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.

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 (Josh) spend 27% of my work week in meetings. What about you? A survey of managers found that over 60% of them assess meetings to be unproductive, unhelpful, and even a distraction. Meetings are terrible. But we can’t seem to escape them. From how many meetings we have to how terrible they are when we are in them, meetings simply suck.

But there are ways to make our meetings better. And actually productive. Maybe even enjoyable. They just require leaders to mindfully invest in them as an experience just like anything else we do at work.

So, this week, we explore meetings and how to make them less terrible. We offer specific things leaders can do to:

• Have less meetings
• Lead more productive meetings
• And craft more thoughtful ones

We encourage you to check out this week’s new episode and 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.

•  Meeting research with senior managers
• Dave Barry joke about meetings and human potential

• Podcast: #15 My Best New Management Practice for the Year
• Podcast: #1: 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, & Lead Better
• On battle rhythms: 3 Tools for Sustained Leadership Capacity

• Give a Like and Review! If you found this episode valuable, we invite you to give the show a like and review. That 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 immediately put into action. 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!

Gratitude may seem like just another soft, squishy, unnecessary topic that’s not worth our time. Who’s got time for this, right? I don’t! But gratitude is so much more. It’s powerful. It is necessary. Gratitude requires leaders to have the discipline to slow down, be more present and aware of others, and remain grateful no matter the circumstances.

For this week’s episode, we explore what gratitude is, why it matters for leaders, and 5 ways that you can begin thoughtfully expressing it with your people today. The habits are as simple as:

• Saying thank you more regularly
• Recognizing people in emails and meetings
• Sharing “3rd party praise”
• Writing a gratitude card or two per week
• Start a team gratitude ritual

We dive into each of these activities to help you understand how to put them into action now. We end by offering important considerations to carry out these behaviors authentically, effectively, and efficiently.

So, check out this week’s new episode and share it with a friend or colleague. We know it will be well worth you and their time.

• Love Does, by Bob Goff
• An Everyone Culture, by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
• Leading with Gratitude, by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
• Data reporting on why so many managers avoid giving praise (HBR)
• APA Survey on feeling valued at work (APA)

• #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to Be More Intentional with Your Words
• 13 Ways to Lead with Humility
• The Case for Kindness

• Give the show a like and review if you found this episode valuable. That helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership to get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more 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 like weekly leadership tips. Learn 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! 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 talk a lot about feedback at 3x5 Leadership, but how can you be sure your feedback encourages development within your people, and translates into real progress for your team? How can we make the most of the feedback sessions we’re scheduling…or should they be feedback sessions at all?

This episode is all about developmental experiences, which, over time and with deliberate action, become the day-to-day norm in a growth-minded organization. By separating the three elements of what we commonly call “feedback,” we can start building this culture for our team.

We’ll help you see the differences between evaluation, coaching, and appreciation, and how those translate into the different types of developmental experiences you can create for your team. Then, we’ll show you how to start shaping those experiences by taking actions like:

• Determining whether you’re offering all three types of feedback
• Coming alongside your people as a coach
• Establishing the right balance based on the individual needs of your people

Integrating feedback into your organization can be a daunting task. But we believe that by breaking it down into these three types and forming them into developmental experiences, feedback will become a core part of your culture, providing clarity and encouraging progress daily.

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

• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #25 What Happens When Leaders Act Like Coaches
• #31 Dispelling Six Myths About Feedback

• Introducing our Leadership University, which is 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. 
• Book, An Everyone Culture, by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey
• Center for Creative Leadership’s Handbook of Leadership Development
• Book, Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
• 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 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! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

The topic of management practices isn’t sexy, but it’s important. Managing well is an important habit of intentional leaders. Effectively and efficiently managing our team increases clarity, alignment, and synchronization across the team. It also improves capacity, reducing the number of inefficient meetings, huddles, and standups that we have over the course of a week. Good management practices enable us to move beyond the quagmire of routine tasks and urgencies and into the important work of new value creation.

In this episode, I (Josh) share the best new management practice that I started this past year. It explores a two-part process. First, how I use a simple digital platform to keep track of my team’s current tasks and projects. Second, I share how I structure and use weekly one-on-ones with my direct reports. Then, we end by sharing the benefits that my team and I enjoy because of this disciplined process.

I believe this episode will equip and inspire you to manage your team in new, better, more efficient ways to ultimately improve your productivity, engagement, and effectiveness. So, check it out today! If you find it helpful, share it with your colleagues and friends as well.

• The Effective Manager, by Mark Horstman

• 3 Tools for Sustained Leadership Capacity
• The Problem with “Stop Bringing Me Problems”
• The 3 Priorities of a Leader

• Give the show a like and review if you found this episode valuable. That helps others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Subscribe to 3x5 Leadership to get our free, weekly insights sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe and learn more 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 a new episode of 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! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

Culture is easily one of those topics that leaders know is important and something we should do about, yet, we don’t really know what to do or where to start. Culture is important, absolutely, but it is also big, wieldy, and hard to manage.

So, in this episode, we explore ten lessons developing culture. These lessons are a combination of important considerations and actionable ideas for leaders to begin the long, hard work of cultivating an intentional organizational culture.

These lessons have been learned through challenge, through trial and error, and even through some surprise success. But all are universal, applying to your organizational context as well.

So, check out this week’s episode to help you be more focused and proactive in developing an intentional culture.

You can also check out the simple document that captures all ten lessons on 1-page HERE. Take it, print it, hang it in your office, keep it in your notebook, and share it with your colleagues!

