Month: February 2025

EP 164: Marcus Buckingham on How Love Drives Business Success

Posted on February 26, 2025 by - Calling, Confidence, Emotional Intelligence, Influence, Leading Others, Leading Yourself, Performance Management, Podcasts, Relational Intelligence, Servant Leadership, Supervising People, Team Building

Now introducing The Global Leadership Podcast presented by the Global Leadership Network.

SUMMARY 

“Love” and “work” are not words that are usually thought of in the same context. For today’s guest, however, “love” has a measurable and positive impact on the metrics of work. Marcus Buckingham is known for starting the “Strengths Revolution.” He is also a global researcher and New York Times bestselling author, and he recently joined the GLN’s David Ashcraft for a conversation about the role that love plays—or should play—in our work. Whether you are a leader who wants to know how to bring the absolute best out of those you lead, or you are curious how to discover the things you truly love (and why they matter at work), we invite you to listen to this episode.

 

IN THIS EPISODE 

2:50 Staying centered amid success  

8:45 What people get wrong about strengths 

13:20 The relationship between strengths and love 

19:45 Work as a chore vs work as a place to do what you love 

25:00 How love factors into the top performers 

30:15 The role of a supervisor in helping others find their strengths 

39:00 How leaders can accept other’s loathes 

48:30 “Love” as a business concept  

 

LISTEN 

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

 

STANDOUTS AND TAKEAWAYS 

  • If you have a mission that you believe in, you don’t stop; you just keep on advancing the mission.
  • The way to stay grounded is to stay connected to your purpose. You don’t get too off track when you remember that you are in service.
  • The issue is not necessarily whether or not someone will grow. The issue is where will they grow the most? You invest in strengths because—even on a biochemical level—that’s where people experience the most growth.
  • You learn something different when you look at “extreme positives,” and the word that people use to describe that level of feeling is “love.”
  • A strength is not something that you’re good at, and a weakness is not something that you are bad at. A strength is something that strengthens you, which leads to appetite, which leads to practice, which often leads to increased performance.
  • The DNA of a strength is love. A strength is a person or an activity that an individual loves.
  • Love is a decoder to help understand the mystery of yourself.
  • Your brain “on love” is you at your smartest.
  • It’s not about finding a job you love, it’s about finding the love in what you are already doing.
  • Love isn’t a luxury; it’s a force, and it needs to be expressed. It needs to come out.
  • Having 20% of your work consist of what you love has tremendous positive outcomes: resilience, resistance to burnout, engagement.
  • Even the most successful leaders will have some work that they just have “get through,” but those instances are balanced out by getting to do the things they love.
  • Find out what you hate doing, and stop doing it. You won’t contribute your gifts if you spend too much of your days being hurt.
  • As a leader, you can’t determine someone else’s strengths for them. All you have to do is bring the power of your attention to that person.
  • In a world of complexity and frequent change, the only solution you have as a leader is frequent conversations (15 minutes, every week, with every person you lead).
  • The conversation about loves and loathes is not about logic. It’s about appetites.
  • Everybody’s life is singing to them in a way that only they can understand (and you don’t have to).
  • An additional side of love involves how a business/organization makes experiences for others that they (the customers) come to love.
  • Love is a predictor of human behavior. If customers/guests “love” what you are providing, you will see positive results.  

 

LINKS MENTIONED 

 

SPONSOR 

  • This episode sponsored by Thrivent.  

EP 163: Paula Faris on Leading with Passion and Intuition

Posted on February 18, 2025 by - Calling, Confidence, Emotional Intelligence, Influence, Leading Others, Leading Yourself, Podcasts, Relational Intelligence, Servant Leadership, Wellness

Now introducing The Global Leadership Podcast presented by the Global Leadership Network.

