Blog Topics
Helping you Accelerate The Changes You Seek® with real-world leadership stories and problems in a variety of areas.
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Blind Spots When everything looks steady on the surface but something feels off beneath it, leadership blind spots are often at work. This reflection explores three subtle patterns that quietly derail progress: underestimating culture, fighting the wrong conflict, and designing systems for efficiency instead of people. Discover how perspective—not intention—is what separates stalled momentum from meaningful impact. Read the post below to uncover the blind spots that may be shaping your leadership—and how expanding your lens can change everything.
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Looking Back to Lead Forward From rural sheriffs to global strategists, 50 episodes of Unleashing Leaders reveal what leadership really looks like when the mask comes off. Read the post below to explore the stories, insights, and turning points that have shaped the first 50 episodes—and to see where Unleashing Leaders is headed next. |
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From Craft to Company From digging ditches to building leaders, this story shatters the three beliefs that keep great businesses small. Discover how trades, identity, and inspiration can become your launchpad for real growth. Read the post below to discover how breaking three hidden beliefs can transform your craft into a company and your team into intrapreneurs.
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Turning Constraints Into Innovation When people picture mechanical engineering, they often imagine spreadsheets, specifications, and steel. But for one commercial product leader in the HVAC industry, engineering is something entirely different. It’s love. Read the post below to learn how this simple perspective shift changes everything as a leader. |
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Getting Unstuck as a Leader If you’re playing the leadership game, which means pioneering, going first, making uncertain calls, you will get stuck. That’s not a flaw. The real question is: how long do you stay stuck? Read the blog below to learn about a model we use to shorten that stuck time for ourselves and the leaders we support. |
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Why Your Strategic Plan Fails (And How VOPAR Fixes It) We’ve all seen it. A company rolls out a shiny new “strategic plan” with glossy binders, laminated posters, and inspirational taglines. Everyone claps politely in the all-hands meeting. Leadership nods approvingly. Six months later, those binders are holding up someone’s monitor, the posters are curling at the edges, and the tagline is a punchline. Let’s be honest: most strategic plans fail. But why do they fail? Find out in the blog post below. |
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Gratitude, Goal-Setting, and The Leadership Trap of Perfection The choices we make consistently over time shape our lives far more than our starting point or current conditions. As leaders, gratitude and goal-setting are powerful tools to channel focus, make better decisions, and live with greater impact and fulfillment. But how we use these tools matters just as much as whether we use them at all. |
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Project & Risk Management: Turning Chaos Into Clarity Project management and risk management aren’t about piles of paperwork or rigid rules. They’re about clarity. They help you see the trade-offs, focus on the weakest link, and get your team moving in the same direction. Learn more about how you can use these powerful tools with the link below. |
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Communicating When Everything Is On The Line If you’ve got tension on your team, it doesn’t mean something’s wrong. It probably just means you’ve got different styles working side by side—and no shared language for understanding them. Find out more about different communication styles in the blog below. |
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AI and Leadership Have you ever resisted a new tool because it felt like a shortcut? That’s where AI comes in. Not as a replacement for your expertise, but as a partner in progress. |
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Escaping the Drama Triangle We’ve all been there—stuck in a conflict, feeling misunderstood, overburdened, or like we’re always the one cleaning up the mess. These moments, while seemingly mundane, often reveal a deeper dynamic at play: the Drama Triangle. |
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Biology of Motivation When it comes to motivation, we like to think of ourselves as logical, strategic beings. We set goals, make plans, and act with purpose—right? Not quite. Learn what truly drives people to act, sacrifice, or do their best work in the blog post below. |
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How AI Matters to Leaders The age of AI is here, and it’s reshaping how we work, think, and lead. But the best leaders aren’t just adopting new tools—they’re reimagining what it means to stay human in a technology-driven world. Here’s how we see AI changing leadership in 2025 and beyond. |
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What Drives People to Say "Yes" Selling isn’t just about facts—it’s about feelings. In this story of a doctor-turned-salesman, we explore how emotional intelligence, and the Six Human Needs flipped a ‘no’ into a powerful ‘yes.’ Whether you lead, sell, or simply want to connect better, this lesson will change the way you approach conversations. |
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Resilience at Unleashing Leaders At Unleashing Leaders, these six core values are the guiding principles that influence every organizational decision and every interaction with our clients, partners, and colleagues. As a collection of FIERCE individuals, we strive to exhibit each tenet of this value system in our collaborations. |
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The Yin and Yang of Process Improvement All of us have been asked to solve a problem at one time or another. Many times, the “solution” may be obvious (at least to us or our sponsors), but when it gets implemented, it creates many more problems than the one we were trying to solve. |
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Awareness Knowledge Practice All of us have things we wish were different in our lives. We experience this in the goals we strive for, and as pain and frustration, that we avoid. I have a long list that I care deeply about improving, both for myself and teams I work with. It takes more than good ideas and passion to achieve change; it takes intentional action. |