• The Culture Primer
• 3 Ways to Bring Your Organization’s Values to Life
• Episode #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to be More Intentional with Your Words

• If you found this helpful, others might as well! We invite you to like and review the 3x5 Leadership Podcast. It’s not only encouraging to us, but 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.

Take care, friends, and lead well!

Welcome to a new episode of 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! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

Leaders are always involved in a lot – decisions, organizational actions, processes, and even in peoples’ development and lives. And many leaders feel compelled to be present, be available, and be engaged in every opportunity that presents itself. It is hard for us to say no. We can experience stress and even guilt around doing so.

But there is a simple philosophy that has guided much on how I approach life and leadership, and it is a philosophy that started simply as a shirt that my wife bought:

You can’t pour from an empty cup.

So, this week, we dive into this philosophy and how it can shape how we live, lead, and remain resilient. We explore four questions that can help you apply it to your own life as well as use it as a developmental framework with others.

We are confident this episode can equip you to be more intentional in how you live and lead in any relevant role in life starting today. Thanks for joining us and for your support.

• Article referenced in the episode: Simplifying Leader Development
• Article: Placing the Big Rocks First: Living & Leading with Intentionality
• Podcast: #1: 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, & Lead Better

• If you found this helpful, others might as well! Please like and review the 3x5 Leadership Podcast. It’s not only encouraging to us, but 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.

Take care friends and lead well!

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast, where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

“I wish my boss trusted me more.” “If only they would give me some decision authority and empower me to get the job done, we’d be able to avoid messes like this in the future.”

As a leader, how do you trust and empower your team responsibly and intentionally? This is a hard thing to do as a leader! Not only do people want to be trusted and empowered, but we as leaders should want to give that trust and empowerment! Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

In this episode, we’re going to unpack the importance of taking a developmental approach when engaging with junior leaders. JJ explores a four-step cycle that can enable us to build capable, confident, and competent leaders within our teams and organizations. He outlines why it is necessary that we train and certify, then trust and empower our teams, and then closes with four questions that we must reflect on if we are struggling with managing the development of the junior leaders on our team.

• Article: Simplifying Leader Development. Leader development doesn’t have to be a complex process. This article breaks leader development into a three tiered approach that can simplify our approach and increase our efficacy.
• Article: Three Ways Leaders Use Feedback to create Developmental Experiences for Others. Feedback is a critical element in building trust; it also is a necessary step in the training, certification, and empowerment of our team members. Are you using feedback effectively?
• Podcast Episode #8: Giving Autonomy (Part 2 of the Motivation Series). In this episode, Josh unpacks the importance of deliberately giving autonomy to our teammates, doing so in a manner that deliberately develops them and increases their motivation.

• 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.

Take care friends, and lead well!

Welcome to a new episode of 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! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

Our words matter. How we communicate with others shapes how they receive us, interact with one another, feel about their work, and ultimately our collective results. And it can all start simply with how a leader communicates with others.

So, in today’s episode, we explore 10 specific ways that we as leaders can be more intentional with our words. These strategies offer mental approaches to conversations, common dos and don’ts, and even some specific phrases to employ – all things you can begin to apply today.

To give a little insight into what we explore today, here are the ten strategies summarized:

• First seek to understand, then be understood.
• Ask yourself, “what need is this person satisfying through their behavior right now?”
• Focus on the topic at hand, and not on the other person’s character, intentions, or emotions.
• Avoid overgeneralizations like “always” and “never.”
• Use collective pronouns like “we” and “us,” over individual ones like “you.”
• Do not start conversations with “can we talk” or “come see me.”
• “The story I’m telling myself is…”
• “I feel…” and “how I see it is…”
• “Can I share some truth in love?”
• Listening affirmations like “I hear you,” “that’s valid,” “that makes sense,” and “that’s fair.”

We are confident this episode can equip you to be more intentional in how you communicate with others starting today. Thanks for joining us and for your support.

• Article: How to Ask Better Questions
• Article: 5 Considerations to Communicate Better
• Article: 3 Strategies to Communicate More Effectively (and Make Sense to Others)

• If you found this helpful, others might as well! Please like and review the 3x5 Leadership Podcast. It’s not only encouraging to us, but 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.

Take care friends and lead well!

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast, where we champion intentional leaders who create significant impacts. Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

Have you ever found yourself facing a difficult decision, where it seems like two closely held values are at odds with each other? Perhaps a co-worker is absent without excuse, and you must choose between “covering” for them, or answering truthfully – what do you decide to do? These decisions are ethical decisions – where we must optimize our values and beliefs to the context we are in and make an ethical decision.

In this episode, we dive into the leaders’ responsibility to make ethical decisions. We differentiate between moral decisions and ethical decisions, explore a few of the main ethical approaches characterized in leadership literature, and then present an ethical decision-making framework that enables leaders to own the responsibility to make ethical decisions. We close out with six practical ways to employ the ethical decision-making framework in your spheres of influence. There is no promise that making an ethical decision equals making an easy decision. In fact, many times these are inherently hard decisions to make. Rather than wringing our hands over challenging ethical decisions, join us as we resolve to roll up our sleeves and apply the 3 C’s framework, giving thoughtful consideration to our character & core values, our constituents and commitments, and the consequences of our decisions.

• Podcast Episode #6: How Leaders Make Decisions. Making effective decisions for our team requires us to think broadly and deeply. This episode presents two frameworks to make effective decisions and serves as the prequel to the Ethical Decision-Making episode.
• United States Military Academy Cadet Prayer: JJ referenced this in the closing of the episode. Check out the link for the full text!

• 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.

Take care, friends, and lead well!

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast, where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! You can also watch it on YouTube. 

