As we look back on 2025, this conversation brings together five voices who helped shape how we think about leadership when things feel uncertain, human, and real. Russell Harvey, Genevieve Retzlaff, Pat Broe, Mary Lynn Fayoumi, and Susan Inouye each offered a different lens on what it takes to lead forward instead of clinging to what used to work. Together, their insights reflect a year marked by pressure, change, and growth. We’re reminded that leadership is less about having the right answers and more about learning, self-awareness, connection, and trust. From personal resilience and emotional intelligence to empathy, authenticity, and belonging, these reflections point toward a more grounded and human way of leading. This look back isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress, perspective, and choosing to move forward with intention, even when the path isn’t clear.

Highlights

03:53 - Russell Harvey - Rethinking resilience as learning forward instead of trying to return to who we were

Listen to Russel’s full interview at https://www.courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/redefining-resilience-moving-beyond-survival-to-growth-russell-harvey/

09:25 - Genevieve Retzlaff - How leadership growth begins with self-awareness and expands outward to teams and organizations

Listen to Genvieve’s full interview at https://www.courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/redefining-resilience-moving-beyond-survival-to-growth-russell-harvey/

15:51 - Pat Broe - Holding empathy and accountability at the same time as the foundation of trusted leadership

Listen to Pat’s full interview at https://www.courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/how-leaders-can-support-mental-health-while-strengthening-accountability-and-trust-pat-broe/

20:12 - Mary Lynn Fayoumi - Leading through uncertainty by balancing vulnerability, confidence, and personal processing

Listen to Mary Lynn’s full interview at https://www.courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/the-new-rules-of-courageous-leadership-in-uncertain-times-mary-lynn-fayoumi/

25:30 - Susan Inouye - Creating cultures where people feel seen, accepted, and connected across generations

Listen to Susan’s full interview at https://www.courageofaleader.com/captivate-podcast/five-leadership-shifts-that-create-connection-and-build-belonging-susan-inouye/

About the Host:

Amy L. Riley is an internationally renowned speaker, author and consultant. She has over 2 decades of experience developing leaders at all levels. Her clients include Cisco Systems, Deloitte and Barclays.

As a trusted leadership coach and consultant, Amy has worked with hundreds of leaders one-on-one, and thousands more as part of a group, to fully step into their leadership, create amazing teams and achieve extraordinary results.

Amy’s most popular keynote speeches are:

1. The Courage of a Leader: The Power of a Leadership Legacy
2. The Courage of a Leader: Create a Competitive Advantage with Sustainable, Results-Producing Cross-System Collaboration
3. The Courage of a Leader: Accelerate Trust with Your Team, Customers and Community
4. The Courage of a Leader: How to Build a Happy and Successful Hybrid Team

Her new book is a #1 international best-seller and is entitled, The Courage of a Leader: How to Inspire, Engage and Get Extraordinary Results.

http://www.courageofaleader.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyshoopriley

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Welcome to the Courage of a Leader podcast. This is where you hear real life stories of top leaders achieving extraordinary results, and you get practical advice and techniques you can immediately apply for your own success. This is where you will get inspired and take bold, courageous action. I'm so glad you can join us. I'm your host. Amy Reilly, now are you ready to step into the full power of your leadership and achieve the results you care about most. Let's ignite the courage of a leader.

Hi. Welcome to the Courage of a Leader Podcast. Today I'm doing something special for taking a look back over the past year I've had the opportunity to sit down with many thoughtful, honest and deeply experienced leaders on this podcast. There are some moments from the past year that continue to stand out for you listeners, and not necessarily because they were the most polished yet because they landed, they sparked insight. They named what so many leaders are quietly navigating right now. What you're about to hear is a curated set of some of the most meaningful leadership moments on the courage of a leader podcast from the past year, conversations that generated the strongest response, the most engagement and the most I needed to hear that comments together, these clips tell a bigger story. You'll hear a redefinition of resilience that moves beyond the exhausting cycle of just trying to keep bouncing back, and instead invites us all as leaders to spring forward with learning, with energy and with momentum. You'll be convinced I believe about why leadership development has to start with leading yourself, building awareness of your triggers, your patterns, your willingness to grow before you can truly develop and lead others, you'll get grounded, real world advice on how you as a leader, can support mental health while still Holding clear expectations without losing credibility, trust or results. You'll step into a conversation about courageous leadership in uncertain times and what that really looks like to balance humanity and vulnerability with confidence and direction. You'll have a powerful reframe of leadership itself, one that centers connection, belonging and seeing the whole person at work. These are not highlights for the sake of highlights. They're signals about what leaders are hungry for, what's shifting right now, and what matters most right now. If you do want to hear more of my conversation with any of these courageous leaders, you can find

