The 3x5 Leadership Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast! You can’t pour from an empty cup. So, this weekly show fills your cup with simple, practical strategies so you can live, lead, and learn more intentionally.

You can listen to the episode on Apple and Spotify!

We all know people who just talk too much. Sometimes, those people are in our workplace. And sometimes, we’re the ones dominating the conversation, demonstrating what we call “anti-humility” behaviors.

In this episode, we’ll explore three common anti-humility traps, which may often be disguised as good intentions.

These traps are important to recognize because they can lead to harmful assumptions from those around us, like:

• My input doesn’t matter here
• My leader doesn’t value what I say or even want to hear it
• My experience is less important than theirs

We’ll shed light on how these behaviors take up too much space in the conversation and share practical ways to step back and create room for others to contribute. When you do this, you’ll foster a culture where people feel seen, heard, and valued, and thus, able to thrive.

Interested in learning more? Check out these related 3x5 Leadership podcast episodes. 

• #4 To Die at the Door
• #30 From “I’m Not Important” to “I’m Contributing to Something Important”
• #32 Listening Like a Leader

• Introducing our Leadership University coming in early 2026! If you’re interested, you can learn more and sign up to be the first to know when it’s ready at our Leadership University page. 

• Like and Review the Show! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It builds our credibility, helping others discover the show and know it’s worth their time. 
• Join Our Email List. When you do, you’ll get free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox to help fill your cup as a leader. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well!

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast! You can’t pour from an empty cup. This weekly show fills your cup with simple, practical strategies so you can live, lead, and learn more intentionally.

You can listen to the episode on Apple and Spotify!

As leaders, we often face unexpected and unpolished criticism and challenges. How do you respond to these small forms of feedback? What’s lying beneath the surface of that sly comment or unsolicited complaint?

In this episode, we’ll dive into the concept of “bids” for connection―those small but meaningful moments when someone is trying to engage with you. We believe that understanding these bids can make all the difference in your relationships with your team (and at home!).

Why is it so important that you key into these bids? Because how you respond will:

• Foster a culture where people feel safe to speak up, share thoughts, and challenge the status quo
• Build stronger, more genuine connections, creating trust that lasts
• Make you a better colleague, friend, spouse, and parent along the way

Our goal is to shift your perspective on the bids that might otherwise cause you to put up walls or disengage. By decoding the deeper meaning behind these small interactions, over time, you will build a strong sense of trust, belonging, and safety, both at work and at home.

Interested in learning more? Check out these related 3x5 Leadership podcast episodes. 

• #4 To Die at the Door
• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #22 How to Deal with Conflict

• Introducing our Leadership University coming in early 2026! If you’re interested, you can learn more and sign up to be the first to know when it’s ready at our Leadership University page. 

• Research by Dr. John Gottman.

• Like and Review the Show! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It builds our credibility, helping others discover the show and know it’s worth their time. 
• Join Our Email List. When you do, you’ll get free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox to help fill your cup as a leader. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership today.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well! 

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders who create significant impacts. This show offers simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

What happens when leaders act less authoritarian and more coach-like?

What does it look like for a leader to act like a coach?

And why does it matter?

Let’s address all these questions in this week’s episode. Coaching is an incredibly powerful developmental tool, and just one of our many available tools in our toolbox as a leader. But it is also one of the most nuanced and hardest leadership approaches to put into action. So, join us for this episode to explore what coaching leadership is, why it matters, and specific strategies we can put into action today to get started.

We also share two example conversations between a boss and employee with the boss taking a coaching-style approach to help us better understand what it looks, sounds, and feels like.

So, check out this episode to learn how to be more coach-like in how we lead. We know it will equip you to lead and develop others more intentionally.

Interested in learning more? Check out these related 3x5 Leadership podcast episodes.

• #22 How to Deal with Conflict.
• #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to Be More Intentional with Your Words.
• #8 Giving Autonomy (Part 2 of the Motivation Series).

• Our article on Developmental Communication.
• Interested in reading more about coaching-style leadership? We encourage you to check out these two books by Michael Bungay Stanier: The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap.

• Like and Review the Show! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It builds our credibility, helping others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox to make your inbox a bit more intentional with leader development resources. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips that you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.  

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders who create significant impacts. This show offers simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

Leaders change and make change. If we are in the business of making people and organizations better, that requires change. But change is hard. It’s messy. It feels like a constant uphill battle against resistance. So, leaders need to use a structured, prepared, and well-developed change plan. But even when we do, we still make common failures.

So, let’s explore common failures we make when trying to lead change. In doing so, we hope that we can equip you and your team to better avoid them in the future.

