Leaders Rising Podcast

Why change is still hard, with Manika Gupta of GE Aerospace

Leaders Rising Network — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Manika Gupta has led change at GE for a decade, through divestitures, a breakup, and a new way of running the business, and she still relearns how hard it is every week.

She joins Aaron Lee to talk about the early-career program that rotated her every four months, what she learned from hearing the same feedback from five people at once, and the plain problem statement GE Aerospace now starts with.

Show outline

02:09 - Inside GE's Corporate Audit Staff program
06:27 - What you do with the feedback
09:28 - How GE changed the way it changes
13:09 - Trust, simplicity, and brilliant at basics
14:55 - The lesson she wishes she'd learned sooner

Takeaways

Change is hard because habits are. Data and plans are the easy part, so design for the habit you need people to build.
Hearing the same feedback from several people turns it into perception. Gather input from peers, team, and stakeholders, with specific examples, before the conversation.
Pace matters. Daily feedback can overwhelm; the annual review should have no surprises. Aim between the two.
Name a problem in one line: the target, the actual, and the gap. Then find the few causes behind most of the gap. Once the problem is clear, the solving goes faster.
Go where the work is done. Leaders learn more on the shop floor than in the deck.
People are the gold mine. Keep building relationships and your network on purpose, every week.

Related reading

How GE CEO Larry Culp pulled off the turnaround of the century (Fortune)

Connect

From Leaders Rising

Intent versus experience: What 360 degree feedback can teach us

Leaders Rising Network — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:10:45 GMT

Everyone on your team already knows what it's like to work for you. So do your peers. You're the only one still guessing.

In this episode, we take on the gap between what a leader intends and what the team experiences. Most leaders have never had a mechanism for hearing the truth from their leaders, their peers, or their direct reports at the same time.

We dive into the stories of an operations leader whose 360 put an active listening score near the top of the scale next to a direct-report score at the very bottom, and the two next steps that turned that report into better meetings and a turnover metric that dropped.

Show outline

03:34 Why every leader has this gap
04:43 Intent versus experience
05:41 Where feedback systems fail
07:19 The operations leader and the listening score
09:30 One behavior that shows up clearly
12:05 The three question audit
13:59 The full mirror, and your next bold move

Takeaways

Your title edits your feedback. Once you start signing off on raises and shaping careers, people edit what they tell you. The quiet in your meetings is a filter, and it grows with every promotion you get.
You grade yourself on what you meant; your team grades you on what they heard. Self-perception is a broken instrument because it only measures intent, and the distance between intent and behavior is where trust erodes.
A blind spot is the place where your score and your team's score disagree, and you're the only one who hasn't seen it yet. In the story, listening was the leader's highest self-rating and the team's lowest score for the leader.
Data doesn't change your leadership; what you do with it does. Surveys that end in a committee, and 360s that end in a drawer, teach everyone that feedback isn't real.
Pick one behavior and make it observable: did other people talk first, and did their ideas survive contact with the boss's opinion?
Go first, say it out loud. When a leader names their own gap to the team before explaining it away, trust rises. Then build a small, boring, repeatable rhythm around it: the team scores the meeting, and the leader keeps the pledge.
Run the 3 question audit this week. Ask a supervisor, a peer, and a direct report, in-person: what should I keep doing, what should I stop doing, and what's one thing you've always wanted to tell me but haven't? Say thank you, write it down, and don't defend. The moment you explain yourself, the feedback ends.
The leader's line after the feedback: "I thought I knew myself pretty well, but I was the only one who didn't."

The LRN 360 is a structured, full-circle assessment: the people above, beside, and below you answer the same questions about how they experience your leadership, and the results open a conversation with a guide. See how the LRN 360 works.

Connect with the host

Aaron Lee on LinkedIn

More from Leaders Rising

All episodes of the Leaders Rising Podcast

Leadership Is a Learned Skill: The STEM Connect Trainers on Seattle, Sessions, and the Hallway

Leaders Rising Network — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:16:41 GMT

Every fall, the calendar fills with conferences. Most hand you a badge, a schedule, and a room full of strangers.

Ahead of STEM Connect 2026 in Seattle, Aaron Lee sits down with four of the trainers preparing to lead sessions there: Jim Lee, Hope Yin, Christine Lee, and Jeff Lovell.

