Truly Human Leadership

Barry-Wehmiller
  • 4.5 (36)
  • MANAGEMENT
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One of the most fundamental of human needs is to know that who we are and what we do matter. As leaders in business, we have the unique opportunity to let our team members know that they do. And when they feel valued and cared for at work, they return home and enjoy better relationships with their loved ones, friends, neighbors and others. This world needs Truly Human Leadership. On this podcast, you'll hear about what it means to be conscious leaders and have a conscious business. You'll hear from voices of inspirational leadership like Simon Sinek, Amy Cuddy, Raj Sisodia of Conscious Capitalism and many more. You'll also hear stories and insights learned through Barry-Wehmiller and it's CEO Bob Chapman's transformation to traditional business management to Truly Human Leadership.

  1. 1D AGO

    Remembering Bob Chapman pt.1

    On this episode, we remember BW Chairman Bob Chapman, who passed away on March 19, 2026. Bob Chapman was more than a business leader, author and speaker, he was a relentless optimist who dedicated his life to building a better world. He worked to redefine what it meant to be a leader in business, to further the understanding that it was an awesome responsibility because the way we lead impacts the way people live. He worked tirelessly to bring more caring to business and built the foundation for Barry-Wehmiller to champion new definitions for success in business: by demonstrating that economic growth and human vibrancy can exist in harmony. Bob became CEO of a struggling Barry-Wehmiller in 1975 upon the death of his father, William Chapman. At the time, the company was a $20 million supplier of equipment for the brewing industry. As of 2025, when Bob handed the reigns of the business to his son Kyle, the current President and CEO, Barry-Wehmiller had become a $3.6 billion-plus global powerhouse with 12,000 team members and a portfolio spanning industrial and packaging automation, professional services, and life sciences technology. Beyond his business acumen, in the late 1990s into the 2000s, Bob underwent a personal transformation that changed his thinking from that of traditional "management" to what would later be called Truly Human Leadership.  He then spent the last 15 years of his life sharing the lessons of his transformation by writing prolifically and speaking to audiences around the world.  Although there's no way we could encapsulate the whole of Bob and what he has meant to so many, on this episode, we want to try to pay tribute to Bob through a clips of a number of interviews we've featured with Bob over the duration of the podcast. Clips that we selected that not only pay tribute to his ideas and insight, but that hopefully showcase the person he was.

    42 min

  2. MAR 11

    The Gund Company, a Truly Human Leadership Case Study

    For more than 75 years, The Gund Company has grown into one of the largest manufacturers and fabricators of composite materials, thermoplastic materials, and elastomeric materials. They have 12 manufacturing locations in five countries and have seen a tremendous amount of growth in the past few years. Like Barry-Wehmiller, the Gund Company is based in St. Louis and also like Barry-Wehmiller, they are a family business. On this podcast, we're featuring the Gund Company as Truly Human Leadership Case Study. A few weeks ago, Steve Gund, CEO of the Gund Company gave a presentation at Washington University here in St. Louis to students in their business school. Steve was joined by Brian Wellinghoff, Barry-Wehmiller's Director of Outreach, who you've heard several times before on this show. Steve talked about the Gund company's leadership journey and the part Barry-Wehmiller played in helping them along the road to becoming a Truly Human company. Brian provides some additional context from Barry-Wehmiller's own story. We hope you're inspired by this story that shows how human and economic vibrancy can exist in harmony and how business can be a force for good.

    47 min

  3. MAR 5

    Bonus Episode: Raj Sisodia and Nilima Bhat on Shakti Leadership

    Our last episode featured an interview with Raj Sisodia and Nilima Bhat on their new book, Healing Leaders: 7 Steps to Recovery of Self. In that discussion, we talk about their previous book collaboration, Shakti Leadership: Embracing Feminine and Masculine Power in Business.  To compliment the discussion of Healing Leaders, we're going to re-release a podcast episode from 2016 where Raj and Nilima talk about Shakti Leadership in more depth.  Raj once said, "Vulnerability is not a liability, it's an ability. He was speaking about the benefits of bringing both the masculine and feminine sides of our psyche that exists inside every one of us to our leadership every day. Moving from leadership that is about acquiring power to leadership that nurtures and inspires people. We at Barry-Wehmiller have long believed that there's room for emotion and caring in business. And that's why these two conversations with our friends Raj and Nilima are important insights into how leaders can bring those attributes into their stewardship of those within their span of care.

    21 min

  4. FEB 19

    Healing Leaders w/ Raj Sisodia and Nilima Bhat

    Raj Sisodia is the co-founder of Conscious Capitalism and, with BW Chairman Bob Chapman, the co-writer of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. Raj is a frequent guest on this podcast. For one, he's a very insightful friend and secondly, he's a prolific writer. Raj has co-authored a new book, Healing Leaders: 7 Steps to Recovery of Self with his friend and fellow conscious leader, Nilima Bhat. Nilima is a pioneer in integrating Indian wisdom traditions with modern leadership practice, she has trained leaders at organizations such as Microsoft, Etsy, and Tata. Nilima and Raj previously co-authored the book Shakti Leadership, which took a transformative look at the notion of power and business and how leaders can balance all of their inherent traits to lead with their whole self. As you'll hear on this podcast, Healing Leaders continues that journey. But it isn't just another leadership book—it's a spiritual and emotional roadmap for reclaiming your humanity in a world that asks you to perform, produce, and pretend. You can find out more about the book and get your copy at rajsisodia.com.

