The Leadership Project Podcast

Mick Spiers
  • 5.0 (19)
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  • Updated Weekly

The Leadership Project with Mick Spiers is a podcast dedicated to advancing thought on inspirational leadership in the modern world. We cover key issues and controversial topics that are needed to redefine inspirational leadership. How do young and aspiring leaders transition from individual contributors to inspirational leaders or from manager to leader to make a positive impact on the world? How do experienced leaders adapt their leadership styles and practices in a modern and digital world? How do address the lack of diversity in leadership in many organisations today? Guest speakers will be invited for confronting conversations in their areas of expertise with the view to provide leaders with all of the skills and tools they need to become inspirational leaders. The vision of The Leadership Project is to inspire all leaders to challenge the status quo. We empower modern leaders through knowledge and emotional intelligence to create meaningful impact Join us each week as we dive deep into key issues and controversial topics for inspirational leaders.

  1. 1d ago

    342. Hold the Vision, Loosen the Plan: Leadership in a Changing World with Jeanine Becker

    What if the most effective leadership move in a messy, fast-changing world is simply admitting, “I don’t know yet”? We sit down with executive coach and systems change practitioner Jeanine Becker to unpack emergence, complexity, and why certainty can quietly make leaders worse at the very problems they are trying to solve. We talk about the difference between having purpose and pretending you can predict the future. Purpose can stay steady as a North Star, while strategy becomes more agile, iterative, and experimental. Janine shares how leaders can use a simple question, “What is true now?”, to update decisions based on reality rather than old assumptions. We also dig into how metrics are signals, not answers, and why teams stay aligned when the purpose feels lived instead of repeated like a tagline. Then we get practical about the human side of change: why some people feel energized by uncertainty while others feel threatened, how to name what is known and frame what is open, and how to invite resistance with genuine curiosity. We draw a hard line between performative consultation and real co-creation, where leaders accept that what emerges may not match the answer they walked in with. Along the way we explore presence, listening, confirmation bias, and how leaders can create conditions for people to show up stronger over time. If you want better leadership tools for complex times, subscribe, share this with one person who will use it, and leave a review so more thoughtful leaders can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Jeanine: • Website: https://www.onpurposetogether.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckerjeanine/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    342. Hold the Vision, Loosen the Plan: Leadership in a Changing World with Jeanine Becker

  2. Sep 22

    341. Why Great Work Alone Isn’t Enough: Closing the Leadership Perception Gap with Uma Subramanian

    One of the biggest things standing between you and the leader you could become is not a skill gap, it’s a story gap. The story you repeat about yourself shapes what you attempt, how you show up, and what you decide is “just not you.” And at work, a second story is always running in parallel: the story other people believe about your value, your ceiling, and what they can trust you with. I’m joined by leadership coach and author Uma Subramanian, founder of The Limitless Leader and author of *The Sought After Leader*. Uma shares her personal path from a 20-year career at Microsoft to launching her coaching business, including the tough lessons that came with her first manager role. We dig into why leading people feels so different from doing the work yourself, how assumptions quietly damage trust, and why the platinum rule matters more than the golden rule if you want your team to thrive. We also get practical about growth. Uma breaks down her Bridge framework for limiting beliefs, showing how small actions create new evidence and help you rebuild confidence. Then we tackle the “perception gap” that keeps high performers overlooked and introduces her SOAR framework for closing it with integrity: strategic impact, communication and influence, authentic authority, and real relationships. If you’ve ever worried that sharing your wins feels like bragging, we reframe communicating value as service, so the right people can actually find and leverage your strengths. If this resonates, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a quick review so more leaders can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Uma: • Website: https://thelimitlessleaders.com/soughtafterleader • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uma-subramanian-limitless/ 📚 You can purchase Uma's book on Amazon: • The Sought-After Leader: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H7L9SSDZ/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    341. Why Great Work Alone Isn’t Enough: Closing the Leadership Perception Gap with Uma Subramanian

  3. Sep 15

    340. What You Don’t Know Runs the Show: The Power of Emotional Intelligence with Monique DeMonaco

    You’ve probably had this moment: something small happens, and your reaction feels bigger than the situation. That gap between “what happened” and “what I told myself it meant” is where so much leadership, stress, and conflict is born. We sit down with Coach Monique DeMonaco, founder of EQ Wize and an emotional intelligence and change expert, to unpack why awareness is the first step to any sustainable change and why fixing behavior alone rarely works. We get practical and personal, moving from childhood messages and limiting beliefs to the inner critic that talks to us in a voice we would never use on a friend. Monique breaks down the brain-based drivers that sit under so much human suffering: the belief of not being enough, fear of rejection, the need for connection, and the sense that what we want is not available to us. We also explore how memory and interpretation can shape present-day workplace culture, from tense feedback conversations to the way we read a manager’s tone. You’ll hear actionable tools you can use in real time, including Monique’s “delete delete” pattern interrupt to stop spiraling thoughts and replace them with something true or at least neutral. We also talk confirmation bias and the reticular activating system, the brain’s filter that decides what you notice, and why that matters for communication, empathy, and better decision-making. We close by connecting emotional intelligence to the modern hiring landscape, including the skills employers keep asking for: EQ, business etiquette, and critical thinking. If this sparked an insight, subscribe, share the episode with someone who would benefit, and leave a review so more people can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Monique: • Website: https://www.coachmonique.com/ https://eqwize.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moniquedemonaco/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecoachmonique/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    340. What You Don’t Know Runs the Show: The Power of Emotional Intelligence with Monique DeMonaco