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CA-MMIS: DHCS Medi-Nurse Line In April, the Department launched the DHCS Medi-Nurse line to provide telehealth assistance to those who may be experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and are either uninsured, a fee-for-service beneficiary, or whose regular health plan does not cover COVID-19 services. Read More |
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Blind Spots When everything looks steady on the surface but something feels off beneath it, leadership blind spots are often at work. This reflection explores three subtle patterns that quietly derail progress: underestimating culture, fighting the wrong conflict, and designing systems for efficiency instead of people. Discover how perspective—not intention—is what separates stalled momentum from meaningful impact. Read the post below to uncover the blind spots that may be shaping your leadership—and how expanding your lens can change everything. |
|
|
Looking Back to Lead Forward From rural sheriffs to global strategists, 50 episodes of Unleashing Leaders reveal what leadership really looks like when the mask comes off. Read the post below to explore the stories, insights, and turning points that have shaped the first 50 episodes—and to see where Unleashing Leaders is headed next. |
 |
|
From Craft to Company From digging ditches to building leaders, this story shatters the three beliefs that keep great businesses small. Discover how trades, identity, and inspiration can become your launchpad for real growth. Read the post below to discover how breaking three hidden beliefs can transform your craft into a company and your team into intrapreneurs. |
 |
|
Turning Constraints Into Innovation When people picture mechanical engineering, they often imagine spreadsheets, specifications, and steel. But for one commercial product leader in the HVAC industry, engineering is something entirely different. It’s love. Read the post below to learn how this simple perspective shift changes everything as a leader. |
 |
|
Getting Unstuck as a Leader If you’re playing the leadership game, which means pioneering, going first, making uncertain calls, you will get stuck. That’s not a flaw. The real question is: how long do you stay stuck? Read the blog below to learn about a model we use to shorten that stuck time for ourselves and the leaders we support. |
 |
|
Why Your Strategic Plan Fails (And How VOPAR Fixes It) We’ve all seen it. A company rolls out a shiny new “strategic plan” with glossy binders, laminated posters, and inspirational taglines. Everyone claps politely in the all-hands meeting. Leadership nods approvingly. Six months later, those binders are holding up someone’s monitor, the posters are curling at the edges, and the tagline is a punchline. Let’s be honest: most strategic plans fail. But why do they fail? Find out in the blog post below. |
 |
|
Gratitude, Goal-Setting, and The Leadership Trap of Perfection The choices we make consistently over time shape our lives far more than our starting point or current conditions. As leaders, gratitude and goal-setting are powerful tools to channel focus, make better decisions, and live with greater impact and fulfillment. But how we use these tools matters just as much as whether we use them at all. |
 |
|
Project & Risk Management: Turning Chaos Into Clarity Project management and risk management aren’t about piles of paperwork or rigid rules. They’re about clarity. They help you see the trade-offs, focus on the weakest link, and get your team moving in the same direction. Learn more about how you can use these powerful tools with the link below. |
 |
|
Communicating When Everything Is On The Line If you’ve got tension on your team, it doesn’t mean something’s wrong. It probably just means you’ve got different styles working side by side—and no shared language for understanding them. Find out more about different communication styles in the blog below. |
 |
|
AI and Leadership Have you ever resisted a new tool because it felt like a shortcut? That’s where AI comes in. Not as a replacement for your expertise, but as a partner in progress. |
 |
|
Escaping the Drama Triangle We’ve all been there—stuck in a conflict, feeling misunderstood, overburdened, or like we’re always the one cleaning up the mess. These moments, while seemingly mundane, often reveal a deeper dynamic at play: the Drama Triangle. |
 |
|
Biology of Motivation When it comes to motivation, we like to think of ourselves as logical, strategic beings. We set goals, make plans, and act with purpose—right? Not quite. Learn what truly drives people to act, sacrifice, or do their best work in the blog post below. |
 |
|
How AI Matters to Leaders The age of AI is here, and it’s reshaping how we work, think, and lead. But the best leaders aren’t just adopting new tools—they’re reimagining what it means to stay human in a technology-driven world. Here’s how we see AI changing leadership in 2025 and beyond. |
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What Drives People to Say "Yes" Motivation isn't just strategy—it’s biology. Before we act, our brains fire emotional signals of trust, belonging, and connection that shape every decision we make. This blog explores the science behind motivation and how leaders can unlock their team’s full potential by understanding the feeling brain. |
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Resilience at Unleashing Leaders At Unleashing Leaders, these six core values are the guiding principles that influence every organizational decision and every interaction with our clients, partners, and colleagues. As a collection of FIERCE individuals, we strive to exhibit each tenet of this value system in our collaborations. |
|
|
The Yin and Yang of Process Improvement All of us have been asked to solve a problem at one time or another. Many times, the “solution” may be obvious (at least to us or our sponsors), but when it gets implemented, it creates many more problems than the one we were trying to solve. |
|
|
Awareness Knowledge Practice All of us have things we wish were different in our lives. We experience this in the goals we strive for, and as pain and frustration, that we avoid. I have a long list that I care deeply about improving, both for myself and teams I work with. It takes more than good ideas and passion to achieve change; it takes intentional action. |
|
|
CA-MMIS: DHCS Medi-Nurse Line In April, the Department launched the DHCS Medi-Nurse line to provide telehealth assistance to those who may be experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and are either uninsured, a fee-for-service beneficiary, or whose regular health plan does not cover COVID-19 services. Read More |