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November 5, 2025 17 mins

To celebrate our 200th (!) episode, we're revisiting some of our favorite conversations from the last 100 episodes.  



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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
Welcome to episode 200 of StrongLeaders Serve.
I can't believe that we arealready here, although it has
been five years since we startedwith the name Moms That Lead,
and three years since we hitepisode 100 and changed the name
to Strong Leaders Serve.

(00:21):
We've had so many greatconversations.
So for today's episode, I wantedto take you back.
To some of my favoriteconversations from the last 100
episodes.
If you don't know me yet, I'mTerry Schmidt, executive and
leadership coach at StrongLeaders Serve.
Where I love partnering withcompassionate driven leaders and

(00:42):
their teams, especially throughthose leadership stretch moments
where what got them to wherethey are is not going to get
them to where they need to go.
And this is the Strong LeadersServe Podcast.

(01:50):
So first we'll start with FarahHarris.
Farah was a guest on bothepisode 1 0 4 and 1 23, and we
got into some really greatconversations about her book,
the Color of EmotionalIntelligence.
We had such great conversationsthat it went over two episodes,
and I strongly encourage you tolisten to both of them.

(02:12):
The clip that I wanted tohighlight today was particularly
impactful for me in that.
Privilege had almost become adirty word in my mind, and the
way that Farah framed it reallyinspired and encouraged me both
in my work and outside of it.

Farah Harris (02:33):
Privilege is just another opportunity to serve
others.
It's what do you have thatanother person doesn't that be
here to support them??
So, you know, just as a leader,what is it that you have?
What knowledge do you have?
What rooms do you have accessto?
What understanding do you havethat this newer person that's

(02:55):
coming in does not have?
The next conversation that Iwanted to highlight was with
Jane Miller, the former COO andPresident of Gallup.
I was really excited to havethis conversation, particularly
because we were focusing on whatit really takes to help women
leaders thrive in the workplace.

(03:17):
We got into a great conversationabout the systems and structures
that were needed and howorganizations and leaders could
empower women in the workplace.

Jane Miller (03:28):
The performance, the compassion, and how you
create the environments that arefamily friendly.
You have to really show thosesystems and structures and
strategies because if you justjump from the philosophy and let
everybody do their own thing,it's all willy-nilly and chaotic
again, and you don't have apredictable environment.
And followers want apredictable, stable environment.

(03:50):
And so much of that comes fromhow you write things down, how
you state it, and then how youlive it out every day with each
person.
Ah.
And next is my conversation withJustin Jones ou, one of my
absolute favorite conversationsas we talked about how to
respectfully disagree evenduring an election year.

(04:11):
I've had several conversationswith Justin, and in each one I'm
not only inspired, but I learnedsomething new that I can apply
right away.
You can catch our fullconversation on episode 1 54.

Justin Jones-Fosu (04:25):
I do a whole presentation called work through
different beats.
I love drumming.
There's a different feel andexperience.
I have when I'm a part of a drumcircle when I'm a part of the
drumming and we're creating abeat that could not come from
just one of us.
That's what leaders are wherethey are able to orchestrate
that beat that we're creating anew rhythm of ideation, new

(04:49):
rhythms of how do we solve theproblems?
How do we provide great customerservice and service excellence?
New rhythms of how do I Givemore to my team than take from
them.
Those are the things that weunleash our members, our team,
our employees to be able to doreally powerful, significant
things when they know thatthey're supported.

(05:09):
With us, just simply keepingrhythm.
That's the power of leadership.
Next, in episode 1 0 5, I had myfirst conversation with Tamara
Miles and learned about her andWes Adams model for meaningful
work, the three Cs of communitycontribution and challenge.

(05:31):
It is one of the leadershipmodels that I refer back to the
most, and thankfully I was ableto have them both back on
episode one 90 as well.

Tamara Myles (05:43):
challenge is really about.
Giving people opportunities forgrowth and development, but
beyond that is about uncoveringpotential in people that they
may not even see themselves yet.