links to the full guest episodes in the show notes for this episode. And as you listen to these highlights, I invite you to notice what resonates for you, what stretches you, and what feels immediately applicable in your own leadership. What actions can you immediately take to have the impact you most want to have as a leader? Show them you've got the courage of a leader. Let's get into it.

I define resilience as springing forward with learning, springing forward with learning. One of the reasons for that, and I know it's a play on words, I'm personally not a fan of this term bounce back is there in all of the research around resilience. So the reason that I'm not a fan of it is, what I observe is most people will face into a challenging life event. They'll face into it with whatever levels of resilience they've got, and then they'll say to themselves, right? I'll now bounce back, go back to how I was. There's a bit of a subconscious instruction to go, right? I've done that, and I'll now go back. And I'm sitting there or standing there, you know, wave my arms and going, you can't go back. We can only move forward in life. So I and I'm really curious about so what have you learned from your experiences? And in the learning comes the resilience, comes the resilience building, and so that, that's why I define it as springing forward. With learning and so resilient people, that's what they do, and that shifts them away from perpetually surviving and coping, and it shifts them towards thriving. So there's a bit of a concern as well that people feel like they are only being resilient when they're surviving and coping, but actually true resilience, where you've actually built it and you've got a good level of it, those individuals are thriving in a full on, crazy, volatile, complex, ambiguous world, rather than just hanging on.

Yeah, I'm glad we're talking about why you define it the way that you do Russell, because it'd be easy to just take it springing forward with learning. Yeah, that sounds great, but it's really important from a mindset perspective, there can be something that comes out of this, not great experience that knocked us back on our heels, but we can end up in a new place, on journey, on our journey, absolutely, yeah, yeah. And a different kind of energy to it than I gotta get back up. I gotta get back up. You fall. And then that feels like that energy is gonna run out.

Well, it will, it will, because that's brilliantly articulated. I shall still that future reference, all right, you know, I mean, it is about the energy levels, because I get worried as well that people only see resilience as just keeping going regardless. So how you actually behaviorally achieve springing forward with learning is that it's making the conscious choice because you see the value and benefit from all of life's events, the good ones and the not so good ones of pausing. Okay, now in the pausing includes re energizing and reflection. Okay, okay, so there's lots of our words here. There's Russell, the resilience coach. There's, you know, reflection, and there's really, it's just the let the letter R comes out an awful, an awful lot in here, yeah, by design, absolutely, absolutely whatever life's experience has happened to is, if it's a really great experience, okay, we've used loads of energy, then we'll be nice tired, yeah, okay, so you need to re energize from nice tired being an unpleasant experience. You are not nice tired. You're a bit broken, you know. So you have to re ener energize from that. So my rhetorical question for you is like, what's the difference for you? How do you re energize from nice tired and not so nice tired? What are the things that you do? There might be a difference in there. So from a leadership point of view, that's really important and Pausing. Pausing includes chatting to a coach, chatting to a friend, going for a walk, pausing is actually having a different conversation in your team meetings. That's a version of pausing as well practical real world. How to be a resilient leader. It's like so team, we have had an experience recently. Let's pause. Let's have a chat about it, let's understand what worked really well for us in this experience, about behaviorally and mindset and our levels of resilience and our adaptability and our learning, and what didn't work well for us. And how can we take

those learnings forward, yeah, into the next experience that we have around it. So actually, we could learn from this and face into the next challenge differently, or actually, how we whether we do actually view it as a challenge, might change, because if we've learned, we go all this, this has happened to us before. Oh, we know how to deal with this. So we'll go, we're not seeing it as a bad, frightening thing. We know we can face into it. So if the negative thing in the past, we learn from it. Go, oh, actually, we know what to do. We feel better about it. I'm not actually viewing it as yet another Oh, my God, experience. It's like, oh, okay, right. We can do this. We can face into this.