  4. Sep 8

    339. Ask More, Tell Less: How Curiosity Creates Leadership Clarity with Dusty Holcomb

    Most leaders think they’re fixing a performance problem when they’re actually managing a clarity problem. Dusty Holcomb, CEO and founder of The Arcqus Group, joins me to break down a deceptively simple idea: remove ambiguity and performance follows. We get specific about what “clarity” really means in leadership and why it has nothing to do with barking orders or tightening control. We talk through one of the hardest career transitions, moving from the person who gets results to the person who creates the conditions for other people to get results. That includes letting go of the spotlight, hiring people who are better than you, and shifting from “how to do it” instructions to clear outcomes that give your team agency. Along the way, Dusty shares a practical lens that instantly changes how you communicate: your question to statement ratio. The higher you go, the more questions you should ask and the better you must get at listening. We also explore the hidden friction that comes from expectations trapped inside a leader’s head. Dusty explains how “rules of engagement” act like a decoder ring for your team: what you value, how you make decisions, how you prefer to communicate, how you give feedback, and what your non negotiables are. If you’ve ever felt frustrated that people “should just know,” this conversation gives you a better path, plus a simple two minute meeting prep framework you can use today. If you found this useful, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, share the episode with a leader who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Dusty: • Website: https://arcqusgroup.com/ https://rulesofengagement.com/en/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustyholcomb/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    339. Ask More, Tell Less: How Curiosity Creates Leadership Clarity with Dusty Holcomb

  5. Sep 1

    338. The Leadership Ecosystem: Creating the Conditions for People to Grow with Mick Spiers

    Most leadership advice assumes people are fixed and organizations are machines. We don’t buy that. People change, teams adapt, and every interaction leaves a trace, which is why we’re using a garden metaphor to tie together the biggest lessons from Antoniette Roze, Ron Friedman, and Frans Campher. When leadership is a living ecosystem, your job is not to “control the machine,” it’s to tend the conditions where trust, clarity, and good work can grow. We start with communication as planting: the difference between having an idea and helping someone receive it. If you’ve ever explained something “clearly” and still met confusion or resistance, the problem may be soil, not seed. We dig into generative listening, how people interpret messages through history and emotion, and how real co-creation happens when input can actually shape outcomes. Then we zoom out to team performance and team productivity. Individual optimization does not guarantee collective performance, especially when focus time becomes someone else’s bottleneck. We walk through what a high-performing team needs: shared goals people understand, role clarity that prevents waiting, and interdependence that matches how work really flows. Along the way, we bring in behavioral humility (with a nod to Robert Sapolsky) to replace snap character judgments with curiosity and smarter accountability. Finally, we go inward. Leadership masks, persona, authenticity, and shadow show up in the room whether we admit it or not. You’ll leave with five questions to use before your next important conversation and a simple one-week experiment to run in a single team or meeting. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    338. The Leadership Ecosystem: Creating the Conditions for People to Grow with Mick Spiers

  6. Aug 25

    337. Leading Without Losing Yourself: Authenticity in a Disruptive World with Frans Campher

    If you’ve ever felt pressure to “look like a leader” instead of actually leading, this conversation will land. I sit down with executive coach and author Frans Campher (Dynamic Leadership in a Disruptive World) to talk about the masks we inherit, the behaviors we copy, and the quiet cost of bending ourselves out of shape to fit an old leadership template. We get practical fast. Frans shares his head, heart, and gut framework for decision-making and why ignoring intuition and emotion can push smart people into the wrong roles for the wrong reasons. We also challenge the way we talk about imposter syndrome, reframing it as imposter thoughts and exploring how authenticity grows through small, deliberate experiments rather than big performative leaps. Along the way, we unpack what it really means to “be yourself” at work without using authenticity as an excuse to be unfiltered or careless. The deeper thread is identity. If you don’t know who you are, you’ll default to mimicry, technique, and performance. Frans lays out reflective practices like life story work, values inventories, and daily journaling to build self-awareness and a grounded leadership signature. We also talk about leading people dynamically as they evolve, meeting them fresh instead of relying on old mental files, and how presence and listening to understand can change the quality of trust in every conversation. Finally, Frans’ orchestra analogy makes the shift clear: leadership growth often means moving from expert to conductor, creating results through others. Subscribe for more conversations on authentic leadership, leadership development, executive coaching, and leading through disruption, and if this sparks an insight, share it and leave a review so more leaders can find it. 🌐 Connect with Frans: • Website: https://www.ildynamics.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franscampher/ 📚 You can purchase Frans' book on Amazon: • Dynamic Leadership in a Disruptive World: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1068365803/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    337. Leading Without Losing Yourself: Authenticity in a Disruptive World with Frans Campher