(06:06):
In episode one 60, orris Kne andI talked about radical humility
and how humble leadership isactually more efficient than
command and control.
I love how he dispelled a lot ofthe myths about humble
leadership like this one thatyou'll hear next.

urs--he-him-_2_06-17-2024_08 (06:29):
So I would argue that in order to
be.
humble, I need to befundamentally confident.
So it's not a contradiction.
So if we think about, you know,I talk about some client
examples in my book, clients whostand up or, you know, leaders,
executive coaching clients whostand up in front of their team
and admit that they don't haveall the that they're constantly

(06:50):
working on getting better, thatthey have also blind spots and
weaknesses.
Like, that requires courage andguts.
Like, the soft stuff is notsoft.
The soft stuff is tough.
It's tough.
And so, so that's the first one.
So the, they go hand in hand.
The second one I often hear is,how can I be ambitious and

(07:10):
humble?
And again, I would turn thisaround.
What does ambition look like?
It looks like asking hardquestions.
It looks like asking questionslike Terry.
What business are we in?
Why are we failing or why are wenot as successful as we could be
and what's my part in it?
These are humble questions, butwe need to ask them if we want

(07:32):
to actually achieve and so Inorder to achieve we need to have
the humility To ask thesequestions.
So again, instead of being acontradiction, it goes hand in
hand, ambition and humility
You probably know that I'm a bigfan of Tom Garrity and Psych
Safety and the newsletter thatthey put out every week because

(07:54):
he brings in such wisdom from somany different fields and
applies it to psychologicalsafety and leadership.
We had a great conversation onepisode 1 48 about the cognitive
load.
That it actually takes when youare in an environment that is
not psychologically safe and howwe can save that energy by

(08:17):
putting energy into making theenvironment somewhere where
people don't have to think toohard about speaking up and
stating their ideas.
Tom also came back on in episode180 2 and you'll hear that in
the second clip when we talkedabout efficiency versus

(08:38):
resilience.
It was another greatconversation, and I encourage
you to listen to the wholething.

Tom Geraghty (08:44):
One of the useful ways to think about
psychological safety is thatit's a calculation.
Everything we say has acalculation behind it, a
calculation of cost versusbenefit.
And, and so we've constantly gotthis filter going of, do I say
that thing or do I say thisthing?
Most of the time we default tosilence It's only when the
benefit of saying the thingoutweighs the cost.

(09:07):
That we say the thing and wespeak it out loud Amy Edmondson
has called this the mentalcalculus of voice, every time we
speak up it's a calculation.
If someone's utilized a hundredpercent there is no space left
to even recover or adapt toanything.
You're basically just planningburnout as an organizational
strategy.
Sarah Noel Wilson came on onepisode 1 46 to talk about

(09:30):
leading with curiosity totransform conflict.
Curiosity is one of my favoritethings to think about and talk
about and is a skill that Icontinue to hone, And Sarah
serves an as an inspiration forme for that hard work.

sarah-noll-wilson--sh (09:47):
Curiosity is the greatest gift you can
give someone because you'retelling them they're worthy to
be known.
It was an honor to speak withNCA Professor Henrik Breman
Twice, first on episode 1 74,talking about how teams look
different today.
And then next on episode 180about how to create high

(10:11):
performing diverse teams, whichis something that he gets into
in this next clip.

Henrik Bresman (10:18):
Particularly when there's anxiety and
pressure, our brain tells usthat we gotta move.
We, we have, we have an answerhere to, to the problem.
And, and that's how you end upwith the right answer to the, to
the wrong question usually.
And, and so what's, what's theway out?
Easy to say, difficult to do,but it's exactly in those

(10:41):
situations that as a leader, youneed to stop and really listen
to what people say.
And that's hard when you, youfeel that you know already what
it is that you need to do.
And it's particularly hard.
And now I'm circling back to thediversity part.

(11:01):
When, when someone comes withinput that you can't.
That you don't naturally connectto, so to to really pay
attention to what is said and,And stay with the problem.
I thoroughly enjoyed myconversation with Cheryl Fields
Tyler, about how to help leadersthrive in our current

(11:24):
environment and the importanceof thriving leaders for
organizations to thrive.
I.
You can find our conversation onepisode 1 68.