What follows is an honest conversation about getting real value out of any professional event. Jim makes the case for a career pathway you can actually see. Hope talks about what changes when leading one team becomes leading an organization. Christine explains why knowing yourself comes before leading yourself. Jeff, the self-described resident introvert, says out loud what half the room is thinking: you don't have to be awesome all the time.

Show outline

00:16 Why this conference, year after year
03:46 One word for STEM Connect
10:22 Inside the sessions
16:40 Walking in and actually meeting people
21:12 The question that opens a real conversation
27:15 Beyond the sessions
31:38 Last words, and a local's guide to Seattle

Takeaways

Talented people leave when good work goes unrecognized. Jim Lee describes watching it happen around year five, and the pattern that follows: job hopping, then company hopping, in search of a pathway nobody drew for them.
Christine Lee: "leadership is not a personality trait, it's a learned skill." If it's learned, it can be taught, and the absence of it is a gap rather than a verdict.
The strength that earned the promotion can become the constraint. Jeff Lovell puts it plainly: keep solving the problems you were good at solving, and you become the bottleneck your team has to route around.
Networking is a muscle, and it's fine to say so out loud. Jim, who runs the conference, admits he trains for the late-night conversations and that it never gets easy, only easier. Naming the awkwardness is what breaks it.
Ask the easy question first. "Where did you travel from" and "what do you do at your company" are cliches because they work. Save "what do you think is your growth opportunity" for after trust exists.
Plan the unprogrammed hours. Dinner with a trainer on Wednesday, one or two people you commit to following up with, and one thing you'll do differently. Attending without a plan produces a stack of business cards nobody ever contacts.

STEM Connect 2026
Seattle, October 1 to 3. Conference details and registration. Leaders Rising Podcast listeners: use promo code PPLRN26 for 50% off.

Connect with our guests

From Rigid to Real: An Engineer's Decade-Long Lesson in Feedback and Leading People with Derek Stake

Leaders Rising Network — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:24:04 GMT

Derek Stake came up as an engineer, and for years he ran his teams the way he ran a production line: manage the variation, follow the process, and the outcome takes care of itself. It worked, until it didn't.

Becoming a father forced a patience with people that his engineering training never taught him, and a string of managers modeled a steadiness he wasn't ready to receive until years later.

In this conversation, Derek traces that shift: the year he realized the problems he kept running into were his own, the Navy SEAL advice about failed parachutes that reshaped how he opens hard conversations, and the discipline of choosing consistency over intensity when people are watching how their leader responds.

Derek walks through the LRN360 and how structured feedback turns feedback from something he dreaded into something he now seeks out.

Show outline

01:40 Balancing process and people
04:03 What a decade of fatherhood changed
06:31 The mentors who modeled what he wasn't ready to hear
10:24 The lesson from a failed parachute
14:08 Coaching discipline into a team
18:05 Rebuilding his relationship with feedback
21:43 What's next: balancing the individual and the whole

Takeaways

Process protects against variation, but only people supply the creativity and speed that make a process better. The job is protecting both at once, not choosing one.
The biggest shift in Derek's leadership didn't come from a course. It came from becoming a parent, which forced a patience with people his engineering training never taught him.
A reflexive reaction gets overridden by one deliberate move: breathe first, then decide. It's the same instruction given to a Navy SEAL whose parachute fails mid-jump.
Consistency, not intensity, is what a team actually trusts. People stop approaching a leader whose reaction they can't predict.
Feedback stopped being a threat once Derek let it sit before responding, instead of defending or explaining it away in the moment. His own LRN360 was the starting point.
Happiness comes from the climb, not the summit. Treating the milestone as the source of happiness gets the order backward.

Resources We Mentioned

Let's Connect

Derek Stake, VP of Operations and Engineering, The Cleveland Vibrator Company LinkedIn Company site
Take the LRN 360: leadersrisingnetwork.com/360

Below the Waterline: What Leaders Don't Know About Their People with Tim Dittloff

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:15:00 GMT

Most leaders know their team at the surface level. They know the roles, the deliverables, the performance trends. What they don't know is what's going on below the waterline in the lives and motivations of their people. And according to Tim [LAST NAME], not knowing is how organizations quietly run aground.

Tim is a USCG-licensed merchant mariner and leadership coach who uses sailing as both a metaphor and a hands-on experience for executive teams. He joined Aaron Lee to talk about what it takes to actually know the people you lead, and why the teams that can't talk to each other on the water are the same teams that can't talk to each other in the building.

