Real Woman, Real Leadership, Real Resilience!
The Leadership Story is where real women share real leadership built on real resilience. Lisa Jones sits down with incredible women from every industry who have powerful stories about leadership. Through honest conversations with rising stars, seasoned executives, and the allies who champion women's success, this podcast helps you see your own experiences as the foundation for authentic leadership.
Découvrez des podcasts liées à The Leadership Story Podcast. Explorez des podcasts avec des thèmes, sujets, et formats similaires. Ces similarités sont calculées grâce à des données tangibles, pas d'extrapolations !
90 Days: Why We Pivot Too Soon and Hold On Too Long | EP22
lundi 21 septembre 2026 • Durée 12:42
The same number kept finding Lisa: 90 days. A women’s organization told members to wait 90 days before they pivot. Online ads promised a new life in 90 days. A pastor at a revival said the next 90 days is where it turns. Same number, opposite advice.
In this solo episode, Lisa explains why both camps miss the point. Ninety days isn’t about speed. It’s how long it takes to get a real answer instead of a feeling. She walks through the two ways we get it wrong, leaving too early and staying too late, and why neither one looks at the evidence.
She closes with one assignment: name one thing, give it 90 days, and decide how you’ll measure it.
Key Topics We Explored
* Two opposite rules: Why “transform in 90 days” and “wait 90 days” can’t both be the rule.
* Pivoting too soon: Perfectionism, comparison, and releasing work before the data has time to arrive.
* Discomfort isn’t data: How fear of rejection passes itself off as a strategy decision.
* Staying too long: When holding on looks like commitment but is avoidance.
* 90 days in organizations: How consulting work moves a company from “we want to be” to “we are.”
* Your one thing: Naming it, measuring it, and giving it a real window.
Chapters
00:00 The Power of 90 Days
01:19 Revealing Hidden Insights
01:50 Navigating the 90-Day Dilemma
09:30 The Power of 90 Days in Personal Growth
10:55 Unveiling What’s Hidden
11:22 The Power of 90 Days Commitment
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Work with Lisa: 1-on-1 strategy sessions (90 minutes) on leadership, and resilience.
Midlife Career Change: Giving Yourself Permission | EP21
mardi 8 septembre 2026 • Durée 41:06
Lisa Jones sits down with career coach, speaker, and learning and development facilitator Kay Kirkman to unpack why so many people feel stuck in careers that no longer fit, especially in midlife. Kay shares how her own nontraditional path, broadcast journalism background, and experience getting fired from her dream radio job shaped the way she now helps people reimagine work and reclaim the parts of themselves they set aside.
Key Topics We Explored
* Permission to Dream: Why giving yourself permission matters more than having a practical plan.
* Identity Over Job Title: Why the real block in midlife is identity, not ability.
* Reclaiming Dormant Selves: Reinvention as returning to the versions of you left in the basement.
* Making Time with Intention: Finding the hour a week your dream needs, honestly.
* Framing Your Vision: Kay’s first coaching step, getting quiet before getting a plan.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Leadership and Resilience
03:00 The Journey into Career Coaching
05:52 Permission to Dream
08:34 Breaking the Cycle of Career Expectations
11:40 The Birth of the Gen X Career Show
15:59 Relaunching the Podcast: A New Focus
20:57 Identity and Career Transitions
21:58 Reclaiming Our True Selves
28:14 Finding Time for Personal Growth
35:16 The Journey to Coaching
37:17 Defining Leadership Through Resilience
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The Surplus Problem: What Burnout Is Really Costing High-Performing Women | EP20
Saison 1 · Épisode 19
lundi 17 août 2026 • Durée 32:08
Burnout does not come from having too little. It comes from gathering more than the day requires.
In this solo episode, Lisa Jones revisits the story of manna and surplus through a resilience lens links it to one word: capacity. She shares how a routine walk helped her identify her own burnout, clarifies the difference from stress, and explains why the surplus we keep carrying has a real cost.
