Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The People Side of Business | Team Management Strategies, How to Manage Employees, Leadership for Business Owners

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Are you trying to figure out how to lead a team that can make decisions without you? Or have you become the Chief Everything Officer of your business?

You've hired capable people. Your business is growing. But somehow, you're still the person answering every question, solving every problem and making every decision. And while you're busy keeping everything running, you're finding less and less time to focus on actually growing your business.

Sound familiar?

In this episode, we're talking about why the habits that helped you build your business can eventually become the very things holding it back.

I'll share why this goes beyond simply delegating more work, how your involvement can unintentionally undermine your team's confidence, and why giving someone responsibility isn't the same as giving them ownership.

We'll also explore the team management strategies that help you stay informed without being involved in every detail, what holding employees accountable actually requires from you as a leader, and why building leadership team capacity starts with creating room for other people to make decisions.

Because learning how to lead a team isn't about stepping away from your responsibilities. It's about recognizing which responsibilities genuinely need you and which ones your team is ready to own.

Whether you're figuring out how to manage employees more effectively or developing the leadership skills for business owners that will support your next stage of growth, this conversation is an invitation to rethink your role in the business.

And if you're wondering where to start, we'll talk about one practical change you can make without overhauling everything overnight.

Keep listening: In Episode 13, How to Manage Employees Without Being the One With All the Answers, I go deeper into helping your team develop the confidence to solve problems and make decisions independently.

If you're ready to spend less time working in your business and more time leading it, my two-hour Deep Dive sessions give us the space to look at your business, your team and what's keeping you involved in everything. Together, we'll identify practical changes that create more capacity and help your people take greater ownership.

Book your Deep Dive: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/consulting/

Because knowing how to lead a team that thinks for itself starts with making room for your people to step up.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

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When an employee who used to be reliable starts missing deadlines, pushing back on feedback or creating tension on your team, it's easy to assume they've become a difficult employee. But what if there's something happening that you haven't uncovered yet?

Knowing how to deal with difficult employees starts with understanding what's actually going wrong, rather than reacting out of frustration.

In this episode, I'm sharing a situation where a founder was struggling with a previously strong employee whose performance had started slipping. What initially looked like an attitude problem turned out to be something much more complicated.

We'll explore how to prepare for difficult conversations with employees, why defensiveness doesn't automatically mean someone refuses to take responsibility, and how to balance empathy with holding employees accountable.

I'll also walk you through the feedback framework I use with clients to address employee performance issues, clarify expectations and create a practical path forward.

Because knowing how to deal with difficult employees doesn't mean avoiding uncomfortable conversations or lowering your standards. It means developing the leadership skills to listen, understand what's happening and make informed decisions about what comes next.

And sometimes, even after you've provided support and a fair opportunity to improve, things still don't change. We'll talk about that reality too, and why effective team management strategies require both compassion and accountability.

If you're wondering how to deal with difficult employees on your own team, I hope this conversation helps you approach the situation with more clarity and confidence.

Keep listening: If difficult conversations are something you've been putting off, listen to my earlier episode, Avoiding Difficult Conversations With Employees? Here's What It's Costing You 

You can also download my free Feedback Model from the High Voltage Resource Library to help prepare for your next conversation.

And if you'd like help navigating a challenging employee situation, my two-hour Deep Dive sessions give us time to understand what's happening and develop a practical plan together.

Book your Deep Dive: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/consulting/

Learning how to deal with difficult employees isn't about having all the answers. It's about approaching difficult situations with clarity, fairness and care.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

One of the most important hiring tips for small businesses is understanding that you can hire a fantastic person and still make the wrong hiring decision.

Maybe they came highly recommended. They have an impressive resume, years of experience, and everyone on your team likes them. But a few weeks into the role, things aren't going quite the way you expected.

That's exactly what happened to a founder I worked with named Angela.

Her business was growing quickly, and she needed someone who could take ownership of an important project and lead a small team. She thought she'd found the perfect person.

But instead of creating more capacity, the new hire was creating more work for her.

In this episode, I'm sharing what happened, the hiring mistakes we uncovered, and why finding the right person isn't always the same as hiring for what your business actually needs.

We'll talk about the difference between experience and capability, why a great referral isn't a recruitment strategy, and how your people strategy needs to evolve as your business grows.

Because when you're figuring out how to scale a team, it's tempting to hire someone who can take work off your plate. But what if the real gap isn't another pair of hands? What if you need someone who can think strategically, make decisions and lead?

That's where hiring tips for small businesses need to go beyond resumes and interviews.

Angela's story also takes us through one of the harder parts of hiring and firing employees: what happens when you've given someone clear feedback and a genuine opportunity to improve, but the role still isn't the right fit?

If you're considering an important hire, I want you to think about what your business actually needs this person to accomplish, not just what you're hoping they'll take off your plate.

And if you'd like help working through that decision, my two-hour Deep Dive sessions are designed to give you clarity and a practical plan for moving forward.

Learn more and book a session here: highvoltageleadership.ca/consulting

Because the best hiring tips for small businesses start long before you post the job. And getting clear about what your business needs today can help you make a much better decision about who you hire tomorrow.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Employee issues can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you feel like you're having the same conversations over and over again.

Someone misses a deadline. Another person isn't communicating. Someone else isn't taking ownership of their work. And you're left wondering why your team can't seem to get on the same page.

But what if those employee issues aren't actually separate problems?

In this episode, I'm sharing the story of Judy, a founder I worked with who was experiencing exactly this. She had a talented team and a growing business, but it seemed like every week brought another frustration.

And here's where things got interesting. When we started looking back at those conversations, we realized the names were changing, but the problems weren't.

What looked like individual employee performance issues was actually something much bigger.

As Judy's business grew, the way her team worked together hadn't kept up. Responsibilities were overlapping, priorities weren't always clear, and people were doing their best without fully understanding what was expected.

We started looking at her team management strategies, how information was being shared, and whether people had the clarity they needed to do their jobs well.

Because holding employees accountable is important, but people need to understand what they're responsible for before you can reasonably expect them to deliver.

This is where having a people strategy becomes so valuable. And it's also where some of the most common leadership struggles in teams begin.

If you're dealing with recurring employee issues, I want you to listen to Judy's story before deciding you have a problem with your people. Sometimes the real opportunity is to change how the team works together.

And if you'd like some help figuring out what's really happening in your business, I'd love to work through it with you in a two-hour Deep Dive session.

You can learn more and book a session here: highvoltageleadership.ca/consulting/

Because when the same employee issues keep showing up, it's worth looking at the pattern, not just the people.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you’re trying to figure out how to scale a team, you might assume hiring more people will finally give you more capacity.

So why are you somehow busier than you were before?

That’s exactly what happened to one founder I worked with. Her business was growing quickly and, over six months, she added ten people to her team. She thought the additional support would finally give her some breathing room.

Instead, she got more questions, more decisions, more conflict and more things coming back to her.

In this episode, we’re looking at why learning how to scale a team takes more than simply adding people.

As your team grows, the informal ways of working that were fine when there were only a few of you can start to break down. Roles become less clear. Decision making gets messy. People aren’t sure what they own or when they need you. And suddenly, you’re the person holding everything together.

I’ll walk you through the team management strategies we used to change that, including getting clearer about ownership, creating a people strategy that could actually support the growth of the business, and building leadership throughout the team.

Because figuring out how to lead a team as it grows doesn’t mean removing yourself from the business you love. It means creating enough clarity and capability around you that you can stay connected without needing to be involved in everything.

That’s one of the most important leadership skills for business owners as their companies grow.

If you’re wondering how to scale a team when everything still seems to come back to you, I want you to ask yourself a different question: Is your team actually creating more capacity, or have you simply created more people who depend on you?

Because how to scale a team isn’t really about having more people working for you. It’s about building a team that can do more without requiring more of you.

And if you’re ready to work on this inside your own business, this is exactly what we do inside the Accelerator for Female Founders.

Learn more and book a call with me here.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Avoiding difficult conversations with employees can feel like the kind thing to do, especially when you genuinely care about the people on your team.

You tell yourself you’ll address it next week. You drop a few hints. Maybe they have a really good day and you start wondering if the problem is fixing itself.

But while you’re waiting, the cost of that conversation doesn’t disappear. It just moves somewhere else.

In this episode, I’m sharing the story of a founder who was dealing with employee performance issues involving someone she genuinely valued. She thought she’d been giving feedback, but nothing was changing. Meanwhile, she was carrying the frustration, other team members were picking up the slack, and resentment was starting to build. 

That’s one of the hidden costs of avoiding difficult conversations. What starts as a problem with one person can begin affecting your time, your clients, your strongest employees and the culture you’re trying to build.

We’ll talk about the difference between dropping hints and creating real clarity, why fear of conflict can make holding employees accountable feel so uncomfortable, and a simple way to approach difficult conversations with employees without becoming cold or confrontational.

