Leadership Matters

Most leaders don't set out to build a weak culture. It happens when strategy, values, and daily systems drift out of alignment and no one notices. On this episode of Leadership Matters with the People's Doctors, we welcome Yengyee Lor, Founder and CEO of Faithful Consulting and an ICF-credentialed executive coach with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations turn ideas into meaningful action.

Every organization has a culture. The question is whether leaders are intentionally shaping it or simply allowing it to happen. In this insightful episode of Leadership Matters with the People's Doctors, Dr. Sheryl White, Dr. Undraye Howard, and Dr. Loretta Howard explore with Joy Freeman, Founder & CEO of JOY Just Own Yours, explore workplace culture through a unique lens: the gap between the culture organizations say they have and the culture employees actually experience; the role leaders play in shaping that experience; and what becomes possible when leaders are willing to recognize what is true and take ownership of what comes next in the workplace. Joy Freeman will discuss her "The Own It Moment™ leadership and workplace culture framework that is centered around five areas: Story, Strengths, Wellness, Voice, and Joy. Don't miss this incredible episode of Leadership Matters with the People's Doctors: Informing Leaders. Inspiring Solutions!

Organizational culture doesn't collapse overnight — it erodes, one broken agreement and one disengaged team at a time. In our follow-up to "The Quiet Exit," we sit down with Nicholas Dillon, M.Ed, M.S., a leadership consultant, mindset coach, counselor, and international speaker explores what it actually takes to repair culture across an organization once trust has already broken down. Drawing on his work in leadership development, emotional intelligence, and executive coaching, Nick walks us through how organizations — not just individual leaders — rebuild trust at scale: aligning leadership teams, embedding EQ into everyday systems, and turning a fractured culture into one people actually want to belong to. This isn't a conversation about one manager fixing one team — it's about what organization-wide repair really requires.

Employee disengagement rarely announces itself. It doesn't show up as a resignation letter — it shows up as silence in meetings, minimal effort, and talented people doing just enough to stay employed while they've already left in every way that matters. In this episode, hosts Dr. Sheryl White, Dr. Undraye Howard, Dr. Loretta Howard, examine the slow, often invisible process of culture erosion — how it starts, why leaders miss the early warning signs, and what it costs organizations in innovation, retention, and trust. Drawing on their combined backgrounds in leadership coaching, human capital strategy, and organizational psychology, the hosts bring both diagnostic frameworks and real, lived examples — turning a hard truth about workplace culture into an actionable conversation for leaders at every level.

This week on Leadership Matters, the microphone turns around. Co-hosts Dr. Undraye P. Howard and Dr. Loretta A. Howard step into the guest chairs to discuss their new book, Is This the Way It's Supposed to Be? Lessons in Leadership and Lived Experiences — an honest, often funny, deeply personal exploration of the gap between how leadership is supposed to look and how it actually unfolds. Two kids from Milwaukee grew up just miles apart, never crossing paths until graduate school — then earned their doctorates side by side and built a marriage, a partnership, and three decades of leadership in the process. In this episode, they share the stories behind the book: the cafeteria outburst that sparked its central question, the "Barbecue Blunder" that turned a family cookout into a live lesson on equality versus equity, the first-grade class clown who almost hid his origin story from a board of directors, and the whispered playground moment that transformed an outsider's ache into a leader's superpower. Along the way, they challenge some of leadership's most comfortable assumptions: that control is real (it's an illusion — influence is what matters), that leaders must project certainty (the best ones lead from "the corner of Confusion and Hope"), and that the past is something to outrun (it's actually your most valuable teacher). Whether you're a seasoned executive or an emerging leader, this conversation will leave you with better questions — starting with the one that changes everything: Is this the way it's supposed to be?