An interview style video and audio podcast where business and sporting leaders share their knowledge & experience to help create confident leaders. I also take the opportunity to offer my perspective on the guests' ideas by closing each episode with 3 key takeaways to create confident leaders based on my reflection from the interview.
If you are a business owner who wants to lead with confidence so that you can maximise your performance, your team's performance and your business's performance, this podcast is for you!
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Republished EP47: Attracting, Selecting & Retaining High Performers
Monday, June 16, 2025 • Duration 54:47
What factors go into the recruitment process? What makes a good leader? Why does treating candidates with respect matter? These are some of the questions that we’ll explore in today’s episode.
Today’s guest is Mark Purbrick. Mark is the Managing Director of Peoplogica. He has over 35 years of management experience, including 23 years at the General Manager or Chief Executive Officer level, as well as more than 30 years of board director experience for both private enterprise and government-controlled entities. Mark assists clients to make the right business and people capital decisions.
Mark has designed Innovative People Capital Solutions and has ensured that Peoplogica is at the forefront of people tests, assessments, and surveys. He specializes in the attraction, selection, and retention of high-performing talent. Listen to today’s episode to hear what Mark has to say about what high-performing talent looks like, how businesses can attract them, and what leaders need to be doing through the selection process.
Discussion Points:
Mark’s passions for attracting talent and for winemaking
An overview of Peoplogica
The types of business or leaders that seek Mark’s help
What a high-performing talent looks like
Consistency or inconsistency in the behaviors that high performers have
How a business can attract high-performing talent
What leaders need to do throughout the selection process
Treating candidates with courtesy
Tools that offer the best value in the interview process
The costs of getting the wrong person in the organization
What a company needs to do to retain top talent
Most effective tips for leaders
How much easier the Peoplogica tools make coaching conversations for leaders
The biggest bit of advice for attracting, selecting, and retaining high performing talent
From Pro Sports to Business Success: Secrets of High-Performance Teams with Steve Tashjian
Tuesday, June 3, 2025 • Duration 52:47
In this engaging episode of the Culture of Leadership Podcast, host Brendan Rogers welcomes Steve Tashjian, founder of the Elevation Project. Steve shares insights from his career in professional sports, including his time with Everton FC and the US Men’s National Team. He unpacks the four pillars of high-performance teams—alignment, empowerment, collaboration, and resilience—and their application to business.
From vulnerability’s role in trust-building to navigating organizational change, Steve offers actionable strategies for leaders. Tune in to discover how to foster a winning culture in any high-pressure environment.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 - Introduction and Welcome 00:41 - The Elevation Project: Steve’s Journey 02:43 - Discovering Purpose in High-Performance Environments 04:58 - Defining High Performance in Sports 05:36 - Key Characteristics of High-Performing Teams 13:28 - Comparing Everton FC and USMNT 17:33 - Decision-Making Under Pressure 19:26 - David Moyes and Manchester United’s Identity Crisis 26:03 - Succession and Organizational Alignment 29:38 - Vision and Purpose in Business 40:46 - Empowering Teams with Decentralized Command 44:31 - Building Trust for Collaboration 48:51 - Resilience Through Diversity and Expertise 54:23 - Creating a Culture of Vulnerability 57:54 - Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
Do you want to be a more confident leader? Get your FREE workbook at https://thecultureofleadership.com/confident-leader-workbook/
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Republished: EP67: Ex Google Employee Shares Culture Perspective
Tuesday, January 28, 2025 • Duration 01:23:06
Ex Google employee, Taras Kobernyk shares his perspective on the Google culture. Taras was a Google software engineer who ended up getting fired from job. Watch the episode to learn more.