Because leadership skills aren’t about never finding these conversations difficult. They’re about developing the confidence to have them anyway.

If avoiding difficult conversations is keeping you stuck in unresolved people problems, this is exactly the kind of leadership work we do inside the Accelerator for Female Founders. We work on your people strategy and the leadership skills you need to support the next stage of your business.

Learn more about the Accelerator and book a call with me here.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Stepping into leadership can feel uncomfortable when you’ve built a capable team but somehow still find yourself in the middle of every question, decision, problem and approval.

That’s exactly where one founder found herself. Her business was growing, she trusted her team and she genuinely wanted them to succeed. But as the pace and complexity increased, so did her involvement.

She became the person everyone came to for answers.

In this episode, I’m sharing what changed when she realized that stepping into leadership didn’t mean becoming more available to her team. It meant changing the way she led them.

We worked on replacing assumptions with clarity, getting curious about what her team was actually hearing and creating real ownership instead of simply delegating more work. She became clearer about decision making, gave better feedback and created space for other people to lead.

And something really interesting happened: as her team became more confident, so did she.

I see this transition with so many female business owners. Even experienced female founders can reach a stage where the leadership skills that got them here aren’t quite what the next stage of the business needs.

Building confidence as a leader isn’t about having every answer. Sometimes it comes from seeing what your team is capable of when you stop being their go-to person for everything.

That’s the real work of stepping into leadership as your business grows. Your role has to evolve alongside the team you’re building.

If you recognize yourself in this story, the Accelerator for Female Founders was created for this stage of growth. We’ll work together on your leadership, your people strategy and the team your business needs for what comes next.

Learn more about the Accelerator here.

Because stepping into leadership isn’t about becoming less important to your business. It’s about building a team that has become more capable because of the way you lead. 

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Leadership skills for business owners become especially important when you’ve built a smart, capable team—but somehow every decision still seems to come back to you.

You’ve hired good people. You trust them. You want them to take ownership. So why are you still answering the questions, clarifying the priorities, approving the work and solving the problems?

Here’s where it gets interesting: you can genuinely believe you’re empowering your team while behaving in ways that teach them not to move without you.

And it doesn’t necessarily look like micromanagement.

In this episode, we’re looking at five very normal leadership behaviours that can unintentionally create dependency—from stepping back into strategic ownership and creating confusion about decision making, to communicating urgency without enough context and giving feedback that makes people more cautious instead of more capable.

These leadership struggles in teams often aren’t about a lack of talent or commitment. Sometimes your people simply aren’t clear about what they own, what matters most or when they have the authority to move without you.

That’s why leadership skills for business owners have to go beyond delegation. If you want to know how to lead a team that can think independently, your people need context, clear priorities and enough authority to use their own judgement.

We’ll also look at why some common team management strategies don’t solve the problem if your everyday leadership keeps pulling decisions back to you.

Because developing leadership skills for business owners isn’t about disappearing from your business. It’s about understanding what your team actually needs from you so they can think, decide and deliver without everything coming back to you.

If this episode feels a little too familiar, join me for Beyond the Bottleneck on September 30 at 1 p.m. Mountain / 3 p.m. Eastern. We’ll dig deeper into where your business has become dependent on you and what needs to shift across your leadership, people strategy and culture.

Register here: go.highvoltageleadership.ca/beyond-the-bottleneck

Because the goal of stronger leadership skills for business owners isn’t to become less involved. It’s to become much more intentional about where your involvement actually matters.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you’re trying to figure out how to manage employees who are smart, capable and experienced—but somehow every decision still comes back to you—the problem may not be your team.

You may have accidentally taught them that asking you is easier than making the decision themselves.

It happens for all the right reasons. You know the answer. You want to help. And sometimes it feels much faster to make the call and move on. But every time you do, you may be solving today’s problem while reinforcing tomorrow’s dependency.

One of the most important leadership skills you can develop is knowing when not to provide the answer. If you want to know how to lead a team that can think independently, start by returning the thinking to them. Ask: What do you think we should do? What have you considered? What would you recommend?

That shift creates space for stronger decision making—but questions alone aren’t enough.

How to manage employees with greater ownership also means being clear about decision-making authority. What can your people decide independently? When should they involve you? What financial, policy or other guardrails need to be in place?

This matters when holding employees accountable, too. You can’t give someone responsibility for an outcome while requiring your approval for every meaningful decision that affects it. Many leadership struggles in teams start when we hand over the responsibility without enough authority to go with it.

So this week, choose one category of decisions your team is capable of making that you’re still making for them. Give them ownership. Define the guardrails. Then pay attention to what you do when that decision comes back to you.

Because learning how to manage employees isn’t about becoming the person with all the answers. It’s about building the capability around you so you don’t have to be.

If you’re ready to take this further, join me for the Beyond the Bottleneck Masterclass on September 30 at 1 p.m. Mountain / 3 p.m. Eastern. We’ll look at why everything keeps finding its way back to you and what needs to shift so your team can think, decide, and deliver with greater ownership.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

How to scale a team gets complicated when you realize the people who helped you get here may not be the people—or the roles—you need to get where you’re going next. Oof. That’s a hard one, my friend.

Because when you’re scaling a business, these decisions aren’t just boxes on an org chart. These are real people. People you care about. People who may have been beside you through some pretty messy seasons. But you’re also the CEO, and part of your job is building the team your business needs for its next stage of growth.

So, how do you know when to develop someone, redesign their role, hire new talent—or make the really difficult decision to let someone go? Learning how to scale a team starts with a better question: is there alignment between what this person wants and can contribute and what the business actually needs next?

We’re digging into the team management strategies that help you answer that question without leading from guilt, fear, or loyalty alone. You’ll learn why a strong people strategy starts with your future business goals, how to assess the capabilities and capacity you’ll need, and why development only works when your employee actually wants to grow in that direction.

And let’s talk about hiring, because waiting until everyone is running around at Mach five with their hair on fire is not a strategy. Strong leadership skills for business owners mean anticipating what’s coming and building leadership team capacity before your people are drowning.

Knowing how to scale a team isn’t about adding headcount for the sake of growth. It’s about strategic clarity and real human leadership. You can make hard decisions, protect what’s working, and build the team your business needs without sacrificing kindness, integrity, or your values.

Ready to get out of the weeds? Grab the People Strategy Playbook for free. And if you need a thought partner to map out what comes next, book a leadership strategy session with me next.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Team management strategies can only go so far when your team no longer feels confident enough to step up. If people who once made decisions, solved problems, and brought you ideas are suddenly hesitating, it’s natural to wonder what changed. You might even start questioning whether they care as much as they used to. But there may be something else going on.

Sometimes what looks like a lack of ownership is actually caution. As a business grows, priorities shift, roles evolve, and decisions get more complex. Your team can feel that uncertainty even when you haven’t talked about it openly. And without enough context, capable people may start checking in more, taking fewer risks, and sending decisions back to you.

That’s why some of the most effective team management strategies start with curiosity rather than accountability. Before assuming you have employee performance issues, ask what has changed around the person. Strong leadership skills include noticing when expectations, authority, or the definition of ownership itself may need to be clarified.

Because telling someone to “take more ownership” isn’t enough. If you’re figuring out how to lead a team through change, your people need to know what they can decide, where the guardrails are, and when they truly have the authority to move forward. Holding employees accountable works best when accountability and decision-making authority actually match.

Of course, some leadership struggles in teams do come down to performance or fit. But team management strategies that work help you diagnose before you conclude—and give good people a fair opportunity to step back into ownership.

If you’re seeing hesitation on your team, the free Leadership Clarity Blueprint can help you understand what might be getting in the way. Use it to strengthen your team management strategies and create the clarity, authority, and support your people need to confidently step forward again.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you’re wondering how to lead a team without becoming the person every decision, question, and problem runs through, the answer may not be better delegation. Your team may be capable, experienced, and smart—and still rely on you because your leadership has unintentionally taught them to. Every quick answer can reinforce the habit of coming back for the next one.

Strong leadership skills aren’t about always having the answer. They’re about developing your team’s ability to find one. Lindsay shares how one overwhelmed founder began replacing instant solutions with better questions, giving her people the space and expectation to think critically. It’s a practical shift in how to lead a team that builds problem-solving capacity rather than dependency.

You’ll learn team management strategies for coaching your team through challenges, asking questions that strengthen judgment, and resisting the urge to solve problems simply because it’s faster. You’ll also see why leadership struggles in teams aren’t always a people problem. Sometimes the real issue is unclear ownership, fuzzy expectations, or a lack of context.

Because effective employee management requires more than telling people to “take ownership.” Your team needs clear accountabilities, decision rights, guardrails, and enough visibility into the business to understand what a good decision looks like. When decision-making authority is clear, people can act confidently instead of continually seeking approval. That clarity is fundamental to understanding how to lead a team that operates independently.