  7. Aug 18

    336. The Science of Super Teams: What High-Performing Teams Do Differently with Dr. Ron Friedman

    A team full of smart, capable people can still feel slow, stressed, and stuck and the reason usually isn’t effort. It’s the system. Dr. Ron Friedman, award-winning psychologist and author of Super Teams, joins me to challenge the way we think about high performance and to explain why “busy” often hides broken coordination, unclear roles, and incentives that pull people in different directions. We get practical about what separates elite teams from the rest, starting with the basics of a real team mindset: a shared goal everyone is pushing toward, clear roles that prevent turf wars and dropped balls, and true interdependence where we genuinely need each other to win. From there, Ron shares the three strengths super teams build: managing time, energy, and attention; making each other better through peer accountability and credit sharing; and continuously improving through feedback seeking, experiments, and innovation. We also tackle a modern workplace trap most leaders miss: individual productivity hacks can backfire at the team level. When one person batches email or disappears into deep work alone, they can become a bottleneck for everyone else. Ron explains how super teams fix this with collective focus blocks, meeting guidelines like “no decision, no meeting,” and trust behaviors rooted in competence, caring, and consistency. You’ll also hear a simple, future-focused approach to feedback that avoids defensiveness and actually improves performance. If you want a calmer, faster, more resilient team culture, hit subscribe, share this with a leader or teammate, and leave a review so more people can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Ron: • Website: https://superteamsinc.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronfriedmanphd/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronfriedmanphd/ 📚 You can purchase Ron's books on Amazon: • Superteams: https://www.amazon.com/dp/198218633X/ • The Best Place to Work: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399165592/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    336. The Science of Super Teams: What High-Performing Teams Do Differently with Dr. Ron Friedman

  8. Aug 11

    335. The Best Ideas Don’t Always Win: Why Clarity and Connection Matter with Antoinette Roze

    The clearest idea usually wins, even when it isn’t the smartest one and that reality quietly shapes careers, meetings, and entire strategies. I’m joined by Antoniette Roze, founder and CEO of WPC Speakers Global and host of the Speak Pact Podcast, to get practical about how leaders communicate complex ideas so people actually understand them, remember them, and act on them. We dig into why executive communication is not about delivering more information, but creating understanding. Antoniette shares how to design for “one micro transformation” so your audience leaves with a single meaningful insight and a clear next step, instead of 36 steps they’ll forget by lunch. We talk about speaking at a “fifth grade level” without dumbing anything down, how to reverse engineer a big project into base-camp actions, and why repeating the message and having people reflect it back can prevent costly misalignment. Then we go beyond presentations and into real-time leadership moments: brainstorming sessions, town halls, and high-stakes meetings where ideas compete. Antoniette explains why positioning comes before clarity, how connection is built through truly listening, and how leaders create buy-in by building on others’ ideas rather than broadcasting their own. We also unpack why brilliant experts sometimes stay hidden, how to create safe spaces for imperfect thinking, and how humility and visibility can coexist when you stay human and relatable. If you want better leadership communication, stronger stakeholder buy-in, and clearer public speaking skills, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more leaders can find the show. 🌐 Connect with Antoniette: • Website: https://www.speakerbooker.com/ https://speakpact.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/1antoniette/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1antoniette/ Send us Fan Mail Support the show ✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week! 📝 Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.   🔔 Join us in our mission at The Leadership Project and learn more about our organisation here:  https://linktr.ee/mickspiers 📕 You can purchase a copy of the Mick Spiers bestselling book "You're a Leader, Now What?" as an eBook or paperback at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZBKK8XV If you would like a signed copy, please reach out to sei@mickspiers.com and we can arrange it for you too. If you're thinking about starting a podcast or upgrading your hosting, Buzzsprout is a great option! This link will give both of us a $20 credit when you upgrade: 👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1701891 Create forms easily with Jotform! Sign up with my link: https://www.jotform.com/?referral=AkWimLxOBz Get extra Dropbox space—sign up with my link: Dropbox Referral Link Wise Referral link: https://wise.com/invite/dic/michaels11434 Strea...

    335. The Best Ideas Don’t Always Win: Why Clarity and Connection Matter with Antoinette Roze
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About

The Leadership Project with Mick Spiers is a podcast dedicated to advancing thought on inspirational leadership in the modern world. We cover key issues and controversial topics that are needed to redefine inspirational leadership. How do young and aspiring leaders transition from individual contributors to inspirational leaders or from manager to leader to make a positive impact on the world? How do experienced leaders adapt their leadership styles and practices in a modern and digital world? How do address the lack of diversity in leadership in many organisations today? Guest speakers will be invited for confronting conversations in their areas of expertise with the view to provide leaders with all of the skills and tools they need to become inspirational leaders. The vision of The Leadership Project is to inspire all leaders to challenge the status quo. We empower modern leaders through knowledge and emotional intelligence to create meaningful impact Join us each week as we dive deep into key issues and controversial topics for inspirational leaders.

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