Every leader has conversations they're dreading, avoiding, or fumbling before they even begin. In this episode, Lee Scott unpacks one of the most underestimated tools in the leadership toolkit, the compelling invitation. Not the ambush, not the vague "can we talk?" text, and not the cold command to report to the conference room. The compelling invitation is the art and science of getting the right person to show up curious, safe, and ready to engage, before the real conversation even starts.

Drawing on frameworks from "Crucial Conversations," Chris Voss's "Never Split the Difference", Edgar Schein's humble inquiry, and Judith Glaser's conversational intelligence, Lee walks through the anatomy of a compelling invitation, and why skipping it is almost always your worst option. Whether you're navigating a performance challenge, pitching an idea upward, asking for a raise, or addressing friction in a long-standing relationship, how you extend the invitation shapes everything that follows.

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Key Takeaways:

• Why avoidance and assault are the two failure modes on either side of a compelling invitation
• The wedding invitation framework: the overlooked parallel to how leaders should open conversations
• Tailoring your invitation to DISC styles and the six fundamental human needs
• Contrasting outcomes vs. positions: what you want, and what this conversation is not going to be
• Giving people a genuine choice, and why "no" being on the table is actually a sign the relationship is working
• Real-world scripts across four scenarios: prospective clients, bosses, struggling employees, and personal relationships

Change is inevitable, but fearless leaders choose to run toward it.

In this replay episode, Lee sits down with Jen Bauer, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Culture at Miron Construction, to explore what it truly takes to build a people powered organization in an industry facing rapid transformation. From talent shortages to shifting workplace expectations, Jen shares candid insights on how purpose, community impact, and bold innovation are shaping the future of leadership.

Together, Lee and Jen unpack how organizations can rethink recruiting pipelines, create meaningful internship experiences, and challenge the familiar phrase "that's not how we've always done it." With real world stories about investing in the next generation, embracing fresh perspectives, and cultivating ownership level engagement, this conversation highlights how culture driven strategies can unlock growth at scale. 💡

If you are a leader navigating change, striving to attract passionate talent, or searching for practical ways to energize your team, this episode offers both inspiration and actionable direction to help you build excellence from the inside out.

Key Takeaways:

• Fearless leaders embrace change and view failure as growth.
• Talent attraction now requires purpose driven employer branding.
• Internships create future ready leadership pipelines.
• Fresh perspectives challenge outdated organizational norms.
• Culture and community impact strengthen retention and engagement.

Additional Resources:

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In this inspiring episode, Dr. Jamie Justice shares her journey from a snowboard athlete to a pioneering scientist and now a global leader in the fields of aging and health innovation. Discover how seeing leadership as a service at any level in the hierarchy, leveraging setbacks as launchpads, and relentless curiosity are transforming the quality and longevity of human life. This episode is a treasure trove for innovators, health leaders, and anyone passionate about transforming human potential through strategic leadership, partnership, and innovation.

Key Takeaways:

• Get inspired about what humans can do when we innovate at the edge of humanity's greatest challenges via the X-Prize
• Early career leadership lessons to access mentorship and find your place to contribute even in a crowded room of experts
• Leveraging personal and professional setbacks to launch the next breakthrough
• Building and scaling interconnected communities through humility, service, and relentless curiosity
• Building innovative frameworks and navigating regulatory landscapes for scientific breakthroughs and rethinking limiting assumptions on human aging

Additional Resources:

Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn

Learn more, compete, and contribution through the X-Prize:

X-Prize

X-Prize HealthSpan Competition

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In this replay episode, Lee sits down with Jen Arnold, CEO of Growth Signals, to unpack the real impact leaders have on trust, wellbeing, and performance at work.

Jen challenges the surface-level approach to workplace wellness and reframes leadership as one of the most influential forces in a person's mental health and daily energy. She shares why trust is built in the smallest moments, how unclear expectations quietly erode culture, and what "compassionate candor" looks like when leaders go first with honesty and ownership. From missed one-on-ones to broken peer trust, Jen offers practical ways to repair relationships before resentment becomes the norm.

Lee and Jen also explore the hidden stress of peer-to-peer conflict and the emotional energy it drains from teams. Together, they outline actionable steps leaders can take to name emotions, assume good intent, navigate workplace politics with integrity, and rebuild trust without sacrificing values. This conversation is a masterclass in resilient, people-first leadership that strengthens both culture and results.

Key Takeaways:

• Trust builds in small, consistent daily actions
• Leaders impact mental health more than spouses
• Name emotions before addressing workplace conflict
• Acceptance reduces stress in peer tensions
• Politics is simply relationships with mixed interests

Additional Resources:

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In this conversation, Charles Sharp reflects on what it means to lead at a young age, sharing the experiences and formative moments that shaped his confidence, credibility, and approach to leadership. He talks about early lessons in humility, respect and relationship-building including stories that taught him never to underestimate people and always treat everyone with dignity. 

Charles walks through his rise from coordinator to vice president in his early thirties, explaining how he learned to overcome doubts from others and from himself. He details how young leaders earn trust: by sticking to facts, delivering results, asking thoughtful questions, and staying humble even when they're expected to prove themselves. He also shares the internal battles that come with leadership — the fear of making mistakes, looking inexperienced, or asking for help and why mentors, feedback, and deliberate reflection are essential at every stage. 