Motivated people are more engaged, committed, and capable. When leaders set conditions for high intrinsic motivation and build space for people to have more autonomy, our people become better, leaders have more capacity, and the organization grows. Leaders must thoughtfully and sustainably generate motivation where they lead and whom they lead.

So, in today’s episode, the third and final part of this short motivation series, we explore two tools that leaders can use to help assess the state of peoples’ motivation and to create a structured approach to improving it. Instead of guessing where and how leaders should improve motivation, often failing by applying surface-level psychological solutions to deep organizational issues, leaders can target specific areas to improve motivation appropriately.

The first tool is called the Two-Factor Theory, where we target the sources of peoples’ work satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and how to improve both conditions.

The second tool is the Job Characteristics Model, which specifies five particular job characteristics to generate intrinsic motivation, job satisfaction, and work effectiveness: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. So, we explore all five characteristics and how leaders can use those to improve work motivation.

We believe this episode will enable you to reframe and improve how you lead your people to create a more motivating, productive, and impactful place to work.

Thanks for joining us. Check out the episode today!

• Implementing a routine schedule, called a “battle rhythm.”
• Two-Factor Theory, developed by psychologist Frederick Herzberg.
• The Job Characteristics Model, developed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldhamat.

• #7 Tapping into the Power of Intrinsic Motivation (Part 1 of the Motivation Series). Introducing the concept of intrinsic motivation and its important impacts on your team and how people work.
• #8 Giving Autonomy (Part 2 of the Motivation Series). How leaders can leverage the sources of autonomy to improve peoples’ intrinsic motivation.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review! It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at Patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast, where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! You can also watch it on YouTube. 

What if one of your team members told you they were quitting their job and stated it was because of “not enough work flexibility?” or because they “are seeking more independence.” Well, these are some of the most common reasons why people quit and it’s a motivation problem, particularly a problem with autonomy.

Autonomy is simply giving people the space or the latitude to work in ways that best suit them and it is a powerful motivational tool for leaders.

Autonomy:

• Cultivates ownership, responsibility, and pride across your team.
• Is an essential leader development tool.
• Increases leader and employee capacity, particularly improved time and space to get work done.

So, in today’s episode, we dive into what autonomy is, why it’s important, and four simple ways that you can begin injecting more autonomy into how your team works today. Specifically, we look at four types of autonomy: task, team, time, and technique.

We believe this episode will enable you to reframe and improve how you lead your people to create a more motivating, productive, and impactful place to work.

Thanks for joining us. Check out the episode today!

• Implementing a routine schedule, called a “battle rhythm.” 
• Article on developing owners, not renters. 
• The 70-20-10 Training and Development Model.
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink.

• #7 Tapping into the Power of Intrinsic Motivation (Part 1 of the Motivation Series). Introducing the concept of intrinsic motivation and its important impacts on your team and how people work.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review! It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, https://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. Learn more about the Community and join at https://www.patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast, where we champion intentional leaders to create significant impacts. Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! You can also watch it on YouTube. 

Why do you work? More importantly, why do your people work? Do you know what motivates them?

As leaders, we are called to inspire and help others align to our organization’s mission. We can’t do that if we don’t know what motivates them. So, we need to understand motivation and how to generate it in healthy and sustainable ways.

So, we are kicking off a 3-part series which explores some important things leaders need to understand about motivation. And we start by comparing extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is a source that generates commitment in others, rather than simply compliance. And it should be something leaders aim to cultivate. In today’s episode, we look at what intrinsic motivation, why it’s important, and a few strategies leaders can employ to begin building it with others.

Thanks for joining us.

• #2 The Power of Identity-Based Goals (vs. Outcome-Based Ones). Consider ways to apply goal setting to encourage intrinsic motivation (member ownership and commitment).
• #1 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, & Lead Better. Framework to help dig deeper in conversations to understand others better.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review! It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at Patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Welcome to a new episode of the 3x5 Leadership Podcast! You can listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

It’s estimated that we make over 35,000 decisions in a single day! As a leader, these decisions can have significant impacts for those you lead and serve. How do we ensure we are making effective decisions?

In this episode, we characterize the different ways we think about decisions, considering both the Naturalistic and the Rational Decision-making approaches. We introduce a decision-making framework for each that enables you as a leader to make more effective decisions. We discuss some of the additional practical questions you can ask, regardless of the decision context, to ensure you are making an effective decision for your team. Finally, we offer some practical strategies to help you and your team avoid decision fatigue, ensuring you can make the right decisions that will create significant impacts!

So, join us to learn a few practical strategies to become a better decision-maker.

• Podcast Episode #1: 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, & Lead Better. Making effective decisions for our team requires us to think broadly and deeply. This episode unpacks 3 powerful questions that enable us to think, communicate, and lead better.
• Article: 5 Steps to Cultivate Ownership in Others. As we consider how to develop others and cultivate their ownership, you may find it useful to delegate some decisions to them. Read more about cultivating ownership in this article!

• 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. Learn more about the Community and join at patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care friends, and lead well!

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!

Why is listening one of the simplest yet hardest skills for leaders to master? It turns out, it’s not just about hearing words; it’s about truly connecting. What if speaking less and listening more could transform not only your work but your personal relationships too?

In this episode, we dive deep into why listening is a game-changer for leadership. You’ll learn how actively listening can build stronger relationships with your team and make you a more effective leader.

First, we’ll discuss the vital importance of listening. Then, we’ll discuss some simple things you can do to show people you’re really listening to them, such as:

• Making eye contact and truly removing distractions
• Asking good questions and paraphrasing so they know you understood what was said
• Reading between the lines of their words–body language and tone

Amongst all the things you have to offer your team–your ideas, feedback, coaching, and plans–we believe that listening is one of the most powerful tools you can give them. And we believe this episode will help you understand how to incorporate active listening into your leadership style–and into your life–creating stronger, more connected relationships.