Key Discussion Points: 0:00 Trailer & Guest Introduction 2:15 Taras’ introduction/background 3:09 Getting hired by Google and finding out the internal downsides to his position 6:40 What did you see that made you write the document? 10:15 How did things go after writing it? 11:53 Can you detail the timeline from the writing of the initial document, through your firing? 17:52 Were you ever told your performance was subpar? 21:00 How would you respond to people who think you’re simply a disgruntled former employee? 23:49 What can you tell us about the Anti-Racist Allyship Starter Pack? 27:48 What was the response from the top management? 33:00 Is any of this helping the environment at Google? 35:38 Are you the ONLY Google employee to complain about these policies? 38:12 What were the “Citizenship Contributions” you were expected to perform as part of your job? 57:06 Are you concerned at all that these policies may affect the public, as Google has such a wide reach? 1:06:11 After you were fired, did Google make it difficult for you to find other work? 1:12:48 Why did you speak up? 1:17:55 If you were still at Google, what do you wish would have happened after sharing this document with leadership? 1:25:36 What part of this experience had the greatest impact on your ideas about leadership? 1:28:40 My main takeaways from this discussion with Taras Kobernyk
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58. How to be an Effective Leader
Sunday, September 5, 2021 • Duration 50:35
Tom Lawrence started out as an engineering apprentice at an automotive company in Liverpool in the UK. He worked in this industry for a few years, throughout which he found himself working under multiple managers who were not particularly good leaders. These were the quintessential managers of the past… people who just focussed on “getting the job done”. Once he became a manager, he found himself scrambling to figure out the job of leading a team – wishing he had been trained by his predecessor. This led him to the realization that if a manager really does a good job, they are actively upskilling their team to become leaders themselves.
Today you will hear about how Tom came to write his book “Manager to Leader” (Amazon) and we dig a little deeper into a few of the topics he covers in this book. Tom is passionate about teaching people to lead well and I was inspired by his worldview on leaders.
In this episode, Amber and I are both in lockdown in our homes (once again) which means we could unfortunately not record this episode in person but we still managed to get into a cracker conversation about leadership, communication to be heard, and personal development.
Amber Daines is one of Australia’s most agile communications professionals. She is known for her ability to devise and implement successful strategies across all forms of external and internal communications. She helps leaders improve their ability to advocate for their business to their employees and the outside world through speaking and writing. Amber knows how important communication is to success, so she pushes leaders to understand that listening is the first step in being heard. So often leaders are in the position of simply telling people what to do without sharing the philosophy behind it. Amber shares that a leader’s philosophy (and the proper communication of that philosophy) is the thing that really gets the buy-in from his/her team. Without buy-in, unfortunately, a leader will struggle to gain trust which will, in turn, ensure a full effort from team members when working to achieve a goal.
Amber helps us understand the best way to go about getting ourselves heard through better communication.
Discussion Points
Why is communication so important when you are a leader
Remember who your audience is and remain consistent
How leaders can get comfortable with who they are?
The impact of a leader with poor communication skills
The importance of vulnerability in a leader
The media its influence on vulnerability in leaders
Online vs offline communication
Social media in communication
What is a good measure of your communication success?
Personal branding
Nonverbal communication tips
Becoming better listeners
How to get leaders to change by seeking feedback
Top tips to improve communication
Amber’s podcast
56. How to work with and motivate disengaged team members
Sunday, August 8, 2021 • Duration 01:10:40
Today I’m talking to Erin Jewell – a Thrive Global top 10 coach of 2021. She is an executive mindset, growth- and performance coach, speaker, and professor of leadership at Villanova University. She has over twenty years of leadership experience in the healthcare sector, working at Pfizer, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic. She has become an expert in strategies to manage team performance and had built a successful consulting practice based on these strategies. Our focus today is on engaged versus disengaged team members. Erin unpacks a few of the reasons team members might be disengaged, things leaders can do to change the situation and things leaders should avoid doing that may cause team members to disengage.
Our conversation goes into some great tips that will help both leaders and team members to better engage with each other by focusing on themselves and what they can do to promote a better work environment.
