Let Go & Lead with Maril MacDonald Gagen MacDonald

In Pulitzer-nominated sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ experience, great leaders are less in the business of winning than the business of teaching.
 
Over a wide-ranging conversation, Maril and Sally explore the leadership lessons Sally has learned from a career interviewing and writing about the world’s great athletes and coaches.  They discuss why discipline is something that leaders can’t impose, but have to call up from within people; why it’s less important to take a popular position than a good position; and why leadership is less like holding the steering wheel and more like conducing an orchestra.
 
Learn about:
 
3:18 The leadership factor with the most impact
6:21 Why winning isn’t the only motivator for leaders
7:49 Why discipline is misunderstood and an interior construct
24:44 What leaders most need to let go of
 
 
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Sally Jenkins began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer. She was named the nation’s top sports columnist in 2001, 2003, 2010 and 2011 by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013, she won a first-place award from the AP for an investigative series co-written with Rick Maese on medical care in the NFL, titled “Do No Harm.” Jenkins is the author of 12 books, four of which were New York Times bestsellers, most recently the No.1 “Sum It Up” with legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt. She is also the author of “The Real All Americans,” the historical account of how the Carlisle Indian School took on the Ivy League powers in college football at the turn of the century and won. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian, GQ and Sports Illustrated. A native of Texas, Jenkins graduated from Stanford and lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
 
Honors and Awards: 2017 National Press Foundation Chairman's Citation; 2017 Best Sports Stories; 2013 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors for Investigative Series; 2011 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2011 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2010 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2008 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2007 Best Sports Stories; 2005 Inducted National Sports Writers and Sportscasters Hall of Fame (first woman); 2003 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 Sports Columnist of the year, Society of Professional Journalists.
 
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
 
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.  
 
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. 
 
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
 
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been

For Vada Manager, everything comes back to relationships. Throughout a career serving on countless Boards of Directors and advising everyone from Nelson Mandela to Nike founder Phil Knight to the New York Yankees’ George Steinbrenner, Manager has accumulated more than 14,000 contacts in his rolodex, and he’s quick to tout this number with students and mentees. Relationships, he says, come full circle — and his career has been driven by them. Nurturing those relationships through thoughtful gestures and regular contact means that you’re always top of mind for opportunities and your connections remain eager to assist you when they can.  
 
Over a wide-ranging conversation, he and Maril discuss the evolving role of corporate Board members; what companies should ask before they get involved in ESG issues; and the strong culture and leadership that successful businesses of all sizes have in common. To Manager, the best leaders trust the people they hire, build cultures of high “failure tolerance” and remain humble enough to give all ideas the weight and consideration they deserve — no matter who they come from.
 
Learn about:
 
3:47 The importance of being prepared
6:55 Relationship building 101
12:30 How to work with the C-suite
17:35 How to be an effective board member
21:53 Lessons for leading in uncertain times
30:50 How leadership and culture intersect
38:58 What leaders need to let go of
 
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Vada O. Manager, member of APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council, is a premier global business and C-Suite strategist with unique expertise in sport and product brand marketing, mergers & acquisitions, crisis management, litigation communication, corporate governance and issues management. Savoy Magazine named Vada to its “Power 300 Most Influential Black Directors” in all three of its editions (2016, 2017 and 2021).​
 
Mr. Manager manages the diversified investment arm/corporate advisory firm, Manager Global Holdings LLC (which includes the Manager Global Consulting Group LLC) and modest NBA franchise ownership interest via private equity. Prior to founding Manager Global Holdings, he was senior director of global issues management for Nike, Inc., where his broad portfolio of responsibilities included labor practices/global sourcing procedures; marketing communication support for subsidiaries; and crisis management for athletes, product recalls and corporate issues. During his 12-year tenure, in which the company experienced exponential growth, he served on the launch team of nike.com and strategized on new business acquisitions such as the Converse and Starter brands. He was among the early architects of Nike’s renewed corporate responsibility strategy and served as a member of the corporate leadership team, Nike’s most highly valued cohort of global executives. He was Nike’s senior crisis and issues strategist on issues such as the Olympics, the World Cup and company response and business resumption after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.​
 