And this is where feedback matters. Reinforcing strong judgment—and coaching people through decisions that miss the mark—turns everyday challenges into leadership development. It’s not about becoming hands-off; it’s about creating capable thinkers throughout your organization and freeing yourself to focus on the work only you can do.

Ready to change how to lead a team without staying stuck in the middle?

Download the free Leadership Clarity Blueprint Workbook from the High Voltage Resource Library to identify bottlenecks and build greater clarity, accountability, and ownership across your team. 

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

What if the reason you’re constantly following up isn’t that your team lacks accountability—but that they lack clarity?

Holding Employees Accountable starts long before a missed deadline or performance conversation. Lindsay White reframes accountability as a leadership responsibility: when expectations, priorities, ownership, and communication are clear, people are more likely to make strong decisions without being micromanaged.

Through a client example, Lindsay shows how growth can actually create performance problems. The business had changed, but the founder’s updated vision and priorities were still living in her head. The team was working from yesterday’s information while the business was moving toward tomorrow.

This is where leadership skills matter. Instead of avoiding difficult conversations, leaders can set expectations early, define ownership, communicate change, and give feedback before small issues become bigger ones. Lindsay explains why difficult conversations with employees become easier when expectations are clear—and how stronger business communication skills can reduce follow-up.

You’ll learn how to distinguish a true performance issue from a clarity issue, create clearer expectations, and build a culture where ownership is part of the way work gets done. Holding Employees Accountable is not about catching people doing something wrong; it’s about creating the conditions where accountability can actually work.

The goal isn’t to manage every move your team makes. It’s to give people enough clarity to solve problems, take ownership, and move the business forward without every decision landing on your desk. Holding Employees Accountable becomes less about control and more about leadership.

Ready to stop carrying the accountability burden alone? Download The Accountability Scorecard here to create clearer expectations and more consistent follow-through.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

A people strategy isn’t something to think about after your business grows. It’s how you make sure growth doesn’t leave you carrying more decisions, more pressure, and a team structure that no longer fits where you’re going.

Scaling business takes more than hiring when everyone is overloaded. Look 6, 12, and 24 months ahead and ask what roles, capabilities, behaviours, and leadership your future business will require. Your business growth strategy sets the direction; your people strategy helps build the organization capable of delivering it.

You’ll learn why reactive hiring can keep founders stuck, how vision, mission, and values shape smarter decisions, and why building company culture needs to happen by design. It’s not about finding another set of hands. It’s about creating a roadmap for how your team, structure, and leadership need to evolve.

And this is where your role changes too. Effective startup scaling means moving from solving every problem to becoming a strategic CEO who designs what comes next. That means seeing where you’re the bottleneck, where leadership capacity needs to grow, and how workplace culture building can create ownership and accountability.

Because people and culture aren’t separate from business performance. When your team understands the vision, expectations, and their role in making that vision real, they can think, contribute, challenge, innovate, and lead alongside you. Your people strategy becomes a decision-making framework you can return to as the business evolves.

Ready to build the business you've been working toward? Book a half-day or full-day Strategy Intensive to create a customised roadmap for your team, leadership, and future growth. Learn more about the Strategy Intensive options by booking your session consult with the link below.

Book Your 30 Minute Strategy Intensive Consult Here

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Growing your business isn't the same as building one that can keep growing without you. Business Leadership for Women isn't about becoming a better boss—it's about creating the leadership, people strategy, and culture that allow your business to thrive without everything depending on you. When those foundations are missing, growth often leads to overwhelm instead of freedom.

In this conversation, Lindsay introduces the LPC Method—Leadership, People Strategy, and Culture—and explains why these three interconnected growth levers determine whether your business can scale sustainably. Rather than chasing another framework, you'll discover how intentional leadership creates confident decision-making, how a strategic approach to your team strengthens your business growth strategy, and why sustainable success starts long before the next marketing campaign.

You'll also hear why business management for women requires a shift from doing everything yourself to developing leaders throughout your organization. Lindsay shares real coaching stories that reveal how leadership coaching and leadership development coaching help founders move from constant firefighting to building capable teams that think independently, take ownership, and contribute with confidence.

If you've ever wondered why decisions always land back on your desk, why delegation feels difficult, or why your team still relies on you despite your best efforts, this episode offers a practical way forward. Because Business Leadership for Women isn't about working harder—it's about strengthening the systems that support sustainable growth. And when leadership, people strategy, and culture work together, your business gains the capacity to grow without sacrificing you. Business Leadership for Women serves as the foundation for building a business that can evolve well into the future, and it starts with the intentional choices you make today.

Ready to strengthen your people strategy? Download the People Strategy Playbook and start building the leadership, team, and culture your next stage of growth requires.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Stepping Into Leadership isn't about waiting until you feel confident—it's about choosing courage before confidence arrives. If you've been holding back because you don't feel ready, this conversation will challenge the belief that's keeping you stuck.

Many business owners assume strong leaders have all the answers, but the reality is very different. Stepping Into Leadership means embracing uncomfortable conversations, making difficult decisions, and trusting yourself before certainty exists. Confidence isn't the starting point; it's the result of taking action. That's why so many founders benefit from intentional leadership development coaching, giving them the support to navigate growth with greater clarity.

For those navigating women's business leadership, the pressure to carry everything can feel overwhelming. It's easy to confuse caring deeply about your business with believing you have to do it all yourself. But sustainable leadership comes from building trust, creating accountability, and developing the mindset to lead people—not simply manage tasks. That's where leadership coaching helps shift both perspective and behaviour.

You'll also discover why confidence as a leader is built one courageous moment at a time, how your inner dialogue influences every leadership decision, and why strengthening your leadership skills starts long before your team notices the difference. Every courageous conversation, every boundary you set, and every decision you make reinforces the leader you're becoming.

If you're Stepping Into Leadership, remember that growth doesn't happen because confidence suddenly appears—it happens because you choose courage first. And that's how confidence is built.

If this resonates, subscribe to The People Side of Business, share this episode with another founder who needs to hear it, and take the next step towards becoming the leader your business deserves through Stepping Into Leadership.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Hiring and Firing Employees isn't simply about filling vacancies or managing performance—it's one of the biggest leadership responsibilities you'll ever have as a founder.

Yet many business owners wait too long to hire, recruit from overwhelm instead of strategy, or avoid difficult conversations because personal loyalty gets in the way. The result? Expensive mistakes that impact growth, culture, and your ability to scale.

If you've ever found yourself thinking, "I'll just keep doing it myself a little longer," or delaying a difficult people decision because you hoped things would improve, you're not alone.

In this episode, Lindsay White shares the three costly mistakes founders make when Hiring and Firing Employees and explains why these aren't simply HR challenges—they're leadership decisions that shape the future of your business.

You'll learn why the most common hiring mistakes small business owners make often begin long before a job is advertised, how to develop a proactive hiring strategy that supports sustainable growth, and why stepping into leadership sometimes means making difficult decisions with courage and compassion.

Lindsay also discusses one of the hardest responsibilities founders face—how to fire an employee professionally when the role has evolved beyond the individual. You'll discover why keeping someone in a position where they can no longer succeed isn't kind to them, your team, or your business.

By approaching Hiring and Firing Employees as strategic leadership decisions instead of reactive tasks, you'll build stronger teams, healthier workplace cultures, and a business that can grow without everything depending on you.

If you're ready to lead with greater confidence and make people decisions that align with your long-term vision, this episode is for you.

In This Episode You'll Learn

✔ Why waiting too long to hire costs more than hiring too early

✔ The hidden danger of hiring from exhaustion instead of strategy

✔ Common hiring mistakes small business founders make

✔ How a proactive hiring strategy supports business growth

✔ Signs it's time to make a difficult people decision

✔ How to fire an employee with clarity, kindness, and professionalism

✔ Why stepping into leadership requires courage over comfort

✔ How intentional people decisions strengthen culture and scalability

Resources & Links

📘 Download the People Strategy Playbook

Learn how to align your business strategy with your people strategy so you can hire intentionally, develop capability, and build a team that supports sustainable growth.

https://go.highvoltageleadership.ca/people-strategy-playbook

🌐 High Voltage Leadership

https://highvoltageleadership.ca/

📅 Book a Leadership Strategy Session

https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/hvl-spark

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn't marketing, sales, or hiring? The right Business Growth Strategy often isn't about adding more—it's about simplifying what already exists. As your business grows, it's easy to become the person every decision, problem, and question flows through. The result? Longer hours, constant firefighting, and a business that depends on you instead of supporting you.

Sustainable growth doesn't happen by working harder. It happens when you intentionally build leadership rhythms, create clarity for your team, and establish a culture where ownership thrives. If you're scaling business operations and wondering why growth feels more complicated than ever, the answer may not be another hire—it may be the systems and rhythms your business is missing.

