.
From high-pressure environments where there are no second chances to the deeply introspective world of energy coaching, Jodi’s story teaches us that leadership isn’t just about strength, structure, or decisiveness. It’s also about softness, self-trust, and the courage to explore what’s happening beneath the surface.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: The Power of the Pause
A lot of new leaders feel pressure to have the right answer right away. And a lot of seasoned leaders get into trouble when they succomb to this pressure. In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I explore one of the most underestimated leadership tools out there: the pause.
We live in a world that rewards speed. Fast replies, quick decisions, and constant motion. But some of the best leadership moves come not from rushing forward, but from taking a breath, slowing down, and leading with intention.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Listening to your Body
In this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I sat down with Joanna Lund-Pops, embodied career and leadership coach, to explore how reconnecting with our bodies can transform the way we lead, make decisions, and sustain our energy — especially in the nonprofit and social impact space.
Joanna helps changemakers move beyond the “do more with less” mindset and instead reclaim the bold, impactful careers and lives they were meant to have. Her insights remind us that great leadership doesn’t come from the head alone — it comes from the whole self.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: The Leader As A Mirror
In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I explore one of the most transformative mindset shifts for any leader...moving from being the fixer to becoming the coach. When you step into leadership, it’s natural to think your role is to have all the answers. But true leadership isn’t about solving every problem. It’s about helping your team discover their own solutions and strength.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Lead Yourself First
In this episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I had the honor of speaking with Chris Kruger — retired U.S. Army infantryman and Black Hawk pilot turned author. Chris spent over two decades in the military, completing multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring and embarking on a new chapter as a writer and mental health advocate.
His story is one of resilience, self-awareness, and the power of empathetic leadership — both in uniform and beyond it.
Illustrating Leadership Lesson: Balancing Empathy and High Standards
In this solo episode of the Illustrating Leadership Podcast, I get into one of the biggest tensions leaders face: balancing empathy with effectiveness. Can you really lead with both heart and high standards? I believe the answer is yes — not only can you, but the best leaders do.