SUMMARY 

Paula Faris joins the podcast today to talk about the different ways leaders can “lead with heart.” Paula is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, podcast host and founder of CARRY Media, and she sat down for this conversation with Global Leadership Network President and CEO David Ashcraft. Together they explore the roles that intuition and passion have had in Paula’s life, how leaders can protect themselves while practicing openness and authenticity and how leading with heart informs and shapes Paula’s leadership today.

 

IN THIS EPISODE 

3:00 Paula’s Journalism Career 

4:40 Servant Leadership and Leading with Empathy 

6:30 Paula’s Journey from Journalism to her Current Work 

9:00 The Connection Between “Heart” and “Passion” 

11:00 How Paula’s Journalism Peers Reacted to Her Leaving  

15:15 The Pain Comes from Leading with Heart 

20:45 How Paula Empowers Her Team to Speak Truth to Her 

26:45 Feedback that Paula Finds Unhelpful 

28:15 Lessons that Paula Has Learned as She’s Stepped into Leadership 

30:30 How She Kept Going in Tough Times

37:00 What CARRY Media is All About 

 

LISTEN 

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

 

STANDOUTS AND TAKEAWAYS 

  • Part of leading with heart is simply leading with humanity and remembering that we are all human. 
  • Failure is a down payment on success.
  • When we are called to something, it’s not a matter of failure or success; it’s a matter of obedience.
  • In times of transition, we sometimes need to slow down, reflect and listen before we can see what’s coming next.
  • Surround yourself with people who empower you, not enable you. 
  • We often need people who can tell us the truth in order to save us from ourselves.
  • Each month, ask your team, “What’s one thing I need to get better at?”
  • When you make a mistake, be transparent and just own it.
  • At the end of the day, people want to feel seen and heard and to have a voice.
  • All feedback is helpful, but it is possible to have too many voices. Cultivate a small circle of trusted voices.
  • Calling does not equate to “easy”, but if God calls you, he will equip you.
  • You can be exactly where you are supposed to be, and still miss things about your previous chapter.
  • With every new season, you will gain new things, but you will also lose some things you value. Also, a new season is not forever.
  • If you feel called to something new, just start moving. You won’t necessarily know if you’re heading in the right direction or not until you get going.
  • Caregivers are the fastest growing segment of the workforce.
  • We live in a world that talks about “balance,” but “alignment” is the better target to pursue.  

 

LINKS MENTIONED 

 

SPONSOR 

  •  This episode sponsored by VAUSA.

Does anti-trafficking work have a burnout problem — or a leadership problem?

Posted on February 12, 2025 by - Articles

By Amber Van Schooneveld 

Within anti-trafficking nonprofits, staff turnover is an all-too-familiar challenge. Heavy caseloads, budgetary constraints and vicarious trauma lead to burnt-out staff who abandon ship after finding themselves utterly spent. But according to a 2022 study by Institute for Survivor Care, anti-trafficking and survivor care nonprofits don’t have a burnout problem; they have a leadership problem.  

“This industry is full of founders who feel called to do this work,” says Kristi Wells, CEO of Safe House Project. “But sometimes they forget that God also brings other people along, and that we, as leaders and founders, don’t have to have all the answers. I think we have a leadership crisis in this field more than a lack of people willing to engage.”  

Leadership is in the DNA of Safe House Project, a survivor care nonprofit cofounded by Kristi Wells and Brittany Dunn.   

“My dad was the CEO of a billion-dollar company,” says Kristi. “So, I was raised around some of the top CEOs in the world. I spent my spring breaks on leadership retreats with them.”  

Brittany, with an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, also has a passion for leadership, something the two have saturated throughout their organization. Within each of Safe House Project’s programs, the leaders are empowered to innovate, collaborate and own their areas of expertise.  

“We push for extreme outcomes because everybody in their respective roles has extreme ownership,” says Kristi.   