You'll discover why simplifying before expanding is a smarter Business Growth Strategy, how leadership rhythm creates space for strategic thinking instead of constant reacting, and why clear accountability gives your team the confidence to make better decisions. If you're navigating startup scaling or wondering how to scale a team without becoming the bottleneck, these practical shifts will help you lead with greater confidence while reducing overwhelm.

You'll also learn why culture is far more than perks or values on a wall. Real culture is built through consistent behaviours, communication, and trust that empower people to solve problems without relying on the founder for every answer. This is especially valuable for women in business leadership, where caring deeply can unintentionally turn into carrying everything.

The most effective Business Growth Strategy isn't about doing more. It's about creating leadership, people, and culture rhythms that allow your business to grow without costing you your health, your family, or the freedom you started your business to create.

Ready to uncover where your business needs stronger rhythms? Download the free Resilience Rhythm Check-In from the High Voltage Resource Library, then book a Spark Session to identify what's keeping you stuck and create a practical plan for sustainable growth.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you're wondering how to lead a team when performance keeps falling short, the answer may not be what you think. It's easy to assume missed deadlines, inconsistent communication, or declining results point to employee issues. But more often than many founders realize, the real challenge isn't a lack of accountability—it's a lack of leadership clarity. Before you jump to conclusions, ask yourself whether your team truly understands what's expected, what success looks like, and where ownership begins.

Many founder challenges start with assumptions. We assume people know what we mean, understand our expectations, or will naturally succeed after being promoted into a bigger role. When those expectations stay in our heads instead of being clearly communicated, performance problems become almost inevitable. Accountability isn't created after something goes wrong—it starts long before that with clear expectations, defined ownership, communication rhythms, and measurable outcomes.

Learning how to lead a team means creating an environment where people can succeed because the path forward is visible. In this conversation, you'll discover why clarity is one of the most overlooked leadership skills, how unclear expectations quietly create frustration for both leaders and employees, and why curiosity often produces better results than criticism. You'll also hear a real-world leadership example that demonstrates how a struggling employee completely turned their performance around once expectations, ownership, and success metrics became clear.

If you've been dealing with employee issues, struggling with holding employees accountable, or feeling frustrated by ongoing performance problems, this perspective may completely change how you approach leadership. Instead of asking what's wrong with your employee, you'll learn to ask better questions that uncover the real barriers preventing success.

Ready to strengthen your leadership?

Download the Leadership Role Clarity Planner to define role expectations, ownership, accountability, communication rhythms, and success metrics so your team can perform with confidence.

Then continue your leadership journey by listening to Episode 2, Avoiding Difficult Conversations Is Hurting Your Leadership, where you'll build the confidence to have the conversations that support clarity and lasting accountability. Together, these episodes will help you master how to lead a team with greater confidence, stronger communication, and a culture where accountability starts with clarity—not consequences.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Most founders think Avoiding Difficult Conversations protects relationships. In reality, it quietly damages them. Every conversation left unsaid chips away at trust, lowers accountability, and weakens team performance. Over time, your employees feel the tension, your business slows, and your confidence as a leader takes the biggest hit. The conversation isn't the problem. Avoiding it is.

Many founder challenges don't begin with strategy or systems—they begin with the moments leaders hesitate to address. A story of an underperforming employee reveals why difficult conversations with employees become harder the longer they're delayed, and why what we're often protecting isn't the relationship at all, but our own discomfort. Shifting that mindset is one of the most valuable leadership skills a founder can develop.

You'll discover why high-performing teams tackle tough conversations earlier, how Avoiding Difficult Conversations affects culture and business growth, and what it really takes to manage employees with clarity and respect. The Say The Thing Script Kit provides a practical four-step framework to help you prepare, navigate emotional responses, create genuine buy-in through listening, and finish every conversation with clear expectations and meaningful next steps.

Real confidence as a leader isn't built by sidestepping uncomfortable moments. It's earned every time you lean into them with honesty, empathy, and direction. As your business grows, your ability to manage employees through difficult situations becomes one of the defining factors behind sustainable success. Avoiding Difficult Conversations doesn't protect your leadership—it limits it. Learning how to address them well is what allows both your people and your business to grow.

Download the Say The Thing Script Kit to confidently navigate your next conversation, then book a Spark Session if you're ready to strengthen your leadership skills and build a high-performing team. https://go.highvoltageleadership.ca/resource-library-423628 

And if you're feeling stretched thin and ready for a reset, book a Spark Session, a focused 60-minute strategy session to work through what's really going on and build a path forward: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/hvl-spark

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Most business owners believe growth comes from better marketing, stronger sales, or more sophisticated systems. But what if the real growth constraint is leadership? Leadership skills for business owners are rarely discussed with the same urgency as strategy and revenue, yet they often determine whether a company can successfully grow beyond the founder.

As businesses expand, new challenges emerge. More clients, more opportunities, and more responsibilities place increasing demands on the person leading the organization. The skills required to start a business are not always the same skills required to scale one. And this is where many founders discover an important truth: sustainable growth requires leadership growth.

In this inaugural episode of The People Side of Business, we explore the shift from founder to CEO and why leadership becomes one of the most important investments a business owner can make. From developing stronger business communication skills to creating trust, accountability, and clarity, leadership influences every aspect of performance. The way you lead affects your team, your culture, your decision-making, and ultimately your results.

You'll discover why effective team management strategies are critical to long-term success, how to recognize when leadership has become a bottleneck, and why learning how to manage employees and team members effectively creates capacity for growth. We also discuss the importance of building company culture intentionally and the role of building leadership team capability as your business evolves.

One of the most powerful ideas explored is that people are not simply part of your business growth strategy—they are the strategy. Every client experience, innovation, and operational success is driven by people. That is why leadership skills for female business owners and business leadership for women deserve greater attention, support, and conversation.

If you've ever felt caught between working in your business and leading your business, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about growth. Because leadership skills for business owners are not about becoming perfect. They are about becoming intentional, self-aware, and willing to evolve alongside your business.

The future of your company will be shaped not only by what you do, but by who you become as a leader. And that is why leadership skills for business owners matter more than most entrepreneurs realize. Whether you're leading a small team or preparing for your next stage of growth, leadership skills for business owners may be the most valuable investment you make.

Connect with me on LinkedIn and share the leadership challenge you're navigating right now. I'd love to continue the conversation.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever felt like everyone is talking about marketing, sales, and scaling, yet no one is talking about the leadership challenges that come with building a business? That gap is exactly why leadership skills for female business owners deserve a much bigger conversation. Because while growth strategies matter, businesses ultimately succeed or struggle based on the people leading them.

Women founders are building impactful companies while often balancing responsibilities far beyond the business itself. Yet conversations around business leadership for women frequently take a back seat to tactics and visibility. And this is where many entrepreneurs discover a hard truth: your business can only grow as far as your leadership allows.

The People Side of Business was created to address that missing piece. This new chapter focuses on the human side of sustainable success, from team management strategies and business communication skills to creating trust, accountability, and alignment within your organization. Because growth is not just about systems—it is about people.

As your company expands, understanding how to manage employees and team members effectively becomes essential. Strong leadership creates clarity, strengthens relationships, and supports long-term performance. Whether you are hiring your first employee or building leadership team capacity for the future, the way you lead shapes every outcome in your business.

You will also hear practical conversations around building company culture, navigating team dynamics, improving communication, and creating an environment where people can do their best work. These are the leadership foundations that support a sustainable business growth strategy and help founders avoid burnout while scaling.

The reality is that leadership skills for female business owners are not optional for the next stage of growth. They influence hiring, retention, culture, communication, and every decision that impacts your team. The more intentional you become as a leader, the stronger your business becomes.

This podcast is a space for honest conversations, expert insights, and practical leadership development. If you have been looking for guidance on leadership skills for female business owners, support in navigating people challenges, or a community that understands the realities of entrepreneurship, you are in the right place. The future of your business will be shaped by the leader you become, and leadership skills for female business owners are at the centre of that journey.

Subscribe now so you never miss an episode and join the conversation as we build stronger businesses through stronger leadership.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

We're five seasons in, friend. 

And wow, we've explored some vulnerable topics and big strategies. Guests had mic-drop and thought-provoking moments, and founders sent messages that reminded me exactly why this show exists. 

This week's episode is the season five wrap-up! No guest. Just me, seven lessons, and the things I think we were all trying to avoid saying out loud this year.

✨ The Seven Lessons of Season Five

1. Scaling is an identity shift first and a strategy second. The version of you that built the business cannot be the same version of you that scales it. 

2. Hiring faster does not fix broken leadership. Most hiring problems are actually clarity problems.

3. Confidence is built through action. Confident people do not feel ready all the time. The women growing the fastest are the ones willing to be visible before they feel polished.

4. Culture is not kombucha and core values on a wall. Culture is how you handle conflict, whether expectations are clear, and whether people feel safe enough to tell the truth. 