Discussion Points
Erin as Thrive Global top 10 coach
Working with leaders in the vaccine development industry
The impact of the pandemic on leaders in different industries
The great resignation
Engaged vs Disengaged
What can a leader do that causes disengagement?
The meaning quotient (MQ)
How to choose the right person to lead
Transitioning from individual performer to leader
Self-awareness in leadership
Practicing what you preach as a leader
Compassion and boundaries go hand in hand
The Karpman Drama Triangle
The responsibility of the team member/employee
What has had the greatest impact on Erin’s leadership journey?
Andrew Bartlow has 25 years of HR and organizational management experience. He is passionate about helping leaders identify their strengths and weaknesses and he has an empathetic approach to helping them improve the way they run their businesses and manage their employees. Andrew discusses a wide range of topics from his new book, Scaling for Success – where the focus is on people being the priority when working on scaling your business.
Andrew and I have very similar views on the use of personality assessment tools when making hiring decisions- that it’s a very poor way of identifying a good fit in an organization. We also go into quite a bit of detail around Andrew’s theory around the two founder archetypes – Mule-drivers and Prophets – both coming with their specific strengths and weaknesses. Andrew breaks down his process of working with each of these founder-types to help them understand their role in the successes and failures of their organizations. He works with these founders to improve their weaknesses or hire someone with strengths that complement their weaknesses. If you are a founder and not sure why there may be frustrations in your organization, listen up, you may just get the insight you need from today’s episode.
Discussion Points
All about ego
The Ego traps
The Mule-driver vs Prophet archetype founders
Impact of people in a “Prophet-founded” organization
How Andrew approaches these founders
RACI – tool
HR in a Mule-driver organization
Tools for founders (spoiler – the tool doesn’t matter)
Making decisions using tools are dangerous
Developing trust in teams
Advice for prophet founders
Advice to mule-driver founders
The greatest impact in Andrew’s leadership journey
Today I’m talking with David Bacon – an experienced director, chief executive officer, and senior executive in both the private and public sectors. He is an expert communicator, stemming from his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. He shares a bit about the work he did as a spokesperson for British American Tobacco, noting that he was able to remain ethical and truthful throughout his time there – which is why he never felt the need to apologize for doing this job – regardless of the fact that most people had strong opinions about the company and the industry (which meant that he avoided talking about his job most of the time).
David is a highly intelligent, incredibly humble, and interesting individual. Our conversation is a rollercoaster ride of topics – which is pretty much reflective of David’s life and career. David has buckets of life experience and he shares about his enjoyment in being able to give back as a way to show his gratitude towards his career and- business success. To that end, David joined the Gosford Rotary club where he has achieved much as club president since then and while he has recently stepped down as president, he made sure to leave a legacy of strong leadership and good values behind. In today’s episode, we get to know David a bit better and find out what he believes is required to be successful in life.
Discussion Points
Introduction to David Bacon
Cash for comment scandal
David’s role in the regulation of the industry after the scandal
About Rotary
David’s involvement in Rotary
Being president of the local Rotary club
Getting buy-in from fellow club members
Learning to be an active listener
David’s leadership style
Being a spokesperson for British American Tobacco
David’s greatest challenge in being a spokesperson
Journalism now vs back then
Governance
Culture change in Pacific Link housing
David’s values and ethics
Leadership and character
Most impactful person in David’s life
53. The Story of My Broken Soldier
Monday, June 28, 2021 • Duration 02:26:14
Karen and Matt Page have walked through some tumultuous times together, to say the least. It all began after Matt suffered a traumatic brain injury during his military deployment. Unfortunately, the accident turned out to be only the beginning of some of the most difficult times in their lives – putting a massive strain on their marriage and family life. Karen wrote the book “My Broken Soldier” as part of her healing process, sharing some of the deepest, darkest moments of their family’s struggle. Matt and Karen both join me on today’s episode, sharing some of how they dealt with some incredibly difficult periods in Matt’s healing process and what they feel helped them get through it all.