We can collectively change the perspective, the mindset, on that type of work with that kind of acknowledgement. Look at what we learned. Look at what we're now capable of. Yeah, absolutely. I've seen that all of this, the springing forward with learning, can create

momentum. Totally, yeah, the

RE energizing. I think this is a really nice distinction that you were making, Russell, I called it I'm happy tired. So Genevieve tell us at a high level what would be the focus of our ideal leadership development journey.

Thank you. So this focus the journey, and I love that you call it a journey, because it really is a journey. We were just talking about that before you hit record, right? It is a journey, and it's not an overnight process. And as long as you're willing to create change in your life and in your leadership style, then this is where it starts, based on the experience of over 10 years of coaching and. And multiple years of leadership ourselves, we start with self. We start with leading yourself, understanding yourself, what is, what are your triggers? How can you become more emotionally intelligent, to be able to recognize that and to create some awareness on your own journey and on your own development, but also in what is preventing you from growing as a leader. So once you can understand yourself, then you can lead others. So it starts with leading yourself, then you move into leading others. How can you develop your team? There's a manager or a leader like, can you be both? Can you be one or the other? Where do you stand? What are your skill set? What are your strengths? And once you are able to understand that, then you can help your team understand themselves better. Recognize when, oh, this person you know reacts in a certain way. Maybe there's a trigger there. If you walk through your own triggers, then you can understand others better and and then once you're able to do that, then you can co create with your team, because you're kind of all and at a different level, because you as a leader, were able to bring them there. And once you can co create and really use the togetherness of the team, then you can lead your organization at scale. And we know how the industrial world has changed tremendously just in the last five years, like, I'm not even counting the last 50 years, because that's like, even, even bigger, right? So if you can see what's coming, the challenges that are coming in the next five to 10 years for your organization, and you

have worked through your own leadership, you have helped your team work through their own, you know, dynamics and triggers and all of this. And you're able to lead them and use it togetherness. Then you can move mountains. Then you can move the needle towards where it needs to be going. Able to put yourself in a strategizing role rather than a reacting role, of like putting out fires all the time, and then you can bring your organization to the future of work. Excellent.

Thank you, Genevieve, as you described that it really answered the question, why this sequence? Right? We've got to understand our triggers and what's holding us back. We can help others see that and understand that for themselves, and really create this space where we can collectively co create right? And then we're building those muscles, and then we can see how the leading the organization at scale would build on top of that, yes, said something really critical at the beginning about the willingness, yeah, to put ourselves on this journey. And I think that's really important, right? We've got to be willing, to be open to look to see, what else would you say about the willingness, yeah, step into this journey. Yeah.

So this, this journey, is a result of multiple years of individual coaching. And so we've noticed that if somebody is sent by the manager, go see you need a coach, like you need to do coaching. And so there don't come fully willing. And change can be created because it's like, it's our job as coaches, right? So if you pick a good coach is able to coach the, what we call the non coachable, right? Like, just to bring them on the journey, but it takes so much more time, right? Where, as, if you have a leader that is willing, that is able to recognize that there's, you know, development be his own development would benefit himself, first or herself, and then the the team and then the organization. It's just results are so much, yeah, faster to come, right? And then everything's more productive.

Yeah, yeah, you and I have felt that difference, right? And sometimes it's, it's helping the individual get clear on what's important to them, what sets, yeah, you know, like, what would doing this work enable? And sometimes it's, you know, helping them to see something they hadn't seen previously, like, correct. Hey, do you notice how this might hold you back? Yeah, exactly, lovely. So let's dig in to development at level of self leading ourselves. Yes, how might we start this work like, how do I begin to understand my triggers, right?

So it comes with awareness and what is in the work we do, what we allow is space. It's like this. Let's say you have one hour of coaching, like you create this one hour that the client wouldn't have taken otherwise to look at how they do things, right? So, and then you by creating the space. Yes, then awareness can come through powerful coaching questions, and then you can be aware of your own triggers. And what we say is, what, what does that mean, even triggers? And what you know, it's more like, how do you react in a situation that you feel emotions become stronger for yourself, right? So they must come for somewhere, and then maybe it doesn't belong to the situation. It belongs to a trigger that you would have in any given situation with any other person. So creating awareness around what does that mean for you? Where do you feel it in your in your body, physically, right? So some people would have, like, a fast heartbeat or tight throat, or, you know, getting like, cold sweats. It could also be holding boundaries, like, are you, you know, do you feel like it's hard for you to say no?

