Limitless Leadership Lounge

Limitless Leadership Lounge

por StoryTrust Media
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The Trust Gap: What the Data Says About Why Teams Stop Believing in Their Leaders
What does the research actually say about why people trust their leaders, and why do so many well-intentioned leaders still get it wrong? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson welcome Dr. Ben Granger, chief workplace psychologist at Qualtrics, organizational psychology doctorate from the University of South Florida, and author of A Leader Worth Following, for one of the most research-backed and practically useful conversations the Lounge has ever had. Dr. Ben opens with a breakdown of VUCA, the framework originally developed by the Army War College to describe volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments, and makes the case that we are not just in a VUCA moment but a perennial VUCA reality that is only accelerating. His advice for leaders navigating it is both counterintuitive and immediately actionable: give people more grace, and communicate more, not less, especially when you do not have all the answers yet. The conversation goes deep on trust, one of the most talked about and least understood concepts in leadership. Dr. Ben shares data from 80,000 leadership assessments showing that the number one driver of trust is simply the quality of the personal relationship between a leader and their people. He also breaks down the three lenses employees use to evaluate whether they trust their leaders, competence, integrity, and benevolence, and reveals that only about half of global employees believe their leaders make decisions for the benefit of the group rather than themselves. That third lens, he argues, is where most leaders quietly lose their people without ever knowing it. Jon and Coach draw out some of the sharpest moments of the episode when Dr. Ben shares the story of an executive who got up in front of his company right after a major layoff and delivered an overly optimistic message that completely missed where his people were emotionally. Dr. Ben walks through exactly how that 15 minute misstep eroded trust on a massive scale, what it took to rebuild it, and why the Stockdale Paradox is one of the most important leadership frameworks any leader can internalize. The episode also covers the science of effective one-on-one meetings, why the agenda should belong to the employee rather than the manager, and what Dr. Ben did early in his career that quietly sent the wrong signal to his whole team every time he showed up late or cancelled. He closes with sharp advice on hiring for diversity of thought, building teams where task conflict is welcomed, and the critical distinction between interpersonal conflict that destroys performance and productive disagreement that drives better decisions. Whether you are just stepping into leadership or looking to understand why your team is not as all in as you need them to be, this episode will give you both the research and the practical tools to close that gap. Grab A Leader Worth Following wherever books are sold or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Leader-Worth-Following-Benjamin-Granger/dp/1394402562 Connect With Dr. Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-granger-7147991b/
15 jul 2026
45:28
Cheers to Monday: Amy Lenker on Burnout, Stress, and Getting Your Life Back
Amy Lenker had over 100 panic attacks in a single summer. She worked her entire maternity leave the day after having her daughter. And she built a career that looked like success from the outside while quietly destroying herself from the inside. This week Amy joins Jon and Coach Jim to talk about burnout, stress, and what she calls the unstressing method, a practical framework she developed the hard way. She also shares the leadership regret that still breaks her heart, and why the strongest teams she works with are aligned on something most teams never even discuss. Her book is called Cheers to Monday, and by the end of this conversation you will understand exactly why. Connect with Amy: https://www.amyleneker.com Find Amy's Book: https://www.amyleneker.com/book Follow Amy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amy.leneker/ The Limitless Leadership Lounge was selected by MillionPodcasts as one of the Top 100 Leadership Development Podcasts in the world: millionpodcasts.com/leadership-development-podcasts
11 jul 2026
43:12
What Three Cancer Diagnoses Taught One Leader About Communication, Delegation, and Trust
What does it look like to lead a business, serve clients, and keep showing up with humor and grace while fighting for your life at the same time? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson welcome Deb Krier, seasoned entrepreneur, integrative cancer coach, host of the Business Power Hour podcast with over 1,100 episodes, and one of the most authentically inspiring guests the Lounge has ever had, for a conversation about resilience, communication, delegation, and what three cancer diagnoses taught her about leadership and life. Deb opens with three sharp and immediately practical communication tips for young leaders, starting with the counterintuitive advice to share more than you think you need to, and including the two words most leaders are afraid to say out loud: I don't know. She makes the case that communication is always a two way street, and that leaders who create space for honest feedback, including the uncomfortable kind, will always outperform those who do not. From there the conversation shifts into Deb's remarkable personal story. A stage zero breast cancer diagnosis that jumped to stage three overnight. A first round of chemotherapy that put her in the hospital for seven weeks in septic shock. A stage four metastatic diagnosis. A separate skin cancer. And then a third entirely independent cancer diagnosis when lesions were found on both sides of her thyroid. Through all of it she kept running her business, kept serving her clients, and kept making her medical team laugh. Jon and Coach draw out the leadership lessons woven through every chapter of Deb's story. She shares her framework for building a resilience plan, including why having the right people around you is not optional, how to compassionately remove the ones who are not helping, and why being your own advocate is the most important skill you can develop in any high stakes situation. She also delivers one of the most practical delegation breakdowns the Lounge has heard, and challenges every leader to ask whether their business could function without them tomorrow if it had to. The episode closes with Deb's philosophy on mortality, her plea for every leader regardless of age to have a will, a medical power of attorney, and a business continuity plan, and the story behind her community trying not to die live, which she founded as a support and inspiration space for people navigating a cancer journey. Whether you are leading through a health challenge, a business crisis, or simply a season that feels heavier than you expected, this episode will remind you that showing up, asking for help, and finding something to laugh about are not signs of weakness. They are the foundation of genuine resilience. Connect with Deb Krier: tryingnottodie.live and yourcancercoach.life Find Deb on LinkedIn and Facebook Listen to the Business Power Hour podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-power-hour-with-deb-krier/id642539481
8 jul 2026
34:59
All In: How to Build a Culture of Commitment with General Robert Mixon
What separates a culture of compliance from a culture of commitment, and what does it actually take to build the kind of team where people are truly all in? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson sit down with General Robert Mixon, retired two star division commander, former aide to General Colin Powell, co-founder of Level Five Associates, and author of The Power of Being All In, for one of the most battle tested and practically useful leadership conversations the Lounge has ever had. General Mixon opens with his origin story, from growing up as the oldest of six kids in Georgia to being recruited to West Point by Army football coaches who showed up in his driveway the night he came home from a game with his ribs taped up, still wearing his gas station uniform. He shares what those early years commanding 178 soldiers on the East West German border taught him about leading through chaos, and why the ability to be the calm in the storm became the cornerstone of everything he has built since. The conversation goes deep into the distinction between a culture of compliance and a culture of commitment, and why most organizations are stuck at one of the five levels of culture without even knowing it. General Mixon walks Jon and Coach through his Big Six principles of adaptive leadership, starting with setting the azimuth, the cardinal direction of your organization, and moving through listening with the intent to understand, trusting and empowering your people, doing the right thing when no one is watching, taking charge with calm rather than control, and balancing your four levels of energy so you have something left to give. One of the sharpest moments of the episode comes when General Mixon talks about the difference between being liked and being respected, and why the finest leaders he has ever known were not people who sought to be liked. He also shares a story about copying someone else's personal leadership philosophy and having a trusted colleague call him out on it, and what that humbling moment taught him about authenticity and credibility. The episode closes with a practical challenge for every listener: build your personal leadership philosophy, sign it, date it, give it to your team, and then audit yourself against it for ten minutes every day. That single habit, General Mixon argues, is one of the most powerful things a leader can do to move their culture from compliance to commitment. Whether you lead a platoon, a company, or a family, this episode will challenge you to stop talking about values and start translating them into specific, observable behaviors that your people can hold you accountable to every day. Connect with General Mixon: levelfiveassociates.com Email: robert@levelfiveassociates.com Download chapter one of both books free at levelfiveassociates.com Substack: robertmixon.substack.com
1 jul 2026
45:58
The Four Biggest Myths About Team Culture
Every leader talks about team culture. Very few are actually building it the right way. This week Jon and Coach Jim bust four of the most common myths about team culture, and at least one of them is probably something you believe right now. If you have ever bought the team lunch and wondered why morale did not improve, this one is for you.