They have now made it their personal mission to make sure that they help other families in the same situation get access to the help they need sooner and more efficiently. The stigma that surrounds mental health in Australia and the world needs to end – and they believe that talking about one’s experiences more openly will be the key to unlocking this change in society. This, in turn, will help families struggling with mental health issues realize that they aren’t as isolated as they might feel. Reading Karen’s book has touched me deeply, and opened my eyes to the nearly impossible strength that it took for this couple to get as far as they have – and still be working together to live their best lives. I am grateful for their presence on today’s episode and I hope that this platform will help spread their powerful message to people who need to hear it!
Discussion Points
The motivation behind the book
Matt’s accident
The comedy of errors post the accident
The many other people in the same situation
Matt’s healing process
Managing mental health
Realizing your worth
Dealing with tough moments
Karen’s relationship with her dad
Matt becoming “dad” to Karen’s daughters
The process of having a baby
Opening up about difficult times – ask for help
Working to help others in the same situation
52. Values, Leadership & Football with Michael Thwaite
Monday, June 14, 2021 • Duration 01:00:59
Michael Thwaite is an athlete, a businessman, a husband and a father. While his successes include playing for professional teams all over the world and marrying his high school sweetheart, he has had to deal with all kinds of disappointments and delays in his life and career as well. A few years ago – he made the decision to put his family first at this point in his life, recognizing that his children won’t be small forever – so he wants to be there for them. In today’s episode, he gives us insight into his values as a leader and the habits he has adopted in order to cultivate those values.
He has pushed through many disappointments and come out the other side a humbler, but stronger person. Now he’s taking on the challenge of working in his community as a disability support worker – helping people with disabilities get involved in sport. Michael is a leader in the truest sense of the word as he exemplifies a positive attitude even in his darkest moments. I chat with him about some of his major accomplishments and how he was able to get through his lowest moments. His answers might surprise you… Michael Thwaite has had a rollercoaster- career, but he wouldn’t change a single thing if that would mean he’d end up anywhere other than right where he’s at now in his life.
Resources Culture of Leadership Website (https://thecultureofleadership.com/) Brendan Rogers LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjrogers01/) Culture of Leadership Podcast Website (https://thecultureofleadership.com/podcast/) Culture of Leadership LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-culture-of-leadership/) Culture of Leadership Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tcolpodcast) Culture of Leadership Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thecultureofleadership/)
DISCLOSURE: We often link to products & services we regularly use and think you might find helpful. Wherever possible we use referral links. This means, if you click one of the links and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation.
We're fans of Amazon, and many of our links to products are links to those products on Amazon. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and related sites.
*** BOOKS WE LOVE *** (and read!) ✅ Check them out at https://thecultureofleadership.com/books-we-recommend/
Subscribe to Culture of Leadership podcast: Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3oPVZhU Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LvUjvI Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3aZlglJ Castro: https://bit.ly/3yILSRo Pocket Casts: https://bit.ly/34nqOSz Podchaser: https://bit.ly/2SxL15F iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3xVl4fw Deezer: https://bit.ly/3w1gvib Podcast Addict: https://bit.ly/3hiY3w7
Resources Culture of Leadership Website (https://thecultureofleadership.com/) Brendan Rogers LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjrogers01/) Culture of Leadership Podcast Website (https://thecultureofleadership.com/podcast/) Culture of Leadership LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-culture-of-leadership/) Culture of Leadership Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tcolpodcast) Culture of Leadership Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thecultureofleadership/)
DISCLOSURE: We often link to products & services we regularly use and think you might find helpful. Wherever possible we use referral links. This means, if you click one of the links and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation.
We're fans of Amazon, and many of our links to products are links to those products on Amazon. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and related sites.
If you have any questions for Brendan around this episode or generally around culture, leadership or teamwork, feel free to contact him here.
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