The Leadership Vision Blog & Podcast Archive
Every Leadership Challenge Is Asking You To Learn Something
Most leadership challenges look like performance problems. The results aren’t there, the team isn’t moving fast enough, and the instinct is to push harder.
But what if the issue isn’t effort?
In this episode, we explore how to recognize when a challenge is actually asking you to learn something new—and why the best leaders know when to pause, rethink, and grow instead of just doing more. Listen now!
Counterintuitive Leadership: Why Starting Messy Leads to Faster Growth
Leadership growth is often counterintuitive. The clarity you’re waiting for doesn’t come before action—it comes through it. In this week’s episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, learn why starting messy leads to real progress. Understand why courage comes before clarity, and how you can take one step this week to start the thing you’ve been putting off.
What Are You Still Carrying? A Leadership Lesson from a Zen Story
A simple Zen parable about two traveling monks reveals a powerful leadership lesson: what are we still carrying long after the moment has passed? In this episode, we explore perspective, letting go, and the journeys we share with others. Listen now!
Challenge, Change, and Uncertainty: How Leaders Can Respond with Confidence, Clarity, and Courage
Leaders today face challenge, change, and uncertainty — often all at once. But these experiences are not the same, and responding well depends on knowing the difference. In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, we explore how challenge stretches existing capacity, change requires intentional adaptation, and uncertainty confronts us with the unknown. Through practical questions and powerful metaphors, we offer leaders a framework to navigate turbulence with courage, clarity, and confidence. Before reacting, ask: What are we really facing? The answer may change how you lead. Listen now!
The Soul and Science of Service: Why the Future of Leadership Is Emotional
What if the future of leadership isn’t primarily intellectual—but emotional? In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan, Dr. Linda, and Brian explore the soul and science of service and why serving others reshapes both the heart and the brain. From neuroscience and empathy to identity formation and team culture, this conversation reveals how service expands emotional capacity rather than depletes it. Leaders who practice service don’t just help others—they refold their own assumptions, strengthen compassion, and build healthier teams. In a complex and uncertain world, service may be the most strategic leadership practice of all. Listen now!
Five Leadership Challenges to Close 2025 and Step into 2026
As we close out 2025, this special highlight episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast brings together powerful moments from our year-long conversation series around Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane by Dr. Linda Schubring and Brian Schubring. Drawing from episodes focused on both individual and team transformation, this compilation explores the five core themes of the book—Dream, Play, Try, Fly, and Home—and offers listeners practical reflection questions to carry into the new year. This episode is an invitation to pause, reflect, and step into 2026 with greater clarity, courage, and compassion.
Serve the City: How Small Acts of Service Transform Leaders and Teams
In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg talks with Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring about their experience at the 20th anniversary gathering of Serve the City International in Brussels. Together they explore how serving with “open hands” transforms individuals, teams, and global communities—and what leaders can learn from a movement that has logged 3.5 million volunteer hours in a single year. Listen now!
Mastering Your Leadership Voice: Dr. Laura Sicola on Brand, Authenticity, and Leading in a Virtual World
In this week’s episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Laura Sicola, cognitive linguist, executive communication coach, and author of Speaking to Influence. Laura has spent more than twenty years helping leaders translate expertise into influence, and this conversation is packed with practical, eye-opening insights for anyone who wants to communicate with more clarity, confidence, and impact.
We explore why your brand is really “the promise of an experience,” and how leaders unintentionally shape their brand every time they speak. Laura introduces the idea of your prismatic voice—the ability to flex different facets of yourself depending on context without losing authenticity. And we dig into the hidden challenges of today’s virtual world, from language patterns that trigger defensiveness to the surprising role your microphone plays in capturing (or losing) people’s attention.
If you want to understand how others experience you as a leader—and learn small, powerful shifts that elevate your presence—this conversation with Dr. Laura Sicola is one you won’t want to miss.