The conversation moves from the Indian Ocean to Mongolia — and picks up a Harvard Business Review line along the way that is hard to shake: hurry and care can't coexist.

Key moments

0:17 — "Below the waterline": what leaders miss when they only coexist with their teams
2:32 — The Vestas Wind: how a professional race crew ran aground in the Indian Ocean with GPS on
4:10 — Zach Mercurio (HBR): "Hurry and care can't coexist"
6:31 — The best leader Tim ever worked for: a three-star general who knew his kids' names four times a year
7:30 — Merle Freytag and "lack of candor can kill"
10:32 — How a toxic race crew became the idea for a leadership business
13:40 — USCG Rule 5 on the water and in an architectural art firm's org chart
19:00 — 5 Voices in Mongolia: three languages, one shared framework, a nurturer who finally understood his role
23:10 — Every role on a sailboat matters — including the "rail meat"
24:00 — New addition: a karate dojo and why the basics are the whole game

About Tim Dittloff

Tim Dittloff is a USCG-licensed merchant mariner and leadership coach. He works with executive teams using sailing as a hands-on leadership experience, and partners with Leaders Rising Network on 5 Voices-based development. He shares leadership insights regularly on LinkedIn.

Resources

About the show

Leaders Rising is the podcast of Leaders Rising Network, a culture and leadership consultancy based in Glen Allen, VA. New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Training in 2026: Everyone Wants Growth, No One Has Time

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:15:00 GMT

You keep telling your team that development is the priority. You mean it. Then Monday hits. The meetings run long. The email pile grows. The project list shows up with the same work and fewer weeks. By Friday, development is still on the board. It just never got touched.

In this episode, Aaron sits down with Becky Rivest to work through Training Magazine's take on what 2026 looks like for people focused leaders. AI is moving faster than policy. Return to office is still a fight. A Gen Z quarter life crisis is pulling good people out early in their careers. And through all of it, leadership development keeps landing at number one on the priority list and last on the actual calendar. Becky names the real issue. It is not that leaders do not care. Every change requires a slow down, and almost nobody has permission to take one.

The fix is not another workshop. It is not a new platform. It is one honest conversation with one employee on your team. Ask them if they can see the line from their role to where the company is going. Start there. Everything else follows.

Show Outline

03:53 What overwhelm actually looks like in a leader's day
06:58 Return to office in 2026
09:06 HR, IT, and the AI conversation nobody is ready for
11:21 Upskilling and the Gen Z quarter life crisis
14:41 Where change fatigue really comes from
17:30 Why development stays stuck at number one
20:57 Rhythms over events and the five moments of need
25:13 One move leaders can make this week

Resources mentioned:

Training Magazine: What's in the Mix for 2026. https://trainingmag.com/whats-in-the-mix-for-2026/
WSJ: Sharpie brings US production back through upskilling. https://www.wsj.com/business/sharpie-us-production-cost-cutting-d9ba2abd
Bob Mosher: The Five Moments of Need framework

Visit the LRN Learning Center for full show notes at LeadersRisingNetwork.com

Building the System When You Don't Have a Roadmap

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Year one was slow. There were empty seats at the leadership table, a culture that needed rebuilding, and no clear map for how to get from where things were to where they needed to go. What came out of those years was not a perfect plan. It was a system, built gradually, through clarity about people, through honest assessment of gaps, and through a commitment to developing leaders on purpose rather than by accident.

In this episode, recorded live during the Rising book launch event, Aaron Lee shares the story of stepping into a leadership role with more problems than answers, and what it actually took to build something that worked. Tom Nebel follows with a look at the tensions that don't disappear even when your systems are healthy: leaders who never asked for the role they're now carrying, the balance between support and challenge, and what genuine accountability looks like when it comes from the top.

This episode closes out our three-part series from the Rising launch event, and it may be the most personal conversation of the three.

What you'll hear in this episode:

What it looks like to build a people system from scratch, without a roadmap
The growth pathway every leader travels, and how to develop people through it intentionally
Why organizations don't rise because of heroic leaders, they rise because of intentional systems
The tension between being supportive and being demanding, and why both matter
What honest humility looks like from the front of the room, and why it changes everything

Rising is a book for organizations that are growing but quietly losing clarity along the way. Written by Jeff Lovell and Aaron Lee of Leaders Rising Network, it makes the case that most growth problems are clarity problems, and that the path forward is building an intentional people system, not pushing harder.

