Tom Peters should be a familiar face around these parts. He was first with us on Episode 9 of Timeless Leadership, when we talked about the concept of extreme humanism.

The topic hasn’t changed much, but the format certainly has. Tom’s latest book, Tom Peters’ Compact Guide to Excellence, is a collaboration with award-winning designer Nancye Green, bringing Tom’s most poignant work to life in a new way.

For anyone who wants to know what’s important in business — no, make that what’s important in life — Tom’s book is a must-read.

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What do you get when you combine the fiery personality of a food influencer with a vision to empower women’s social impact projects around the globe, backed by the power of the U.S. Department of State?

You get IMPERIA, Jennifer Iannolo’s global incubator that is connecting creative and motivated minds from 195 countries.

What made Jennifer go from a food podcast network to a global impact entrepreneur? What kinds of projects and success stories does the incubator already have? And who are the people who make up the partners and participants in this impressive mission?

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How can you feel fulfilled and live your best life at any stage of your development?

Whether you’re enduring a midlife crisis, grappling with the effects of ageism in the workplace, or feeling as if you’ll never achieve the level of success you once did (or even a level you had once hoped for) — this discussion is for you.

The late Stephen R. Covey spent his career inspiring millions to make their lives more effective, compassionate, and meaningful. And his daughter Cynthia Covey Haller co-wrote and published his final book posthumously — a book that Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — felt was his greatest work yet.

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To disabuse you of what might be your first reaction: this is interview is not about gratitude — although that’s part of one of the lessons.

Jim Edwards sent out an email years ago with 19 bits of advice for a colleague who was taking a leadership position. Little did he realize that the email would not only be a set of timeless principles for any manager, but that he would add more to it — including many true, harrowing, and funny anecdotes — enough to warrant an entire book.

Jim joins Timeless Leadership to discuss many of these stories, as well as tactics and strategies to help you become a more effective leader, no matter what level of management you’re in.

You’ll especially want to hear the story about his worst job that led to him discovering the three most important things about leadership.

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The world is a by-product of innovation. We know the names of famous innovators — people like Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, and Socrates — for every one of them, there have been thousands of anonymous innovators.

But there are common themes we can find in the stories of innovators and Dr. Jim Webb takes us through some of those stories in his new book Innovators Who Changed the World: Timeless Leadership Lessons from West Point, Green Berets, Sherlock Holmes, and Wall Street.

Jim joins us to talk about the leadership lessons he draws from these, plus others in his book that include such a variety of topics and personalities as judo, the Army Rangers, J.P. Morgan, Manchester United, and more.

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The world has changed. Unfortunately, leadership styles haven’t changed with it. The old “Command & Control” leadership approach is no longer tenable in an era with a hybrid workforce.

Stephen M.R. Covey, a noted authority on trust and inspiration, helps 21st century leaders grasp this new reality in his book Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others.

In our interview for Timeless Leadership, we explore this shift, looking at the three stewardships of modeling, trusting, and inspiring against a backdrop of uncertainty and urgency — challenges all leaders face today.

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We hear a lot about soft skills for leaders these days. But Mark Crowley has been beating this drum for over a decade.

His 2011 book Lead From the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century has been updated for 2022, and the timing is perfect. With so many challenges the modern leader has to face, from the pandemic to remote work and more, Mark’s book offers the perfect solution.

The conversation with Mark covers the life-threatening inspiration for his work, looks at why job satisfaction is down globally, and provides leaders with four practices of leading from the heart that will guarantee a kinder, more compassionate, and dedicated workforce.

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What does patriotism have to do with leadership?

Everything, it turns out. And practical philosopher Tom Morris is back to share his latest book, a timely volume that contains the secret to what we need right now.

It’s a project that began with Norman Lear and a surprise discovery of an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, that takes us from pessimism to optimism, giving us hope and a path for what lies ahead.

More than the rah-rah of nationalistic jingoism, patriotism at its core is about ethics, spirituality, and collective responsibility. And we all have a responsibility to lead in this regard.

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Links

• The Everyday Patriot: How to Be a Great American Now (Tom’s book)

• Tom’s website

• The House I Live In (YouTube)

• The Heavy Burden of Anger (Timeless & Timely)

• Tom Morris previously on Timeless Leadership: Wisdom

• Recommended newsletter: Letters From an American

  Letters from an American

  A newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

  By Heather Cox Richardson

Contact

To reach Scott to discuss a public speaking engagement, or to talk about his leadership advisory and coachi…

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We hear more about soft skills and leadership these days. And let’s face it: these “soft” skills are actually quite hard to master.

Dan Pontefract believes in the power of empathetic leadership; he led teams at TELUS, SAP, and more and transformed their cultures.

In this episode, Dan talks about these softer, unseen skills and how to connect them to tangible successes in the workplace.

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What would you do when you’re out of luck and your only communication is as far as you can shout?

That’s what faced Antarctic explorers of the Heroic Age, and Brad Borkan has analyzed their decisions — good and bad — and identified the behaviors and skills that we can apply to everyday scenarios on the other six continents.

In When Your Life Depends on It: Extreme Decision-Making Lessons from the Antarctic, we go on a storytelling journey and explore eleven situations through the eyes of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Douglas Mawson.

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As vice president, executive managing editor and copy chief, at Random House, Benjamin Dreyer pays attention to words. And people pay attention to Dreyer's words. More recently, they've been paying attention to Dreyer's English, a New York Times bestseller.

