"They clearly want my job."

It is one of the most uncomfortable situations in leadership: A direct report who is talented but insubordinate, networking with your boss, and actively trying to bypass you.

Most leaders shrink back because they feel threatened. But the truth is, if they are walking all over you, it is because they tested your power and you failed the test.

In thisLive Q&A Session, we tackle the "sharp edges" of leadership—from handling political saboteurs to fixing a team that refuses to make decisions without you.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The "Usurper" Strategy:How to handle an employee who oversteps boundaries (hint: you have to challenge them back to earn their respect) .

-The Ownership Framework:How to stop your team from checking in with you for confirmation on everything.

-The "Microsoft" Story:A personal confession of how I was accidentally poisoning my own company culture by complaining about a vendor—and how I fixed it .

-Saying the Unsaid:Why you must confront false allegations and sabotage head-on, even if it feels "unprofessional" to bring it up .

💪 The Challenge for This Week:The "Victim" Audit.

-Reflect:Where is your team currently showing up as a victim?

-The Shift:Bring this up to your team. Communicate it, come up with a plan.

-The Agreement:Get a clear commitment from them on showing up in ownership, then hold them accountable.

Resources

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator

We often think that experience makes us bolder. But psychologically, the opposite is often true. As leaders get older and more successful, they stop taking risks because they are terrified of damaging their identity as a "winner." We call this The Curse of Experience.

In Part 2 of this interview series, Michael breaks down the internal psychology of the leader. We move from the tactics of Part 1 into the deep mental frameworks needed to handle high-stakes pressure without burning out.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The Curse of Experience: Why successful leaders become risk-averse to protect their ego, and how to fight it.

-The ARC Model: A 3-step psychological framework (Awareness, Response, Compassion) to stop reacting and start leading during a crisis.

-Imposter Syndrome Reframe: Why feeling like a fraud is actually a good sign that you are pushing your leadership range.

-Defining Stress: The realization that stress is simply "trying to control what is out of your control".

The Challenge The Stress Audit: Next time you feel your chest tighten, stop and ask yourself: "What am I trying to control right now that is actually out of my control?" (e.g., a customer's reaction, the economy). Remind yourself that you can only control your own thoughts, behaviors, and actions.

Resources

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator

Martin Luther King Jr. said "I have a dream," not "We have a dream."

When I was scaling Radiant Technologies, I tried to be a "good" leader by gathering my entire team to vote on our company vision. My executive coach stopped me dead in my tracks. She told me: "You’re asking them for something they need from you. It’s time to step up and show them where to go."

There is a time for collaboration, and there is a time for command. If you mix them up, you end up with watered-down ideas or a disconnected team.

In this episode, we break down the Three Leadership Approaches and exactly when to deploy each one to maximize speed and buy-in.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The Committee Trap: Why involving too many people in a strategic decision guarantees a "safe" (boring) result instead of a bold one .

-Visionary Leadership: When to stand in your power and set the direction alone (and why 95% of your team actually wants you to do this) .

-Collaborative Leadership: The specific phase where you must switch to democracy to build trust and morale .

-Delegative Leadership: The difference between "hands-off" leadership and the "Fire and Forget" mistake .

The Challenge for This Week: Audit your calendar for the week.

-Identify Your Default: Are you naturally a Visionary (Commanding), a Collaborator (Democratic), or a Delegator (Empowerer)?

-Find one place where you need to shift your approach and make adjustments

Resources:

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

"You don't get promoted for what you do. You get promoted for who you are."

If you are relying on the same skills that made you a top-tier individual contributor, you are falling into the High Performer Trap. What got you here won't get you there. In fact, your "doing" skills are likely the very bottleneck stopping your growth.

In this special episode, I am sharing the full audio from my recent High Impact Leadership Masterclass. We had hundreds of leaders join live to learn the psychology of scaling their leadership without scaling their stress.

In this Masterclass, you will learn:

-The High Performer Trap: Why being "good at your job" is actually a liability when you move into executive leadership.

-The Identity Equation: A new formula (Identity = Evidence + Mindset) to stop letting your past failures dictate your future confidence.

-The Self-Worth Gap: Why you feel like an imposter when your achievements outpace your self-worth (and how to fix it).

-The Solo Transformation Fallacy: Why trying to fix your leadership struggles in isolation keeps you stuck in the cycle of burnout.

-The Rapid Identity Transformation System: The 4-step psychological framework to unlock the high-impact leader within you.

There’s a lot of gold in this one, with a great Q&A at the end.

To join the leadership Mindset Accelerator go to rmichaelanderson.com/mindset

Got questions? send an email to: hello@rmichaelanderson.com

Does being an "authentic" leader mean you have to share every fear with your team? Absolutely not.

In this special episode, the script is flipped. Michael is interviewed by Hugo Dahlbom of the Executive Network Presidents Institute. They dig into the "Doer to Leader" transition and challenge the modern obsession with vulnerability.

Michael introduces the "Pilot in the Cockpit" analogy: If the engines fail, you want the pilot to be honest, but you don't want them screaming in panic. True leadership requires a specific balance of honesty and authority.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The Pilot Analogy: Why "authentic" leadership does NOT mean sharing your panic with the team (and what to do instead).