Get a free copy of Rising.

Show Outline

6:24 - Building a System of Clarity and Infrastructure
8:50 - Developing Leaders and Overcoming Overwhelm
12:56 - World-Class Leadership and Organizational Success
14:28 - Tensions in Leadership and Organizational Health
19:07 - Balancing Support and Challenge in Leadership
24:27 - The Role of Intentional Systems in Leadership
25:02 - The Impact of Leadership on Organizational Success

Why New Technology Makes a Struggling Culture Worse

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMT

When something isn't working inside an organization, the instinct is to find a better tool. A new platform, a new system, a new application that promises better collaboration and faster execution. It's a reasonable instinct. And it almost always backfires.

Technology is an amplifier. It makes healthy organizations more efficient and struggling organizations more broken. The problem is never really the tool. The problem is the operating system you're installing it on.

In this episode, recorded live during the Rising book launch event, Steve walks through why technology implementations so often fail to solve the problems they were meant to fix, and what leaders need to examine before they implement anything new. He then introduces the organizational operating system that sits underneath every initiative, every tool, and every culture conversation: identity, goals, people, rhythms, and systems, all working together or quietly working against each other.

This episode is for leaders who have watched a promising implementation fall flat, or who suspect that the real issue in their organization runs deeper than any tool can reach.

What you'll hear in this episode:

Why technology amplifies organizational health, and organizational dysfunction, in equal measure
The difference between solving a people problem and masking it with a process solution
What an organizational operating system actually looks like and what happens when it's misaligned
Why clarity doesn't begin at the organizational level, it begins with the individual leader
How identity, goals, people, rhythms, and systems either reinforce each other or undermine each other

Get a free copy of Rising.

Why Culture Drifts (And What Leaders Can't See When It Does)

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Most leaders don't think their culture is broken. They're too close to it. What they notice instead is that meetings feel heavier, decisions take longer, and the same energy they keep pouring in isn't producing the same results. That's not a culture collapse. That's a culture drift. And it almost always starts in the gap between what leaders intend and what their teams actually experience.

In this episode, recorded live during the Rising book launch event, Jeff Lovell opens with a diagnostic that most leaders will recognize immediately: pressure doesn't create culture, it reveals it. Becky Rivest follows with a look at how clarity shapes communication, especially in the moments that matter most. And Mike closes with one of the more honest leadership stories you will hear, about a season when good intentions, hard work, and urgency combined to make everything worse.

This conversation is for leaders who carry real weight for their organizations and are starting to sense that something is drifting, even if they can't quite name it yet.

What you'll hear in this episode:

Why culture drifts under pressure and what it's actually revealing when it does
The gap between what leaders intend and what their teams experience, and why it widens with authority
How blind spots compound the higher you rise
Why communication is the outward expression of leadership clarity
What happens when a leader confuses urgency with wisdom

Get a free copy of Rising.

Show Outline

0:52 - Why We Wrote Rising
2:32 - The Weight Leaders Carry
4:10 - Culture Doesn't Break, It Drifts
5:00 - What Pressure Actually Reveals
7:30 - The Gap Between Intent and Experience
10:00 - Leaders Judge Culture by Intentions, Teams Judge by Experience
12:45 - What You Permit, You Promote
15:00 - The One Question That Stabilizes Leadership
17:45 - Communication as the Outward Expression of Leadership
18:21 - The Cost of Drama at Work
19:02 - Finally, Someone Who Will Tell the Truth
22:12 - Mike's Story: When Hard Work Made Things Worse
26:09 - The Cost of Urgency Without Clarity
27:23 - Effort Is a Tool, Not a Solution

From Compliance to Culture: How a Bank Transformed Its Leadership DNA

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:03:20 GMT

Culture change in a regulated industry isn't just hard — it’s rare. But at National Exchange Bank & Trust, it’s happening from the inside out. In this episode, Tami Christian and Tammy Pitts share how a conservative, compliance-first environment evolved into a people-first culture built on trust, voice, and vulnerability.