Prior to joining Nike, Mr. Manager was senior manager of global communications for Levi Strauss & Co, providing strategic communication counsel to the global leadership team as the company successfully launched and expanded its Dockers and SLATES brands. He was also a vice president at Powell Tate, where he co-managed accounts for key clients such as the PGA Tour, Major League Baseball and Court TV. While there, he also consulted the African National Congress in their transition to power in South Africa under newly elected President Nelson Mandela with sponsorship from the Kaiser Family Foundation.​
 
Earlier in his career, Mr. Manager served as vice president of public finance for a NYSE investment banking firm (acquired by Wedbush Securities) and as a senior communication professional on the team administering the Democratic National Convention (1992, 1996 and 2004)

For researcher, professor and author Zach Mercurio, “mattering” is not a new buzz word: it’s a primal human survival instinct embedded in our brains from 6 million years of programming, and something businesses need to take very seriously. Zach is an expert in what makes work meaningful, and to him, the facts are clear: Meaningfulness is not developed through a program or initiative — it’s developed and maintained through human interactions. He and Maril discuss why it’s so important for people to know that they’re significant to others; why often, we blame humans for problems that are actually the fault of bad processes and systems; why your organizational purpose needs to be rooted in truth; why so much of Zach’s work involves taking the intuitive, common-sense ideas of natural leaders and trying to make them common practice.
 
Learn about:
 
6:39 Why people problems are often system problems
9:26 Creating environments where people matter
15:16 The difference between having purpose and being purposeful
25:07 How to create a meaningful purpose
28:06 Why mattering is as important as belonging
35:40 How leaders impact employee mattering
41:10 How invisible leaders transform organizations
45:20 Becoming a better leader by changing how you see people
 
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Zach Mercurio, Ph.D. works with individuals and organizations around the world to forge purposeful leaders who cultivate more meaning, motivation, well-being, and performance. He is a positive leadership and organizations researcher and Honorary Fellow of Psychology in the Center for Meaning and Purpose at Colorado State University. He is also the author of “The Invisible Leader: Transform Your Life, Work, and Organization with the Power of Authentic Purpose.” His research has been awarded by the Association for Talent Development and The Academy of Management and he contributes regularly to international media outlets.
 
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
 
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.  
 
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. 
 
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
 
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
 
  
Full episodes also available on:  
   
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525  

Ann Powell, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, talks with Maril about her leadership journey. The culture of “radical inclusivity” Powell has shepherded at BMS has allowed the company to continuously and successfully transform the past several years, and Powell has learned a lot through the work. She and Maril discuss the evolution of HR from an administrative function to a strategic business function; why Powell sees storytelling as an absolutely critical skill for HR leaders; and what BMS is doing to promote workforce wellbeing — a topic that Powell believes will become a powerful competitive advantage and differentiator for the businesses that choose to prioritize it.
 
Learn about:
 
4:33 The evolution of culture and HR
11:43 Merging data and storytelling for impact
20:33 Building a radically inclusive culture
27:25 Creating an ecosystem for inclusivity
 
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Ann M. Powell is the global head of Human Resources for Bristol Myers Squibb. She is deeply committed to driving the company’s global capabilities in talent management, culture and organizational effectiveness while enabling an empowered workforce. She also currently serves as the executive sponsor of the Living Life Better company wellness program.
Ann partners across the company to foster an energized workforce and radically inclusive culture, where individuals are encouraged to exceed their potential and make innovative contributions for BMS patients and the global communities in which they live and work.
Ann’s expertise includes executive compensation, shaping culture, talent development, change management, team effectiveness, inclusion, diversity, learning design and delivery, talent attraction, labor relations, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and start-ups.
With a career spanning both international and domestic assignments, Ann has worked within the oil/gas, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, including Chevron, Dow and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Bristol Myers Squibb in 2013, Ann was the chief human resources officer for Shire Pharmaceuticals.
Ann earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in labor and industrial relations from the University of Minnesota.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
 
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.  
 
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. 
 