    41 min

  5. FEB 4

    The Powerful Impact of Listening

    Barry-Wehmiller Chairman Bob Chapman has said this about the importance of listening: Time and again, I've written that listening is the most important thing a leader can do. But it transcends the leader role. Listening is the most important thing we, as humans, can do for one another. It shows empathy, it shows you care, and most importantly, it shows the person you are listening to that they matter. We are not taught to listen in our society. So much value is placed on speaking, but not listening. How many listening classes do you see in schools or colleges? They have "speech" classes and debate teams. The skill of listening is special and we need to be taught how to do it well. Learning the skills to become an effective listener will not only make you a better leader, but a better human being as well Listening is something we talk about often at Barry Wehmiller, and you've probably heard a lot about it on this very podcast. It's the foundational class of Barry Wehmiller University, our internal school for our team members. We call this class Listen Like a Leader. It's also one of the most important offerings of our consulting company, Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, as they bring Truly Human Leadership to their clients. And it was the reason Bob and his wife Cynthia created their non-profit, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, who brings our listening curriculum to municipal and non profits organizations under the name Our Community Listens. On this podcast, we want to feature an interview with someone our listening curruculm has had a large impact on, Gregory Bulanow, a retired a fire chief in North Charleston, South Carolina. In 2014, Chief Bulanow was looking for training for the leadership of his department and heard about Our Community Listens through word of mouth. After he attended, the chief knew this was something that could make a huge impact on his department and on the North Charleston community. In his retirement, Chief Bulanow is still a professor bringing our listening curruculm to his community. His story was featured in the revised and expanded 10th anniversary edition of Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia's book, Everybody Matters the Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. This interview with Chief Bulanow was dome several years ago before his retirement and he talked about the significance of listening in his work, and he starts off talking about why a class such as this would apply to his department.

    23 min

  6. JAN 21

    Kyle Chapman at Gonzaga University

    A few months ago, we were honored that Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, named the week of October 13, 2025 "Chapman Leadership Week." That week, their School of Business Administration hosted the inaugural Chapman Lecture on Truly Human Leadership, named in honor of Barry-Wehmiller Chairman Bob Chapman. It was the culmination of a partnership our outreach team has had with the university to bring the principles of Truly Human Leadership to their classrooms, as well as their training of educators and staff.   The speaker at this inaugural Chapman Lecture was, fittingly, Kyle Chapman, Barry-Wehmiller President and CEO and Bob's son. Kyle used this opportunity to talk about how Barry-Wehmiller is changing the game of business by showing that economic and human vibrancy can exist in harmony. And he issued a challenge to these future leaders at Gonzaga to demand more from their future workplaces and join us in our goal of building a better world through business. So on this podcast, we want you to hear Kyle's challenge at Gonzaga and give you the opportunity to join us as well. In addition to this podcast, which you can watch the the link in the header image or through your favorite podcast host, you can watch a video summary of Chapman Leadership Week through the video below:

    37 min

  7. 12/17/2025

    Jan Rivkin of Harvard on the Barry-Wehmiller Case Study, Layoffs and Teaching Leadership

    Over the years, we've talked about the Harvard Case Study that was written about Barry-Wehmiller in 2016. It's a best seller, taught in over 200 universities to more than 30,000 students. On an earlier podcast, we talked to the authors of the case study, one of which is our guest today, Harvard Professor Jan Rivkin. The earlier episode kind of dealt with the how and why the case study was written, but on this episode, we want to go a little deeper. The Harvard Case Study of Barry-Wehmiller deals with layoffs, a subject that is very prominent in people's minds today. So, on today's episode, we talk with Professor Jan Rivkin about this issue and we also dive into the subject of business education and how leadership is taught and how students are thinking about leadership and how they react to the Barry-Wehmiller case study. It's a wide-ranging discussion, but one that is very pertinent to many issues we are facing today.

    46 min

  8. 12/03/2025

    Aaron Witt, Building a Better Dirt World

    Aaron Witt started his career as a kid who loved construction. But over the years, he's built something bigger than he could have ever envisioned to support the industry he loves. Aaron is the founder of Build Witt. You can find out more about them at buildwitt.com and Aaron has his own website at aaron-witt.com. Build Witt is a company that creates microlearning software for the critical infrastructure industries, they operate the online community Connect and they host the Ariat Dirt World Summit. BW Chairman Bob Chapman was actually a speaker at the first Dirt World Summit. Aaron invited Bob to speak after reading the original version of Bob's book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. In fact, here's what Aaron had to say when he endorsed the recently released revised and expanded edition of the book: "Discovering Everybody Matters as a 20-something business leader has saved me heartache and, more importantly, given me a roadmap to make an enormous difference in countless lives. This book is a MUST-READ for anyone leading people, especially up-and-coming leaders!" Just as Barry-Wehmiller has shown that you can have Truly Human Leadership in the manufacturing industry, Aaron Witt wants to show that the same can exist in the construction and infrastructure industries and that it can also help those businesses flourish. On this episode, we have a conversation with Aaron about how he is trying to make this happen.

    37 min
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4.5
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About

One of the most fundamental of human needs is to know that who we are and what we do matter. As leaders in business, we have the unique opportunity to let our team members know that they do. And when they feel valued and cared for at work, they return home and enjoy better relationships with their loved ones, friends, neighbors and others. This world needs Truly Human Leadership. On this podcast, you'll hear about what it means to be conscious leaders and have a conscious business. You'll hear from voices of inspirational leadership like Simon Sinek, Amy Cuddy, Raj Sisodia of Conscious Capitalism and many more. You'll also hear stories and insights learned through Barry-Wehmiller and it's CEO Bob Chapman's transformation to traditional business management to Truly Human Leadership.

Information

  • Creator
    Barry-Wehmiller
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Barry-Wehmiller
  • Show Website
    Truly Human Leadership

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