With the help of Dr. Tom Nebel from Leaders Rising Network, they began embedding tools like the 5 Voices, Support Challenge Matrix, and intentional leadership rhythms across 30+ branches and all levels of leadership. From the early discomfort of self-preservation to the breakthrough of shared language, this episode explores what it takes to lead culture change that actually sticks — and scales.

Listeners will discover how NEBAT used employee engagement surveys, voice training, and 1:1 development rhythms to unify their teams, sharpen their managers, and shift their entire culture toward relational, liberating leadership. It’s a blueprint for any organization that wants to move from compliance to connection — and build a leadership culture that lasts.

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Resources Mentioned

Five Voices Assessment
Identify your foundational leadership voice and begin the self-awareness journey
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]
Support Challenge Matrix Tool
Visualize how you show up with your team and how to calibrate for liberation
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]
Intentional Multiplication Framework
Move beyond training space to develop sustainable leadership culture
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]

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Key Quotes

“I fell in love with the language very quickly. And I’ve seen a lot of tools over the years.”

— Tammy Pitts (03:21)

“You could feel the room shift. Vulnerability created a trust breakthrough.”

— Dr. Tom Nebel (11:03)

“We went from training events to a full culture embed. And that changed everything.”

— Tami Christian (18:14)

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Show Outline + Timestamps

00:00 – Why engagement is critical in modern banking
00:45 – What NEBAT’s culture looked like before transformation
03:21 – A fresh HR perspective and falling in love with the 5 Voices
05:29 – Tom’s surprise at the bank’s dominant nurturer profile
08:04 – How voice diversity (and friction) built trust across the team
11:03 – Vulnerability that unlocked organizational trust
15:13 – How every new hire gets onboarded into the culture
16:55 – Using engagement surveys + tools to measure real growth
18:14 – Programmatic rollout: from training space to embedded rhythms
21:15 – Measuring engagement as more than satisfaction
24:30 – Getting beyond compliance into true relational engagement
27:51 – What it looks like to lead when trust is on the line

Transformation Over Transaction: Why One-Off Leadership Training Doesn't Work

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:01:23 GMT

Leadership retreats can inspire. Conferences can inform. But if your culture doesn’t transform, what are you really building?

In this episode, Aaron Lee and Jeff unpack a common leadership trap — relying on once-a-year inspirational events to carry a culture forward — and show why real transformation requires more than binders and buzzwords. From decades of firsthand experience with leadership conferences, Jeff shares the turning point that changed everything: when someone challenged him to climb a different kind of mountain — one of internal, lasting transformation.

From Jeff’s “no” to a C-suite retreat invitation to a framework that helps leaders shift from hero mode to developer mode, this episode invites you to stop asking, “What content should we bring in?” and start asking, “What culture are we building?”

If you’re holding too much, developing too little, or stuck in the cycle of information without impact, this episode gives you language, a framework, and one bold move you can take this month. Let’s find practical insights in real-time without needing to find extra time on your calendar.

Resources Mentioned

Time Audit + 4Ds Exercise (Do, Delegate, Develop, Drop)

Map how you spend time and reclaim energy through intentional delegation
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]

Intentional Multiplication Tool (Training vs. Transformation)

Understand the process of moving from reactive delegation to strategic development
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]

Leadership Culture Roadmap

Visualize a shift from one-off events to sustainable leadership rhythms
➝ [Insert Link Placeholder]

Key Quotes

“The heroic thing to do in any organization is to lift others up with you.”

— Jeff (30:58)

“Transformation doesn’t mean we throw out the old. It means we repurpose what we’re already doing with greater intention.”

— Aaron (21:59)

“Don’t drop the mic. Hand it over. Support them before the moment, and step back during it.”

— Jeff (31:44)

Show Outline + Timestamps

00:00 – Setting the tone and reflecting on failed retreats
05:11 – Why most annual leadership events don’t stick
07:57 – The hidden weight leaders carry (and why it’s often unspoken)
10:13 – What we’re actually solving: task handoffs vs. true team development
13:58 – Sustainable rhythms over single-day events
15:05 – Client story: shifting from retreat request to long-term roadmap
18:52 – Why we said “no” to the retreat and what we offered instead
20:45 – From information to transformation: what it really looks like
23:05 – 4Ds Time Audit: Doing, Delegating, Developing, Dropping
27:43 – Where leaders get stuck: hero mode, reactive delegation, and false urgency
31:44 – Bold step: hand over the mic and support someone else to lead

The HR Shift: Why Your Employee Handbook Won’t Fix Culture with Natalie Goulding

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:02:22 GMT

Most leaders still see HR as compliance. But what if it's actually the engine for people alignment, trust, and culture?

