

Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.
Scott J. Allen
Practical Wisdom for Leaders is your fast-paced, forward-thinking guide to leadership. Join host Scott J. Allen as he engages with remarkable guests—from former world leaders and nonprofit innovators to renowned professors, CEOs, and authors. Each episode offers timely insights and actionable tips designed to help you lead with impact, grow personally and professionally, and make a meaningful difference in your corner of the world.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 21, 2022 • 42min
Akram Boutros, M.D. - Leading From a Place of Love
Send us a textFrom the moment he arrived in Cleveland, Dr. Akram Boutros' visionary thinking has inspired MetroHealth to elevate medical care by providing and integrating social services to build equity, promote justice, and improve the health of people and communities.With the 2019 creation of the Institute for H.O.P.E.™ (Health, Opportunity, Partnership, and Empowerment), MetroHealth is connecting patients and neighbors to fresh food, stable housing, education, career training, and other services that keep them healthy. Dr. Boutros paired that work with a $1 billion reimagination of the system's main campus on West 25th Street. The new MetroHealth Glick Center, which opens in October 2022 and will be the first hospital in a park in the country, has sparked the rebirth of the surrounding neighborhood while preserving its Hispanic culture. Dr. Boutros' focus on inclusion, diversity, and equity is just as significant. In 2020, 39% of MetroHealth's new hires were racially or ethnically diverse.Under his leadership, MetroHealth has grown to more than 20 community health centers, four hospitals, five MetroExpressCare locations, and ten pharmacies. Those are in addition to MetroHealth's main-campus medical center, which is home to the area's most experienced Level I Adult Trauma Center, Ohio's only Ebola Treatment Center, and the only adult and pediatric trauma and burn center in the state.MetroHealth's annual revenue grew from $785 million to more than $1.5 billion during his tenure. MetroHealth now treats more than 300,000 patients at more than 1.4 million visits annually. Since 2013, the health system has created more than 1,800 new jobs, sent doctors into more than a dozen local schools, and received the largest donation in its history – $42 million from JoAnn and Bob Glick. A Quote From This Episode"You only have to lead from a place of love. Leaders don't lead organizations; they lead other people. And if you don't truly love the people you work with and who put the time in to support the organization's goals, you're not going to fare very well."Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeMetroHealth Video Campaign - Healing Begins With ListeningDwight LeeLisa RamirezMary Massie-StoryJohn Hariston Jr. ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

May 12, 2022 • 36min
Team JCCC - A Chat with the 2022 CLC Champs!
Send us a textThis episode was a lot of fun. I had the chance to speak with the 2022 CLC champs from Johnson Country Community College (JCCC). I talked to JCCC's coaches Cassie Fulk and Carson Couch, and several team members - Yassin, James, Rick, Mila, and Kristin! We talked about their experience, some key learnings, and their thoughts on teaming.What is the CLC?Collegiate Leadership Competition (CLC), a nonprofit founded in 2015, creates a practice field where students can actively apply what they learn. We believe that leadership can be learned. With practice, our participants develop knowledge, build skill, and learn with other like-minded teammates who are passionate about leadership. CLC’s curriculum explores the attributes of effective leaders, leadership/followership styles, creative problem solving, influencing others, navigating difficult conversations, conflict resolution, ethical decision making, stressors, and effective teaming.Colleges and universities identify a coach and recruit teams of six students. Any student interested in practicing leadership is welcome. Each team member leads one challenge at the competition and receives extensive feedback based on their performance.Academic Journal Articles about the Collegiate Leadership CompetitionCompetitive Team Environments and Student Leader Capacity GrowthExploring Deliberate Practice & the Use of Skill Sheets in the Collegiate Leadership Competition Competition As Leadership Pedagogy: An Initial Analysis of the Collegiate Leadership CompetitionCollegiate Leadership Competition: An Opportunity for Deliberate Practice on the Road to ExpertiseReflections on How Learning in Other Domains Inform Our Approach to Coaching LeadershipOther Phronesis Episodes About the Collegiate Leadership Competition.Ep. 56 - Bela Jevtovic & Dr. Dan Jenkins - The Collegiate Leadership CompetitionEp.57 - Meghan Pickett & Dr. Bruce DeRuntz - Coaching a Leadership Team (Online)Ep. 58 - Dr. Kaitlin Wolfert - The Influence of Action Learning, Coaching, and Intrapersonal Reflection on Individual ResilienceEp.59 - Meg U'Ren, Ashley Li, & Allison White - ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

May 8, 2022 • 32min
Nidhi Pant - One Team, Seven Superpowers