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

• #4 To Die at the Door
• #13 You Can't Pour from an Empty Cup
• #30 From “I’m Not Important” to “I’m Contributing to Something Important”

• 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. 
• Book, The Culture Code, by Daniel Coyle
• Book, Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
• Book, Herding Tigers, by Todd Henry
• Book, Leadership is Language, by L. David Marquet

• 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!  

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube. 

Sure, we know self-development is important. But who has the time? Between work, home, family, activities, and more – how do we find or make time to pour into our self-development?

In this episode, we explore 4 strategies to help you integrate development simply and consistently into your routine – or what we call your “battle rhythm.” These strategies will help you clarify the developmental activities that work best for you, add developmental benefits to events you already regularly do, and anchor new activities to existing events to make habit cuing easy.

Through these 4 strategies, we believe you’ll be equipped to activate your development more purposefully, routinely, and sustainably.

So, check out the episode today!

• Understand and build your battle rhythm

• #3 10 Habits to Make Your Reading More Impactful. A few simple ways to tap into the power of developmental reading.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review! It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at Patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube.

Servant leadership is a term that is used quite often. What does it actually look like to be a servant leader? How do we apply that to our work, our team, and in our own homes?

In this episode, we look to create a simple definition of servant leadership, and then discuss three practical actions we can embrace as we seek to embody being a servant leader. These actions all tie into the idea of us “dying at the door” so we can be present, engaged, and invested for those we have the privilege to lead.

So, join us to learn a few practical ways to be a servant leader.

• #2: Identity-Based Goals (vs. Outcome-Based Ones). Being a servant leader is an identity that we must adopt and integrate into our lives – this should spill over into our goals for ourselves and our teams!

• If you found this helpful, others might as well! Please like and review the 3x5 Leadership Podcast. It’s not only encouraging to us, but 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

Take care friends, and lead well!

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube. 

Leaders are readers. But how do we know what to read? What do we need to do to make our reading more developmental and impactful on our leadership?

In this episode, we explore 10 important habits to maximize the developmental impact of your reading. These simple behaviors activated everyday compound to create a powerful personal growth and learning strategy to ultimately make you a more informed, equipped, and inspired leader.

So, join us to learn a few ways to become a better reader and leader.

• Good Reads
• Check out the biggest library of audiobooks on Audible

• #1: 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, and Lead Better. This simple three-question framework can help you reflect on the books you read more intentionally and with a structured approach.
• #2: Identity-Based Goals (vs. Outcome-Based Ones). We should read to grow in support of our identities, so we need to become clear on those identities first.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review! It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube. 

Goals can guide us to create significant impacts where it matters most. But how do we successfully tap into the potential goals can offer? In today’s episode, Josh explores the importance of our identities and how they lead us to achieve deep, long-lasting change.

We discuss the three layers of change and then share three simple steps on how we can better connect our goals to our identities.

So, take a couple minutes and join us to discuss our goals, our identities (who we truly are), and the connection between them.

• Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, by James Clear
• SMART Goals

• #1: 3 Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, and Lead Better. This framework of three questions can help you better clarify your identities, your goals, and the connection between them.

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review. It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at Patreon.com/3x5leadership.

Take care, friends, and lead well.

Listen to the episode on Apple, Google, or Spotify! Or you can watch it on YouTube. 

Questions are powerful. They help us broaden our thinking, gain deeper insight, and create leadership space for others to fill. Today, in our first 3x5 Leadership Podcast episode, Josh shares three powerful questions that he uses to think, to communicate, and to lead better. And this framework – these three simple questions – are simple. It uses five total words:

• What?
• So what?
• Now what?

So, take a few minutes and join us to explore the power of these questions and how they can help you explore deeper insight, communicate more clearly, and develop others more effectively.

Discover More

• Give the 3x5 Leadership Podcast a like and a review. It’s a simple way to help others discover the show and know it’s worth their time.
• Learn more about 3x5 Leadership and all our great resources by visiting our website, 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. Learn more about the Community and join at com/3x5leadership.

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!

“Feedback” – we see and hear that word everywhere these days. But what actually constitutes feedback? And are you making the most of the feedback you give and receive?

In this episode, we dispel six common myths about feedback, and how you can start getting more out of your conversations, your own productivity, and that of your team.

We look at the who, what, where, when, and how of feedback, to include:

• Who owes you feedback?
• What does “good” feedback look like? (hint: all feedback is good)
• When is your job “done” when it comes to feedback?

We’ll give you the answers to these questions and actions you can take to start taking immediately to improve the feedback you give and be more receptive to the feedback you receive. We believe that by improving the feedback loop within your life and team, you’ll see tremendous personal growth and better team performance.

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

• #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to Be More Intentional with Your Words
• #22 How to Deal with Conflict
• #26 The 12 Things I Wish I Knew 12 Years Ago

• 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. 
• Book, Insight, by Tasha Eurich. 

• 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! 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!

Have you ever considered how the work of your team members affects their self-esteem and sense of value? If we help them through the progression from “I’m not important” to “I’m contributing to something important,” we can have a significant impact on how they feel about their work, and subsequently, their lives altogether.

This episode helps you see how you can enable others to make the shift of those you lead from feeling unimportant to feeling like they play a critical role in something important.