Supported by research on the invisible work women absorb, the hours lost to low-value tasks, and why women are taught to carry more in the first place, this episode gives you the next move after naming your depletion: figure out what today actually requires and stop gathering past it.
Key Topics Explored
* The manna principle: why the rule was not just gather daily, but do not store it up.
* Stress versus burnout: stress is load, burnout is load beyond capacity, and rest is not the answer
* Over-gathering as the hidden load: saying yes to everything you can do without asking whether you have room for it.
* The single point of failure: why the thing you would flag in a client’s assessment is the thing you call reliability in your own life.
* The supply you don’t count: how the small things that fill you are the source of the capacity you spend everywhere else.
* “The No Club”: women spend roughly 200 more hours a year than men on work nobody gets promoted for.
* What just enough is not: sufficiency as a higher standard, not a lower one.
* Employee Assistance Programs: why a wellness program can’t fix a capacity problem.
* The assignment: what does today actually require?
Chapters
0:00 Manna: Not Scarcity, Surplus
When Burnout Finally Had a Name
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Self-Care as Leadership: Boundaries and Reclaiming You | EP19
lundi 3 août 2026 • Durée 40:19
Elethia S. Gay explains why self-care is a core strategic decision for high performance, focusing on setting boundaries and converting fear into courage.
Originally released earlier this year, and back in the feed for a reason. Elethia makes an argument that reframes the whole conversation: your body is one member. It travels with you into every role, every goal, every promotion — which means health goals and career goals were never two separate lists. They are one vision for who you are becoming.
This conversation sets up the new episode releasing August 17.
Key Topics We Explored
* Why self-care is strategy, not recovery and what it costs to treat it as the thing you get to afterward.
* Your body is one member: why work-life balance splits something that was never actually separate.
* Being in love with yourself; not selfishly, but strategically and how that changes what you bring into a role.
* Why the oxygen mask metaphor breaks down when you have already waited too long to put it on.
* Start with one thing, not seven resolutions, and how to find the one thing that is actually the roadblock.
* Getting to the source rather than the symptom: if your feet hurt, the problem is not your discipline.
* Rest, spirituality, and surrender as the practical foundation underneath sustainable leadership.
* Roots to Wellness and Hiking for Hope: building community and self-expression out of hard seasons.
* The signature question: the one word Elethia uses to define her leadership story.
Chapters
00:00 - Why I Am Bringing This Episode Back
00:57 - Welcome: Self-Care Is Not Separate From Your Strategy
02:16 - Meet Elethia Gay
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How to Lead, Mentor, and Manage Up |EP18
Saison 1 · Épisode 18
lundi 20 juillet 2026 • Durée 45:43
Kate Lunger, Director of Workforce Initiatives at the Philadelphia Energy Authority, leads programs that expand equitable career pathways for adult learners, re-entry individuals, and marginalized youth in clean energy. In this conversation, she and Lisa talk about what it takes to lead a young team, providing structure without stifling growth, addressing conflict in real time instead of letting it linger, and teaching people the difference between something being personal and something just being the job.
Kate also opens up about leading as a woman, and specifically as a Black woman, in spaces where her leadership has been questioned or under-valued and what it looks like to keep going anyway. She traces her own path through learning challenges, the sudden loss of someone she loved during undergrad, raising a son through grad school, and a stretch of unemployment, to the leadership style she brings to her team today: direction paired with motivation, real talk paired with real support.
This is a conversation about perseverance that doesn’t sugarcoat the cost of it and about what it means to keep showing up for your people even when no one is asking what you need.
Key Topics We Explored
* Leadership as direction plus motivation: Kate’s approach centers on giving her team clear direction while actively motivating them toward growth, not just task completion.
* Structure in nonprofit spaces: how Kate builds structure and accountability in an environment that can otherwise feel looser than corporate — without losing the flexibility that makes nonprofit work valuable.
* Leading a young team through reactivity: teaching a generation that’s grown up reactive how to pause, document their feelings, and respond intentionally instead of firing off the first email.
* Women leading differently: Kate’s take on how women lead with more compassion and nurture, and the added weight of being underestimated or intimidating as a woman — and a Black woman — in leadership.
