Leadership Development News

Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal (pronounced Stay-skull) is recognized by USA Today as the #1 international expert on resilience, mental health, and wellbeing, and she is the Founder of the Resilience Leadership Institute (RLI). Her mission is to positively impact the lives of 1 billion people, by enhancing hope, along with overall health and wellness through the practices of resilience.  Her book entitled The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People: Why some flourish when others fold is a #1 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Bestseller and was endorsed by Arianna Huffington, Daniel Pink, and Kathy Ireland. Global Gurus has recognized Dr. Taryn Marie as a Top 30 Thinker in Leadership, she is a Marshall Goldsmith Top 100 Global Executive Coach, and a finalist for the Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) Award, the founder of Zappos, focused on people who are leading progressive and innovative change in human capital. Her work has been featured by Fox, NBC News, The Tamron Hall Show, Bloomberg Business, Ny Weekly Magazine, Thrive Global, and Forbes. Her TEDx talk entitled “How Resilience Breaks Us Out of Our Vulnerability Cage” has been viewed over 1.3 million times! LA Progressive magazine calls her “the go-to person” and “a secret weapon” for CEOs and leadership teams who want to find their edge as well as rise above the competition.   Learn more about Lori at lorimicheleleavitt.com. USA Today named Dr. Taryn Marie as one of the Ten Top Entrepreneurs to watch in 2023, and she believes that The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People is the key to personal leadership, thriving through change, along with organizational growth and acceleration. Prior to founding RLI, she served as the Head of Executive Leadership Development & Talent Strategy at Nike, as well as Head of Global Leadership Development at Cigna. Dr. Taryn Marie earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, along with master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park, and completed pre- and postdoctoral fellowships in neuropsychology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. She is the host of the chart-topping, top 1% acclaimed podcast entitled “Flourish or Fold: Stories of Resilience”, where well-known people tell their lesser well-known story of facing challenge to remind us that adversity is a necessary ingredient in life.  She is honored to serve as a sought-after trusted advisor, executive coach, and board member to amplify resilience, engagement, and talent strategy. Her two sons, Samson and Sawyer, are always teaching her about resilience! 

Irena O’Brien is a cognitive neuroscientist with over 30 years of experience in psychology and neuroscience. Initially a chartered accountant, she found the work unfulfilling and returned to university. Her passion for neuroscience was ignited during her first neurobiology course at Concordia University. Irena earned her PhD at Université du Quebec à Montréal (UQAM), where she carried out brain imaging and electrophysiological studies, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University's Centre for Language, Mind, and Brain. In 2017, she founded The Neuroscience School, offering a Certificate Programme in Applied Neuroscience. This program equips coaches and helping professionals with practical, evidence-based neuroscience tools. Her latest program, Next Level Coaching with Neuroscience, helps students embody their neuroscience knowledge to achieve coaching flow. Students who have completed both programs receive a Certificate of Completion in Brain-Based Coaching.

Dr. Carla Fowler is an MD PhD and elite executive coach. For more than a decade, she has been a secret weapon for scores of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other senior leaders. Carla’s unique approach combines the latest research from performance science with timeless best practices to help top performers level up and achieve their goals. Carla graduated from Brown University magna cum laude, earned her MD and PhD at the University of Washington, and completed her internship in general surgery at Stanford University. Dr. Carla Fowler, an MD PhD and executive coach, shares her background and journey into executive coaching. She discusses her interest in performance and achievement from a young age and how it led her to start her own coaching practice. Dr. Fowler defines performance science as the collection of ideas and research that help individuals achieve their goals. She highlights two key principles of performance science: brutal focus and cultivating power. Brutal focus involves translating dreams into actionable goals and identifying the most important tasks to drive progress. Cultivating power involves developing the ability to start and sustain efforts towards a goal, as well as continuously improving and iterating on one's approach.

Dr. Carla Fowler is an MD PhD and elite executive coach. For more than a decade, she has been a secret weapon for scores of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other senior leaders. Carla’s unique approach combines the latest research from performance science with timeless best practices to help top performers level up and achieve their goals. Carla graduated from Brown University magna cum laude, earned her MD and PhD at the University of Washington, and completed her internship in general surgery at Stanford University. Dr. Carla Fowler, an MD PhD and executive coach, shares her background and journey into executive coaching. She discusses her interest in performance and achievement from a young age and how it led her to start her own coaching practice. Dr. Fowler defines performance science as the collection of ideas and research that help individuals achieve their goals. She highlights two key principles of performance science: brutal focus and cultivating power. Brutal focus involves translating dreams into actionable goals and identifying the most important tasks to drive progress. Cultivating power involves developing the ability to start and sustain efforts towards a goal, as well as continuously improving and iterating on one's approach.