In this episode, Natalie Goulding joins Aaron Lee for a conversation that exposes the hidden gaps between leadership, HR, and company culture and how to close them. Drawing on real client stories and lived experience, Natalie challenges the idea that a policy, a ping pong table, or a once-a-year performance review can fix your engagement or turnover issues.

They unpack what’s broken in the way most companies approach HR, and what to build instead.

If your people systems haven’t evolved alongside your business strategy, this episode will give you fresh language, diagnostic questions, and one bold move to realign your team for the future of work.

Resources Mentioned

HR Pulse Check PDF

A quick diagnostic for leadership teams to assess the health and clarity of their people systems.

➝ [Download PDF]

Book: Love as a Business Strategy by Mohammad Anwar (SoftWay)

A real-world case study of culture transformation through trust, humility, and people-first leadership.

➝ [Get the Book!]

Key Quotes

“Most companies say they want to fix turnover, but they don’t want to hear the real reason why it’s happening.”

“Your employee handbook might be compliance-driven, but it reflects your operating system — whether you mean it to or not.”

“If you're still using a system designed for the business you were five years ago, you're probably losing great people today.”

Episode Outline

00:00 – Welcome + a reflection on Rishikesh, wellness, and first gear
01:52 – HR isn't about people problems — it’s about alignment
03:36 – The real turnover problem: most companies don’t know why
04:44 – The cost of “doing nothing” with employee feedback
05:38 – Glassdoor, perception, and why perfection isn’t the goal
07:30 – What most companies get wrong about performance management
10:38 – The problem with outdated review cycles and check-the-box culture
13:59 – Where HR conversations usually begin: handbooks, audits, and policies
15:52 – From handbooks to behavior: why policy won’t fix accountability
17:47 – The rise of values-driven employee handbooks
18:19 – Authenticity, engagement, and showing up without the mask
21:40 – Psychological safety and letting people bring their full voice
23:20 – Repackaging broken systems: SoftWay’s story
25:02 – Where leaders get stuck: building people systems for who they were, not who they’re becoming
25:48 – One bold step: Start with clarity — what are your people actually doing?

Why 89% of Leadership Development Fails (And What to Do Instead)

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:00:30 GMT

Only 11% of executives are happy with their leadership development.

That stat caught us off guard—and energized us. Why? Because it validates what we’re hearing inside real companies every week.

In this episode, Becky Rivest, Jeff Lovell, Mike Pumphrey, and Aaron Lee unpack a recent Training Magazine article on leadership development in the age of AI.

What begins as a data dive quickly becomes a deeply strategic conversation about what’s actually working—and what’s not—when it comes to building leaders at scale.

Key Quotes

"Leadership development takes more than belief. It takes a plan." — Becky Rivest
"AI is an amplifier. It makes clarity clearer—and chaos more chaotic." — Jeff Lovell
"Innovation and engagement are rising—but they can't be addressed with information alone." — Mike Pumphrey

Show Outline

0:00 Summer signs and sunscreen: team check-in
2:00 The article that sparked this episode
3:30 Why intention without a plan is still failure
5:00 The 11% effectiveness stat (and why it matters)
8:00 Root causes: time, complexity, and missed investment
11:00 Innovation vs. engagement: a growing gap
13:30 Where development efforts leak impact
17:00 A client story: high touch > high tech
20:00 Culture, trust, and change management
24:00 A map for leadership development
25:00 Final takeaway: Don’t run another workshop

Resources We Mentioned

Training Magazine: AI's Evolving Role in Developing Leaders

From Informing to Transforming: Inside a Leadership Development Experience That Actually Works

Leaders Rising Network — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 09:01:17 GMT

What makes leadership development actually stick? In this episode, we unpack the full lifecycle of Bespoke—a structured leadership program that moves leaders from unconscious habits to empowered, scalable leadership.

Joined by Astrid Benedetto and Jim Lee, we explore how combining 5 Voices, data partnerships, and a rhythm of training, coaching, and apprenticeship transforms individuals and drives ROI.