Holding Ambition and Gratitude: A Thanksgiving Leadership Reflection
In this special Thanksgiving episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg reflects on the leadership practice of holding long-term ambition and present gratitude at the same time. Drawing from the transformation themes in Unfolded, he explores how meaningful growth unfolds through small, consistent habits that often go unnoticed in the moment. This reflection invites leaders to pause, appreciate what’s happening right now, and recognize the quiet steps that move us toward what we hope for. A grounding and timely message for leaders seeking clarity, connection, and a deeper sense of purpose this season.
Creating a Sense of Home at Work: Building Trust and Belonging in Teams
When one person grows, the entire team is invited to change. In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring explore what it means to create a sense of “home” at work—a place of safety, belonging, and transformation. Drawing from Chapter 5 of Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, they unpack how leaders can build spaces that nurture both comfort and courage.
Home Is Where Transformation Takes Root: Integrating Growth as a Leader
What happens when you’ve experienced deep transformation—personally or professionally—and then return to the same place, people, or team you left behind? In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg talks with Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring about Chapter 5 of Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane. Together, they explore the leadership challenge of integrating who you’ve become with the world that hasn’t changed yet. You’ll hear insights about navigating criticism after growth, finding peace through self-acceptance, and recognizing that everything you need to move forward was already within you. This conversation invites leaders to see “home” not as the end of transformation, but as the place where renewal, reflection, and the next season of impact truly begin.
Fail Faster, Grow Stronger: Deb Dixson’s Playbook for Teams that Thrive Without You
Pioneering technology executive Deb Dixson brings more than 30 years of experience leading teams at the intersection of technology, business, and humanity—including serving as Best Buy’s first Chief Information Security Officer and later as CIO for Delhaize America. Today, she advises leaders and organizations around the world through DJ Dixson Consulting and serves as an Advisor to Leadership Vision Consulting, helping teams strengthen trust, collaboration, and clarity.
In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Deb joins host Nathan Freeburg to explore how leaders can build teams that thrive without them—moving from dependence on one leader to true interdependence. She shares insights from her own leadership evolution, the power of Strengths-based development, and how creating safety to fail fast helps teams grow faster. Whether you’re leading a team of five or five hundred, this conversation will challenge how you think about mission, empowerment, and success.
Listen in for practical lessons on trust, growth, and how to “work yourself out of a job”—the ultimate sign of great leadership.
How Leaders Help Their Teams Fly: Trust, Transformation, and the Courage to Let Go
In this episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring unpack the Fly stage from Unfolded—when the playground gets bigger, the stakes rise, and trust becomes the air teams breathe. We explore how leaders recognize they’ve entered this moment, empower people to lead, and prevent a “supportive” culture from becoming a comfort zone. You’ll hear a lively debate—Is it always time to fly?—plus practical ways to match your team’s flight environment (paper planes to NASA) with the right expectations, courage, and safeguards. We also dig into how to celebrate progress (and crashes), the leader’s “Eagle” role of naming growth and offering perspective, and three reflection questions to help your team take off together. Read the full post for key takeaways and pull quotes, then listen to the episode for the stories, nuance, and tools you can use this week.
Why Every Transformation Needs a Little Courage to Take Flight
Every transformation comes with moments of resistance — the point where self-doubt, fear, and exhaustion whisper, “You can’t do this.” In our continuing series of the book Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane, with Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring, we explore what it takes to keep going when things get hard. Inspired by Chapter 4, Fly, this episode invites leaders to trust their preparation, lean on their community, and take one more step of belief — even when they’re scared. Together we talk about how courage builds slowly, through practice, vulnerability, and the people who remind us of our strength when we forget. If you’ve ever stood at the edge of something new and hesitated, this episode will help you find the courage to keep unfolding — and to fly.
Why Place Matters: Notre Dame, Symbols, and the Spaces That Shape Our Leadership
Places aren’t passive backdrops—they’re active partners in our leadership story. In this episode, Nathan and Brian revisit Notre Dame and the rose window that inspired the Leadership Vision logo to explore how place anchors identity, shapes team culture, and invites reflection. From the transept’s “waiting place” to the power of shared retreats and simple artifacts, they share practical ways leaders can name and return to meaningful spaces for deeper connection. Listen in, reflect on your own shaping places, and consider how your team might adopt shared spaces that become part of your culture.
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