Truly Human Leadership

Here's a question you may or may not be able to answer: What is your leadership default?

In other words, what leadership style or preference do you naturally go to? It may be tough to answer that question because it take a level of self-awareness that is often difficult to face, especially when you're in a position of leadership and faced with tremendous expectations. But it is incredibly i...

It's been almost 6 months now since we lost Bob Chapman, our late Chairman and CEO of 50 years. But that doesn't mean our mission has changed or we're wavering in our desire to uphold his legacy by continuing to show that business can be a force for good when you understand that human and economic vibrancy can work in harmony.

If you didn't know, you can find everything about Bob, his writi...

Recently in Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute's People and Performance Playbook Newsletter, Mike Budden and Gunnar Millot wrote a thought provoking article that may be contrary to your perceptions of how and why teams are successful. It was called A High-Performing Team Is Not Necessarily a Team of High Performers. Is that how things work in your organization? Do you just grab and group of the hi-pos, the ...

Brooke Erol has been an author, leadership coach and consultant for more than 20 years. She's currently based in the US, but as you'll hear in our interview, she's worked with people and organizations around the world.

Brooke has been a big supporter of our message at Barry-Wehmiller for quite a while and had the opportunity to talk with Bob Chapman on a number of occasions and is determine...

Is change a dirty word in your organization? Do scenes like this often play out:

You schedule a town hall meeting. You talk about major new initiatives. You're met with blank stares and crossed arms.

This may happen time and again and your leadership keeps saying the same thing: They just don't like change. They don't deal well with change. They don't want to change.

But maybe, it's not a change resistance or change management prob...

Recently, in Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute's People and Performance Playbook LinkedIn Newsletter, there was an article by Jami Dix and Morgan Miller titled: The Five-Step System for Building Leadership Capability.

Here's a section:

"Most organizations treat leadership development as a series of programs to deliver. They ask: What workshop should we run next? Wh...

Peter Menges is the SVP Customer Engagement & Loyalty for Unique Vacation Inc., an affiliate of the worldwide representative of Sandals & Beaches Resorts. He has more than 20 years of experience in leadership in the hospitality space and he has a strong personal commitment to the power of human-centered leadership, and a human-centered approach to engaging and caring for customers.

Sandals has been on a multi-year journey t...

Shortly after BW Chairman Bob Chapman passing in March 2026, it was announced that Pat Berges had been named CEO and Managing Partner of Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute.

Chapman & Co. was founded by Bob to bring Truly Human Leadership to organizations around the world, improving their leadership, culture and performance. 

Pat was a longtime friend and colleague of Bob's, bringing more than 25 years of global leaders...

A couple of episodes ago, we talked about the $60 billion problem. That is the amount of money organizations spend on leadership training a year, although recent reports say that number may be as high as $100 billion a year.

But are organizations really seeing the ROI on that money and if not, why?

This is another installment of the People and Performance Playbook where...

Last fall, an episode of this podcast featured a discussion between Bob and Kyle Chapman. 

They talked about the legacy of the Chapman family in Barry-Wehmiller with an eye toward the future as Bob passed the mantle of CEO onto Kyle after 50 years in that role. It was a touching, heartfelt conversation between father and son, worth going back to listen, especially in light of Bob's pas...

Did you know that globally, organizations spend more than $60 billion annually on leadership development and training? 

$60 billion in seminars, workshops, coaches, certifications, assessments, subscriptions, books and much, much more. 

A lot of money spent, but then your leaders are still micromanaging, avoiding difficult conversations and solving every problem themselves. You might as well have just set those dollars on...

We recently started a series within the larger episode of the podcast called the People and Performance Playbook. The episodes are a little shorter, but packed filled with insight from the experts at Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute.

Chapman & Co. was founded by our late CEO and Chairman Bob Chapman to bring Truly Human Leadership to organizations around the world. You can learn m...

We continue to honor the late Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, Bob Chapman and his legacy on the podcast. This episode is a virtual talk Bob gave to a book club in 2020, during the pandemic.

The club was made up of people around Aspen, Colorado, where Bob lived and they had read his book, Everybody Matters The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. It is an interesti...

On this episode, we're introducing a new regular installment of the podcast, the People and Performance Playbook. 

Each one of these episodes will be shorter bits of insight from experts at Chapman &Co. Leadership Institute as they share stories from their work and the thinking and methodology they use to help organizations understand and put into practice the idea that people and ...

A few weeks ago, Barry-Wehmiller's Chief People Officer, Rhonda Spencer spoke at the 2026 i4CP Next Practices Now Conference. Rhonda was a featured speaker, sharing our message of Truly Human Leadership alongside CEOs and other Chief People Officers from companies such as John Deere, Dick's Sporting Goods, Lumen, Northwestern Mutual, Accenture, Microsoft, FedEx and many more.

Originally, Ba...

On this Truly Human Leadership Podcast where we continue to pay tribute to Bob Chapman, our leader and mentor who passed away on March 19, 2026.

All of us at Barry-Wehmiller are very appreciative of all the tributes, condolences and kind words that have come in over the last few weeks. If you'd like to send your own tribute, condolence or remembrance of Bob, we have a page to do so at bobch...

On this episode, we remember BW Chairman Bob Chapman, who passed away on March 19, 2026.

Bob Chapman was more than a business leader, author and speaker, he was a relentless optimist who dedicated his life to building a better world. He worked to redefine what it meant to be a leader in business, to further the understanding that it was an awesome responsibility because the way we lead impacts the way people live. He worked tireles...

For more than 75 years, The Gund Company has grown into one of the largest manufacturers and fabricators of composite materials, thermoplastic materials, and elastomeric materials. They have 12 manufacturing locations in five countries and have seen a tremendous amount of growth in the past few years.

Like Barry-Wehmiller, the Gund Company is based in St. Louis and also like Barry-Wehmiller...

Our last episode featured an interview with Raj Sisodia and Nilima Bhat on their new book, Healing Leaders: 7 Steps to Recovery of Self. In that discussion, we talk about their previous book collaboration, Shakti Leadership: Embracing Feminine and Masculine Power in Business. 

To compliment the discussion of Healing Leaders, we're going to re-release a podcast episode from 2016 where Raj and Nilima talk about Shakti Lead...