The Leadership Project Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of The Leadership Project, Mick reflects on his interview with Kristina Fussella about non-linear career paths and her experiences. They discuss the importance of a learning mindset, stepping out of comfort zones, and balancing generalist and specialist roles. 

The episode also covers findings from Gallup's 2024 Global Emotions Report, revealing surprising correlations between learning, respect, and emotional well-being, while debunking the connection between material wealth and positive emotions. The host concludes with personal leadership reflections, emphasizing clarity of communication, patience, and curiosity in solving problems.

00:00 Introduction: Exploring Connections in Leadership
00:43 Christina Fussella's Non-Linear Career Path
01:19 Deep Experts vs. Generalists
02:42 Learning and Growth Mindset
03:37 Leading Experts as a Generalist
06:53 Gallup's 2024 Global Emotions Report
08:24 Surprising Correlations in Emotional Well-being
10:36 Learning, Loneliness, and Social Interaction
14:56 Personal Leadership Reflections
20:02 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes

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💭 Ever considered how early jobs like waitressing could shape your path to senior leadership?

Join us as Kristina Fussella, Founder and CEO at Novo Nordisk, takes us through her fascinating career journey that defies the traditional linear path. From leveraging her engineering background in consulting to learning invaluable lessons from her time at IHOP, Kristina's experiences underscore the importance of meaningful work and recognition, especially for younger professionals. Her story challenges the misconception that climbing the corporate ladder quickly is the only measure of success.

Kristina emphasizes the significance of following your North Star and stepping out of comfort zones to find true passion. Listen as she discusses her diverse roles at Novo Nordisk, showcasing her transition from analytics to sales and how it helped her build a comprehensive skill set. Her journey is a testament to having a purpose-driven career, staying open to opportunities, and solving real patient problems rather than just selling products. Kristina's insights will inspire you to embrace discomfort and varied experiences as pathways to becoming a well-rounded leader.

The episode also dives into the nuances of executive apprenticeship and the multifaceted challenges of leadership transitions. Kristina’s tales from her role as Chief of Staff provide a unique look into the intricacies of decision-making and running a business. She talks about building trust within teams, maintaining resilience amid setbacks, and fostering a growth mindset.

Wrapping up with her reflections on self-compassion, curiosity, and meaningful development conversations, this episode offers a treasur

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✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

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💭 Ever wondered why traditional management styles are falling short in today’s fast-paced world?

Join us for an insightful episode featuring Graham Wilson, the Leadership Wizard and founder of Success Factory. Graham’s extraordinary journey from leaving school at 16 to serving in the military and transitioning to the corporate arena is nothing short of inspirational. We delve into the critical need for educational reform to foster leadership and emotional intelligence, citing Finland's progressive model as a beacon for change. Graham also shares his wisdom on the disconnect between our education system and the real world, where collaboration is paramount.

Tired of the reactive "hamster wheel" of operational chaos? We challenge you to rethink your leadership mindset with Graham's compelling insights. Discover why it's crucial to step back, review performance regularly, and align your vision and objectives to unify your teams. Learn how to balance functional expertise with strategic thinking, effective collaboration, and a values-driven approach to create a thriving organizational culture. Graham's powerful anecdotes will inspire you to foster clarity, empowerment, and autonomy within your teams.

Step into the realm of authentic leadership with Graham Wilson and explore the foundation of Success Factory. From a reflective moment on a beach in Anglesey to the concept of ikigai, Graham's journey underscores the importance of aligning passion, skills, and purpose. We discuss the significance of doing what you love and creating a life tailored to your desires. Graham also shares the inspirational message from his favorite book, "Wabizugi," about resilience. Tune in to ga

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Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

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💭 Have you heard the famous line, “Leadership is a marathon, not a sprint”?

Our guest this week takes this quote to a different level, by guiding his clients through a transformative journey in completing a marathon, literally.

Jamin Heppell is Founding Director of Mountains and Marathons where he facilitates leadership programs that centre around completing a marathon or climbing a mountain in one of the world’s most stunning locations. The program involves six months of physical training, mindset coaching and community support. 