Send us a textNidhi Pant is Co-Founder of Science For Society - S4S Technologies. Nidhi works at the intersection of agriculture, gender, energy access, and financial inclusion. S4S trains smallholder women farmers to be entrepreneurs by providing the right combination of technology, finance, and market and increases their household income by 100-200% annually. S4S is working with more than 20,00 farmers and 800 women entrepreneurs, and in the process saving more than 300,000 tons of CO2 from entering the environment. Nidhi is the winner of the Women Transforming India Awards by NITI Aayog & United Nations (UN) and has also been listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia and India. She's also the winner of the Unilever Young Entrepreneur Award 2019 by Unilever and the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. She was also named 'Emerging Innovator of the Year' at the inaugural edition of the Economic Times Women Leadership Awards (ETPWLA)Nidhi holds a bachelor's in Chemical Technology from the Institute of Chemical Technology. A Few Quotes From This Episode"We were a group of college students working on different ideas, with different approaches and strengths but united with the common purpose to use our scientific knowledge in service to people.""All of us have very unique and different strengths that are very complementary.""After seven years, I'm still learning more and more - I am never done."About The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.Connect with Scott AllenWebsite ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

May 1, 2022 • 44min
Michael Gothe - Safe to Fail Experiments
Send us a textMichael Gothe is an Agile Organizational Coach at Crisp in Stockholm, Sweden. He has 20+ years of experience in building high-performance team-based Agile organizations and has worked with large multi-national/cultural organizations and start-up companies. Michael is passionate about transforming businesses to become truly Agile organizations that create fantastic value for customers and are an inspiring place for people to work. He also loves capturing the moment through photography, lives close to nature outside Stockholm, and is a proud father of three.Connecting with MichaelTwitter: http://twitter.com/teamcoachLinkedin: http://se.linkedin.com/in/teamcoach A Few Quotes From This Episode"I don’t think there is a formal study of or body of knowledge about 'Agile leadership.' I think it’s about leading in complexity.""The key to success is learning. And the biggest hindrance for learning is when you think you know.""So as a leader, you first need to kind of shift from a 'know it all' to 'learn it all' approach." (attributed to Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella)"In Agile, you work with creating faster feedback loops and high-quality feedback loops. You want to have both quantitative and qualitative data."Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeBlog: CrispUpcoming Event/Learning Opportunity: Leading ComplexityDocumentary: Atari: Game OverBook: Deliberately Developmental Organization by Kegan and colleaguesWebsite: The Agile ManifestoBook: Empowered: Ordinary People Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) by Cagan and JonesAbout the 2022 ILA Healthcare Conference2022 ILA Healthcare ConferenceAbout The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022. ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Apr 25, 2022 • 35min
Sara Saeed Khurram, M.D. - So Many Myths to Fight
Send us a textSara Saeed Khurram, M.D. is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sehat Kahani. Sehat Kahani works on improving basic health care in communities through a spectrum of services focused on primary health care consultation, health awareness, and health counseling. Dr. Sara Saeed recently won the APTECh Young Entrepreneurs award for Sehat Kahani, and her work was also featured in a BBC documentary (see below). Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram has won notable awards including CRDF Global, Ashoka Changemakers, ISIF Asia, the Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards, and the Unicef-Global Goal Campaigner Award 2016 for her role formerly with doctHERs. She has been part of a well-known accelerator in Pakistan, Invest2 Innovate. She is also a part of the regional Acumen fellowship cohort 2016. Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. She completed her MBBS from DOW University of Health Sciences, and she is a graduate of the Health Policy Management Programme at The Aga Khan University of Health Sciences. A Couple Quotes From This Episode"So they thought that until a doctor checks a pulse of a patient, there is no healthcare. So many myths to fight...""What motivates me is my two daughters. I'm doing this for the day that they don't have to ask anyone when they do something for themselves. So I believe that if they see me making my own decisions, they will feel much more empowered to make their own decisions."About the 2022 ILA Healthcare Conference2022 ILA Healthcare ConferenceResources Mentioned In This EpisodeSehat KahaniTED Talk - Who are the doctor brides?BBC - Helping midwives save mums-to-be in PakistanAbout The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.Connect with Scott AllenWebsite ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Apr 17, 2022 • 36min
Ming-Ka Chan, M.D. - True Belonging and Dignity