* Managing up: what it looks like to lead a team while also having to educate and humble the leadership above you.
Get full access to The Leadership Story at
I Built Resilience Programs, Then Got Laid Off: Job Loss After 40 | EP17
Saison 1 · Épisode 17
lundi 6 juillet 2026 • Durée 33:26
You can spend your whole career helping other people through crisis — and still not see your own coming. This is about what happens when the person who builds resilience programs becomes the one who needs them.
In this solo episode, Lisa Jones gets honest about unexpected job loss: the grief no one gives you permission to feel, the pressure to bounce back before you’re ready, and the harder reality facing women over 40 in this market. Part lived experience, part strategy, all real.
This episode first aired in April 2026. It’s the first to land here on YouTube — and there’s more coming this fall. New here? Subscribe so you don’t miss it.
Key Topics We Explored
* The grief of job loss: Why losing a job you didn’t see coming is a real loss — and why you don’t have to be productive in it.
* Managing everyone else’s discomfort: You’re not obligated to perform optimism so other people feel better about your crisis.
* The 2026 market, honestly: What a “low-hire, low-fire” environment means for how you actually search.
* Gendered ageism: What the data says about women facing age bias earlier and harder than men.
* Faith and the hard feelings: Why grief, anger, and belief can live in the same room.
* The first 48 hours: Unemployment, COBRA, and a survival budget before anything glamorous.
* Rebuilding your narrative: A calm, confident answer to “what happened?” — and how to lean on your network without it feeling awful.
Chapters
00:00 Facing Unexpected Job Loss
08:32 Navigating the Job Market Challenges
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Layoff-Proof Career Strategies: Building Resilience for Women Leaders | EP15
Saison 1 · Épisode 15
lundi 15 juin 2026 • Durée 22:21
The ground genuinely got less stable, and noticing it isn’t anxiety—it’s an accurate working instinct. In this solo episode, Lisa Jones brings two decades of business continuity expertise to the exact question women leaders are privately wrestling with right now: how do you build career security and survive corporate layoffs when the old corporate promises have quietly expired?
Reframing career instability not as a personal failure but as a system design problem you can solve, Lisa shares how to apply real operational resilience tools directly to your life. Learn how to spot your career’s single point of failure, deliberately build income redundancy, and execute the one career transition planning exercise most professionals avoid.
If you have been over-performing for a deal that no longer exists, this episode provides a strategic, clear-eyed roadmap to stop living in fear and start building a backup plan for your future.
Key Topics We Explored
* The Broken Corporate Promise: Why the Sunday-night hum isn’t fragility—it’s perception.
* Your Single Point of Failure: The systemic risk of running your income, healthcare, identity, and network through one employer.
* Building Career Redundancy: Lessons from Gen Z on managing single-paycheck panic and engineering portable skills.
* The Career Tabletop Exercise: How to walk through a 90-day income disruption on paper so you are never deciding in a free fall.
* The Carer’s Gap: Navigating the predictable, plannable financial exposure that impacts women leaders during peak earning years.
Chapters
00:00 The Broken Promise
02:55 The Feeling You’ve Been Carrying
05:05 Single Point of Failure
Get full access to The Leadership Story at
Stop Overthinking, Start Moving: How Women Leaders Move to Execution | EP14
Saison 1 · Épisode 14
lundi 1 juin 2026 • Durée 11:50
Stop overthinking and start leading! Most women leaders aren’t missing the answer; they’re missing the move. In this solo episode, Lisa Jones breaks down the leadership strategy to move from analysis paralysis to decisive action.
Learn the decision-making framework Lisa uses to break the overthinking loop with three core questions:
* What’s the smallest version I can test?
* What if it fails? So what?
* What can I control to lower the risk?
If you’ve ever confused more thinking with more progress, this episode provides the tools to get unstuck, improve your leadership mindset, and start moving.
