A teenage grandson, watching a night of news about fallen executives, a disgraced pastor and a convicted politician, turned to his grandfather and asked whether he led that way. That question became Keith Wyche's new book. He tells us why results without people never last, how a set of golf clubs left beside his car tested his integrity, how he helped Walmart associates see themselves in the move to e-commerce, and how a mini stroke taught him to serve from a full cup.

Keith R. Wyche is a corporate executive, board director, author and keynote speaker. He started out at IBM and AT&T, ran U.S. operations for a division of the mailing and shipping company Pitney Bowes, and was then recruited by the grocery company Supervalu to lead two of its chains, first as president of Cub Foods and later of Acme Markets. In 2015 he joined Walmart, where he helped lead its e-commerce transformation until he retired in 2024. He sits on the board of Brink's, the security and cash management company, and his latest book is Uncommon Leadership: A Blueprint for Restoring Integrity, Trust, and People-Centered Leadership.

• (00:00) - Welcome and Keith Wyche's new book
• (03:39) - The father and uncles who shaped him
• (04:32) - A paper route and a job at McDonald's
• (05:24) - The question that started the book
• (07:04) - Engagement falls below 30 percent
• (07:51) - From servant leadership to self-serving leadership
• (10:18) - Results that leave scorched earth
• (12:27) - Helping a results-driven leader see his blind spots
• (15:07) - Two questions for feedback you don't understand
• (16:04) - A set of golf clubs by the car
• (17:31) - Unhonesty and moving the line
• (18:39) - Everything a leader does sends a signal
• (20:28) - A team that hit its targets with zero energy
• (21:31) - Point out what is right and should be repeated
• (23:12) - Three ways leaders get listening wrong
• (24:47) - When your opinion seems to count
• (26:23) - Special Olympics and finding purpose
• (28:11) - Keeping trust when everything is changing
• (29:27) - The four Rs and the fall of Sears
• (30:44) - Cashiers, cart pushers and the why
• (32:28) - Talking honestly about AI
• (34:27) - Talking about change every day
• (36:34) - Turning soft skills into a metric
• (37:36) - The general whose son asked who he was
• (38:28) - Burnout and a mini stroke
• (40:45) - Recharging with meditation
• (42:50) - Lunch is for the hungry
• (43:37) - Performance, exposure and personal brand
• (45:32) - Vulnerability and bringing solutions
• (47:42) - Managed imbalance
• (48:39) - What his children told him
• (49:33) - Name, accept, manage and express
• (50:38) - Planting trees you'll never sit under
• (51:59) - Character, competency and consistency
• (53:16) - Lightning round

Trust and the Crisis of Grievance - https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer

Nurses Continue to Lead in Honesty and Ethics Ratings - https://news.gallup.com/poll/700736/nurses-continue-lead-honesty-ethics-ratings.aspx

U.S. Employee Engagement Below 30% for First Time in 15 Years - https://www.gallup.com/workplace/716117/employee-engagement-below-30-first-time-years.aspx

CEO pay increased in 2024 and is now 281 times that of the typical worker - https://www.epi.org/?p=311707

Leadership Development News is a Podcasts That Matter production: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Need support for your own podcast? Reach out: https://podcastsmatter.com

In remembrance of Bob Chapman, and to honor his legacy, we are sharing our conversation with him again. Bob led Barry-Wehmiller for fifty years. He took over the struggling St. Louis supplier of brewing equipment in 1975, after his father's death, and grew it into a global business of about 12,000 team members spanning industrial and packaging automation, professional services and life sciences technology. Around 2000, a series of realizations moved him from traditional management to what he called truly human leadership, the subject of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, the Wall Street Journal bestseller he wrote with Raj Sisodia, revised and expanded for its tenth anniversary in 2025. With his wife, Cynthia, he founded the Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, which brings listening training to communities.