5. Leadership becomes exhausting when you're trying to be everything to everyone. Busy leadership reacts. Focused leadership drives. 

6. The best leaders build teams that can think without them. When every question, every decision, and every problem still flows through the founder... Something has gone wrong.

7. The women we admire most are doing the deepest inner work. Behind almost every strategic problem is a human problem. Fear, perfectionism, people pleasing, control, avoidance. Leadership exposes all of it. 

Thank you for being here all season. Thank you for listening, sharing, and sending the messages that remind me this work matters! 🫶

And now, a very exciting announcement. ⚡⚡

Starting June 11, Female Founder Unplugged is evolving into something new.

The Business of People.

After years of coaching founders and working inside growing businesses, I know this to be true: building a business is one skill set. Leading the people inside that business is an entirely different game. And nobody is really teaching founders how to do that well.

That changes on June 11.

The Business of People is where we have real, strategic, deeply honest conversations about leadership, people strategy, workplace culture, and what it actually takes to build a high-performing business through people. New episodes drop every Thursday. The conversations are getting deeper, more strategic, and more necessary than ever.

Hit subscribe or follow wherever you listen, so you don't miss the launch on June 11. And share this with every founder friend you know who is building a team, because every single one of them needs these conversations.

The new era starts June 11. I cannot wait to see you there.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You had the vision. You built the thing! And somewhere between starting and scaling, the message got muddier, the team got busier, and the gap between what you meant to build and what's actually being delivered started to widen.

This week's guest knows exactly how to close the gap.

I sat down with Kaitlyn David— brand strategist, fractional CMO, and an all-around grounded, human-centered marketing thinker. Kaitlyn looks at marketing from the inside out, and she has some fantastic insight on keeping your vision alive (and simplified) while scaling. 

✨ Episode Highlights

🎯 The difference between marketing as a revenue driver and marketing as a function inside your business

🏗️ Why your mission, vision, and core values are not fluffy, airy-fairy, non-businessy work, they are the foundational stones on which everything else gets built on

🔍 The blind spots Kaitlyn sees most often when she walks into a scaling business — a gap between the founder's vision and the team's execution

🧭 The 'authority outcome framework' — the simplest, most desired result your ideal client is looking for that you know you can deliver on

🤝 Why everyone who works for you should be obsessed with your brand, and what it means when they're not

Kaitlyn has spent over 15 years in marketing and branding, working on large-scale campaigns before finding her passion working with scaling founders. She now works as a brand strategist and fractional CMO with service-focused businesses that are growing quickly and need someone to come in, untangle what's there, simplify the vision, and build a marketing engine that actually runs well because the foundation underneath it is solid. 

Connect with Kaitlyn: 
IG @flourishwithkaitlin 
Private Podcast https://kaitlyndavid.com/obsession

Ready to do the foundational work properly in your business? The vision, the mission, the values, and the people strategy that brings all of it to life inside your team. That's the work we do inside the LPC Accelerator. There's a spot for you if it's the right time! https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

This week, I sat down with Elizabeth Eiss, founder of Results Resourcing, and she said something in particular that I knew I needed to share with you. That 57% of the average founder's time is spent on non-core work. Work that isn't generating revenue, isn't in their zone of genius, and that someone else could do better, faster (and with significantly more joy).

That number made me look at my own week differently! And this episode will help you do the same, as you hold up the mirror long enough to see exactly what that non-core work is costing you in your business. 

✨ Episode Highlights

⏱️ Every hour spent on work that isn't your highest use has an opportunity cost. And Elizabeth has a calculator that shows you exactly what that number is.

🪣 Core versus non-core work, and getting genuinely clear on what work only you can do

🦄 Why unicorns don't exist — and why hiring someone who says they can do everything is almost always a red flag... Specialists beat generalists every single time.

⚙️ Process, tools, then people — in that exact order. One of the most practical outsourcing frameworks I've heard

🤖 Humans plus AI — why AI accelerates everything but still needs the right people and the right prompts behind it to actually work for your specific business.


Connect with Elizabeth:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@resultsresourcing
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elizabetheiss

And don't forget to visit our High Voltage Hub! ⚡ A library of incredible resources and tools designed specifically for female founders, including our own time audit to help you get really granular about where your time is going and how to take it back: https://go.highvoltageleadership.ca/resource-library

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

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Entrepreneurship isn't a straight line. It's messy, unpredictable, and sometimes a complete sh*t show.

This week, I sat down with Taunya Woods Richardson, founder of Nail the Numbers, with 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. We went everywhere. From the peaks and valleys of building something from scratch to losing $250,000 and rebuilding from the ground up, to the financial empowerment work she's been doing ever since to make sure no other founder has to go through what she went through alone.

Buckle up. This one is a ride.

✨ Episode Highlights

💸 The difference between delegating your numbers and abdicating them — and why handing your books to a bookkeeper does not mean you get to stop paying attention.

💰 Why net profit is the number that actually matters, and why 89% of business owners are generating less than 3% return on their business investment, while a high-interest savings account gets you 4.5 to 6%.

👑 The three Ps holding female founders back: underpricing, underpaying ourselves and under-profiting. 

🤖 Glinda — the free, non-judgmental AI financial guide that takes founders through building their first financial plan in under three hours. 

Connect with Taunya: 
nailethenumbers.com 
cashflowcanvas.com

Ready to do the leadership work alongside the financial work? Owning your numbers is a leadership move. The LPC Accelerator is where the rest of that work gets done. There's a spot for you if it's the right  time:https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Your business is only as healthy as you are.

Which is exactly why founder mental health isn't a nice to have, a soft skill or something to get to when things slow down. It's a core business strategy, with data to back it up.

And this week's guest Shulamit Ber Levtov is the Entrepreneur's Therapist — a therapist who specializes in supporting women founders, business owners and entrepreneurs with the emotional and mental health demands of running a business.

✨ Episode Highlights

🧠 The research is in, and the data is clear: poor founder mental health puts your business at risk.

🚗 The difference between therapy and coaching — and why you might need both. Shulamit uses the most brilliant metaphor for this. 'Coaching is riding shotgun, looking through the windshield, figuring out where you're going and how to get there. Sometimes you need to check the rear view mirror. Sometimes there's junk in the trunk that needs to come out. That's where therapy comes in. Both are valid. Both have a role. And neither replaces the other.'

🔧 Why you are your business's most precious asset — and the only piece of machinery in your entire operation that doesn't have scheduled maintenance. 

A manufacturing company would never let its most critical equipment run without regular upkeep. And yet we run ourselves into the ground and wonder why the quality of our decisions starts to slip. 

Shulamit said it best — working with a mental health professional is a strategic investment in your business. 

And the LPC Accelerator is where the leadership and strategy work gets done alongside that. Because being a well oiled machine in your brain space, in your identity, in how you show up for your team, is not separate from building a great business. It is the business.

There's a spot for you if it's the right time:
 
Connect with Shulamit:
https://shula.ca/
https://shula.ca/newsletter

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Three co-founders. Seven years in. But every expert told them it would never work...

When Shannon, Katrina, and Tara started Artemis Factor, the advice was unanimous:  "Three founders is too many!" 

They were told that someone needs to be at the top. That two is already hard so three is a disaster waiting to happen. And yet here they are, seven years later, leading a thriving consultancy in the pharmaceutical space with a model built on high trust, shared leadership, and a genuinely radical commitment to putting the human back into how we build businesses!

✨ Episode Highlights

🤝 Why the "one person at the top" model isn't the only way, and what shared leadership actually looks like when it's working beautifully

🔥 The difference between productive tension and conflict, and why healthy debate, contradiction, and disagreement can actually be the thing that moves a business forward

🪞 What it really means to drop the ego as a daily practice inside a leadership team

😊 The PERMA happiness model and how Artemis Factor has built a data-driven culture of joy that ripples from their team to their clients to their patients

You are going to love this high-performing team, and their insight about building enough trust, that when someone says I need to tap out this week, the answer is always "we've got you."

🔗 Connect with The Artemis Factor Find Shannon, Katrina and Tara and learn more about their work at Artemis Factor. https://artemisfactor.com/about/

And the trust, the culture, the people strategy behind a team like this? That's what we build inside the LPC Accelerator. https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

I'll be honest, this episode is deeply personal for me. 

In 2024 I went through a period where I genuinely couldn't figure out what was happening to my body. Memory fog. Digestion issues. No sleep. Some days it was hard to work because my eyeballs hurt. Literally. And I kept pushing through because that's what we do — until I couldn't anymore.

And we get into all of that and more in this episode with Angela Johnson, CEO of sanoLiving, a women's digital health platform reimagining midlife care for female leaders. 