Six common failures we discuss in this episode include:

1. Not establishing and communicating a compelling need for change.
2. We don’t communicate the change vision nearly enough.
3. Failing to enable others by removing big obstacles.
4. Don’t build a guiding coalition.
5. We don’t anchor the change for long-term impact.
6. We are unable to be patient, unwilling to take a long-view, and fail to recognize that change takes a long time.

We hope this episode brings important awareness to these failures, so you avoid them and don’t learn the hard way (like we so often have). If you find the episode helpful, we encourage you to share it with a friend, colleague, or teammate to let them learn and grow as well. But thanks for listening and we hope it guides you to lead more intentionally this week.

Interested in learning more? Check out these related 3x5 Leadership podcast episodes.

• #20 How to Get People to Care.
• #19 Delegate Better.
• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture.

• Leading Change, by John Kotter.
• Summary reference of Kotter’s 8 Steps for organizational change.

• Like and Review the Show! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It builds our credibility, helping others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox to make your inbox a bit more intentional with leader development resources. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips that you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. This show offers simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

We might be looking for the ultimate hack to help us achieve that 10x growth as a leader – the one conference, the one mentor, the one coach that can help us hit the jackpot. We hope to find that transformational growth easy button.

But our growth is like the meals we eat. We may be looking forward to the next Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the 4th of July BBQ feast. But those might be months away. What do we do between now and then? If we don’t keep eating until then, we will starve. Our development as leaders is the same. We need both routine incremental growth and the big-time transformational growth.

So, today’s episode briefly explores incremental growth, transformational growth, and shares a few lessons to consider when looking to apply them.

We know the insight in this episode will help you lead and learn more intentionally. We encourage you to check it and give it a listen. And, if you found it helpful, share the episode with a friend or colleague!

• Books by Jim Collins: Good to Great and Built to Last.

Interested in learning more? Check out these related 3x5 Leadership podcast episodes.

• #18 How to Make Leader Development Easier
• #5 Four Strategies to Schedule Your Self-Development Better
• #3 10 Habits to Make Your Reading More Impactful

• Like and Review the Show! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It builds our credibility, helping others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox to make your inbox a bit more intentional with leader development resources. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips that you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

“I feel like I'm trying to be Switzerland between two angry countries that are each tossing me a grenade and telling me to then throw it at the other one. Finn and I used to get along really well, but since Hank has started telling me how he thinks things should be done, it often differs from Finn's proposed method, and for the past several weeks now we've all just gotten totally stuck in a vicious cycle. If we can't get this figured out, I'm gonna start looking for other work. I love this mission and this project, but I just don't think I can do this anymore.”

As a leader, you cannot afford to let conflict persist. Conflict stems from miscommunication and is catalyzed by pride. Combined, these two factors create a dangerous environment where conflict can sprout and thrive.

In this episode, we’re going to unpack how to address conflict. JJ explores the difference between tension and conflict and the underlying factors that create conflict conditions. He outlines a conflict resolution process, discussing how we diagnose conflict, decide how we will handle conflict, and then enact and monitor a plan to resolve conflict. Our hope is that you recognize that to be an intentional leader who creates significant impact, you realize that it is your privilege to lean into conflict with the goal of guiding and leading your team back into a productive and proactive state.

• Article: Three Strategies to Communicate More Effectively
• Article: Five Considerations to Communicate Better
• Podcast: #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture

• If you found this helpful, others might as well! Please like and review the 3x5 Leadership Podcast. It’s not only encouraging to us, it also helps others discover the show and see it as worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website at 3x5leadership.com. You can also get a copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders, today!
• Consider joining our Patron Community to get even more insight and access from 3x5 Leadership. Lear more about the Community and join at patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well!

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. This show aims to offer simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

Presence is a powerful tool leaders can use to engage our people, make deeper connections with them, and maintain a strong pulse of the organization’s culture. But presence is so much more than merely being physically present. It also is not restricted to the select few who are blessed with enticing charisma. It just calls for leaders to be intentional in how we behave around people and how we communicate with them.

So, in this week’s episode, we explore the art of leader presence – what it is, why it’s important, and nine specific habits we can start now to begin practicing it.

We invite you to check out the episode! We believe it will be well worth your time, ultimately helping you to lead more intentionally this week. And, if you find it helpful, we encourage you to share it with a friend or colleague too.

• Podcast Episode: #20 How to Get People to Care.
• Book: Stop Talking, Start Communicating, by Geoffrey Tumlin.

Interested in learning more? Check out these other 3x5 resources.

• Podcast Episode: #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year.
• Podcast Episode: #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to Be More Intentional with Your Words.
• Article: How We Can be More Present as a Leader.