We break this progression down into simple steps with actions you can take now to lead this mindset shift, such as:

• Learn the story of your team members and show them that their story is important to you
• Show them where they fit into the bigger picture of your organization and mission
• Make sure everyone knows the organization’s purpose
• Model the energy and positive attitude you would want them all to feel

Considering many of us spend the most energized parts of our days at work, it is important to build a culture that gives people meaning, motivation, and even happiness. We hope this episode helps you see how you can get every person you lead to realize their importance to the greater good of your team, organization, and the world.

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

• #7 Tapping into the Power of Intrinsic Motivation (Part 1 of the Motivation Series)
• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #20 How to Get People to Care

• Book, Think Again, by Adam Grant

• 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! 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!

You gathered your team for a long-awaited skill-building session, backed by your past success stories. But the results fell flat, leaving everyone frustrated and feeling like it was a waste of time. What went wrong?

In this episode, we explore a better approach to leader development starting with the “what” and the “why” of this incredibly important aspect of your leadership and their growth.

Before you run off to plan your next team off-site or training session, consider these critical aspects of defining “what” and “why” first:

• Did you identify the skill, behavior, mindset, or capability you want to focus on?
• Can you clearly show the correlation to your team’s needs?
• Have you defined the purpose clearly for your team, so they know why this matters?

Leadership development opportunities are all too rare, so it’s exciting when we get to create and lead one for our team. This episode will help you maximize those moments, making a lasting impact on both you and your people.

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

• #5 Four Strategies to Schedule Your Self-Development Better
• #9 Two Tools to Improve Team Motivation (Part 3 of the Motivation Series)
• #12 Developing Junior Leaders

• Book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear

• 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! 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!

Leading often overwhelms us with competing responsibilities. What if the things that matter most could be distilled into mastering just two enduring responsibilities?

In this episode, we define and discuss those two things, which are: (1) doing routine things routinely and (2) continuously improving the organization.

To know whether you’re already doing these things effectively, or how to return to these core responsibilities, we explore things like:

• Establishing your team’s routines regarding time, tasks, and meetings
• How to approach changes, big and small
• Prioritizing the things that are needed most to establish and keep a strong foundation

We hope this episode brings perspective to the endless challenges and opportunities you face on a daily basis. By organizing your responsibilities into two core functions, we believe you’ll see more small wins and start reaching your big goals sooner and more effectively.

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

• #17 Stop Having Terrible Meetings
• #23 Incremental vs. Transformational Growth (Hint: We Need Both)
• #24 Six Common Failures We Make When Leading 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. 
• 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 and Spotify! 

Every great team has something unique they “always do,” things that become traditions and, eventually, rituals. In this episode we explore the power of rituals and a few simple ways we can establish meaningful ones with our teams.

Why establish rituals? Because rituals:

1. Signal value to the team
2. Create safety and belonging
3. Cultivate connection
4. Build engagement
5. Establish continuity, predictability, and resilience

You may recall rituals your family or friends had as a child, even if you didn’t call them “rituals.” In the same way that you remember those, your team will remember the rituals you establish with them now.

We hope this episode will inspire you to explore something new that purposefully promotes connection and adds meaning to their weeks, months, and years.

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

• #2 The Power of Identity-Based Goals (vs. Outcome-Based Ones)
• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year

• Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
• Competing in the New World of Work, by Keith Ferrazzi
• The Effective Manager, by Mark Horstman

• 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 and Spotify!

Entering leadership roles early in one’s career can be full of uncertainty. In this episode, we walk through 12 hard-earned lessons that I wish I’d known when I first became a leader.

Things like:

• Why there is no “right way,” only your way.
• How doing what your boss wants first actually creates freedom later.
• The importance of reflection.
• Why you’ve never “arrived,” because leadership is always a journey.

These are not academic theories, they are real, lived experiences distilled into actionable perspective. Whether you’re a new leader, aspiring to lead, or mentoring others, We hope you’ll find at least one lesson that shifts your view or strengthens your resolve as a leader.

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

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

• 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―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to fill 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!

When you look at your work calendar, where do you see “leader development”? And when your team sees it, what does it mean to them? If it’s a laid-back hour of lecture or forced group discussions, it might be time to reconsider.

In this episode, we’ll dive into the 70-20-10 model for development planning and show you why those lectures and discussions only cover about 10% of what a leader truly needs to grow and thrive.

The remaining 90%? It doesn’t require a ton of extra effort on your part as the leader developer. What it takes is intentionality and building relationships that reinforce the experiences your team is already having. These experiences might look like:

• Delegating an initiative to someone who’s not quite ready, then supporting and coaching them through the execution
• Assigning a new hire to a cross-functional project, helping them build connections across departments
• Letting a junior leader make a critical decision and backing them up—no matter the outcome

We believe that implementing this model won’t cost you much time or resources, and we’ll share actionable ideas to help you put it into practice right away. When you do, you’ll see your leader development results soar, as people gain the core experiences and insights that amplify the impact of your lectures and discussions.

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

• #18 How to Make Leader Development Easier

• #29 The Most Common Leader Development Mistake…and How to Fix It (Hint: Start with Why)

• #33 Three Ways Leaders Use Feedback to Create Developmental Experiences

• 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.
• Book by Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, The Career Architect Development Planner.
• The Center for Creative Leadership.
• The 70:20:10 Institute.

• 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. 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! 

Do you remember that time you failed miserably at a task or project, and your boss reacted in a way you didn’t expect? Or can you recall a conversation that transformed the trajectory of your career—and maybe even your life? 

In this episode, we explore these “moments” that memorable leaders create—moments that spark growth, foster belonging, and lead to many other positive outcomes. We’ll share personal stories of moments that could have ended in embarrassment—or worse—but instead, became opportunities for growth and impact. 