Jen Ziegner is a co-founder and lead coach of Mountains and Marathons, a transformative coaching organization that works with entrepreneurs and executives to create deeper alignment in their lives.

Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest.

Scott Mautz is CEO/Founder of Profound Performance™, a keynote, workshop, and training company that helps business leaders become even better, more inspired versions of themselves. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he successfully ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He’s an award-winning, bestselling author, popular course instructor on LinkedIn Learning, and faculty at Indiana University’s School of Business for Executive Education. His latest book is The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors. Scott is a speaker and trainer commonly described as “riveting” (despite his daughter’s utter disbelief of that description). His one-of-a-kind blend of business experience, research, storytelling, tools, sprinkles of humor, and hi-octane delivery opens hearts & minds. He applies his thunderous passion to help others become mentally stronger and achieve more (even in the face of challenges) - at work and in life. He prides himself on his “No-Diva” policy (being easy to work with), on coming across as authentic and as down-to-earth as he really is, and on being the absolute highest-value podcast guest he can be. He wants to understand your brand too, so he can help reinforce it as a guest on your show. Invite Scott on for an interesting conversation that will intrigue your listeners, not the canned spewing of book-selling points.

Find out why over 1M people view his TED Talks. Join us, especially if you're in Public Safety for a rare look at how "extraordinary experiences" shape us, our happiness, wellbeing and performance. Paul J.

Grace is an open and honest expert, helping leaders simplify their communication and eliminate the divides that exist within organizations. As co-founder of Know Honesty, she guides people toward becoming masterful communicators day in and day out. Having experienced the transformative power of openness and honesty, Grace is on a mission to help others create that same freedom in their own lives. Grace brings her heartfelt approach to every event, workshop, and interaction. She believes deeply that every human being brings a unique perspective to the world and that we all deserve to be heard and respected. With humble roots growing up on a dairy farm to now working with all levels of leadership, Grace has a special ability to ask the right questions to help audiences go deeper and uncover what’s blocking them from creating real communication.

Dr. Diana Hill is a clinical psychologist and expert in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a cutting-edge, evidence-based form of psychotherapy that helps people develop psychological flexibility.

MCC coach Ben Dooley facilitates the bi-weekly “COACHING SKILLS FORUM” telecalls, as well as creator of multiple coach growing experiences--like the “Fast Pass to MasterFull Coaching”—exploring “the Science, Artistry and Performance of our coaching,” and “the Core of our Core Competencies”, all of which (and more) have been helping coaches discover their powerful coaching confidence, power and success, to help you BE the MasterFull coach you are truly here to BE, and that the world needs. And your journey continues to deepen right now.

Paul Menzel has had a 45-year career of leading others to top performance. This interview will explore some of his learnings about emotional intelligence, developing himself, his team and creating a great organizational culture.

Hi Nguyen is a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer with 14 years of experience in patrol, close protection, counter-terrorism and undercover operations. He is currently the Director of Protection Services for a large Canadian university.

Leaders are increasingly challenged to understand how to respond to a polarized world. They are grappling with addressing division while embracing otherness.

The Culture Equation®: How to build an intentional workplace culture that powers your strategy and drives growth. Jessica Kriegel is the Chief Scientist of Workplace Culture for Culture Partners, leading research and strategy in best practices for driving results through culture. For 15+ years, Jessica has been guiding global, national, Fortune 100, and other organizations across finance, technology, real estate, and healthcare industries on the path to creating intentional cultures that accelerate performance. As a keynote speaker, Jessica leverages her current research and 15+ years of global organizational culture innovation, providing leaders with the map and tools for how to build cultures that deliver results. In her book, Unfairly Labeled: How Your Workplace Can Benefit from Ditching Generational Stereotypes, Jessica dives into the concept of generational differences'' as an unfair generalization, and offers a roadmap to intergenerational understanding. She is the host of the podcast, Culture Leaders: The Masters Behind Movements, where she and other elite leaders and culture experts confront the dilemmas of today’s organizations and highlights the transformative and winning ingredient: vibrant team cultures.