• Give a Like and Review! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. This show aims to offer simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

Interested in becoming a 3x5 Leadership patron? Learn more and join at our Patreon page.

What are the marks of the most effective teams? Is it their performance? Cohesion? Strength of identity and brand? Well, we’d argue that all those are actually symptoms of a deeper, more important reality – that everyone on the team buys in, commits, and cares. Think about it, when people care more, they are willing to give more, do more, and invest. And when people care more, the team becomes so much more than the sum of its parts.

But how do we get people to care more? What if we feel stuck in trying to get people to give their best? It’s a universal leadership requirement…and a universal challenge.

So, in this week’s episode, we explore seven strategies that leaders can apply to encourage their people to care more. These aren’t “hacks” or tricks to improve compliance. Instead, these are basic but powerful leadership habits to invest in others so that they are willing to reciprocate. Remember, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Let’s become more intentional in caring for others; it often leads to a reciprocation of care back.

Check out this week’s new episode! We believe it will be well worth your time, ultimately helping you to lead more intentionally this week. If you find it helpful, we encourage you to share it with a friend or colleague too.

• Podcast episode: #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year.
• Available tools to support creating growth plans for others: Feedback, Goal setting, and One-on-One meetings.
• Research on employee engagement from Zippia.

• Podcast episodes: Motivation Series Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The series explores how leaders tap into the power of peoples’ motivation to get their people to care more.
• Podcast episode: #18 How to Make Leader Development Easier.
• Article: 5 Steps to Cultivate Ownership in Others.

• Give a Like and Review! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.

 Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. This show aims to offer simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

I wish I had more time… So goes the typical lamentation of every leader, in every job, every week. Yet, all the while we complain about our lack of time, we simultaneously fail to delegate tasks and responsibilities down to our people. We are left bearing the burden of tasks while our people remain unburdened and unbothered. Why?

Leaders need to understand delegation and actually put it to use. It improves our capacity to focus on the things only we can do. It improves organizational effectiveness. And it enables the development of our people – growing their abilities, self-sufficiency, and potential for greater responsibility in the future.

Delegation is too important to ignore or do poorly. So, this week, let’s explore delegation – what it is, why it matters, and simple strategies we can implement now to tap into its powerful effects.

We encourage you to check out this week’s new episode. We believe it will be well worth your time, ultimately helping you to lead more intentionally this week. If you find it helpful, share it with a friend or colleague too.

• #18 How to Make Leader Development Easier: Podcast episode that explores different types of value we can add in any moment.
• #15 My Best New Management Practice for the Year: Podcast episode sharing how to use one-on-ones for regular task check-ins to avoid micromanagement.
• #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year: Podcast episode on how to share gratitude better as a leader.
• The research that finds 70% of adult learning come from on-the-job training.

• #17 Stop Having Terrible Meetings. Meetings are common tools to synchronize teams. Terrible meetings can be just as detrimental as poor delegation.
• #8 Giving Autonomy (Part 2 of the Motivation Series). Delegation is a tool to grant autonomy. Autonomy is a critical component to a person’s motivation. Explore autonomy more in this podcast episode.
• 5 Steps to Cultivate Ownership in Others. A simple how-to look at building a sense of ownership in others.

• Give a Like and Review! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.

Welcome to the 3x5 Leadership Podcast where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. This show aims to offer simple, practical strategies to help you live, lead, and learn more intentionally. You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify!

What are the common barriers that prevent you from pouring into other leaders’ development? Is it a lack of time? Confidence? What about your feelings of a lack of expertise? All are valid.

But there are ways to make development easier – for ourselves and for how we pour into others. So, this week, we explore three simple ways we can make leader development easier. These are not hacks to cheat our way to success. These are small decisions we can make each day. These decisions are:

• To choose developmental activities over non-developmental ones.
• View each moment with someone as an opportunity to add value and to be intentional about the value that we add.
• To create the time and space for intentional developmental conversations.

So, we encourage you to check out this week’s new episode! And if you find it helpful, share it with a friend or colleague. We believe it will be well worth yours and their time, ultimately helping you to lead more intentionally this week.

• #13 You Can't Pour from an Empty Cup
• #12 Developing Junior Leaders
• #5 Four Strategies to Schedule Your Self-Development Better

• Give a Like and Review! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. It helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership. When you do, you’ll get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more at 3x5 Leadership. You will also get an immediate copy of our free guide, The 10 Habits of Intentional Leaders.
• Become a Patron. Consider joining our Patreon Community to get even more insight from the 3x5 Leadership team like weekly leadership tips you can put into action immediately. Learn more about the Community and join at our Patreon page.

Until next episode, friends, take care and lead well.