Why strive to become a memorable leader? Because, ultimately, it’s not about you. These moments do incredible things for others, like: 

• Fostering authenticity and creating a safe space for learning and growth 

• Leading by example, demonstrating the discipline and work ethic that elevate any team 

• Building resilience by helping others tackle hard challenges and learn from setbacks 

Our goal is to inspire you to reflect on the memorable moments others have created for you along the way and see how you can do that for others. Plus, we’ll give you practical ideas to implement these ten moments into your own routine and workplace so that you, too, can “pay it forward” and make a lasting impact. 

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

• #12 Developing Junior Leaders

• #25 What Happens When Leaders Act Like Coaches

• #34 Seeing Candor Differently: Turning Toward People’s Bids for Connection

• 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 today. 

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

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 the life-giving benefits of gratitude. So why, as leaders, is it so hard to consistently express it? What gets in the way—and why do we keep ignoring those barriers?

In this episode, we explore the real reasons leaders push their thank-yous to the bottom of the priority list. From feeling like there’s never enough time, to avoiding interactions that feel awkward or vulnerable, we unpack the truths behind why well-intentioned leaders frequently skip expressing gratitude.

Most importantly, we’ll show you why the benefits of gratitude far outweigh those subconscious concerns (or conscious rationalizations). Expressing gratitude:

• Boosts engagement, performance, and retention
• Reinforces the positive, creative, and dedicated behaviors you want to see more of
• Builds deeper connection by making your leadership more authentic and human

We hope this episode encourages you to reassess how consistently you show gratitude to your team. With small, intentional shifts that cost little-to-nothing, you can create meaningful improvements in your culture—and transform your workplace into one where people feel valued and energized.

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

• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year
• #31 Dispelling Six Myths About Feedback

Referenced research in the episode:

• Many employees feel underappreciated at work and would like a ‘thank you’ more often
• How to Express Gratitude at Work
• The Power of Gratitude and Recognition in Transforming Work Culture
• Gratitude Is a Leadership Strategy: The Science Behind Appreciation
• How to Show More Gratitude at Work: Giving Thanks Makes You a Better Leader

• 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.
• Check out 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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 spend a lot of time talking about leading others and leading well. But what about leading ourselves? What does that mean, and how can we do it well? Leading yourself means taking charge of the resources that only you can control, which are your time and attention. And to do that well means to effectively employ the management tools that also help teams of any size make meaningful progress.

This episode will give you three management tools to start taking control of your personal resources to make better use of your time, plan ahead instead of react to everything, and streamline your own execution.

We believe that these tools and methods are foundational to getting organized, staying organized, and spending your time and effort on things you really want to see move forward in your work and life. This episode will give you the resources you need to:

• Set up a recurring schedule that keeps you on task and on track to your big goals
• Keeps your priorities front-and-center, helping reduce distractions by the less important but seemingly urgent
• Get the necessary things done and make more room for strategic thinking and planning

We all have the same number of hours in a day, but the way we spend them can be wildly different. These self-management tools will help get you on track to become more effective in the things that mean the most to you, while maintaining the consistency and reliability that people around you depend upon.

• Reference example battle rhythms here

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

• #15 My Best New Management Practice for the Year
• #19 Delegate Better
• #40 Don’t Let Your Books Die on the Shelf: Building a Reflection System for Leaders

• 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 the Welcome page.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

Why are we so drawn to stories about dominant sports dynasties, elite military units, and wildly innovative organizations? It’s not just the wins—it's the cohesion we admire. We’re captivated by teams that overcome overwhelming odds, build record-breaking streaks, and turn bold ideas into reality. What we’re really admiring is how tightly aligned, committed, and connected they are.

Most of us, however, have served on teams that lacked that kind of cohesion—the kind that makes you dread showing up. Instead of energizing, those teams drain us.

In this episode, we’ll break down what sets cohesive teams apart from the ones that lack it, and what you can start doing today to build cohesion within your own team. You’ll get practical ways to start building it immediately, by doing things like:

• Aligning everyone behind a clear mission, shared goals, and agreed-upon methods
• Establishing social norms that resolve conflict productively
• Creating intentional opportunities to learn one another, grow together, and do hard things side-by-side

Cohesion can make or break a team in any industry. The way it’s built will look different in every environment, but the principles are universal. We’ll give you the concepts you need to identify how cohesion is (or isn’t) being built on your team and how to start shaping a team where your people are proud to show up.

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

• #17 Stop Having Terrible Meetings
• #27 Why Team Rituals Matter (and 5 Ways to Build Them for Your Team)
• #42 Stop Chasing Harmony: Why (and How) Leaders Lean into Conflict

• 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 the Welcome page.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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 recognize ownership when we see it—the employee who goes out of their way to meet a customer’s needs, the team member who steps up when a coworker faces a family emergency, or the workplace where everyone seems genuinely engaged. But what sets these individuals apart? More importantly, what are their organizations doing to foster that sense of ownership? 

In this episode, we’ll explore the foundational mindset of ownership—where it starts, how it develops, and how it drives exceptional performance. The interesting part? People don’t walk into a new workplace with ownership fully cultivated; we have to nurture it in them. 

The good news is that no matter where your team members start, you can help them develop an ownership mindset that will set your organization apart. We’ll share practical tools to begin building this mindset right away, such as: 

• Helping them understand the bigger picture by communicating the context of their work and the decisions behind it 

• Building trust in their abilities through training, certifying, and empowering 

• Giving them more authority and responsibility, enabling them to reach new levels of performance 

Ownership is one of those principles that’s obvious when it’s present—and painfully absent when it’s not. By taking small, intentional steps, you’ll raise your team’s “give a care” factor, leading to a major impact on both performance and culture. 

