The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

Unleashing Leaders podcast empowers leaders with stories and strategies to tackle tough challenges. Host Lee Scott shares practical steps to strengthen teams, clarify vision, and engage people.

The Unleashing Leaders Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Lee Scott, with 71 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Lee Scott hosts The Unleashing Leaders Podcast, a business show with 71 episodes published.

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  The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

  Ep 62: Getting the Right People on Your Bus: Recruiting and Hiring Tips with Katie Hagen

  Sep 23, 202653 min

  Katie Hagen spent fifteen years building candidate pools inside California's prison system, some of it under a federal healthcare receivership. If she can find good people under those conditions, "we can't find anyone" can't be what stops you. In this conversation, Lee sits down with Katie, CEO of CPS HR Consulting, to talk about the part of recruiting most leaders skip: what happens before the interview. This one's for the middle manager without a dedicated recruiting team behind them, the person who's struggling to find great people. Katie's path runs from analyst at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to HR chief at CalPERS. Today, she runs an HR consulting firm serving public agencies in 32 states. Along the way, she and Lee get into what indicates a good hire versus what just reads well on a resume. They talk about how to work with your HR team and your own network to build a stronger candidate pool. And where the line really sits on recruiting the ethical way. Additional Resources: Connect with Katie Hagen on LinkedIn Learn more about CPS HR Consulting Follow CPS HR Consulting on LinkedIn Read: Assessing the Landscape: A Comprehensive Checklist for Public Sector Leadership Success Read: Assessing the Landscape: Workforce Challenges Attend Unleashing Leaders University! Sign up for our newsletter: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/signup Learn more about Unleashing Leaders Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn Connect with Lee on LinkedIn Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram Key Takeaways: Katie uses a 30/70 split to separate what you can train from what you can't. "Hungry, humble, and smart" beats "smart" every time, and the math behind it is simpler than you'd think. The go-to recruiting tool most public agencies lean on is quietly hurting their candidate pool. Ethical "warm recruiting" looks nothing like what most leaders assume. There's one part of the process candidates remember most, and it isn't the interview.

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  The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

  Ep 60: Speaking Truth to Power: How to Elevate Unpopular Risks to Upper Management with Payson Hall

  Aug 12, 202654 min

  In this conversation, Lee sits down with Payson Hall, founding member and consulting project manager at Catalysis Group. Payson was one of Lee's earliest mentors. Together they unpack a skill most leaders avoid: delivering bad news before it becomes a crisis. Payson traces the lesson to a Ranger sergeant in a Georgia swamp who refused to let him fake confidence with a map and a fat gloved finger. The fix became a career long habit Payson calls the pine needle test. Name your uncertainty precisely. Don't point vaguely and hope nobody asks a follow up question. From there, Payson and Lee dig into the moments that test a leader's nerve. In the "when in June" story, a product team confidently promised a June ship date. Payson asked each group to name the exact day. The whole schedule unraveled in real time. Then there's the cheeseburger talk: Payson's name for the one on one, out of office conversation he has with every sponsoring executive early in an engagement. Payson also draws a line that trips up a lot of consultants. Project or scope change management is a different animal from technology or organizational change management. Confusing the three is where "unpopular fact" conversations go sideways. Additional Resources: Connect with Payson Hall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paysonhall/ Attend Unleashing Leaders University: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/curriculum Learn more about Unleashing Leaders: https://unleashingleaders.com/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders Connect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeallenscott/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashingLeaders/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashingleaders/ Key Takeaways: Leaders who deliver bad news early prevent small risks from becoming full-blown crises. The pine needle test means naming your uncertainty precisely rather than pointing vaguely and hoping nobody asks a follow-up question. Asking "when in June" instead of accepting "June" can unravel a schedule that looks solid on the surface. Building trust with executives through informal, out-of-office conversations early in an engagement makes harder conversations possible later. Project change management, technology change management, and organizational change management are different disciplines, and confusing them is where difficult conversations go sideways.

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  The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

  Ep 59: Prioritizing Conflicting Task Requests with Skye Connors and Emily LaPorta