Additional Resources:

CFO and Senior Vice President of PRIDE Industries

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Key Takeaways:

• If you get a job, the company believes you're the right person.
• Your confidence is key to your success.
• Being the youngest or starting out doesn't diminish your value.
• Self-belief can propel you forward in your career.
• Success builds upon itself, leading to further opportunities.

In this milestone 50th episode of the Unleashing Leaders podcast, host Lee Scott and guest Cyrus Aram shine a light on hidden blind spots of leadership. They discuss Cyrus's unique international experiences and early career challenges that revealed patterns in blind spots. Through stories of massive and micro scale changes, Cyrus shares how he learned how there are always blindspots and how to spot and reveal them, generally before the bite you. He then offers practical tips on a few blind spot antidotes: keeping culture front and center, navigating conflict resolution frameworks, leading customer-centric process changes, and balancing strategic and operational thinking. Cyrus emphasizes the need for both mentors and champions in one's career and shares valuable insights on how to find and access their wisdom effectively.

Takeaways:

• Spotting the hidden cultural canaries that can derail mega changes (Bagel lady)
• Recognize and address team conflict with ABC (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence)
• Overcoming internal bias by improving processes from the outside-in (Customer-centric)
• Differentiate and leverage both Mentors and Champions
• Picking up the cues when to be Strategic vs Operational
• Learning to read the micro-expressions and behaviors (Poker Tells)

Additional Resources:

Cyrus Aram, CEO Unleashing Leaders, Faculty Professor UC Davis Graduate School of Management, Tedx Talk Speaker:

Linkedin-personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyrus-aram-688b1437/

Linkedin-UL company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders/ Ted Talk - Uncertainty Tolerated: https://www.ted.com/talks/cyrus_aram_uncertainty_tolerated_the_surprising_clarity_when_managing_ambiguity

Escape from Tehran by Dr. Assad Aram. https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Tehran-Assad-Aram/dp/1492347620

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All leaders-to-be face a pivotal moment where they cross over from being a valuable individual contributor to taking on the mantle of leadership. That leadership role might be informal or formal, but either way it is a quantum leap in impact. Our guest is Rob Marcus, CEO of Blue Stallion Leadership and US Army Bronze Star veteran from from Fredericksburg, VA. Across military, civilian, and personal challenges, Rob has made the leap to leader and helped hundreds of others do so with courage, clarity, and accountability.

In this episode, Rob shares insights from his career journey from pizza parlors to youth sports to military counter insurgency operations. He also gives a preview of practical tactics from his book, "Crossing the Divide" that can help early career folks make that transition for themselves and/or later career leaders help others make that leap with less frustration and delays.

Rob describes how often our initial solutions to problems may get the immediate job done, but don't often scale. As a leader progresses in their breadth of responsibility, its important to expand our thinking two to three steps ahead. It's also important to consider both the bottom line aspects and the humanity to make it stick and persistent across multiple team members and customer experiences.

Key takeaways:

1. Recognizing when you are approaching the leadership divide so you can navigate it better on your terms
2. Not letting perfection block you from starting your leadership journey
3. Critical thinking factors to consider to maintain clarity and empathy under pressure
4. Navigating the 5 challenges that come with leadership role changes: Skill Development, Peer Relationship Dynamics, Increased Responsibilities, Team Dynamics, and Identity Transition.

Additional Resources:

Rob Marcus, Founder and CEO of Blue Stallion Solutions

Author of Crossing the Divide: The Leadership Shift that Defines your Next Chapter.

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On the UL podcast, we believe that leadership can happen with and without formal authority. Sometimes, the most challenging leadership role is leading up to a person who technically has more formal authority, but might be unintentionally causing some of the chaos you are trying to address. In this episode, we'll learn from two examples from different contexts but have very similar patterns for how to lead up to what we affectionately call "Chaos Monsters."

In one case, Jesse shares his experience as a volunteer leader working within a non-profit civic organization with a charismatic executive director who is asking for increased operational structure ... and yet sometimes working in exact opposition. In the other case, Jesse will share his experience as an officer in the National Guard working in a matrixed command military structure to achieve particular mission readiness objectives ... and yet encounters higher ranking officers who sometimes contradict their own directives.

Both examples sound totally different - one volunteer non profit, the other an officer in the military. And yet both illustrate similar patterns of how to lead up effectively. By day, Dr. Jesse Mix is a primary care and ER physician at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in Boise, ID. In the evenings, he volunteers across a few community/civic organizations (which shall remain nameless). And as a National Guardsman, Lt. Col Jesse Mix is the Flight Surgeon/Medical Officer to an elite Pararescue (PJ) squadron within the US Air Force. He is also the past President of the Leadership Boise program. I personally love talking to Jesse because he makes me feel less stressed about whatever else I have going on in my life!

Key Takeaways:

1. Recognizing when you are dealing with Chaos Monster(s)
2. Scaling your responses from nudges to more direct intervention to higher level escalation
3. Knowing when to hold em, and when to fold em!
   
   

Additional Resources:

By day, Dr. Jesse Mix is a primary care and ER physician with the Boise VA Medical Center. As a National Guardsman, Lt. Col Jesse Mis is a Flight Surgeon and Medical Officer for one of the US Air Force Pararescue (PJ) squadrons. He also leads as a volunteer across a few community/civic organizations.

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