Key Topics We Explored
* Why overthinking feels like diligence but functions as a stall
* What the research says: the 99.5% finding and why women ruminate more
* The belief that quietly feeds overthinking instead of solving it
* The three-question framework for moving from analysis to action
Chapters
00:00 The Journey of Self-Discovery
01:23 Overcoming Overthinking
05:25 Taking Action: The Small Steps
09:29 Moving Forward with Courage
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Subscribe to Substack: leadershipstory.substack.com
The Job Search System: Navigating ATS, Networking, and Career Alignment | EP13
Saison 1 · Épisode 13
lundi 18 mai 2026 • Durée 21:03
Are you struggling with a career transition or wondering why your experience isn’t translating in today’s job market? In this episode of The Leadership Story, host Lisa Jones sits down with two-time bestselling author Irene Chukwuma to break down the job search system.
In this insightful interview, Irene shares her journey from West Africa to the US, navigating the job market as an immigrant, and overcoming challenges in career re-entry. She discusses strategic job search techniques, the importance of networking, and her inspiring approach to career resilience, including her books on job searching and career restarting.
Key Topics We Explored:
* ATS Optimization: Why alignment with the job description matters more than application volume.
* Strategic Networking: How to find advocates to speak for you in rooms you haven’t entered yet.
* The “Restart” Mindset: Leveraging your experience and international credentials in a new market.
* Resilience as Leadership: Staying consistent through market ambiguity and rejection.
Chapters:
00:00 The Reality of the Invisible Job Search
02:15 Navigating the U.S. Job Market as an Immigrant
05:55 The Importance of Networking
09:45 Writing and Publishing Books
13:14 The Concept of Restarting vs. Starting Over
15:07 Advice for Job Seekers in a Tough Market
16:11 Defining Leadership: Reliability
Join the Community!
Get full access to The Leadership Story at
Strategic AI Literacy: Why Women Leaders are Not Behind | EP12
Saison 1 · Épisode 12
lundi 4 mai 2026 • Durée 17:28
Lisa Jones reframes AI as a leadership opportunity, sharing strategies for women to leverage emotional intelligence and adaptability to lead in the age of AI.
Key Topics We Explore
Why women feel behind on AI (it has nothing to do with capability)
AI as a leadership issue, not a technology problem
The three strengths women bring to AI adoption: emotional intelligence, collaboration, ethical reasoning
Four practical strategies: identify what’s draining you, start small, check for bias, bring your team in
Mindset essentials: be a learner, normalize discomfort, invest in adaptability
Chapters
0:00 Introduction to Leadership in AI
01:50 The Pressure of AI on Women in the Workforce
01:30 Why This is a Leadership Conversation
07:13 Practical Strategies for AI Integration
12:39 The Resilient Leader's Mindset
15:25 Final Thoughts on Leadership
Resources Mentioned
I Let AI Do My Busy Work. Now I Actually Have Time to Lead
* Block / Cash App: ~54 million Americans now hold more than one income stream, up from 41 million two years prior; Gen Z drives the growth at roughly five times the rate of Baby Boomers (Bloomberg / Staffing Industry Review, June 2026).
* Deputy “Big Shift” report: Gen Z makes up 55% of all workers holding multiple jobs simultaneously — the highest poly-employment rate in over a decade.
* Fiverr “Next Gen of Work” report: 67% of Gen Z say multiple income streams are essential for financial security; 56% believe traditional employment will eventually become obsolete. Origin of the “single-paycheck panic” framing (Oct 2025).
* Context / nuance: Gen Z switchers’ wage gains have fallen roughly 20 percentage points since 2022 — the old job-hopping playbook returns less now (Fortune, June 2026).
The Carer’s Gap and women’s financial exposure:
* PensionBee: a one-year pause in retirement contributions can compound to nearly $79,000 in lost savings; a five-year break, about $346,000 less at retirement (Oct 2025).
* Women’s earnings track close to men’s early, then diverge during prime career years before narrowing after 55 — meaning women often enter peak earning years with lower lifetime earnings (Carry / BLS, Feb 2026).
* Women’s longer life expectancy leaves fewer resources to stretch over more years (National Partnership for Women & Families).