Jesus D. “Jesse” Hernandez Jr is the Founder of Depth Builder LLC, who helps leaders deepen their communication skills and build trust through their improvement initiatives. Jesse does this by shining a light on their blind spots, and teaching them how to adjust their leadership approach to ensure “buy in” amongst their employees. Experiencing construction business problems from the perspective of an installer, a field leader, a trade contractor, a General Contractor and an owner’s Rep has helped Jesse understand that we are more alike than we are different. Being a witness to people discovering their agency and leaders contributing to that is what brings him fulfillment. His path in the professional space and 7+ years of sobriety has helped Jesse meet people where they are at and get them unstuck. The key is in serving others and helping folks leverage their influence and formal authority in making the work better for the men and women who are doing the work. Jesse’s 5S in Relationships Livestream Experiment revealed to him that there is a gap in connection amongst construction professionals. This led him to co-author the book Lean & Love 5S Love Letters and co-host The NoBS with Jen and Jess Podcast, where he is having imperfect conversations about the human side of work. These efforts helped Jesse appreciate the power of vulnerability. Jesse has also written Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be where readers can find glimpses of themselves in the stories he shares and discover the path to living up to the promise they are Intended to fulfill. Seeing the impact these works are having have lit a fire in Jesse to help people practice vulnerability and deepen their connection with the folks they spend the most time with. Jesse wants to serve our listeners with the idea that focusing on the person in front of us is the best way to Expand their Influence. The key to this is listening and more specifically asking interested questions. He wants to introduce the listeners two a couple of cheat codes (air time & first response) that they can put into practice immediately.

Andrew Cooper is a globally recognized executive leader and advocate for compassionate business practices. He made history as the first Millennial and Black executive to serve as General Counsel of UPS Airlines, the world's largest logistics airline operating in 220 countries with over 20,000 employees. Cooper’s team played a pivotal role in the success of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. pandemic vaccine relief effort. Committed to facilitating leadership transformation, he assists organizations in achieving and sustaining high performance. The Ethical Imperative marks Andrew's debut book. Andrew Cooper began writing after migrating with his parents from a single-wide trailer in the deep south to a small island off the coast of Japan. Born in Walterboro, SC, Cooper’s journey to Okinawa would spark a life-long interest in humanity, technology, and the intersection of the two. After receiving his doctorate from Emory University, Cooper joined the legal leadership teams of multiple Fortune 500 companies, serving on an executive staff responsible for overseeing billions in assets and over twenty thousand employees. Cooper would become the youngest and first African American to assume the role at America's largest cargo airline. A patent inventor and lecturer, he settled in Roswell, Georgia, with his wife and daughter. The Ethical Imperative is his first published book. Discover more about his impactful work at Andrew-cooper.com.

Increase Employee Retention by Improving Onboarding, Training, and Succession Planning: Leaders are losing their people at an unprecedented rate due to poor onboarding, inconsistent training, and lack of succession planning. Out of 1000 employees surveyed, 80% said they had a poor onboarding experience. Lack of training can cause a 60% loss of the workforce over a 4 year period due to training gaps, mistakes, complaints, and low morale. Employees will also separate from a company when there is no defined career path or succession planning. Implementing a strong onboarding program increases retention by 82%, and increases productivity by 11%. Proper succession planning increases valuations by 20 - 25%. Companies can be more proactive about retention by implementing three important tools which will shift the course of employee happiness. As an in-demand Executive Coach, dynamic speaker, successful author, and focused and motivating trainer devoted to her craft, Monique Daigneault provides a highly coveted service to corporate leaders worldwide using internationally accepted standards as well as her personally honed methodology. Surviving trauma as a child and embracing Complex PTSD as an adult, Monique developed a unique skill set and process that allows her to advocate for others and guide them through challenging workplace issues. With an indomitable spirit, a results-driven work ethic, and an enthusiastic commitment to performance improvement, she partners with clients from all over the world, providing practical tools to help catalyze change and facilitate evolution in their professional lives. As President and CEO at MD Consulting, Monique is the insightful radio show host of Leading with Intention on the VoiceAmerica business channel and also the author of the newly released book: The Survive and Thrive Toolkit for Leaders by Mango Publishing Group. Monique is an ICF-trained and Master certified coach and has an MS in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She is passionate about helping leaders shift corporate culture, build business agility, resilience, and influence and facilitate transformation in the organizations they lead.

Talia Fox is the CEO of KUSI Global, Inc. She holds an M.Ed. in psychology and is a Harvard University Fellow.

HORTENSE LE GENTIL is a world-renowned executive leadership coach, speaker, and author. She guides CEOs and senior executives on their journey from hero leaders to human leaders.