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Dr. Amal Ahmadi is an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator at the College of Business and Management, American University of Bahrain. She holds a PhD in management from Henley Business School. Her research focuses on leadership and leadership development, and currently revolves around investigating cognitive, affective, and behavioral mechanisms surrounding leadership and leadership development.

Dr. Bernd Vogel is a professor in leadership and the founding director of the Henley Centre for Leadership, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK. He holds a PhD in Management from Leibniz University Hanover. His expertise is in strategic leadership to mobilize and maintain energy in organizations, multi-level leadership, leading transformations, culture and change, and the future of leadership and leadership development.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “Leadership programs give you a platter of fruit; the real work is choosing what to eat and when.”
• “Structured reflection shouldn’t be optional; it has to be part of our day-to-day.”
• “There’s a dormant, inactive capacity in managers that just sits there if we don’t create space for it to breathe.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: The Knowing-Doing Gap by Pfeffer & Sutton
• Book: Professionalizing Leadership by Kellerman
• Book: The Nazi Mind by Rees
• Podcast: How to Fail with Elizabeth Day
• Organization: Inner Development Goals initiative

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

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Dr. Max Klau is a consultant, author, speaker, and Integral Master Coach based in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005 with a focus on civic leadership development. He served as the Chief Program Officer at the New Politics Leadership Academy (NPLA) from 2016-2024. NPLA is focused on bringing more servant leaders into politics, and Max designed leadership programs that have graduated more than 2,500 servant leaders to date.

Previously, he was the Vice President of Leadership Development at City Year, the education-focused AmeriCorps program. He is the founder of the Center for Courageous Wholeness and his second book, Developing Servant Leaders at Scale, will be published in August 2025. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and two children.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “One of the reasons our world is so divided is because we’re divided from ourselves.”
• “We’ve hit the limits of how much change we can make without getting serious about owning our shadow.”
• “If we don’t confront the shadow, it controls us from beyond our awareness and shows up in the systems we lead.”
• “Service turns pain into power when we use the gifts of our struggle to serve others.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: Developing Servant Leaders at Scale by Max Klau
• Book: Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness by Greenleaf
• Book: Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
• Book: The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• Organization: Inner Development Goals
• Podcast: Living Myth with Michael Meade

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.

Send us a text

Cynthia Pong, JD, is an award-winning executive coach and speaker who empowers women of color leaders to advance their careers into positions of power. A Forbes Contributor and LinkedIn Top Voice for Job Search and Career, she has been featured in HBR, The Atlantic, and on NBC, CBS, NPR, and more.

As Founder and CEO of Embrace Change, Cynthia leads an elite, all-BIPOC team who provide specialized coaching and training programs for high-performing women of color up to the C-suite. Equipped with Cynthia’s strategic guidance, her clients break down barriers, lead with authenticity, and have collectively negotiated over $750K in salary increases. Her Anthem Award-winning Leadership Accelerator program has propelled women of color to prestigious fellowships, promotions, and top graduate program admissions.

Cynthia’s book, Don’t Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color , has cemented her as a foremost voice on career advancement, negotiation, and thought leadership.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “I’ve coached over 350 women of color—those numbers taught me it’s never a skills gap but often a confidence gap.”
• “It’s not about a deficit in ability; it’s about being so hard on ourselves we won’t experiment or make a mistake.”
• “One-on-one tailored strategic support from an executive coach is the single best investment of your scarcest resource: time.”
• “We have to change from doing to leading—mastering tasks won’t teach you how to inspire others.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: Don’t Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color
• Cynthia's Forbes Contributor Page
• Cynthia's Assessment: Cynthia's Leadership Skills Quiz
• Book: Never Split the Difference
• Website: Anton Gunn’s Leadership Works
  
  

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of t

♻️ Please share with others and follow/subscribe to the podcast!
⭐️ Please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or your platform of choice.
➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for more on leadership, communication, and tech.
📜 Subscribe to my weekly newsletter featuring four hand-picked articles.
🌎 You can learn more about my work on my Website.