Key Quotes:

"You can't do this alone. You need the right partner with the right data." — Astrid
"Most leadership development stops at informing. That's not enough to transform anyone." — Jim

Show Outline:

4:00 - Astrid's motivation to join the Bespoke program
5:40 - Cultural insights and 5 Voices awareness
9:30 - Jim's vision behind designing the program
13:30 - Subjective vs. objective leadership blind spots
17:30 - Proving ROI through data partnerships
21:00 - The Intentional Multiplication Model: Inform, Train, Coach, Apprentice
36:40 - What a month looks like inside Bespoke
43:40 - Why most internal programs fall short
45:00 - Where leaders get stuck & how to move forward
48:30 - One bold move for leaders today

From Teacher to Culture Builder: How Humility Fueled Becky Rivest’s Leadership Journey

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:00:26 GMT

Becky Rivest didn’t set out to become a leadership coach. But her journey from public school classrooms to corporate training floors—and now to LRN—shows what happens when learning and humility drive everything.

In this personal and thoughtful episode, Aaron Lee sits down with Becky to explore the twists and turns of her leadership development story. From standing in front of her first class of students to helping corporate teams transform from the inside out, Becky shares insights that resonate with every leader navigating change and growth.

You’ll hear how unexpected shifts, great mentors, and bold humility paved the way for a career that’s still evolving—and making an impact. Whether you're just stepping into leadership or helping others rise, Becky’s story will help you reflect on your own path.

Connect with Becky

LinkedIn @BeckyRivest

Key Quotes

“Nobody ever asked me what kind of leader I wanted to be in that classroom.”
“There’s another way to teach—and for me, it wasn’t in a school.”
“Humility is what lets us learn, grow, and lead with love.”

Show Outline

0:00 What Becky’s learning outside of work this summer
2:36 First leadership memory: from student to student teacher
5:00 Feedback, fatigue, and finding her footing in the classroom
7:54 Why she walked away from teaching—and what came next
10:22 Discovering a different kind of teaching inside a contact center
12:54 The leaders who shaped her: accountability + humanity
18:03 Joining LRN: finding a team aligned with her purpose
21:03 Becky’s go-to advice for leaders (hint: it’s not a skill)
25:28 Humility as a leadership superpower
26:06 Go-to books, music, and life beyond 9 to 5

The Leadership Manifesto: 6 Shifts to Build a Culture That Grows With You

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 09:00:23 GMT

Welcome to the Leadership Manifesto, a practical, people-first framework for leadership development inside growing organizations. In this episode, we unpack six truths that help companies move from accidental growth to intentional culture, from individual burnout to scalable systems.

From the myth of hustle culture to real stories of transformation, this episode will resonate with founders, executives, and people leaders who are tired of duct-tape leadership and ready to build something sustainable.

Key Quotes

“If success depends on a few exhausted leaders, you're one burnout away from a breakdown.” (00:00)
“Hope is not a leadership pipeline. You need a system.” (18:28)
“Training is a spark, but systems are what sustain leadership.” (16:00)
“You don’t hire culture. You build it — every day.” (21:35)

Show Outline & Timestamps

00:38 – 3rd Gear: Why small talk matters for building strong teams
01:42 – Summer rhythms, family life, and the 100-day work reset
05:17 – Why every organization needs to understand its natural rhythms
06:40 – Intentional planning: A client story of coordinating around capacity
08:29 – Whole-person leadership and why compartmentalization doesn’t work
09:47 – What is the Leadership Manifesto — and why do we need it now?
11:34 – The tension between systems and people, and how both must be present
13:49 – Founder handoff challenges and caring for the whole executive
14:58 – Climbing down the mountain: how to develop others intentionally
15:56 – Truth #1: Training doesn’t build leaders. Systems do.
18:28 – Truth #2: Hope isn’t a pipeline. Strategy is.
21:35 – Truth #3: You don’t hire culture. You build it every day.
24:14 – Truth #4: Heroic effort is not a sustainable growth plan
26:47 – Truth #5: Your business won’t grow faster than your people
30:11 – Truth #6: Information doesn’t create transformation. Execution does.
32:46 – Client story: The bottlenecked CEO and the power of systems
36:53 – Why this work matters: from leadership tools to kayaking with your kids
38:01 – If this feels overwhelming, you’re not behind — you’re just early
39:06 – Bold step: Build one system. Start with one meeting, one rhythm.

