The Communicative Leader

Ep.119: The Author Advantage: Building Influence One Word at a TimeOn this show, we often discuss how to show up with clarity in meetings, on stages, and within our teams. But there is a unique kind of influence that comes when you commit your ideas to the page.Welcome back to The Communicative Leader. I’m Dr. OH.In this episode, we unpack:Why authorship serves as a powerful business development strategy for leaders.How to move past the writer's crisis to find your unique creative voice.Practical steps for identifying the right book project to write and building a community of writers.About Our Guest: Cathy Fyock, known as The Business Book Strategist, has spent decades helping hundreds of professionals—nearly 250 to date—transition from thought leaders to published authors. She is a #1 international bestselling author of twelve books, including On Your Mark and The Speaker Author, and her recent book, Authority, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Do you believe your brilliant strategy should just "speak for itself"? Think again. If your team is stuck in a loop of skepticism or paralyzed by change, you might be relying on facts when what you really need is a story. Tune in to discover why the best idea rarely wins—and how mastering the art of packaging your message can completely reinvent your workplace culture.Welcome back to The Communicative Leader with Dr. OH. We often talk about having great ideas and sound strategies, but a great idea alone isn't always enough to move a team—especially when trust is fragile or the future feels uncertain. In this episode, we explore why information alone rarely shifts behavior, how to escape corporate "blandscape," and how leaders can leverage the "six genres" of storytelling to turn organizational skepticism into active engagement.Joining us today is Gavin McMahon, CEO of Fassforward and author of Story Business. With a background spanning engineering, military leadership, and coaching Fortune 500 executives at companies like SpaceX and Allstate, Gavin brings a unique "precision-meets-persuasion" approach to modern leadership.Key Takeaways:Why facts and figures alone fail to drive behavioral change.How to apply frameworks like the Hero Formula and Hook, Meat, and Payoff to skeptical audiences.Practical ways to shift a team's narrative from a "horror story" about change to a future-focused vision.Actionable advice for both titled leaders and employees at every level.Connect with Gavin and learn more at TheCommunicativeLeader.com.

What if the relentless drive for "growth, growth, growth" is actually masking the invisible warning signs that your team is about to crash?Joining us on The Communicative Leader is performance coach, founder of Zenith Clubhouse, and expert in executive mindset and unmasking, Boaz Gilad. Boaz works with top performers who excel on paper yet find themselves trapped in high-stress loops, teaching them how to trade burnout for true strategic agency.Top performers are often caught in an endless trap: they never know how to slow down, and they treat momentum like a permanent, pedal-to-the-metal sprint. But what happens when your internal system is hijacked by stress, and you forget that you are the one writing the rules of the game?In this episode, Boaz Gilad breaks down the mechanics of momentum, why status quo is a human illusion, and how to master the dualities of internal and external communication.Tune in to discover:How to spot the invisible warning signs before a team loses its stride.Why viewing leadership as a "game" restores immediate personal agency.How to align your daily communication intentions with your actual bottom-line goals.

What if your biggest professional blunders—and how you communicate them—are actually the secret weapon to building high-trust teams?Joining us on The Communicative Leader is talent development expert, author of Manage to Fail, and Certified Trust at Work Practitioner Megan Petrini. With over 16 years of experience training for global giants like Amazon and Universal Studios, Megan is challenging leaders to ditch the glossy "highlight reel" of corporate-speak and embrace the messy, high-impact reality of what not to do.We’re conditioned to treat leadership like an unbroken streak of best practices, perfect onboarding, and flawless strategy. But true cultural alignment doesn't come from pretending we have it all together—it comes from how we handle the moments when everything goes sideways.In this episode, Megan breaks down her "reverse-motivational" framework to help leaders audit their communication, build genuine psychological safety, and bring a refreshing dose of Mr. Rogers-style humanity into high-stakes environments.Tune in to discover:Why trying to maintain a perfect facade actively destroys team trust.How to stay in the "failure space" long enough to communicate lessons learned without killing momentum.A quick, practical "Trust Audit" you can run during your very next staff meeting.

Welcome to another episode of The Communicative Leader! I’m your host, Dr. Leah OH. We often think of leadership as something that happens from the neck up—strategy, logic, and the perfect words. But as we navigate high-pressure environments, we’re realizing that our bodies often react faster than our minds. If a leader is physically tense, breathless, or disconnected, no amount of strategic brilliance can hide that from a team. Today’s guest is a Master Certified Coach who specializes in exactly that: the intersection of leadership and somatic awareness. Joining us is Croft Edwards, the founder and president of CROFT + Company and the author of the new book The Liquid Accordion: A Somatic and Embodiment Primer for Coaching In, With, and Through the Body for Coaches and Leaders.With over two decades of experience coaching in high-stakes industries—from oil refineries to coal mines and Fortune-level boardrooms—Croft has pioneered the concept of LeadershipFlow. He helps leaders move beyond automatic reactions to a state of grounded, embodied presence. In today’s episode, we’re exploring how to notice the subtle shifts in your own breath and posture that signal a loss of clarity, how to move from reacting to acting with purpose, and why your physical presence is your most powerful communication tool.