After decades moving between corporate leadership, consulting, and academia, Jeff McAuliffe has seen leadership from every angle. From sitting at executive tables to building his own consulting practice from scratch, he’s learned that “the top” isn’t a fixed place—and that loneliness shows up in ways most people don’t expect.

This episode of Lonely at the Top is about the quiet realities of leadership that no one prepares you for.
It’s about navigating influence when you don’t have control, the tension between authority and authenticity, and what it really costs to hold both.

It’s also about redefining leadership as something more human: less about having answers, and more about creating space for truth.

Episode Highlights

• Why “the top” is relative—and why loneliness can exist at every level
• The hidden isolation of entrepreneurship and solo consulting
• Moving from corporate leadership to building something on your own
• Why great leaders don’t need to be “the one in charge”
• The challenge of influencing without authority
• What leaders wish they could say out loud (but usually don’t)
• Why “I don’t know” might be the most powerful leadership tool
• The role of emotions in leadership—and why most leaders avoid them
• Navigating environments where authority doesn’t work
• Leading through uncertainty while holding information you can’t share

Connect with Jeff

Jeff's Linkedin

★ Support this podcast ★

Lauren Goche has cracked the code on something most leaders never admit they need: community. A principal real estate broker, micro-influencer, and self-described love bully, Lauren built her career by staying connected — and then discovered that even she had a chaos habit she didn't see coming. In this episode, she talks with Rachel about the expensive sabbatical lesson that revealed she didn't know how to be calm, what it looks like to lead a team with radical care as the operating principle, and the strange isolating side effects of becoming someone people recognize in restaurants, on front porches, and at lunch while accidentally stealing your phone.

Episode Highlights

•⁠ ⁠She nearly took a job she dreaded — and a chance conference encounter changed everything
•⁠ ⁠Why Lauren deliberately chose never to own her own brokerage ("it's more headache and more lonely")
•⁠ ⁠The Mexico property: how a sabbatical got too quiet and she manufactured chaos to escape the calm
•⁠ ⁠Scarcity to abundance: growing up with housing instability and what it meant to be able to lose big without losing everything
•⁠ ⁠The love bully philosophy — why care for each other comes before care for clients, and why she'll bring you a sandwich whether you consent or not
•⁠ ⁠The parasocial side of Instagram fame: being recognized at her own front porch, and having a fan sprint away with her phone
•⁠ ⁠Lost friendships, nervous system repair, and learning to say no as a complete sentence
•⁠ ⁠Why community isn't soft — it's the infrastructure of a sustainable business

Connect with Lauren

Lauren's Instagram

Dr. Mark Vossler spent 30 years as a cardiologist before most people retire from their first career. He was medical director of cardiac services for a decade, managed physicians, navigated hospital politics, and learned the hard way that medicine is really just people work with better equipment.

Then he retired. And got busier.

Now he leads Physicians for Social Responsibility, a national organization built on a striking premise: 80% of health outcomes have nothing to do with medical care. They're determined by your zip code, your income, your race, your environment. So if you actually care about keeping people alive, you have to go upstream to legislators, policy, and power.

This episode is about what it takes to lead when you can't fire anyone, when the stakes are existential, and when caring too much can paralyze the very people you need to move.

It's about knowing when to say no, how to protect what's yours, and why likability — real likability, not performed likability — might be the most underrated leadership asset there is.

Episode Highlights

• Why 80% of health outcomes are determined by factors medicine can't fix
• Managing physician egos vs. managing volunteers — and which is harder
• The fine line between being worried enough to act and so worried you shut down
• Why facts don't persuade people — and what actually does
• What Fred Rogers' congressional testimony teaches every leader about influence
• The 8pm Saturday call that signals your job is falling apart

Connect with Mark

Mark's Linkedin

Email: wpsr@wpsr.org

★ Support this podcast ★