Cheryl Fields Tylercheryl- (11:36):
That work of leading and managing
people really is not just areally sacred calling, but it's
also an economically essentialcalling in our organizations
that there's just virtuallynothing in our.
World that generates value thatdoesn't require us to work
together across teams and withinteams and that people

(11:59):
leadership, bringing teamstogether, bringing people
together is, is really crucialto every aspect of a value
creation.
What we know now about what ittakes to bring people together
to set the conditions.
For human beings to worktogether effectively is so much
more than we knew 20 years ago.
Speaking of what leadershiptakes differently now than maybe

(12:21):
it did in the past.
Patrick Boland and I had anexcellent conversation about
contemplative leadership, and Iloved this quote in particular
when he talks about one of hiscoaching clients and the impact
that her making changes in herleadership had on her entire
organization.
The conversation is really wortha full listen.

(12:44):
You can find it in episode 1 69.

Patrick Boland (12:49):
And the impact that it had on a systemic level
with the individuals and withthe team within the
organization.
The whole culture and how itstood out as a very different
culture and started to kind ofprod at the dominant culture
within that financialinstitution where people started
to take notice and go, what isthat?
As Meg Wheatley, a mentor ofmine says, you know, there's an

(13:09):
island of sanity that we cancreate and we can light little
fires within the system.
And these can be little ideasfor people to go.
That's possible.
And then people start to movefrom idea into a lived
experience of it and go, What ifthat became the norm around

(13:30):
here?
If our system looked like that?
What a place to work.
What a place to be.
What a place in which tocontribute.
So seeing that happen, to me,that was like ultimate service.
And she did her work and it wasreally difficult for the first
couple of years.
And her individual coaching wasreally difficult.
And then she did it.
It was beautiful.
Zach Mecurio and I had aconversation that ranged a lot

(13:51):
of different topics, but theyall centered around the concept
of mattering and mattering atwork.
One of my favorite parts waswhen we got to talk a little bit
about AI and how AI cannot takeresponsibility for actions and
cannot effectively stand in forrelationships with human beings.

(14:15):
I.

zach-mercurio_1_07-23-2 (14:16):
There's no, there's no more powerful
experience I think in life thanknowing that your presence and
absence means something toanother person.
You're just a prompt to the ai,you're an input.
It Not a human, you're not a,you're not a you're not a human
being'cause it doesn't know whatit's like to be a human being.
No matter how comforting your AImay be to you it doesn't care if

(14:37):
you come back
And finally, Jade Garrett and Ihad a great conversation about
psychological safety and reallygoing under the buzzword of what
it means.
She shared some practices thatmade so much sense and could
have such a positive impactright away, and that I had never

(14:59):
heard of before.
We also talked about theassumptions that sometimes get
in the way of psychologicalsafety, which you will hear
about in this next clip.
The whole episode is definitelyworth a listen, and you can find
it in episode 1 97.

Jade Garatt (15:17):
And it's very easy when you have power, when you
have authority, when you haveleadership, to assume that
because you feel safe to speakup, to share your ideas, to ask
questions, to admit mistakesthat everyone does and that's
not necessarily true.
And we don't know the thingsthat we're not hearing.
So I think just assuming thatit's there, it is a real risk.

(15:39):
Well, there you have it.
Some of my favoriteconversations from the last 100
episodes of Strong LeadersServe.
I want to thank you for being alistener, whether you have been
here since episode one and areall the way here through to
episode 200, or whether you juststarted listening recently.

(16:00):
It means so much to me to haveyou with me each week, and I
hope that you have gainedsomething that has helped make
it just a little bit easier tobe a compassionate, driven
leader.
It is gonna be goodbye for mefor a little while.
I am going to take a break untilat least the beginning of 2026.

(16:22):
Although I won't be podcastingfor a little while, you can of
course still find me over onLinkedIn, so be sure to connect
with me.
I would love to stay in touch.
Okay.
I hope you will use this time tocatch up on any episodes that
you've missed, and of course,enjoy the end of year
festivities with your family andfriends.

(16:45):
Until our next time together, Ihope that you will know just how
important and powerful yourleadership is, not only for your
team, not only for yourorganization, but for your
entire community.
Stay strong, continue to serveand make an impact through your

(17:08):
leadership.
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