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

• #9 Two Tools to Improve Team Motivation (Part 3 of the Motivation Series)

• #20 How to Get People to Care

• #30 From “I’m Not Important” to “I’m Contributing to Something Important”

• 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. 

• Book by L. David Marquet, Turn the Ship Around! 

• Book by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra, CEO Excellence

• Book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

• 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―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

You’ve heard us say this across the 3x5 Leadership platform: No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Put into a single word, we’d call that kindness. But why focus on something that feels like a soft skill when you could be improving efficiency, refining management practices, or updating mission and vision statements?

Because most people don’t fully hear—or believe—what you have to offer unless they know it’s for their benefit. At our core, we all want to feel seen, valued, and heard, and our first instinct usually isn’t to wonder whether the person speaking to us feels the same way.

In this episode, we make the case for kindness by clarifying what kindness is—and what it is not—and by sharing simple ways you can show greater compassion toward the people on your team, including:

• Asking how someone is doing before asking them to do something
• Truly listening and remembering what matters to people
• Showing gratitude in small but meaningful ways

Kindness may not top your leadership development goals this year, but we believe it’s foundational to how we interact with others and to the meaning we all draw from the time we spend at work. When we bring more compassion into the workplace, we create a more meaningful impact—not just on performance, but on the lives and careers of the people around us.

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

• #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year
• #34 Seeing Candor Differently: Turning Toward People’s Bids for Connection
• #37 Leadership Worth Remembering: 10 Types of Moments the Leaders We Remember Create

• Interactional Justice, Work and Family Researchers Network
• Books by Adam Grant, Give and Take and Think Again
• Book by Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code
• Book by Kim Scott, Radical Candor

• 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 the Welcome page.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

Leadership or management—this is an age-old question of which to embody, develop, or prioritize within an organization. Leadership is often celebrated as the pinnacle: we talk about leading studies, leading scientists, and world leaders. No one ever talks about managing studies, managing scientists, or world managers.

But here’s the truth: management is vital to the success of every one of those “leading” organizations, efforts, and people. No leader can succeed without the systems and mechanics that make results possible. In this episode, we’ll show you why both leadership and management are essential to both your process and your outcomes.

We’ll break down the key components of each practice, clarify how they differ, and show how they work together so you can:

• Define purpose while establishing effective processes
• Determine direction while coordinating execution
• Motivate people while monitoring performance

Don’t rush past this conversation. Doing so risks overlooking gaps in your own leadership or management approach—both of which directly shape the results you see in your team and organization. While mastering both is a lifelong pursuit, this episode will help you take the first steps toward leading and managing well.

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

• #5 Four Strategies to Schedule Your Self-Development Better
• #15 My Best New Management Practice for the Year
• #28 Balancing Stability and Stretch: Lead Your Team’s Routine…Then Its Growth

• 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 the Welcome page.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

Growing up, many of us were required to write—for grades, for applications, or for self-expression. Maybe your five-paragraph essays were critiqued for weak transitions, or maybe you kept a diary that would make you cringe if anyone ever read it. Either way, looking back on all those written or typed words might make you question their value in shaping who you are or how you lead today.

This episode is an argument for those essays, journals, and diaries—just in a more updated and intentional form.

We believe communication is so critical to leadership that the practice of writing directly shapes what you say, how you say it, and how clearly you think—whether you’re talking to yourself, your team, or the world. In this episode, we’ll explain why writing matters so much and help you start (or restart) a writing habit with practical considerations like:

• Writing things down as soon as they happen or cross your mind, because clarity and insight fade quickly
• Getting clear on why you want to write and how it will make you a better leader
• Creating a simple process and structure that builds accountability and protects space for focus and reflection

You’re reading or listening to this episode because, at some point, reflection and writing became important to us. At 3x5 Leadership, we believe so strongly in its value that we wanted to share this framework with you—so you can develop yourself as both a communicator and a leader, even if the early stages of your writing feel a lot like that old childhood diary.

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

• #11 Words Matter: 10 Ways to Be More Intentional with Your Words
• #26 The 12 Things I Wish I Knew 12 Years Ago
• #40 Don’t Let Your Books Die on the Shelf: Building a Reflection System for Leaders

• 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 the Welcome page.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

When asked why we became leaders, many of us can point to someone who once inspired us to lead. What was it about that person that made you want to be like them? For most of us, it wasn’t their title or accomplishments—it was who they were and how they treated us.

In this episode, we introduce seven habits that intentional—and inspirational—leaders have the audacity to practice. We use the word audacity because these habits push against the status quo of productivity, efficiency, and comfort that our world naturally defaults to.

We believe these seven habits interrupt the quiet “drift” toward norms that keep leaders from becoming truly inspirational. We’ll share practical recommendations that highlight the importance of things like:

• Fully devoting your attention to the person who walks into your office, regardless of what you’re doing
• Coaching and intentionally expressing gratitude on a regular basis
• Protecting your team’s attention from being pulled in too many directions

This episode isn’t meant to convict you for moments when busyness has won your time and focus. Instead, it’s meant to reconnect you with why you became a leader in the first place—whether because you had a great leader or believed you could become one. We think you’ll walk away with ideas that help you become the reason someone else chooses to lead, too.

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

• #16 How to Lead with Gratitude This Year
• #25 What Happens When Leaders Act Like Coaches
• #37 Leadership Worth Remembering: 10 Types of Moments the Leaders We Remember Create

• 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.
• Introducing our Leadership University coming in a few months! 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

At 3x5 Leadership, we talk a lot about the importance of listening—and for good reason. Better listening leads to better leadership. But as leaders, we can’t spend our days simply listening without direction. People rely on us to lead them, guide meetings and conversations, and drive discussions toward clarity and problem-solving.