In this episode, we explore the importance of language with respect to leadership: the connection between leadership and word choice, being mindful of what we write (and say), drawing a line from clarity to morality.

We also ponder how music contributes to our understanding of language, we stop to admire Julia Child and Judith Jones along the way, and address the non-gendered elephant in the room.

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We often think of nerds as “others.” Those whom Judge Smails in Caddyshack said “don’t belong.”

But we all have quirks and ultimately we all find people with whom share our passions, interests, and ideas; from there, leadership can take root.

Curtis Armstrong is the perfect example of that. In his memoir Revenge of the Nerd, he takes us on a touching and hilarious journey from the Beatles to Sherlock Holmes and from acting to producing, with insights on leadership along the way.

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Links

• Leadership Lessons from Underdogs

• Curtis’s book: Revenge of the Nerd

• Remembering Curtis’s earliest mentor, Susan Rice

• Curtis Armstrong (IMDb)

• @curtisisbooger (Twitter)

Contact

To reach me to discuss a public speaking engagement, or to talk about my leadership coaching services, please email timeless @ scottmonty.com

Find Timeless Leadership everywhere you listen to podcasts.

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The world runs on stories.

From cave paintings 30,000 years ago to the epic poems of Homer to the next installment of Ozark, humans love stories that make them feel something.

And John Livesay knows about moving people to make a sale. A former sales executive with Condé Nast, he had to make his company stand out from other publishers, and he knew he needed more than numbers.

Now known as “The Pitch Whisperer,” John has written a story (yes, it’s actually a story) in the form of a book to help anyone who wants to be more effective in presenting.

The Sale Is In the Tale is a guide that will help anyone hone their elevator story, fully develop their story of origin, case stories, playlists of stories, and more.

And be sure to check the links for a special free offer regarding John’s book.

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Leadership is anything but simple.

For centuries, we have struggled to dissect it, understand its complexities, and capture its essence.

Effective leadership is an influence process where leaders implement everyday, commonsense approaches that help people and organizations thrive.

When Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley teamed up to combine the concepts of servant leadership and trust, their output was the book Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust.

In this conversation, we explore some of those truths, explore the interconnection of servant leadership and trust, and review some commonsense approaches that could use common practice.

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When you spend time coaching and managing other people, there’s often one thing that gets left out: coaching yourself.

It sounds like an oxymoron, as we’re all supposed to have mentors and managers who look out for us. But the reality is, there are plenty of ways to take the reins yourself—something with which remote workers have come to grips during the pandemic.

David Novak, retired chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, is the founder of How Leaders Lead, a digital leadership development platform he created to help people become better leaders. And his latest book, Take Charge of You, is designed to help people get the best from themselves with self-coaching.

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Imagine being a woman in 1822 in rural America — a mother of four, with your next child due in a month — and your husband suddenly and unexpectedly dying. What would you do?

For most women, there was no choice; but for Sarah Josepha Hale, this tragic life event is what set her in a direction that influenced much of 19th century America.

Melanie Kirkpatrick has written the definitive biography about her impact: Lady Editor: Sarah Josepha Hale and the Making of the Modern American Woman. In it, we learn of a woman driven by principle and passion, who disrupted norms but was civil about it.

It’s the story of influence, transformation, and some surprising elements.

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When you’re stuck in the grind or are just burned out by the endless cycles of… [gestures wildly], the easy solution is to just go with the flow.

But there are times when the world requires more of us. And the bottom line is, no one is going to make decisions about our best interest except us.

Adam Singer, a tech marketing leader, has changed jobs and even famously relocated from the Bay Area to Texas to achieve more balance and to make the system work for him.

In this conversation, he shares his secrets of success, his advice for anyone trying to find their way out or up, and the secret hack code for life.

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We’ve long heard about “work-life balance.” But has it been a reality for most people? In the last couple of years, burnout has become more widespread and employees are making lifestyle choices part of their job requirements.

Jen Fisher, who serves as Deloitte’s Chief Well Being Officer, has done the research that links companies’ financial performances to the health and well-being of their employees. And she’s written about it in her book Work Better Together: How to Cultivate Strong Relationships to Maximize Well-Being and Boost Bottom Lines.

Why is it that relationships form the core of what we need at businesses? And how can leaders look out for their own well-being while making it clear that it matters for their teams as well?

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In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote of greatness: “be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em. Thy Fates open their hands.”

And so it is with leadership. Sometimes, fate has a way of getting us to step up.

That’s exactly what happened with Jim Rafferty. A tragic crime robbed his son’s scout troop of their Scoutmaster, and Jim was selected to step up. He thought they must be mistaken, but he accepted the responsibility and found more in himself than he knew there was.

His growth as a leader served not only the Troop 328, but became essential a few years later when his role was eliminated at a company where he spent two decades of his career.

Jim’s story of accidental leadership holds lessons for us all.

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Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes it isn’t fair. And leaders know that in those instances, what you’re made of will show your true character.

David Morales is an executive, entrepreneur, and author who has found his way from poverty to success, but his true success is more than monetary. He has found it in the values he has learned and carries on: those of perseverance, grit, and faith.

He talks about what drove him to write a leadership book in the style of a memoir, his new non-for-profit that is aimed to help give people control over their financial future, and the powerful and deeply rooted family stories that make him say “¡Empuja!”

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