If you're waking up at 3am these days, you're going to want to hear this one (and I'll venture that you're going to want a coffee to go with it too! ☕)

✨ Episode Highlights

🧬 Why your hormones might be quietly sabotaging your business 

💰 The real wealth impact of perimenopause on female founders, including the data that shows women are leaving the workforce at 44 while men don't hit the same point until 55, and what that means for our net worth

👑 How Angela leads a rapidly growing organization with an inverted triangle model — putting the people closest to the customer at the top and herself at the bottom

💬 Why the 'shame can't live when we share', and why this is the conversation women need to be having out loud

It is not okay that you feel shitty. If you don't feel right and you know something is wrong, keep looking until you find someone who says — I believe you and I'm listening. No one knows your body better than you do.

Connect with Angela and sanoLiving: sanoliving.ai.com

Connect with Lindsay: @highvoltleadership | highvoltageleadership.ca

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Are you being too hard on yourself? The problem you've been trying to fix might need something other than the discipline.

In this episode of Female Founder Unplugged, Lindsay sits down with Aja Beckett — app developer, GLP-1 user, and accidental CEO — who built her app Shotsy from a nights-and-weekends side project into the #1 GLP-1 tracking app in the Health & Fitness category. "Her story is as much about reclaiming her health as it is about building a business from scratch."

✨ Episode Highlights

💉 How Aja's own weight loss journey became the blueprint for her app, and why lived experience builds better products

🧠 Why what looks like a discipline problem is almost always a systems problem (in health and in business)

🌍 Leading a fully distributed team from across the world — and why intentional culture isn't optional when you're remote

💼 How to choose investors who bring more than money to the table

Because the practices that got you here won't get you to the next level — and the real scaling challenge is always internal.

About Aja Beckett Aja is the founder and CEO of Shotsy, bringing a rare dual perspective as both an iOS engineer and a GLP-1 user. Her tech career spans Apple, CNN, TED, and The New York Times/The Athletic. Find Shotsy on iOS & Android at shotsyapp.com

Ready to scale without losing yourself in the process? The LPC Accelerator is coaching and mastermind for female founders. It's where scaling meets visionary leadership, empowered people strategy, and a thriving culture. There's a spot for you if you're ready: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You can have a successful business and still feel completely alone. A lot of founders I know are building in the dark and making decisions in isolation, without a real space to let out their thoughts (that have turned into secrets at this point) and be supported. 

This episode is about what changes when you get out of that loneliness. 

It features the wonderful Kristina Bartold-Sorgota, co-founder of The Social Snippet, a social media and podcasting agency, and the co-creator of High Vibe Women — a community bringing Canadian female entrepreneurs together to make magic in their businesses. ✨  She's genuine, warm, and honest.

Episode Highlights

🤝 Why the women who scale fastest are the ones who build the most intentional communities around them

🧠 How to start managing the head trash that gets loudest when things get hard

🪞 What it means to be a culture champion as a leader, and why your team is always watching how you show up 

💬 The difference between wanting your team to love your business the way you do, and what actually motivates people to deliver their best

👑 Why leadership in your own business feels so different from leadership inside an organization — and the identity shift that comes with running the whole thing yourself

Come listen, and start finding community right here in this conversation. 

🫶 You can connect with Kristina on IG @kristina.bartold

And if you're ready to stop building alone: The LPC Accelerator is where we do the real work. It has the leadership, the people strategy, the culture, and the community that holds it all together when things get hard. One-on-one coaching, a mastermind of women who are building right alongside you, and a space where you don't have to carry any of this alone. 

Learn more and book a call: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

"I don't really have anyone I can talk to who understands the business and isn't a stakeholder. It's really lonely."

A founder said that to me recently, and I've been thinking of it ever since. Because it's true! And it's one of the most important things we're not talking about honestly enough in the entrepreneurship space.

This episode is that conversation.

Episode Highlights

📍 What makes the messy middle feel so uniquely lonely, and how founder isolation happens

🧠 Why high-achieving women are especially prone to turning inward when the isolation hits, and what that inner critic sounds like when it does

⚡ Why leadership, people strategy and culture have to work together — and what happens when you only focus on one

🤲 Why Lindsay intentionally built a mastermind into the LPC Accelerator (and why community is a MUST have)

The messy middle is hard, because there are a lot of things happening at the same time: you're evolving as a leader, your team is growing and needs structure, your culture needs to be nurtured, and you're carrying all of it without a real space to share the weight.

That's the reality of building something real. And you were never meant to do it alone.

📝 Reflection Question from this Episode:

Do you currently have anyone who understands you and your business — and isn't directly connected to any of the daily decisions or the strategic outcomes?

If your answer is no, that's a gap worth closing.

If this episode landed somewhere specific for you, the LPC Accelerator is where the leadership, the people strategy, the culture work and the community all come together, so you don't have to keep carrying this in isolation. Learn more and book time with Lindsay directly at the link below.

Learn more about the LPC Accelerator: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

There's no shame in the game, but if you've thought at least one of these thoughts very recently...

"I just need one more person."

"If we just hire someone who's good, this will all come together."

"I don't know if we can afford to hire, but I don't know what else to do."

...Then it sounds like you're in the messy middle of your business. And like most founders in this stage, you don't have a people strategy at all — yet! And that's what this episode is all about. 

✨ Episode Highlights:

😰 Why reactive hiring gets you into trouble, and what happens when you hit that tipping point

💸 The real cost of waiting too long to hire, or hiring without structure

🗺️ How to reverse engineer your vision into a people strategy that actually connects your team to your business goals

📋 The difference between hiring from fear and hiring from strategy — and how one of the LPC Accelerator clients turned her people strategy into a living roadmap that now drives every hire, every decision and every stage of growth

A people strategy that connects every role in your business directly to the vision you're actually trying to build means the decisions get clearer, the team understands what they own, and you stop asking "can we afford this?" and start asking "does this drive our next stage of growth?" ✨

That's the CEO move I hope you begin to make. 

If you're already feeling the burn, running flat out, and you know a people strategy is what's been missing, the LPC Accelerator is where that work gets done. We build your talent roadmap, connect every role to the outcomes, clarify ownership and accountability, and design a structure that supports your culture so that when the growth really starts to come, you're ready.

⚡Check out the LPC Accelerator here: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

This conversation is a direct challenge to the nice girl trap, and is fire from start to finish. 🔥

In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Sarah Khan — leadership strategist, empowerment coach, and the woman who has built a career out of turning quiet excellence into out loud power. If you've ever found yourself shrinking to keep the peace, leading from a place of people-pleasing, it's the hot conversation you need to hear today, my friend.

✨ Episode Highlights

🎙️ Why "if you argue with reality, you're always going to have problems" — and what leading from reality actually looks like in practice

🚫 The cut-and-paste success myth that's running rampant in the online coaching space

🔥 What happens when a team member gains leverage over a leader, and how to make sure that never happens in your business

👑 How to be a powerful, impactful leader and still be completely, authentically yourself

This is your encouragement to lead from who you really are!

Ready to build a powerful leadership identity that holds — so your business can too?  The LPC Accelerator is where we go deep on exactly what we talked about in this episode: The internal leadership work, the people strategy, the culture and the clarity that holds everything together when things get hard. Book a strategy session to figure out if this is your next step!

https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator


📲 Find Sarah on Substack: sarahkhanoutloud

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

What do you do when your own wiring (your 'get $h*t done' attitude) starts to work against you?

Until you directly look at the hyper achiever energy that got you to this point in your business, and do the internal work to separate your identity from your output, no amount of hiring, restructuring or strategic planning is going to move the needle the way you need it to. 

That's what this episode is really about: The internal work that actually has to happen first.

✨ Episode Highlights:

🧠 Why the drive and ambition that built your business might be capping your growth right now

🪞 The hyper achiever saboteur — what it is, how it shows up, and the ripple effect it has on your team and your culture

👥 The story of a founder who was softening every piece of feedback, and hoping things would just sort themselves out

⚡ Why your leadership is the lever you can control the most — and what changes when you finally do

Most people don't need a softer leader. They need a steadier one. 

And if you're constantly hustling for your self worth and you know that has to change, if you need to create clarity and actually lead like a CEO — the LPC Accelerator is where that work gets done. There's a space for you, and the first step is simply seeing if it's the right fit. 

https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Let me paint you a picture.

Your revenue is solid, your calendar is full, your inbox is buzzing, and even your accountant is happy. And yet you're lying awake at 3am thinking — how does this feel successful and like it's flying apart at the same time?

My friend, welcome to the messy middle. And if that question feels uncomfortably familiar, this episode was made for you.

✨ Episode Highlights:

📍 What the messy middle actually is, and the five questions that will tell you whether you're in it right now

💬 Why you cannot hustle, market, or mindset your way out of this stage — and what actually moves you forward

👥 The story of the "everything is fine" founder, and what was really happening behind the scenes

🏗️ The leadership identity evolution from expert to architect

Most scaling advice was built for someone who looks nothing like you. You have decades of experience, a team you genuinely care about, clients you're deeply committed to, and a business you poured your life into. The messy middle is what happens when all of that growth starts to expose every crack and crevice, and the way you've always shown up stops being enough to hold it together.