As a leader, you don't want to be the type of person that can be pushed over, right? You don't want to be the type of person where someone can come to you and say, my grandma died seven times in one year and take seven weeks off, right? You don't want to create that kind of an environment. So how do you create that delicate balance of, how can I be an empathetic person and see these people as they are without actually giving up some sort of of credibility that I have as a leader. And what I would say is, for any leader, is if someone you're leading doesn't feel comfortable enough to have a conversation with you about their life, are you a leader or are you just a manager that someone's punching a clock for? Because leaders are people that actually lead people to be beyond what they could be without you, and that is such an important role of who they are, and it might not be specific mental health issues, but grief or challenges that they're having in their own life, upside down on their mortgage, whatever it is, people have so many stresses going in to their to their daily life, and it's your job to get the best out of them that they possibly can, and not acknowledging those things is causing a detriment to your team and your ability to lead correctly,

yeah, a couple of important distinctions I heard in what you just said. Pat there. First of all, how can we be the empathic leader who still holds people accountable is creating that kind of environment? And then also, do you want to be a leader, or do you want to be a manager, right? And a leader is working with folks about, how do we create the conditions for success for you to achieve here and get your work done?

Well, yeah, and I think on top of that as well, there's great leaders have an ability to find more out of people that may even believe they had in themselves, right? I'm really obsessed with Nick Saban at the moment because he's retired, and now he's the former head coach at Alabama, because he's retired, and now he's actually speaking without a media lens, you know, to really hear what his thoughts on leadership are. And this is a guy who is old school and hard on his kids, you know. And these are college kids with all the pressure on the world, on them, but all you hear from these players is how much he loved them and how much he was involved in their personal lives and their families, and he got to know their parents and the intimacies of what was going on in their personal life. And that was part of the sales pitch of getting these kids to come to Alabama. And so you can play that balance of, hey, when someone needs coaching, they need coaching. And I would say too, I've always and I wonder if you feel the same way as well someone who personally cares about me a hard coaching note comes much easier that way, and I'm more inclined to listen to it because I know that this person has my best attention at heart. They want to see where my career is going. They want to see the goals that I have for myself and my family come through because they care about who I am as a human being and so as a leader, it is your role, and you don't have to be best friends with these people, but you certainly need to show that you care.

Yes, Pat, I talk often about leaders will come to me, Oh, I have a difficult message to deliver. How do I say it? What do I do? And they're looking for those mechanics, and I often steer them in another direction. What are your beliefs? What are your intentions? What do you want for this person, this relationship, this conversation, and when, like you said, we can feel those good intentions from those around us. And we've all probably had the experience where someone seemingly said and did everything exactly right, but we're like, I don't quite buy it. Or we knew that they had our back. We knew that they were on our side, and then we forgive them not quite saying it right. Or, Ooh, okay, but I know where she's coming from

exactly 100% and it's funny how, as a leader, we're no different than like a teacher in a classroom with kids, and kids truly understand what a teacher you remember as a kid when your teacher was honest or not honest, and your employees, or the people working for you, or the people that you're leading, they know your intentions when you're saying what you're saying. So if being honest. And upfront about what you have to say and what the intention is. It gives you a world of clearance of messing up and saying the wrong thing, because it's never the wrong thing if it's the right tension.

I want to ask you, Mary Lynn, about the balancing act that I think that this requires, because we want to say, oh, you know, this was some frustrating news, or this is some news we need to react to. Or, you know, I know that this is bringing up emotions and concerns in me, knowledge it might be in all of you as well, acknowledging that showing some vulnerability, yet also needing to be the person that demonstrates confidence right and is outlining the path forward for folks. What would you say about striking that right balance?