-The "Doer" Programming: Why your brain is wired to jump in and fix problems yourself, and how to break that addiction.

-The Experiment Frame: How to get a perfectionist team to take risks by changing one word in your vocabulary.

-Auditing vs. Doing: How to find your team's blind spots without doing their work for them.

The Challenge The Vocabulary Audit: This week, stop asking your team to take "risks." Start asking them to run "experiments." Notice how the energy in the room shifts when the fear of permanent failure is removed.

Resources

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator

71% of US CEOs report experiencing imposter syndrome. If you feel like a fraud despite your success, you are not alone—you are likely just experiencing the gap where your "Achievement Line" has risen faster than your "Self-Worth Line".

In this mega episode, we go way beyond generic advice to deliver a comprehensive arsenal of 25 specific techniques to silence self-doubt. We explore the neuroscience behind why your ego views your promotion as a threat and provide the exact tools you need to close the gap between your competence and your confidence.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The "Doer to Leader" Identity Crisis: Why shifting roles triggers the feeling of incompetence.

-The A.A.R.A. Framework: A rapid mental technique (Acknowledge, Appreciate, Reassign) to neutralize the ego in real-time.

-The "Failure Resume" & "Win Journal": Practical exercises to reframe your history using data rather than feelings.

-Why Imposter Syndrome is a Good Sign: How to reframe fear as proof that you are pushing your boundaries.

-The "Spy" Mindset: A psychological game to trick your brain into confidence in high-stakes rooms.

The Challenge: This week, use the A.A.R.A. Technique whenever you feel self-doubt. Acknowledge the feeling, Appreciate your ego for trying to protect you, Reassign it to a new job (like giving you energy), and then Act.

Resources: Get the 25-Point Study Guide: Get a downloadable booklet listing all 25 techniques from this episode. Join the Growth Leaders Collective to get immediate access: RMichaelAnderson.com/glc.

Join the Conversation: Discuss this episode in our Leadership Mindset 2.0 Groups:

-LinkedIn

-Facebook

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator

Do you find yourself rewriting your team's work or spiraling after a failure? In this rapid-fire Q&A, Michael answers real questions on how to stop micromanaging, audit effectively, and lead through overwhelm.

Most leadership advice is too academic. It tells you to delegate, but not how to handle the anxiety when the work comes back wrong. It tells you to be resilient, but not what to write in your journal when you feel like a total failure.

In this special Q&A episode, Michael opens up the floor to the Growth Leaders Collective to answer real-world struggles. From the specific questions you need to ask to "inspect what you expect" (without hovering) , to the exact conversation script for renegotiating your workload with your own boss, this is pure practical application.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The Audit vs. Micromanage Trap: The specific questions to ask that get you the details you need without disempowering your team.

-The "Rework" Addiction: Why you keep fixing your team's work yourself and why this signals a victim mindset.

-Processing Failure: A 3-step writing exercise to separate what was your fault from what was external, so you don't lose your confidence.

-From Tech Expert to Leader: The one habit you must unlearn (the need to analyze and control everything) to survive the transition.

-Managing Up: How to influence your boss by tying your requests directly to their KPIs and compensation.

The Challenge Find one person on your team in the next 48 hours and connect their tactical role to the company's survival. Ask them: "Do you know how important your job is? And what this affects?". Walk them through the chain reaction of how their specific duty (e.g., accounting) enables the company's mission (e.g., paying salaries).

Resources:

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator

Are you unknowingly sabotaging your executive presence by "waffling," apologizing for your ideas, or using weak language?

In Part 2 of this live coaching session, you will hear exactly how high-potential leaders "leak" their power—and how to stop it immediately.

We move from the mindset work of last week to the execution. You will hear Michael coach "Penny" on how to tighten her communication and project unwavering executive presence, even though she had zero management experience for the role she was chasing.

In this episode, you will learn:

-The "Waffle" Cure: How to stop rambling when you are nervous and use silence as a power move.

-Verbal Power Leaks: The three words ("Just," "Might," "Sorry") that kill your authority instantly—and what to say instead.

-The "Experience Pivot": How to answer the "You don't have management experience" question without apologizing or lying.

-The Outcome: The results are in. Did Penny get the job? (Spoiler: Stick around to the very end).

The Challenge Audit your vocabulary for "Power Leaks" this week. Stop saying "I just have a small idea" or "This might be a stupid question." State your idea directly. Speak with the resilience to get shot down; you don't need to preface your value. Just deliver it.

Resources:

-Join the Conversation: Join our Leadership Mindset 2.0 community on LinkedIn or Facebook

-Get Live Coaching: Move from listening to doing inside the Growth Leaders Collective. Start your $1 trial at RMichaelAnderson.com/GLC

Mentioned in this episode:

Now Open - the 2026 Mindset Accelerator

Special Announcement: Enrollment is open for the 2026 Leadership Mindset Accelerator. This is a live, 3-month program starting February 24th to help you move from "Doer" to "Strategic Leader." Here's the link:

2026 Mindset Accelerator