If you’re working on becoming a better listener, we commend you—there is always value in listening more and listening well. In this episode, however, we want to help you get even more out of what your team is already telling you by learning how to ask better questions, with the right intent behind them.

Knowing the right words to ask is one thing. Asking questions with the right intent is something entirely different. We’ll start by exploring why the motivation behind your questions matters just as much as the phrasing, and then we’ll share practical ways to apply this skill, including:

• Using appropriate timing—and intentional silence—when asking questions
• Asking more by saying less
• Offering verbal and non-verbal feedback that shows you’re truly hearing what’s being shared

This episode provides tools we believe you’ll use in every aspect of your work and life, and it complements everything we’ve already discussed about improving communication within your team. You’ll leave each day with a deeper understanding of your people—and they’ll leave feeling genuinely heard and understood.

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

• #1 Three Powerful Questions to Think, Communicate, & Lead Better
• #32 Listening Like a Leader
• #35 The Anti-Humility Trap: When Leaders Talk Too Much

• Book by Brendon Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto.

• 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.
• 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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!

If you work with people, conflict is unavoidable. If you haven’t experienced it—or think you’ve managed to avoid it—you may want to keep reading to understand what you’re missing… or avoiding. Conflict is challenging, uncomfortable, and often stressful, and depending on how we respond to it (or don’t), it can create even more problems for both leaders and teams.

If conflict could be predicted, prevented, or resolved on its own, we’d eliminate a significant source of stress in our workplaces. But when you understand the roots of conflict, the outcomes it can produce, and the opportunities it presents, you’ll begin to see why avoiding conflict often does more harm than good—and why leaning into it matters.

In this episode, we take a deeper look at why conflict arises no matter where we work, the implications of how it’s handled, and the common mistakes leaders make when trying to navigate it. We’ll help you think through questions like:

• Why do some people seem to be involved in more conflict than others?
• As a leader, how does my view and treatment of conflict shape team dynamics?
• How can I classify, clarify, and resolve conflict in a way that’s productive—without damaging trust?

Our hope is that this episode helps you recognize the opportunity embedded in every conflict—not just to resolve the issue at hand, but to establish a shared framework for how your team approaches conflict moving forward. This kind of shift doesn’t happen overnight, but with persistence, courage, and honest leadership, you can build a team that grows stronger—not weaker—each time conflict arises.

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

• #14 Ten Lessons in Developing Culture
• #22 How to Deal with Conflict
• #34 Seeing Candor Differently: Turning Toward People’s Bids for Connection

• 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.
• 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.

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

Welcome to the 3x5 leadership podcast―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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! 

The Eisenhower Matrix is a well-known tool for determining what needs our attention. But what do we do when we’re overwhelmed, unsure of where to start, and everything on our mental to-do list feels equally important? And how can we be sure that we’re prioritizing the right tasks when our bosses and organization may have their own expectations? 

In this episode, we’ll introduce you to three enduring priorities that will help guide your decision-making, work-related tasks, and even navigate conflicts. We all have limited capacity, and when it’s running low, it’s crucial to know what should come first—and what can wait for another time. 

Once we unpack these enduring priorities, we’ll share the benefits of using this approach, along with wisdom from our own experiences, such as: 

• How putting others' priorities first can give you leverage to accomplish what matters most to you 

• Why focusing on your own priorities first might make others feel that you’re ignoring their needs 

• How this method improves efficiency and effectiveness, ensuring you’re always moving forward in a meaningful way 

We believe this framework will bring clarity to your decisions as a leader and team member, allowing you to stay focused on what’s right and support your organization’s upward mobility. By applying this method consistently, you’ll build reliability and consistency—ultimately making space for you to do what is most important to you. 

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

• #10 How to Make Ethical Decisions

• #19 Delegate Better

• #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. 

• Find the 2x2 Eisenhower Matrix graphic here!
• Book by Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• Book by Todd Henry, Herding Tigers

• Books by Jim Collins, Good to Great and Built to Last

• 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―a show dedicated to making more intentional leaders regardless of role, rank, or responsibility because we believe that better leaders and build a better world. The reality is, however, that you cannot successfully and sustainably pour into others from an empty cup. So, how do you keep your cup full as a leader? This show aims to help by filling 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! 

A proactive leader isn’t just invested in the growth of their team—they’re also committed to their own personal development through continuous reading and learning. If you consider yourself a “lifelong learner,” you probably have a list of books you can easily recall and recommend, or at least keep written in a notebook somewhere. But here’s the question: how many of those books have truly had a profound impact on your leadership and life? 

In this episode, we’ll focus on the self-improvement you’re already pursuing through reading—and show you how to make that learning more impactful, memorable, and relevant across all areas of your leadership. 

We’ll introduce a system of five steps to help you get more out of your reading, learning, and reflection. This system is neither quick nor convenient, but it’s incredibly impactful and will deepen your appreciation for the lessons you’re learning. You may not read more books this way, but the quality of your retention and the attention you give to the content you consume will have a lasting effect, such as: 

• Building a portfolio that documents, consolidates, and synthesizes the ideas you gain through reading 

• Bringing together key insights from various sources, allowing bigger ideas to take root and grow in your life and leadership 

If you’re someone who collects books like trophies for your library, this system may not be for you. But if you’re ready to remember and truly be transformed by the books you choose to read, then this episode is the perfect place to start. 

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

• #13 You Can't Pour from an Empty Cup

• #15 My Best New Management Practice for the Year

• #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 today. 

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