Send us a textMing-Ka Chan, MD is a Clinician Educator and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. She's a Chinese immigrant grateful to live and work in Treaty 1 Territory and the Homeland of the Metis Nation (currently known as Winnipeg) in Turtle Island (presently known as Canada). A Pediatrics Clinician Educator at the University of Manitoba, her scholarship focuses on leadership education and social justice in the health professions.She is currently the Co-Director, Office of Leadership Education, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, and Director of the Shantou University Medical College-University of Manitoba Academic Exchange. Chan is also Co-Chair of the Canadian Association for Medical Education CLIME 2.0 leadership intensive.She looks at leadership education across the educational continuum in the five health colleges and the inaugural Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Social Justice Lead for the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health. Dr. Chan is the current chair of Sanokondu, a global community of practice focused on health leadership education emphasizing learners.Quotes From This Episode"It's really hard to be well if you've never felt welcome.""You talked about 'successful,' I think each person might have a different word or metric for what that looks like. More recently, in the last decade, it's really about this idea of having true belonging and dignity, and that's the starting point to get to our best self.""It's important to be equity-seeking and really respect diverse voices. It can be hard to do - you may not even realize who is not at the table, or for that matter, the circle...asking questions, being curious and really listening with intent."About the 2022 ILA Healthcare Conference2022 ILA Healthcare ConferenceResources Mentioned In This EpisodeDare to Lead by Brene BrownMy Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem About The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.Connect with Scott AllenWebsite ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Apr 11, 2022 • 39min
Brian Barren - Becoming the Guardians
Send us a textBrian Barren enters his ninth season with the Cleveland Guardians and sixth as President of Business Operations. He joined the organization in January 2014 and served as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing over his first three seasons. Brian oversees all aspects of the club l s business functions in his present capacity.Barren joined the Guardians following an accomplished, 24-year career with Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, OH. He developed a wide variety of skill sets and expertise in Customer Business Development and general management of multi-functional business teams. As a senior leader at P&G, Brian had team leadership responsibility on the Wal-Mart and Kroger Teams, two of P&G's top customers globally.Brian is a 1989 graduate of Princeton University, where he earned a degree in History that included his senior year thesis researching the integration of Major League Baseball. He played football for four years at Princeton as a classmate and teammate of Toronto Blue Jays President & CEO Mark Shapiro. Brian was also an Army ROTC scholarship student at Princeton, fulfilling his commitment to the U.S. Army as a tank commander upon graduation.Brian and his wife, Kris, reside in downtown Cleveland and have two sons, Billy and Brad. Brian was one of Dan and Catherine Barren's six children. His late father was a well-respected teacher and high school football coach for many years at Columbus Academy (where Brian graduated in 1985) and finished his coaching career as the inaugural Head Football Coach at Notre Dame Cathedral Latin (Hall of Fame Class of 2004). Brian serves as a board member for College Now Greater Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.A Quote From This Episode"When we think about our intent as a sports team, it's ultimately to unite and inspire our city and our fan base."Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeCleveland Guardians - Tom Hanks Narrated VideoAbout The International Leadership Association (ILA)The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.Connect with Scott AllenWebsite ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Apr 3, 2022 • 47min
Brigadier Gen. Tom Kolditz - Sloppy and Uncoordinated Leader Development
Send us a textDr. Tom Kolditz is the founding Director of the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University–the most comprehensive, evidence-based, university-wide leader development program globally. The Doerr Institute was recognized in 2019 as the Association of Leadership Educators' top university leader development program. Before Rice, he taught as a Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Management and Director of the Leadership Development Program at the Yale School of Management.A retired Brigadier General, Tom led the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point for 12 years. In that role, he was responsible for West Point’s teaching, research, and outreach activities in Management, Leader Development Science, Psychology, and Sociology and was titled Professor Emeritus after retirement. A highly experienced global leader, General Kolditz has more than 35 years in leadership roles on four continents. His career has focused on either leading organizations himself or studying leadership and leadership policy across sectors. In 2017, he was honored with the prestigious Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership—an honor also bestowed on Doris Kearns Goodwin, Howard Schultz, Tom Peters, and Benazir Bhutto. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Academy of Management. Professor Kolditz has presented leadership content to more than 300 governmental, corporate, and social sector audiences worldwide. As a professor, he has led academic seminars or given lectures to students from Babson, Wellesley, Duke, Columbia, Yale, the University of Missouri, the Military Psychology Center of the Israel Defense Forces, Peking University, the Beijing International MBA program, Harvard Law School, & Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. He’s worked with the CIA, FBI, and DEA. Kolditz has appeared on Bloomberg TV, 60 Minutes Sports, ABC World News, ABC 20-20, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, Calgary Today, Morning Ireland, and interviews with reporters from the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, Discovery, the Washington Post, and more than a dozen national and international news agencies.Dr. Kolditz holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Vanderbilt University, three Master’s degrees, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Missouri. A Quote From This Episode"In the first chapter of Leadership Reckoning we excoriate universities, for sloppy, uncoordinated, amateurish leader development, that just doesn't match their excellence. "Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeDoerr Institute for New LeadersCarnegie Elective Classification for Leadership for Public PurposeHigherLedLeadership Reckoning by Kolditz, Gill, & Brown ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Mar 25, 2022 • 40min