24 jun 2026
13:51
Positivity as a Competitive Advantage: The Two Women Carrying the Gordon Leadership Legacy Forward
What does it actually look like to live out positive leadership not just on stage but at home, in your marriage, in your family, and on the days you really do not feel like it? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson welcome the first ever mother and daughter duo to the Limitless Leadership Lounge, Kathryn Gordon and Jade Gordon, the wife and daughter of bestselling author and leadership legend John Gordon, for one of the most warm, honest, and genuinely inspiring conversations the show has ever had. Kathryn opens with a story that will surprise a lot of people. Before John Gordon became the voice of positive leadership that millions of people know today, he was stressed, negative, and by his own family's account, blaming the people around him for his unhappiness. Kathryn shares what it took, including a moment where she told him plainly that something had to change, and how John's willingness to start small with a daily walk and a few simple habits transformed not just their marriage but the foundation of everything he now teaches the world. Jade picks up from there with her own story of growing up wanting nothing to do with her dad's principles, getting her first taste of real leadership at a world famous restaurant in Los Angeles where the culture was toxic and the management was anything but positive, and the moment a stranger in that restaurant prayed over her and set her on a completely different path. Her account of how she began implementing positive leadership principles from the inside out as a hostess, going out of her way to help the busers, driving teammates to practice, taking freshmen out to lunch, is one of the most practical and moving illustrations of servant leadership the Lounge has ever heard. The conversation covers the power of committing to a mission statement as an organization and as a family, how to navigate seasons where your role is to support someone else's calling rather than lead your own, and why every single person contributes to culture whether they have a title or not. Kathryn also shares what she is building with Gordon Publishing and why she believes everyone has a book inside them waiting to help someone else. The episode closes with both Kathryn and Jade defining servant leadership in their own words, grounded in real stories of John Gordon driving an hour each way to bring Jade food she could eat before her lacrosse games, and Kathryn recognizing that sometimes leading well means stepping back so someone else can move forward. Whether you are stepping into a new leadership position, navigating a season where you feel like you are in someone else's shadow, or just need a reminder that your feelings and your commitments are two very different things, this episode will both challenge and encourage you. Connect with Kathryn: gordonpublishing.com Connect with Jade and the John Gordon Companies: johngordonscompanies.com
17 jun 2026
48:55
One Word That Will Change Your Entire Year: Dan Britton On Faith, Focus, & Leadership
What if the key to becoming a better leader is not adding more goals to your list but stripping everything down to just one word? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson sit down with Dan Britton, speaker, writer, coach, former professional lacrosse player, 34 year veteran of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, founder of Sports Life Leadership, and co-author of nine books including the bestselling One Word, written alongside Jon Gordon and Jimmy Page. This conversation is one of the most personal and practically powerful the Lounge has delivered. Dan opens with a compelling vision of faith-based servant leadership, drawing on the example of Jesus at the last supper to illustrate what it looks like when a leader walks into every room with the posture of someone who is there to serve rather than to be served. He makes the case that servant leadership is not a soft concept but the most transformational leadership model in history, and challenges every listener to ask whether they are leading from a position of ego or a posture of humility. The conversation shifts into one of the richest discussions of coaching and correction the Lounge has had. Dan shares the lesson his quiet, unassuming high school football coach Sleepy Thompson taught him about accentuating the positive, and then draws a critical distinction that every leader needs to hear: there is a fundamental difference between being critical and offering correction, and great leaders know how to hold their people accountable without ever making them feel shamed. Dan then walks Jon and Coach through the one word concept, starting with the story of how a simple question from a friend on a three hour road trip in 1999 exposed the seven pages of goals he had been writing every year that he never actually completed. He explains why one word works where long goal lists fail, the difference between to do goals and to be goals, and how a single word can become the lens through which every dimension of your life, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, relational, and financial, comes into focus throughout an entire year. The episode also delivers a masterclass on building your personal dream team, including the warriors who lock arms with you as peers, the watchmen who sit on the wall and see what you cannot yet see, and the workmen you are pouring into as a mentor. Dan shares how this framework carried him through one of the hardest transitions of his life when he left FCA after three decades and had to rediscover his identity from the ground up. The episode closes with Dan's two hour morning discipline routine, built over 35 years of leading in ministry, and a challenge to every leader to get right inside their own circle before unleashing themselves on the world around them. Whether you are drowning in goals that never seem to get done, navigating a major life transition, or simply looking for a leadership framework rooted in something deeper than ambition, this episode will stay with you. Connect with Dan: sportslifeleadership.com Grab One Word on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Word-That-Will-Change-Expanded/dp/1118809424