They also operate with extreme candor, regularly having challenging but critical conversations. Their extreme emphasis on leadership has led to extreme results:  

“We served 534 survivors in 2023. In the start of 2024, we set the goal together of serving 1,500 survivors. For that to happen, every part of the organization had to be working at full speed,” says Kristi. “And so, when we served 1,529 survivors by the end of New Year’s Eve 2024, it was unbelievable. We’re so proud.” 

Kristi and Brittany are intentional in their approach to leadership, ensuring both they and their team receive regular infusions of training and inspiration. In 2024, the two attended the Global Leadership Summit together in South Barrington, IL, where they received the push they needed to take a scary next step.  

One of the challenges in the anti-trafficking field is reporting suspected cases of exploitation. The current platforms that exist struggle to keep up with the overwhelming number of cases reported through anonymous tips each year.  

The team at Safe House Project experienced this challenge over and over with people needing to be removed from situations of trafficking not able to receive the assistance they needed. Kristi and Brittany knew something needed to change — and they knew they could be part of that change — but tackling such a huge and potentially disruptive project was daunting.  

“We were standing on the cusp of doing something really insane and innovative,” says Kristi. “We were scared, thinking, if we do this, there’s no turning back.”   

But hearing Craig Groeschel speak at the Summit, giving them “permission to obsess” gave them the courage they needed to leap into their “WHALE” — their “Whole-Hearted All-Encompassing Life Endeavor”:  

“Sometimes to change the world, you have to do the hard things,” says Kristi. “Greatness isn’t found in the middle; it’s born in the extremes.”  

Kristi and Brittany took the inspiration and training from the Summit and taught mini-sessions to their staff in the fall of 2024. And, thanks in part to the inspiration and practical tools they gained, Safe House Project is launching Simply Report in 2025, a simple, secure app to help people recognize and report human trafficking.  

Their prayer is that this app will revolutionize how people respond to trafficking, giving them an easy and approachable way to discreetly report trafficking without putting themselves or others at risk.  

They’re already in for the Summit in 2025, and this time they’re bringing the whole team, knowing that they weren’t called to maintain the status quo, but to push the extremes and be a part of ending trafficking.  

“The Summit was unbelievable,” says Kristi. “It’s the place you go to get your leadership love tank filled up.”   

What is the Whole-Hearted All-Encompassing Life Endeavor God is calling you to? What next steps do you need to take to tackle that challenge? This world needs inspired and equipped leaders like Kristi and Brittany — and like you — to tackle the daunting challenges we face.  

If you’d like to dig in to how you can help end trafficking, learn more about Safe House Project and Simply Report.  

EP 162: GLN President and CEO David Ashcraft on Leading with Heart

Posted on February 11, 2025 by - Communication, Influence, Leading Others, Leading Yourself, Podcasts, Relational Intelligence, Servant Leadership

Now introducing The Global Leadership Podcast presented by the Global Leadership Network.

SUMMARY 

This month’s theme at the Global Leadership Network is “leading with heart,” and in this episode of the Global Leadership Podcast, Whitney Putnam sits down with GLN president and CEO David Ashcraft. Together, they explore what it means to lead with heart and examine practical ways that leaders can begin to lead with openness and authenticity. David and Whitney also discuss how to avoid some potential pitfalls that can occur as leaders begin to open up to those around them.  

 

IN THIS EPISODE 

0:00 Intro 

2:55 For David, what does it mean to lead with heart?  

4:25 Has leading with vulnerability and authenticity always come naturally to David?  

5:48 Has David had a situation when he felt like he could not show up as himself?  

11:25 How time is a good guardrail when choosing stories to share.   

12:50 How David connects country music to leading with heart.  

15:53 Outro 

 

LISTEN 

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube 

 

STANDOUTS AND TAKEAWAYS 

  • Leading with heart means being real and being honest.  
  • There’s a balance between being too open about flaws and brokenness, and not being open at all.
  • People want to follow a real person. They want to hear stories that show that we are not perfect. 
  • When possible, communicators should choose stories that aren’t too fresh, and that have some resolution.  

 

LINKS MENTIONED