The good news? This stage has nothing to do with how capable you are, and everything to do with what your business is ready for next. Structure that creates freedom. Leadership that fits the business you've actually built. A people strategy that moves you forward with intention rather than peanut butter and duct tape.

That's exactly what we get into today.

If you're in the messy middle and you're tired of holding it together with grit and good intentions, the LPC Accelerator is where we do the real work. Not tactics, not quick fixes, but a strategic talent roadmap that connects your people directly to your business plan, so that your team is actually driving your success rather than depending on you to hold it all together. Learn more about the LPC Accelerator: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You have a marketing plan. A financial plan. Maybe even a product roadmap.

But a people strategy?

That's the one most founders skip — until things start falling apart.

In this episode, Lindsay is calling out one of the most damaging myths in business: that you can figure out your team later, once you've grown. Because your people are your growth strategy. And waiting until you have 15 or 50 people isn't strategic. It's just reactive.

If you've ever felt your shoulders tighten at the words "I need to grow my team" — this conversation is going to change something for you.

What we dig into:

⏳ Why the "we'll figure out the team later" approach is keeping you stuck

🔄 The difference between reactive hiring and intentional growth

🔭 How to reverse engineer your vision into a phased, calm, doable people plan

✨ What a people strategy actually gives you: clarity, relief, and permission to let go

🧱 How to build it in layers, without blowing up what's already working

And if this one landed, let's keep the conversation going. Find me on Instagram at @highvoltleadership or head to highvoltageleadership.ca to book a Spark Session and explore what's possible. 

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

There are moments when someone’s story doesn’t just move you, it changes you. 

This episode is about leadership, but not the kind you’ll find in a business course or book. It’s about the courage to lead with your whole story.

Fallon Farinacci is a proud Red River Métis woman, mom of three, speaker, survivor, and advocate. Through unimaginable grief, she chose to speak and to call people in with her story. 

This conversation is about truth, the power of personal experiences, and impact. 

It explores:

🤝 How a story creates connection (in life and in leadership)

📉 Why transactional businesses struggle to build loyalty

🫴 The difference between calling people out vs. calling them in

📖 Why women have been conditioned to separate their stories from their success

❤️ The courage it takes to ask for help

✨ How your lived experience shapes your leadership 

If you are building a business and trying to compartmentalize your life from your leadership… this episode will gently challenge that.

Because you are not your brand strategy, you are the sum of your experiences.

And your story belongs in the room.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You’ve built the business. Your team is growing, and opportunities are expanding! Your success means more visibility, more responsibility, and more people depending on you.

But all of this happening can actually make you feel quite lonely and unsupported...

You can’t vent down, and you don't want to worry your team, your family. Because everyone assumes you’ve figured it out by now.

In this episode of Female Founder Unplugged, I’m talking about this stage of growth — when your business has evolved, but your leadership support hasn’t.

✨ Episode Highlights:

 🏔️ Why scaling can feel isolating, even when things are going well

 🤍  The quiet pressure high-performing women carry

 👑 The shift from founder to true CEO

This is exactly why I created the LPC Accelerator.

But because at this level, you need a place to think clearly, lead intentionally, and build the kind of team and culture that actually supports you.

The Accelerator is for women who are scaling and realizing that growth requires more than strategy. It requires support. Real conversations. Strong leadership foundations. A room where you don’t have to carry it all quietly. 

If your business is growing but it feels heavier than it should, you don’t have to navigate that alone.  

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

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So… your business is growing, your team’s stronger than ever, and for the first time, things are running without you in every detail. That should feel like freedom, right?

But instead, you’re feeling lost. Maybe a little guilty. Maybe even… useless.

In this episode, I’m getting real about the identity shift that happens when you finally move out of operator mode and into your CEO seat. The weird in-between, the grief, the guilt, the “who even am I now?” moments.

I’ll walk you through the four roles your business actually needs from you now (because “visionary” isn’t the full picture), and how to start owning them in a way that feels aligned and real, not like you’re faking it 'til you make it. 

What You’ll Hear:

🌿 Why stepping out of the weeds can feel harder than staying in the

🎢 The emotional rollercoaster of letting go (and why it’s totally normal)

⭐ The 4 CEO roles every founder needs to step into:

• Visionary Steward
• Culture Keeper
• Strategic Leader
• Decision Architect

📖 Two client stories of what redefining your role actually looks like

If you’ve delegated well, but now you feel disconnected from your own business, if you’re caught between “I’m not needed anymore” and “I don’t know what my job is now... This is the real work of becoming the CEO—not just in title, but in how you lead every day. 

When you've listened to this episode, I want you to think and ask yourself, what kind of strategic thinking does this business need for me right now? This is where the CEO shift comes from. And this is why I've created a CEO Shift Map for you to start asking the questions and reflecting on being a CEO who leads every day.

You can download your CEO Shift Map here: https://go.highvoltageleadership.ca/resource-library

Want More Help Making This Shift?
Inside the LPC Accelerator, we do this work together. We’ll redefine your role, build leadership systems that actually support you, and help your team rise with you.

Cohort starts in March. DM me @highvoltleadership or check this link to grab your spot: https://highvoltageleadership.ca/lpc-accelerator/

If this episode made you feel seen, share it with a business bestie who needs it too. 🫶 And if you haven’t yet, please subscribe and leave a quick review. It means the world. 

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You’re not new to running a business—but lately, it feels like the weight of every decision, deadline, and deliverable is landing on your shoulders. Even with a solid team, you’re still stuck in the middle of it all. But that can change!

In this episode, I’m walking you through what I call the invisible architecture—the behind-the-scenes systems that keep your business moving without burning you out. We’ll talk about what’s missing in most growing businesses, and how to finally shift out of overwhelm and into your role as CEO.

Inside this episode:

 ✨  Why so many founders feel like they have to be “on” all the time
 🧠 What decision fatigue looks like, and how to reduce it
 🧱 Three key elements your business needs to grow without chaos
 📖 Real stories from clients who’ve made these changes and are now leading with clarity (not scrambling to keep up)

If you’ve been telling yourself, “I’ll just figure it out,” or “It’s easier if I do it myself,” this one’s for you. 

Want to go deeper? 

📄 Download: The Rhythm & Resilience: Leadership Worksheet

This practical guide will help you spot the structural gaps in your business and start building the clarity and rhythm you need to lead with less stress and more impact. 

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

She downsized, reset, and rehired... And what she learned about people strategy will change how you build your team. 

In this episode, I sit down with social media strategist  Rachel Pedersen to unpack the real and raw lessons behind scaling a team, downsizing with intention, and rebuilding. From “panic hires” to people-pleasing to over-collecting team members out of guilt, Rachel shares how her business hit a breaking point—and how a better people strategy helped her reclaim clarity, culture, and calm.

✨ Episode Highlights

🚫 Why panic hiring and people-pleasing can quietly wreck your business
🎯 The importance of leading with your core values (and Rachel's "core values filter")
❤️ Being kind, while still being a strong leader
💬 Cutting out the workplace drama
🧠 How self-reflection can become the foundation of your leadership

Your people strategy should be evolving, just like you are as a leader. 

Connect with Rachel:
IG: @themrspedersen
https://rachelpedersen.com/

👉 Check out the LPC Accelerator Here

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

You’ve built the team. You’ve tried delegating. But somehow, you're still making the final call on every. single. thing.

Sound familiar? Then this episode is a must-listen. We’re digging deep into the “Final Decision Maker Trap”—that sneaky leadership dynamic that keeps you stuck as the bottleneck, even when your intentions are good. This episode is all about bringing you clarity, ownership, and a structure that actually supports your team to lead alongside you.

Because delegation without decision rights isn’t leadership. It’s just another form of overwhelm.

⚡️ Episode Highlights

🧠 The real reason your team keeps bringing you options but no decisions
🔁 How unintentionally “re-deciding” is keeping your team stuck
🫶 The surprising connection between people-pleasing and burnout
🧭 How to shift from a helpful boss → high-impact leader
🧰 Simple, scalable steps to create ownership without micromanagement

This episode is packed with practical insights and real client stories straight from the LPC Accelerator. If you're ready to scale your business without being “on” 24/7 (or sacrificing the culture you love)—this one’s for you.

👉 Ready to finally lead like the CEO your business needs? Join the LPC Accelerator. This high-touch program is designed to help you step out of the weeds, build a high-performing team, and scale with clarity, confidence, and culture at the core. 

🎧 And if this episode hit home, share it with a fellow founder, and don’t forget to subscribe so you catch next week’s follow-up: building a leadership structure that fuels growth and frees you.

Support the Show

Our mission at Female Founder Unplugged is to impact 1,000 female entrepreneurs every season—and we need your help to do that.