10 jun 2026
48:17
Great Leaders Ask Great Questions. Ask Better Ones With Clark Aldrich
What if the most powerful thing you can do as a leader has nothing to do with having the right answers, and everything to do with asking the right questions? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson sit down with Clark Aldrich, recognized by Forbes Magazine and CNN as one of the world's leading voices on experiential learning, father of simulation learning, award winning author, and creator of the Socratic Cards, a deceptively simple leadership and learning tool that is changing how teams grow, communicate, and think together. Clark opens by challenging one of the most deeply held assumptions in both education and leadership: that the person at the front of the room should be doing most of the talking. Drawing on decades of working with CEOs, military universities, and Fortune 500 companies, he makes a compelling case that great leaders are defined not by the quality of their answers but by the quality of their questions, and specifically questions to which they genuinely do not already know the answer. The conversation goes deep into what separates the 30 percent of employees Clark calls heroic tribe members from the 70 percent who are simply going through the motions, and what a leader can do to flip that ratio on their own team. Clark also shares his framework for seeing every person who walks through your door as a hero on a journey, and why that single mindset shift changes everything about how you hire, how you lead, and how loyal your people will be to you. Clark also shares his five levels of tribe thinking, from the vandals at the bottom to the everything rises together mentality at the top, and explains why understanding where your team or family sits on that spectrum is the first step to building something that actually holds together. The episode closes with Clark reflecting on the mentor who shaped his entire philosophy of learning and leadership, and why after thirty years in the field, he is still standing on that person's shoulders. Whether you lead a team, teach a class, raise children, or simply want to get better at the conversations that actually move people forward, this episode will make you think differently about the power of a good question. Connect with Clark: socraticcards.com Email: clark@socraticcards.com Grab Socratic Cards at socraticcards.com for $25 a deck
3 jun 2026
39:05
The Delegation Mistake Every Leader Makes
Most leaders know they should delegate the things they are not good at. But what about the things they are? This week Jon and Coach Jim tackle one of the most overlooked conversations in leadership, and the answer might make you rethink how you are spending your time right now. They break down four reasons why delegating your strengths might be the most powerful thing you can do for your team, your organization, and your own growth as a leader. It is a short, sharp solo episode packed with practical insight and at least one example involving trash that is more relevant to leadership than it has any right to be. If your calendar is full of things you are great at, this one is for you.
27 may 2026
12:39
Uniquely Qualified: How Your Hardest Moments Make You a Better Leader
What if your greatest obstacle is actually your greatest qualification? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson welcome Diana Fritz, dynamic executive leader, cancer thriver, Maxwell Leadership certified coach, and author of Uniquely Imperfect, Uniquely Qualified, for one of the most moving and genuinely inspiring conversations the Lounge has ever had. Diana opens with a story about her grandmother that sets the tone for everything that follows. A woman who chose joy no matter what life brought her, who could make anyone feel seen and loved, and whose smile Diana has made it her life's mission to carry forward. From there she shares what her first basketball coach taught her about mental toughness, accountability, and the kind of teamwork that shows up in a boardroom just as powerfully as it does on a court. The conversation shifts into Diana's cancer diagnosis, which arrived 12 years ago, thirty days into the year she turned forty, right in the middle of a separation, an executive role, and single motherhood. What she did with that news is a masterclass in proactive leadership. Drawing on Viktor Frankl and Stephen Covey, two books she was assigned in college and never forgot, Diana made a decision that her cancer would refine her rather than define her, and has been living that out every day since. Jon and Coach dig into the practical tools Diana uses to lead herself before leading anyone else, including her daily five AM reflection practice, her journaling habits built over decades, and the way she uses gratitude not as a buzzword but as a daily discipline that keeps her anchored when everything around her is uncertain. Diana also shares a masterclass on DISC, breaking down all four personality styles and explaining how understanding them transformed her relationships with the high D personalities who used to frustrate her most, and how she now uses DISC workshops to help entire organizations appreciate what makes each person different rather than fight about it. The episode closes with a powerful message for anyone who thinks they have nothing unique to offer. Diana makes the case that every scar, every struggle, and every obstacle you are working through right now is uniquely qualifying you to reach someone else who needs exactly what you have learned. And one person, she reminds us, is always enough to make it worth it. Whether you are leading through your own hard season, trying to build a team that truly works together, or just need a reminder that joy is always a choice even when circumstances are not, this episode will stay with you long after it ends. Connect with Diana: grituiuq.com Grab Uniquely Imperfect, Uniquely Qualified on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Uniquely-Imperfect-Qualified-Adversity-Imperfection/dp/1636804306 Connect with Diana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-fritz-b032064/
20 may 2026
44:55
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