Mary Lynn Fayoumi: Well, first of all, I would say it is an art, not a science. There is no one size fits all, and this is where showing your authenticity, your humanity, is going to weigh into the equation and your unique formula for that balancing act, you describe it as a balancing act, and that's exactly what it is for some of us. It includes first going to our personal board of directors or our inner circle to vent, to air our frustrations, to admit our concerns, and to kind of play out various scenarios so that we're not reacting in the moment And maybe just showing any trepidation with regard to facing the future. So whatever technique works, some people do that in solitude. They walk or they run like you, right? They meditate, they hike, they do yoga. Others do it through talking like I'm a very vocal I process through sharing, and so some of us share. I have some colleagues who stay away from the news like consuming the news becomes paralyzing for them, because they're just consumed with worry. I'm a bit of a news junkie, and I try to moderate that, with not taking in too much of it or getting too wrapped up in the details. But you know, having a general finger on the pulse of what's happening as it relates to unemployment, tariffs, economic trends, how it's impacting our member organizations. So the best thing about the way I'm approaching this question that you've asked Is My way is not going to be your way. Your way is not going to be my way. There is no right way. But you know, to take the sting out of this constant cycle of, oh my, oh, dear, oh, Lord, oh gosh, yes, ever going to get through this is, you know, doing something as a leader, or some set of things that work for you individually, to help you then be able to come to your team with confidence, and I'm going to put humility in there again, humility that you don't have all the answers and or that we've never been through this before, or this set of circumstances surely is unique,

extra challenging, confident that we'll get through it. So I was in a chat with a number of association CEOs recently, and we came to the conclusion that the current situation we're in is an odd hybrid blend of the last big recession and the pandemic. Yeah, together, yes, some sort of hybrid of that, where we're all going through a really tough time together. We're all facing similar challenges, but that have specific consequences depending on the markets we serve, the stability of our organization, the team we have around us, the expectations of our board, and it's taking the experience that we gained if we were leading through those two time periods to those are helping inform and know that this too shall pass. Yeah. Well. We will get through this. We do have the stamina, we do have the wherewithal. We do have, you know, enough tools in our belt to survive and thrive through this and at the hopefully end of this roller coaster we're on right now.

Yeah, the challenge is real and we and we have tangible lessons learned from the previous spaces that we've navigated. You also talked about seeing the whole person, and so we've got to accept that someone in the millennial or the Gen Z generation might be asking, How can I have your job, in fact, right? And and accepting that is part of who they are and what they're thinking of and what drives them right, accepting that that whole person

and sabona, it means I see you, I see and accept because what we found Amy is when we see and accept people for who they are, they see and accept us for who we are, and a different conversation unfolds, not one where We're lecturing to each other with our right wrong judgments, but one where we're listening and learning from each other with openness and curiosity. Yeah. And so this is what Millennials and Gen Z's want. They want to be accepted for the whole of who they're. They are their gifts, their blind spots, their strengths, their weaknesses, their genius. And this is why Sal Bona they gravitate towards them. Salmona, it's not just because it was born out of the millennial generation, but it closely aligns with their values and their needs. And it's interesting, in having done a lot of speaking at conferences, I have a lot of millennials approach me and they tell me their needs, but there are three needs that keep echoing, okay, yeah, and that's to feel heard, to use their gifts and to have meaning and purpose in their lives. But what's interesting when I'm speaking to a group of leaders of all different generations, and I asked them, Is this something that you want to every hand goes up, yeah, because it's not a generational need, it's a human need. Yes. This is what we all want, yes. And so the way that we enter through salbona, in order for someone to feel heard, you have to connect and receive. In order for a person to use their gifts, you have to, as a leader, see their gifts. In order for a person to have meaning and purpose in their lives, you have to create a culture where they feel a part of something greater than themselves. And what we do is the journey to this is through what we call the five sabona leaderships. These are the shifts that are so important that leaders make today to be the kind of leaders that thrive in the 21st Century, especially because we, you know, millennial generation right now, they are becoming in

management roles, yeah, senior management roles, VP roles, because the age of millennials are anywhere from 29 to 44 So these five leaderships become really, really important that leaders transition to so the the first one is from control to connect and receive. There's a connection. Yeah. Second one is from conformity to see and accept. Third one is from expectations to intentions. The fourth one is from authority to authenticity, and the fifth one is from bottom line, myopia to belonging. And so yeah, if we look at the first one from control to connect and receive, we have been trying to slowly move away from command and control, which does not work on the younger generation, and it really didn't work on my generation, but we just stopped it up and we did it anyway, right?

Yeah, yeah. We felt like we had to deal with it. Yep, right, exactly.

So we have to transition from control to connect and receive. And connection is not communication or connectivity, it's how I feel when I'm with you.

Thank you for listening to the Courage of a Leader podcast. If you'd like to further explore this episode's topic, please reach out to me through the courage of a leader website at www.courageofaleader.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please take the time to leave a review on iTunes that helps us expand our reach and get more people fully stepping into their leadership potential. Until next time, be bold and be brave, because you've got the courage of a leader in.