 Jamin’s turning point happened at the peak of his career when externally, he looked very successful, yet internally he felt that he was not living his fullest potential. That was when he realized he wanted to run marathons, climb mountains, travel the world and transform lives as he envisioned his company, Mountains and Marathons. He describes his state as geographic freedom, where he spends six weeks to three months in one location before moving to another country.

🎧 Listen to this episode as Mick and Jamin talk about redefining the perception of masculinity, becoming allies of change and the importance of acknowledging limiting beliefs in discovering your inner truth.

🌐 Connect with Jamin:

• Website: https://mountainsandmarathons.world/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamin-heppell/
• Instagram (Personal):  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamin-heppell/
• Instagram (Mountains and Marathons):

Send us a text

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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💭 How do you holistically improve people’s lives through your leadership?

Our guest this week is a returning guest from one of our popular episodes, “Leaders with a Capital L”. Brett Larson has retired from his corporate leadership career at W. L. Gore & Associates to pursue a partnership with Humessence, whose vision is to improve the lives of workers by delivering improved and excellence in leadership.

In this episode, Brett and Mick talk about the common mistakes most leaders make such as wanting to be the smartest person in the room, answering every question and ending up doing most of the work. Brett also defines humility as being grounded, knowing who you are, and having enough self-confidence to admit that you don’t have all of the solutions. His shared vision to help companies create a culture where people can be engaged, where psychological safety is present, and where people can reach their full potential so they can bring this culture at home, is what led him to be part of Humessence. This then inspired him to write a book, Discovering Leaders Within, where he shares the seven-step method in human-based leadership. 

🎧 Download this episode to discover the significance of humility in leadership, and the impact your leadership makes beyond the four walls of your office space.

🌐 Connect with Brett

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVGLRMZN
• Email: [email protected]
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbrettlarson/

Book References:

• Good to Great by

Send us a text

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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💭 How do you measure psychological safety and the impact it makes on your organization?

Stephan Wiedner is a psychological safety expert whose career has focused on developing sustainable high-performance leaders, teams and organizations. His passion for unleashing the collective potential of people has led him to be one of the co-founders of noomi.com, the world's largest network of independent life coaches. He's also developed a software called skillsetter.com, and is the CEO of Zarango.com.

Today’s discussion talks about Stephan’s transition from the well-calculated and systematic world of construction management, to the complex world of understanding human behavior through coaching. This led him to starting Noomi.com as a platform for coaches to offer their services, and at the same time, for individuals to find the right coach that suits their needs. He then further niched down to psychological safety which emerged from a need to quantify the impact of coaching on organizations. He then observed how psychological safety directly correlates with high-performance teams, and this is the most common theme in his coaching engagements.

Psychological safety is about creating a speak-up culture - an environment where people feel safe to speak up, to admit mistakes, and to ask for help. This is where the perceived benefit of speaking up is greater than the fear. Mick and Stephan also talk about how to measure psychological safety and how to maintain a culture of respect through feedback. Stephan then talks about

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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💭 How do you get your message across in less than 8 seconds - the average attention span of the modern world?

A nine-time Emmy award-winning journalist and news anchor, Jane Hanson worked for NBC for 30 years prior to becoming a communications coach. She was the host of New York live, an anchor and reporter for NBC, including at the launch of what is now known as Today in New York, and had her own programs such as Jane's New York. 

For the past 30 years, she has helped leaders and people communicate with confidence, whether in an immediate situation, facing down a camera and having the confidence to be on video and to improve their presentation skills. 

In this episode, Jane talks about how she left her hometown of Canby, Minnesota, a city with no stoplights, for the bright lights of New York City, where she discovered the world of broadcast journalism. She shares that journalists are the conduit between a story and its viewer, as she defines the news as “when something extraordinary happens to somebody ordinary”. It is their responsibility to convey the truth in a way that the audience would understand. 

With media going beyond just print, radio and television, there is a need for top executives to undergo crisis communication and media training in handling possible questions which need their voice, so that they could communicate with transparency, authenticity and empathy for those impacted by the situation. This could be observed in one’s body language, tone of voice, eye contact and choice of words, among others. 