Mentioned on the show:

Dr. Laurie Bassi's Research + Investment Advisory Firm: outperformed the S&P 500 by 40% [BusinessTraining.com]
Episode 1: Why Your Leadership Retreat Isn't Working
The LRN Learning Center

Culture Isn’t the Problem—It’s the Solution: How Micro-Moments Shape Performance with Jeff Lovell

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 09:00:23 GMT

"Culture is revealed when behavior collides with values." — Jeff Lovell (07:53)

In this summer-session episode of the Leaders Rising Podcast, Jeff Lovell and Aaron Lee pull back the curtain on a timely truth for growth-stage organizations: Culture isn’t the enemy of performance—it’s the pathway. With candid reflections from their own compressed schedules and real client stories, Jeff and Aaron dig into the friction leaders feel when aspirations don’t match behavior.

Whether you’ve got posters on the wall or ping-pong tables in the office, this conversation reframes culture from a vibe to a diagnostic. You’ll hear how performance stress, feedback gaps, and people-first leadership all intersect—and how micro-decisions are shaping your workplace more than your strategy slides.

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Take the Culture Pulse Assessment

6 minutes. 8 questions. Find out what's really going on.

Take the Culture Pulse Assessment and get a clear picture on where your team is headed.

Link in the show notes @ LeadersRisingNetwork.com/podcast

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Key Quotes

“Culture doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be practiced.” – Jeff Lovell
“We all footnote our values. The leadership moment is deciding whether we’ll own it.” – Aaron Lee
“Ask your team: Where is our culture not showing up the way we say it does?” – Jeff Lovell

Show Outline

00:00 Summer tensions and the leadership pulse check
03:27 The culture problem myth: What we miss when we blame culture
05:39 Culture as what we do, not what we say
07:53 Behavior vs. values: Where real culture is revealed
11:08 Feedback, reviews, and owning the story
14:25 Client example: Execution wins, culture slips
17:00 Human capital is not a machine
21:30 Whole people, whole week: Building space for humanity
24:35 A practical reflection tool for cultural gaps
28:08 Bold step: Ask where your culture isn’t showing up
29:35 Invitation for follow-up and free culture conversations

Leadership that Heals and Multiples: Meeting LRN Founder Dr. Tom Nebel

Leaders Rising Network — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:04:20 GMT

What if the boldest leadership move you could make wasn’t about vision or execution, but self-awareness? In this powerful episode of the Leaders Rising Podcast, listeners are invited into a candid conversation about leadership transformation that begins not with image, but with truth.

Dr. Tom Nebel, founding partner and executive chairman of Leaders Rising Network, shares the raw and redemptive story of his leadership journey. From early signs of defiance as a child to pioneering faith communities and coaching leaders around the world, Tom’s path has been marked by bold starts, painful pivots, and deep personal work. Through it all, a single theme stands out: leaders grow when they choose to liberate others, not control them.

Listeners will walk away with a deeper understanding of what it means to build liberating cultures, how visual tools like the Support Challenge Matrix and 5 Gears can transform relationships, and why your scars often tell a more powerful story than your success. Whether you're leading a team, a company, or yourself, this episode offers both challenge and clarity for the road ahead.

Resources Mentioned on the Show

[download the Scatterplot exercise]

Key Quotes

“Your scars will tell better stories than your trophies.”

— Dr. Tom Nebel (26:33)

“Liberation happens when someone brings support and challenge. And you know they’re for you.”

— Dr. Tom Nebel (23:00)

“We didn’t just fix the relationship. The tools gave us a way to finally have one.”

— Dr. Tom Nebel (32:40)

Show Outline + Timestamps

00:00 – Setting the tone and revisiting early podcast attempts
01:47 – Childhood defiance and the first signs of leadership potential
05:02 – Entrepreneurial roots and lessons from a legacy of builders
08:21 – Leading from conviction in college as an outlier
12:59 – The moment Tom chose to start something from scratch
18:29 – Crisis, transition, and redefining purpose after personal loss
20:29 – What it really means to be a liberator using the Support Challenge Matrix
27:41 – How the 5 Gears tool changed Tom’s relationship with his adult son
34:16 – Founding Leaders Rising Network and designing environments for others to thrive
47:00 – One bold step for leaders: use the scatterplot to see how others experience your leadership