  Jul 22, 20261h 8m

  In this conversation, Lee sits down with two of Unleashing Leaders' top change agents, Skye Connors and Emily LaPorta, to tackle a problem every high performer eventually hits: too many priorities, not enough hours. Skye and Emily built UL's internal SOP for handling conflicting task requests and walk through how it works, from the physical warning signs of overload to the tiebreakers that step in when two tasks conflict. Feeling overloaded usually means you're trusted with more, not that you're falling short. Lee, Skye, and Emily break down the prioritization shortcuts that quietly wreck teams: First in, first out. Last in, first out. Whoever screams the loudest. And the fallback of declaring "everything is priority one," which just pushes the decision onto your team, leaving them to default to whatever's easiest. What UL actually uses instead is a framework that sorts commitments by required, desired, and optional, weighs critical path and impact, and falls back on real tiebreakers, like prior commitment and relative priority, when everything else ties. Emily closes with a reminder that this gets easier with practice: "Am I required?" and "What is the impact?" stop needing a checklist and become instinct. Additional Resources Attend Unleashing Leaders University: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/curriculum Learn more about Unleashing Leaders: https://unleashingleaders.com/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders Connect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeallenscott/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashingLeaders/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashingleaders/ Key Takeaways: Feeling overloaded is a sign of trust and competence, not a warning sign of failure. Notice the physical tell (tight chest, racing heart) before it drives a bad decision. First in, first out, last in, first out, and "whoever screams loudest" all fail as standalone strategies. Declaring everything priority one pushes the decision to your team, and they'll default to whatever seems easiest, leaving the hard stuff undone. Sort every ask into required, desired, or optional before you commit to it. When priorities truly tie, fall back on real tiebreakers like prior commitment and relative project priority. With practice, questions like "Am I required?" and "What is the impact?" stop needing a checklist and become instinct.

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  The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

  Ep 58: Longevity and Leadership - Optimizing Your Health for the Peak Years of Your Career with Dr. Sandra Kaufmann

  Jul 8, 202650 min

  In this conversation, Lee Scott and Dr. Sandra Kaufmann explore the science of longevity and its direct connection to leadership performance. Here's a hard truth: a dead leader is not a great leader. Neither is one who hits the peak of their wisdom right as their body starts to fail. Sandy is a physician, author, and transitional medical director for Envision Healthcare. She has spent years investigating why we age at the cellular level and, more importantly, what we can do about it. Sandy walks through her Kaufman Rating System, a research-based framework that scores supplements and molecular agents across seven categories of cellular aging. Learn about her Longevity Pyramids, a tiered protocol that starts with daily fundamentals like movement, sleep, and hydration and scales up from there. Hear about real outcomes from the high-performing athletes, executives, and military leaders she works with. She closes with a surprising answer to Lee's signature question: the single hallmark of an unleashed leader is annoyance. It is the person who won't stop pushing until their drive gets pointed in the right direction. Additional Resources: Learn more about the Kaufmann Protocol: https://kaufmannprotocol.com/ Visit Kaufmann Longevity: https://www.kaufmannlongevity.com/ Get Dr. Kaufmann's book: https://a.co/d/006LZJfd Get The Kaufmann Protocol: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MVFBVQ?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_NYX1J1P7R7Z1J8ZZX3SE&bestFormat=true Follow Kaufmann Longevity on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaufmannlongevity/ Attend Unleashing Leaders University: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/curriculum Sign up for our newsletter!: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/signup Learn more about Unleashing Leaders: https://unleashingleaders.com/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders Connect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeallenscott/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashingLeaders/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashingleaders/ Key Takeaways: When you reach the peak of your wisdom, that is when your health starts to fail, and longevity science exists to close that gap. The Kaufman Rating System gives leaders a research-based way to evaluate supplements and agents across seven cellular categories. Daily fundamentals, including movement, sleep, hydration, and diet, are the non-negotiable foundation before anything else. Effective longevity interventions require sustained commitment, not one-time fixes. The hallmark of an unleashed leader is productive annoyance. Drive that gets channeled toward impact.

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  The Unleashing Leaders Podcast

  Ep 57: What Does "Be More Strategic" Actually Mean? A Five Level Map with Lee Scott

  Jun 24, 202614 min

  "You need to be more strategic." It shows up on performance reviews constantly. And almost nobody explains what it actually means. In this quick hit episode, Lee Scott breaks it down with a practical five level model that maps exactly where someone is on the strategic thinking spectrum and what it takes to move them forward. From the Hapless Victim defined by their conditions, to the Strategic Operator who is informed by them. Each level carries a distinct mindset, blind spot, and coaching approach. Whether you are developing someone else or trying to unravel the formula for yourself, this episode is for you. Additional Resources: Attend Unleashing Leaders University: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/curriculum Learn more about Unleashing Leaders: https://unleashingleaders.com/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders Connect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeallenscott/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashingLeaders/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashingleaders/ Key Takeaways: The 5 Levels of a Strategist: Hapless Victim, Blind Activist, Focus Doer, Efficient Performer, and Strategic Operator, what separates each one Conditions vs. Choices: the defining distinction between someone stuck at the bottom and someone operating at the top The Coaching Question Shift: why you cannot ask a Hapless Victim the same questions you ask an Efficient Performer and expect results Running From vs. Running To: how to help a Blind Activist stop reacting and start aiming Working Smarter, Not Harder: the time and priority questions that move a Focus Doer out of brute force mode Building Bridges Before You Need Them: what Strategic Operators do today that others won't think of until it's too late

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