At the end of the day, journalists are not just out looking for bad news, but are out to look for stories worth telling. With the adve

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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💭 When an opportunity knocks, are you ready to answer the door?

Oftentimes, the best-laid plans don't usually work out the way you want them. How do you unlock possibilities amidst life's uncertainties?

This week’s podcast guest is a Global Leader in business and personal growth.  Rowena Millward is co-founder and principal of MacMorgan Next Practice Growth, as well as the best-selling author of two books: Uncomfortable Growth and Insights to Enlighten.

In this episode, Rowena shares how she shifted from being a corporate leader to a business consultant and the joy and fulfilment that comes from creating something that does not exist. She also shares the impact of her former company’s clearly articulated credo helped her overcome a difficult time battling cancer. A company’s values and beliefs are not just something displayed on the wall but what people in the company live and breathe. 

Mick and Rowena also share their thoughts on leading teams with diverse backgrounds and cultures by staying curious, being mindful in having psychologically safe conversations to talk about each one’s similarities and differences and making everyone feel included.

Rowena’s book, Insights to Enlighten, is like a “Coach In Your Pocket” containing snippets of different topics you can easily grab in the middle of a hectic day. Her second book, “Uncomfortable Growth”, speaks of ways to embrace change by focusing on growth.  She also shares a simple exercise called the lifetime line, where you plot different defining moments in your life - the good being above the line, and the bad experiences being below the line, and see how these moments have reshaped the way you thin

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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How do you effectively unlock the power of teams?

Bernard Desmidt is a renowned coach, leadership trainer and facilitator whose expertise is in unlocking the power in teams so that they can access the collective capacity and capability to achieve the greatest things possible. He's also the author of two books: Team Better Together and Inside Out Leadership. 

In this episode, Bernard starts off the discussion how the three African expressions - Sawabona (I see you) Ubuntu (I am because we are), and Hamba Gashle (Go in Peace), have deeply shaped the work he does in helping leaders and teams to become their best selves.

He then takes us through a discussion of three of the six linguistic acts, the first being assessments. We assess ourselves 24/7 based on an unconscious bias - a set of beliefs, assumptions and judgments we have of ourselves and what we think others have of us. Second, are assertions or statements of truth. Third, are declarations, a statement of truth that has a significant orientation to where you are heading. Applying this insight from individuals to teams, where a group of individuals start collectively learning together, collaborating to the point of interdependence, where they realize that the sum of the result is bigger than the sum of the parts.

We then conclude this discussion with the 5 disciplines of High-Performing Teams as shared in his book, Team Better Together:

1. Discipline to discover the mandate
2. Discipline to declare the purpose of the team for why they exist
3. Discipline to design the culture and way of doing things
4. Discipline to deliver the collective goal
5. Discipline to develop responsibi

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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💭 Have you ever thought about entering into the Leadership Development space yourself?  Have you considered whether you would want to do that from the outside (consulting) or on the inside of a business (inside the Learning & Development (L&D) department)?

Today we are joined by someone who has recently made that shift in his career.  Dr Rey Fremista is well known as an international thought leader in quality and process excellence.  He is one of The Philippines Top 30 voices on LinkedIn; the President of the Philippines Society for Quality; and has enjoyed a successful career in quality management, process excellence, lean, and 6 Sigma.

He has recently been drawn to follow his passion and purpose and enter the world of leadership development and for him this meant joining the internal learning & development department of a multinational company.

We discuss his transition into leadership development and the identity shift this required.  For someone that is so well known in his chosen field (quality and process excellence) it can be challenging to shift that identity to become known in a new field.

Rey shares with us his initial journey and transition into leadership development from within an L&D department of an organization.

Dr Rey is also the founder of Mindgrit.  On his Mindgrit social media channels he challenges us to develop the right mindset for growth and the ability to develop the “grit” required to be resilient and get through challenges that life sends us.  Dr Rey builds on the work of renowned American psychologist Carol Dweck to bring the thought of Grit to a new audience.

We explore Mind and Grit in our discussion today.

Send us a text

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here: https://linktr.ee/mickspiers

📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV

If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to [email protected] and we can arrange it for you too.

If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade:

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...