Referenced in this episode:

What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It) - https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

Truly Human Leadership at Barry-Wehmiller - https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51683

New Research: The Emotional Pandemic Is Still Raging - https://www.6seconds.org/2023/10/03/new-research-the-emotional-pandemic/

Business Roundtable Redefines the Purpose of a Corporation to Promote 'An Economy That Serves All Americans' - https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans/

Gallup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey - https://www.gallup.com/workplace/356063/gallup-q12-employee-engagement-survey.aspx

Bob Chapman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-chapman-89b936b8/

More about Barry-Wehmiller: https://www.barrywehmiller.com/outreach

Leadership Development News is a Podcasts That Matter production: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Need support for your own podcast? Reach out: https://podcastsmatter.com

Under constant stress, most of us run on autopilot, and on autopilot even capable leaders slide toward average. The thoughts that do the most harm are the ones that never leave our heads, where fear, worst-case thinking and self-doubt drain the energy we need to think clearly, stay curious and connect with others. Getting those thoughts out into the open, with a coach, a therapist or a good friend, is often where change begins.

In this episode, without a guest, we share the coaching tools we use most in turbulent times. FIEND, for thoughts that stay fearful, irrational, exaggerated, negative and dark, becomes GLITTER once those thoughts are on the table: goal-focused, in the light, insightful, transactional, transformational, empowering and realistic. VIVID gives leaders and their teams a shared language for what someone needs from a conversation, whether to vent, share information, seek validation, ideate or get direction, so a leader stops handing out direction nobody asked for. Along the way, we look at how rarely we are as self-aware as we believe, how power can mute empathy, what coaching returns to an organization, and why a fresh bottle of water can open a hard conversation.

Chapters:

Referenced in this episode:

Survey on the most common stress emotions in the United States, January 2021 - https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/04/numbers-national-crisis

Global survey of daily worry, stress, sadness, anger and pain - https://www.gallup.com/analytics/349280/gallup-global-emotions-report.aspx

Tasha Eurich on how rare self-awareness is - https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

Study on how power changes the way the brain responds to others - https://experts.mcmaster.ca/scholarly-works/1429894

Client study on the return companies see from coaching, 2009 - https://www.europeanceo.com/business-and-management/first-class-coaches/

Leadership Development News is a Podcasts That Matter production: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Need support for your own podcast? Reach out: https://podcastsmatter.com

Many accomplished leaders reach a point where success stops meaning anything. The stories leaders live by were useful once, but they run their course, and no protocol, framework, or morning routine can fix one that has stopped working. In a time when a chatbot tends to agree with everything we say, the way forward is to welcome a different view, make the best decision we can without certainty, and take responsibility for it.

Federico Malatesta is the founder of FM Transformational Coaching and the author of They Are Lying to You: The Self-Help Delusion. He grew up in Rome and spent fifteen years in global energy, rising to chief investment officer, or CIO, of a $40 billion portfolio, before leaving to study why success stops meaning anything. He now coaches senior executives from a working horse ranch in Texas, drawing on narrative theory, neuroscience, and contemporary psychoanalytic thought. He writes regularly on identity, leadership transitions, and narrative collapse, and his newsletter is Almost Everything Is Context.

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Welcome and the unreliable narrator
• (02:50) - Four challenges leaders face today
• (04:46) - Meet Federico Malatesta
• (07:16) - Influences and a working horse ranch
• (09:33) - What horses pick up in leaders
• (11:47) - Why self-help protocols fail
• (15:54) - Knowing the why before the how
• (18:35) - The stories leaders live by
• (21:32) - Using AI as a challenger
• (22:52) - The client who kept leaving boards
• (25:13) - Emotional bookmarks and body signals
• (27:42) - Deconstructing a stressful moment
• (30:38) - Practicing in low-stakes moments
• (32:34) - Why authenticity is the wrong word
• (34:45) - Leadership as moving forward under uncertainty
• (39:04) - Challenging your own story
• (41:17) - Judgment in the boardroom
• (42:16) - Lightning round

Referenced in this episode:

Tasha Eurich on how rare self-awareness is - https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

Federico Malatesta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/federicomalatesta/

More about FM Transformational Coaching: https://federicomalatesta.com/about/

Leadership Development News is a Podcasts That Matter production: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Many leaders believe work leaves no time for love or kindness, only for results. Yet the Apple Store became one of the most respected retailers in the world by serving people rather than selling to them, earning customers one at a time. In an age of AI, when common answers are a quick query away, the edge belongs to leaders who slow down and listen to their own inner voice.