Please subscribe, leave a review, and share your favorite episodes with your business besties. Together, we’re paving the path for more women to lead boldly, grow sustainably, and build lasting impact.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Happy New Year, my friends! If you're entering 2026 with equal parts excitement and exhaustion, you’re not alone.

Your business is growing. You’ve built something you're proud of. But quietly, behind the success, there’s burnout. There's  “I should be better at this by now.”

Sound familiar?

In this episode of Female Founder Unplugged, I’m confronting a truth that leadership advice tends to bypass: the problem isn't delegation — it’s your leadership design. Your business has evolved, but your leadership system likely hasn’t caught up. That’s why the delegation keeps boomeranging back to your desk.

✨ Episode Highlights:

🧠 Why “just delegate more” is a toxic half-truth
 ⚙️ What’s really causing your team to bottleneck (and it’s not lack of talent)
🔁 How delegation without structure becomes a leadership boomerang
🧭 The invisible cost of protecting your culture without clear communication
💥 A mindset shift to save you from burnout this year

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck in decision quicksand, or like your business is outgrowing you, this conversation will feel like a deep breath. And it's part one of a powerful two-part series to kick off your new year with clarity and courage, so stay tuned!

📝 Reflection Question for the Week:
What kind of leadership does this version of your business require from you?
(Write it down, sit with it… We’re answering it together in next week’s episode.)

👉 If you haven’t already, hit subscribe so you don’t miss Part 2 — "Why Being the Final Decision-Maker Is Holding Your Business Back" — dropping next Thursday. And while you're waiting for that episode to drop, you can follow me on LinkedIn for exclusive content, resources, and special offers just for listeners. ✨

Support the Show

Our mission for Female Founder Unplugged is to impact 1000 female entrepreneurs every season, and we need your help to do that.

Please subscribe to the show, and share your favorite episodes with anyone you feel could benefit. We are growing a powerful community here, and everyone is welcome. Together, we can pave a path to giving more women a seat at the table and providing opportunities for financial independence.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

2025 stretched a lot of founders and exposed some serious cracks in the way we lead.

In this episode, I’m unpacking the biggest leadership lessons I learned this year and the 3 high-voltage shifts I’m making to step into 2026 with more clarity, space, and CEO energy.

If you’ve been the bottleneck, the fixer, the Chief Everything Officer… this one’s for you.

Episode Highlights:

• ⚡ Why 2025 cracked open old leadership habits
• 📉 The real reason your team is still waiting on you
• 🧠 The 3 shifts to make if you’re ready to lead like a CEO
• 🛑 Why resourcing > rescuing (and how to stop carrying what isn’t yours)
• 🧾 The free resource I created to help you reset before 2026 hits

👉 Download the 2026 CEO Prep Worksheet — because 2026 requires a different way of leading.

And if you want support turning those insights into action, book a Spark Session with me and we’ll map out your next steps for January.

As the year comes to a close, I just want to say thank you for being here and for being part of this incredible community.

👉 Contact Cardinal Studios at: cardinalstudio.co or mike@cardinalstudio.co

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

This episode is a wake-up call for every founder who's ever skipped lunch, powered through with coffee, or told herself she's “too busy” to use the washroom. 

I'm joined by dietitian and women’s wellness expert Lindsay Martens for a refreshingly honest conversation about how self-leadership starts at the most fundamental level — with what your body actually needs to function, focus, and feel good.

✨ Episode Highlights:

• Why so many smart, successful women ignore basic needs
• How dehydration actually puts your brain in survival mode
• What it means to lead yourself first through food and self-awareness
• Why we overthink food — and how to make it simple again
• The fiber + protein combo that actually supports your hormones
• Why self-compassion might be your most powerful leadership tool

👉 Take Lindsay's “Quiet the Food Noise Quiz” to uncover your biggest food mindset blocks and get personalized tips to make food feel easier, calmer, and more intuitive: https://lindsaymartensnutrition.com/quiz/

👉 Book a Spark Session with me here.

👉 Contact Cardinal Studios at: cardinalstudio.co or mike@cardinalstudio.co

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever found yourself up at 10 pm rewriting things, fixing mistakes, or just doing it yourself… even though you’ve hired a team to help you? 

If you’ve been wondering why your team isn’t stepping up, this episode of Female Founder Unplugged is your wake-up call. Because truthfully? Your team isn’t the issue. But how you’re leading them... that might be.

In this episode, I’m breaking down what over-functioning really looks like, why it’s costing you freedom, and how to lead with clarity, trust, and intention.

✨ Episode Highlights

• 🚨 The truth about the “dream team” myth — and what no one tells you about hiring
• 📌 What over-functioning actually looks like (hint: it’s not just being busy)
• 📊 Why measuring tasks isn’t the same as creating accountability
• 💡 The real reason your team isn’t taking ownership — and how to fix it
• 🛠️ The four shifts that will create a culture of autonomy and results

We’re unpacking what better systems and clearer expectations can do for you and your business.

And if you’re ready for personalized support (if you’re still carrying the load and the clipboard), it’s time to make a shift. In a Spark Session, we’ll map out:

• Where you’re over-functioning
• What needs to be delegated
• How to create clarity and accountability that sticks

Just one hour and one clear path forward.

👉 Book your Spark Session now

Contact Cardinal Studios at:
cardinalstudio.co or mike@cardinalstudio.co

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you’ve ever cried in your car, snapped at your partner, or wondered why everything feels heavy even when things look “fine” on paper — this episode is for you. I'm digging into the real reason female founders avoid asking for help, and why that pattern quietly slows your growth, drains your energy, and caps your leadership.

✨ Episode Highlights

• 😣 Why even the most capable founders struggle to ask for help
• 🧠 The saboteur chatter that fuels the “I should be able to handle this” loop
• ⚠️ The real cost of doing everything yourself — on your business and your health
• 💡 Why asking for help is wisdom, not weakness
• 🔎 The 5 clarity questions to uncover where you’re overwhelmed or pretending things are “fine”
• 🧭 How protecting your time + energy shifts you back into true CEO mode

📄 Download: The CEO Clarity Worksheet

Get the 5 questions from today’s episode in a printable worksheet to help you identify exactly where you need support — and why you’ve been avoiding it.

Find it inside my Resource Library.

⚡ Book a Spark Session

If this episode hit close to home, a Spark Session might be your next step.
 One hour. One problem. Clear path forward.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

If you’re constantly chasing people down, repeating yourself, and wondering why things keep slipping through the cracks — this one’s for you.

Here’s the truth: your team isn’t lazy. They’re confused. What looks like a motivation problem is usually a clarity problem — and when clarity disappears, accountability goes with it.

✨ Episode Highlights

• The real reason “reminders” don’t work — and what to do instead.
• The three gaps that quietly erode accountability on small teams.
• Why being the safety net kills ownership (and what to do instead).
• How to create clear ownership and a feedback loop that sticks.
• The mindset shift from “babysitter” to boundaried leader.

Because accountability doesn’t start with effort — it starts with structure.

👉 Ready to fix the accountability gap on your team before Q1? Book a Spark Session — one hour to create clarity, follow-through systems, and a culture where accountability actually sticks.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.

Send us Fan Mail

We wear “busy” like a badge of honour — but what’s it really costing us?

In this week’s episode of Female Founder Unplugged, I’m joined by Peggy Sullivan, author of Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More by Doing Less. Peggy’s research and her own hard-won lessons reveal what she calls time poverty—that constant feeling of not having time for what really matters.

Together, we dig into why busyness has become the default mode for so many women leaders—and how to shift from autopilot to intentional action. 

✨ Episode Highlights

• The truth about “time poverty” and why so many founders fall into it
• Peggy’s 3-step Busy Busting Framework for creating more time and joy
• Why happiness isn’t a destination—it’s a leadership strategy
• The 4 core values that drive fulfillment and sustainable success
• How micro-habits can transform your productivity and peace

Because success isn’t about doing it all—it’s about doing what actually matters.

👉 Grab Peggy’s book, Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More by Doing Less, and try her free Busy Barometer tool at peggysullivanspeaker.com.

Support the show

The People Side of Business is the podcast for female founders and business owners who are leading teams and growing businesses.

Hosted by Lindsay White, Leadership Coach, Team Leadership Strategist, and Fractional HR Expert, this show delivers practical leadership strategies, real-world people solutions, and honest conversations about the challenges of leading a team.

From employee performance issues and difficult conversations to hiring, accountability, workplace culture, and team growth, each episode is designed to help you lead, manage, and scale your team as a founder.

If you're ready to become a more confident leader, make better people decisions, and build a stronger, higher-performing team, you're in the right place.

Learn more at highvoltageleadership.ca, connect on Instagram @highvoltleadership, or find Lindsay White on LinkedIn.

The people side of business isn't separate from growth. The people side of business is the business.