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
 
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas su

Leadership expert, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer and bestselling author of Friendly Fire Scott A. Snook discusses what he’s learned over his time in the military and academia about what it takes to lead. Snook, a decorated veteran and victim of friendly fire himself, studies these incidents of tragedy as a way to make sense of — and ultimately prevent — organizational dysfunction. Among other things, they discuss why every leadership program should cover “followership” and the art of managing up; how leaders fundamentally cannot control outcomes, and can only shift the odds; the importance of finding the right balance between high challenge and high support; and why ultimately, what leaders need most is self-awareness and self-acceptance — or, in other words, to be both socially intelligent and secure.
 
 
 
Learn about:
 
11:42 How Scott describes leadership
14:13 The deep connection between leadership and “followership”
19:00 The organizational lessons from a “friendly fire” incident
23:45 Why your core values are so critical for leaders
28:58 The worst attribute in a leader
29:52 The intersection of high performance, high support and high challenge
38:22 Scott’s summary lessons for leaders
 
 
 
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Scott A. Snook graduated with honors from West Point, earning the Royal Society of Arts Award for the most outstanding overall cadet in his class. Following graduation, he was commissioned in the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he served in various command and staff positions for over 22 years, earning the rank of Colonel before retiring in 2002. He has led soldiers in combat. Among his military decorations are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Master Parachutist badge. He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated with High Distinction as a Baker Scholar. Dr. Snook earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Organizational Behavior, winning the Sage-Louis Pondy Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management for his study of the Friendly Fire Shootdown in Northern Iraq. Until July of 2002, Colonel Snook served as an Academy Professor in the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department at the United States Military Academy. He also directed West Point's Center for Leadership and Organizations Research as well as its joint Master's Program in Leader Development.
Scott's passion is to help others live more "meaning-full" lives. More specifically, he is interested in unpacking and understanding transformational leader (human) development experiences --how to make the most out of life's curriculum, as well as how to create high-leverage/high-impact interventions to accelerate the growth of leaders.
Professor Snook's book Friendly Fire was selected by the Academy of Management to receive the 2002 Terry Award as the most influential book on managerial thinking published during the past two years. He has also co-authored a book that explores the role of "common sense" in leadership titled, Practical Intelligence in Everyday Life (2000) and co-edited The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being (2011). Most recently, he co-authored The Discover Your True North Fieldbook (2015), which is the primary text for “Authentic Leader Development,” the popular MBA elective he has taught for over 10 years. Professor Snook has shared his leadership insights in formal executive education programs at Harvard and with numerous corporate audiences around the world.
 
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
 
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as

In this episode of Let Go & Lead, Maril talks with bestselling author, world-class coach and CEO and Co-Founder of Disruption Advisors Whitney Johnson. After a successful career on Wall Street, Whitney had an epiphany: she wanted to apply the immense knowledge she’d gained from modeling and analyzing stock performance to see if the same rules could be applied to people. Over a wide-ranging conversation around disruption, Whitney speaks to the power of personal disruption; explains her S-curve model, which she uses to better understand how individuals change and grow; and walks through the seven accelerants of productive disruption. At Gagen MacDonald, we believe that transformation starts within, and Whitney’s work deeply reinforces the idea: to change an organization, you need to start by changing yourself.
 
Learn about:
 
7:07 Defining the S-curve of learning
10:30 The seven accelerants of personal disruption
14:37 How to disrupt yourself
21:07 How to deal with change detractors
26:22 Tackling current workforce disruptions
33:32 How the energy of disruption accelerates change
 
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Whitney Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Disruption Advisors, is a world-class coach, globally recognized thought leader, author, keynote speaker and consultant helping organizations operationalize a high-growth mindset in their leaders and teams. 
Whitney is the WSJ, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling author of Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company (Harvard Business Press, 2022). She shares her passion for personal disruption, helping individuals transform their lives, careers, teams and companies through her keynote addresses; her popular podcast Disrupt Yourself; lectures at Harvard Business School’s Corporate Learning; the award-winning books How to Build an A Team, Disrupt Yourself and Dare, Dream, Do; and frequent article contributions to the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. Whitney is ranked a top talent coach by Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches, recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top 10 leading business thinkers in the world and named Inc.’s 200 Female Founders of 2023. She is co-founder of the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Clayton Christensen, and a former award-winning stock analyst on Wall Street. She now applies her understanding of momentum and growth in stocks to people. 
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
 
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.  
 
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. 
 
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future