Ron Johnson is the creator of the Apple Store, a sought-after speaker and board member, and the author, with Zander Nethercutt, of Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius. A Stanford alumnus and Harvard Business School graduate, he was a merchant leader at Target, where his collaboration with architect Michael Graves brought good design to everyday shoppers. Steve Jobs hired him in 2000 to create Apple's stores, which he built on a service philosophy rooted in love and kindness, values he traces to growing up outside Minneapolis. He later served as CEO of JCPenney and founded Enjoy, the first mobile retail store.

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Welcome and introduction
• (04:56) - Stores to overcome the fear of technology
• (06:45) - Where love and kindness come from
• (09:05) - Telling Steve Jobs to love the customers
• (12:50) - The mentors who shaped him
• (13:52) - Working for Steve Jobs
• (15:19) - A year of nightly phone calls
• (18:43) - From success to significance
• (22:57) - Serving, not selling
• (25:48) - Why his best days happened in stores
• (30:31) - Creativity, skeptics and believers
• (35:16) - Genius is a team game
• (37:11) - How a hotel shaped the Genius Bar
• (41:49) - What think different means day to day
• (45:00) - The conversation with yourself

Leadership Development News is a Podcasts That Matter production: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Need support for your own podcast? Reach out: https://podcastsmatter.com

Every leader carries fears and insecurities they've learned to hide. Over time, those hidden struggles build invisible walls—walls that shape how we lead, how we relate, and how others experience us. What we think are strengths are often just sophisticated defense mechanisms.

Tyler Dickerhoof is a leadership mentor, entrepreneur, host of the Impact Driven Leader community, and USA Today best-selling author of The Things We Hide. With 25-plus years of experience and more than $750 million in business sales generated, he knows the real pressures leaders carry. A Cornell graduate, Tyler once measured his worth by achievement, often at the cost of relationships. Through personal growth and entrepreneurship, he faced the hidden insecurities driving his leadership. Now he helps leaders slow down, face what's really driving them, and lead with greater authenticity, clarity, and impact.

Today we have more intense emotions and a sense of overwhelm, causing all of us stress. Leaders are dealing with so much more than they have in the past. A study on stress in America tells us that 47% of people are experiencing Anxiety, 44% are sad, 39% are angry, while 75% of us feel we could use more emotional support. For much of that support, they are turning to their leaders, who now need more counseling and coaching skills. What are they and we to do with this abundance of emotions and feelings?

Drs. Greenberg and Nadler will take a deeper look at how you manage these feelings. In our Emotional Brilliance book, we presented a model of dealing with them called NAME. Notice and Name, Accept, Manage, and Express. We will look at the M for Manage: managing your thoughts and actions, which will help regulate these feelings. What is causing the most stress today, according to a recent American Psychological Association study, is:

Inflation (e.g., gas prices, energy bills, grocery costs): 87% Supply chain issues: 81% Global uncertainty: 81% Potential retaliation from Russia (e.g., cyberattacks, nuclear threats): 80% Russian invasion of Ukraine: 80%

For more leadership tools and information on Dr. Relly Nadler go to https://drrellynadler.com

In our fast-paced, high-tech, ever-evolving world the speed of change, decision-making is getting faster, the level of competition fiercer, and adversity, ambiguity are striking harder than ever. As this is the current and future state of our world, it is imperative that people stay level-headed and focused to effectively function at optimal capacity. The ability to be that stabilizing influence in a world of constant disruption can provide a true competitive advantage and determine the long-term success of any individual and company. This topic provides insights on facing, overcoming, and learning from obstacles, while also realizing that failure, change, and adversity can be leveraged as positive catalysts for growth…and to not only help you survive in the face of adversity but to thrive in it. Steve Gavatorta, the owner of the Steve Gavatorta Group, specializes in empowering individuals and organizations in exceeding performance goals. Steve has coached and trained thousands of high performers from small businesses on the move to Fortune 500 companies.