Dr. Todd Deal - Activation Energy
Send us a textTodd Deal, Ph.D., serves as Senior Faculty and Director of the Higher Education practice in the Societal Advancement group at the Center for Creative Leadership. In this role, his focus is on partnering with institutions across the broad landscape of higher education to provide leadership education and leader development. Todd and his team work across the higher education spectrum. They co-design leadership programs for college students to facilitate leadership development initiatives for faculty, staff, and executives at the college, university, and system levels. Todd served as Associate Dean, earned tenure, and was promoted to full professor. He also authored a chemistry textbook - now in its 4th edition. Todd was the founding director of the leadership, community engagement, and service-learning program at Georgia Southern University where he taught leadership courses for 10+ years. He earned a graduate certificate in leadership from Northeastern University, completed the Art & Practice of Leadership Development with Ron Heifetz & Marty Linsky at Harvard University, and twice served as faculty for ILA's Leadership Education Academy (LEA). Todd is the founder of TDLearning, Inc. He is a sought-after speaker and leadership development professional, having partnered with various corporate, non-profit, and higher education institutions to provide innovative, strengths-based development experiences for professionals and students. His professional affiliations include the American Chemical Society, the International Leadership Association, the Association of Leadership Educators, and the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs. Todd and his wife (of 27 yrs) Karen live in Hilton Head Island, SC (NOT retired, far from it!) and are the parents of two brilliant, beautiful, talented young adult daughters. Quotes From This Episode"Activation energy - the minimum amount of energy that is required to activate atoms or molecules to a condition in which they can undergo chemical transformation or physical transport." - BritannicaOn moving from chemistry to leadership - "The molecules behave so much better than the people. They're regular and you can predict what's going to happen. The people you never know!"On resilience - "It's less about grit and getting through it - that's a component. But it's taking that recharge time, what is it that you're doing to fill your bucket back up? So that you show up at your very, very best."Connecting With ToddLinkedIn Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeThe Screwtape Letters by C.S. LewisMoonwalking with Einstein by FoerSomething Deeply Hidden by Sean C ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Mar 20, 2022 • 38min
Dr. Barbara Kellerman - The Month That Shook the World
Send us a textDr. Barbara Kellerman is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Center, and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over twenty years. Kellerman has held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Uppsala, Dartmouth, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. During spring 2022, she's a Visiting Professor of Leadership at Christopher Newport University. Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and her M.A. M.Phil., and Ph.D. (in Political Science) degrees from Yale University. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright fellowships. Kellerman was cofounder of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and is author and editor of many books including The Political Presidency; Bad Leadership; Followership ; Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence (2010); The End of Leadership (2012); Hard Times: Leadership in America (2014), Professionalizing Leadership (2018); and (with Todd Pittinsky) Leaders Who Lust: Power Money Sex Success Legitimacy Legacy. Kellerman has appeared on media outlets such as CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, and BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Review.Barbara Kellerman has spoken to audiences all over the world including in Berlin, Moscow, Sao Paolo, Jerusalem, Mumbai, Toronto, Kyoto, Beijing, Sydney, and Seoul. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Leadership Association. In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 she was listed by Global Gurus as among the “World’s Top 30 Management Professionals.” Her most recent book – The Enablers: How Team Trump Flunked the Pandemic and Failed America – was published in August 2021 by Cambridge University Press. A Quote From This Episode(On Russia's invasion of Ukraine) - "It's enormously gripping, fascinating, depressing, instructive, and surreal. At moments deeply sad, but it is nevertheless instructive. I really urge any students of leadership, and experts on leadership to pay close attention."Resou ♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.


