Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts)
Real CEOs. Real Stories. Hosted by Ben Fanning—2025 Gold Stevie Award winner for Best Business Podcast and ranked in the Top 2% globally—Lead the Team draws on over 600 CEO interviews to take you inside the minds of leaders from brands like Honeywell, HP, IBM, Dunkin’, and L’Oréal. In each episode, you’ll hear raw, unfiltered stories of leading through rapid growth, high-stakes decisions, and make-or-break moments—plus the CEO-tested tools and strategies they use to build high-performing teams. From turning around billion-dollar brands to sparking innovation at scale, these leaders share lessons you can put into action right now to lead y...
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Why Scaling Deceives - CEO of Forescout, Barry Mainz
<p>Scale deceives.</p><p>Barry Mains, CEO of Forescout, reveals how leaders unknowingly become responsible for massive risks they never personally approved.</p><p>As organizations grow, leadership doesn’t just get harder---the real issues become harder to see.</p><p>More effort stops producing better outcomes.</p><p>And more hustle just starts masking risk.</p><p>Barry’s work shows something unsettling: even elite tech leaders are often blind to 30–50% of the devices actually connected inside their own organizations.</p><p>That’s not a technology failure. It’s a leadership one.</p><p>In our conversation, you’ll dis...
This RESET Made Him a Better CEO (CEO VitalEdge, Vikram Savkar)
<p>Vikram Savkar, CEO of VitalEdge Technologies, shares how a demanding moment pushed him to rethink how he was operating...</p><p>AND why choosing to reset earlier than most leaders do changed how he showed up as a leader, at work, and at home.</p><p>The business here wasn’t the problem.</p><p>But time at home was shrinking.</p><p>And the way work followed him everywhere wasn’t something he wanted to normalize.</p><p>Instead of waiting for a breaking point, Vikram created deliberate daily reset—and what happened next accelerated his results.</p><p>We t...
One Skill You Only Learn Under Extreme Pressure (President and CEO Frontgrade Technologies, Mitch Stevison)
<p>Pressure doesn't change the game...it reveals the leader. </p><p>Mitch Stevison, President & CEO of Frontgrade Technologies, recently shared how a high-stakes missile test forced a decision no textbook could prepare him for. </p><p>In this conversation, we break down the one skill he leaned on when the eyes of two nations—and a Senior Admiral—were watching.</p><p>If you've ever had to make a high-stakes call under a microscope, Mitch’s insight on trust is a masterclass in leadership. </p><p>What is the most important trait for a leader to have during a crisis...
The Question 99% of Leaders Are Too Afraid to Ask - Pipedrive President, Peter Harris
<p>Questioning unlocks elite performance.</p><p>Pete Harris, President of Pipedrive, was at the pinnacle of his previous profession (one that he’d spent his entire career pursuing).</p><p>Everything was on track... the prestige and the rank. But while many founders and leaders might push uncomfortable thoughts aside, Pete did something different.</p><p>He used a specific type of curiosity to ask himself a question that 99% of leaders are too afraid to face....a question that forces you to confront whether you’re actually on the path you’re meant to be on.</p><p>Answering it mea...
Why Office Design Is a Leadership Decision (President of Industrious, Anna Squires Levine)
<p>Your office is deciding results.</p><p>Anna Squires Levine, President of Industrious, leads a company that has spent more than a decade observing how office space impacts human behavior (across hundreds of locations and millions of workdays).</p><p>Many leaders assume the office is just a place where work happens.</p><p>But it's far more than that!</p><p>She explains that the office space is quietly influencing things leaders usually attribute to culture, motivation, or performance.</p><p>In their work, incredible patterns emerged at scale in:</p><p>• How people show up at work</p>...
The Mistake That Taught a Future President How to Lead (Altera Digital Health's Marcus Perez)
<p>This mistake taught leadership.</p><p>Marcus Perez, President of Altera Digital Health, shares a moment that unfolded in a helicopter at low altitude (where mistakes don’t get a second chance) and still shapes how he leads today.</p><p>A rule had been broken the day before.</p><p>The next day, his commander took the controls.</p><p>He didn't get lectured.</p><p>He got something far more...</p><p>Intense.</p><p>Deliberate.</p><p>Unforgettable.</p><p>Some lessons just don’t need words.</p><p>After Marcus shared this story with me on t...
A CEOs' Bold Move That Built Trust FASTER Than Any Speech (Wood Mackenzie's Jason Liu)
<p>Leadership tests you.</p><p>Jason Liu, CEO of Wood Mackenzie, felt that test immediately when he stepped into the role right after a major merger.</p><p>New team.</p><p>New culture.</p><p>Everyone watching how he’d show up.</p><p>Instead of trying to project confidence the traditional way, he made a choice that could’ve easily gone wrong.</p><p>It didn’t.</p><p>What surprised me wasn’t the move itself...</p><p>...it was what it revealed about fear, trust, and credibility at the highest levels of leadership.</p><p>Jason do...
How a President Built Speed Without Burning Out His Team (Coder's Josh Epstein)
<p>Pressure felt like leadership (until it wasn’t)</p><p>Josh Epstein, President & Chief Business Officer at Coder, learned this the hard way.</p><p>I’ve seen urgency do two very different things to teams.</p><p>Sometimes it sharpens focus and everything moves faster.</p><p>Other times, it creates stress, confusion, and quiet burnout—while leaders think they’re “pushing for results.”</p><p>Josh shared how early in his career, pressure felt like the right move… until it started costing trust and momentum.</p><p>Increasing pressure wasn’t creating more effort...or the results he expected.</p>...
Why Half of AI Projects are Failing - CEO of Pluralsight, Erin Gajdalo
<p>AI failure rates shock me.</p><p>Erin Gajdalo, CEO of Pluralsight, joined me and what she revealed about why AI projects collapse disturbed me even more..</p><p>I expected to talk about tools, frameworks, and roadmaps.</p><p>Instead, Erin asked me question I wasn’t ready for:</p><p>“Is your team actually ready for this? How can you even tell?"</p><p>Um...</p><p>Because most leaders — myself included — push for AI adoption without slowing down to ask if our teams can actually absorb the shift.</p><p>Erin has led major transformations at Avantax...
Gold Medal Comeback: How a CEO Rebuilt a Broken Team and Made Olympic & Paralympic History (Phil Andrews)
<p>Winning gold didn’t end the pressure. It intensified it.</p><p>A truth Phil Andrews, CEO of USA Fencing, came to understand through experience.</p><p>That’s the incredible story behind Team USA’s recent historic gold…</p><p>…and the leadership turnaround that made it possible.</p><p>When I sat down with Phil, I wasn’t expecting what came next.</p><p>He walked into a sport in crisis.</p><p>Broken culture. </p><p>Divided membership. </p><p>Declining trust. </p><p>High visibility. </p><p>Zero margin for error.</p><p>And somehow, he rebuilt all of it...
