Marlene and Jonathan, with guest, psychotherapist Amanda Youssef, explore how empathy is necessary to form connections between people and why people need those connections in order to show up as the best versions of themselves and in order to do their best work.

About Amanda Youssef

Amanda Youssef is a Registered Psychotherapist, Canadian Certified Counsellor, and Certified Meditation Instructor. She specializes in relationships and therapeutic approaches including emotion-focused therapy, dialectic behaviour therapy, and motivational interviewing. Amanda is an avid believer in practicing what she teaches her clients, so you will often find her "forest bathing," meditating, taking long walks with her dog, snuggling with her kids, and writing poetry when she is not busy doing the job she loves!

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Jonathan and Marlene recount their own journeys to find words to understand why they, each in their own way, found and find externally imposed motivation structures (both the positive “carrot” kind and the negative “stick” kind) to be so confusing and counter productive. They propose using “intention” as a third way that Leadership Practitioners can use to escape the tactical “carrot/stick trap.” They explore exactly how this higher-level strategy avoids so many of the carrot-stick pitfalls, and the value it can bring to anyone practicing leadership, particularly in tough organizational contexts where one might have fewer colleagues sharing similar mindsets.



This podcast is listener supported. If you find value in what you've just heard, please consider supporting us by joining a Leadership Practitioner™ Connection. Monthly subscriptions start at $0.00. Go to https://leadershippractitioner.org/connection for more details.

In perhaps this podcast's most epic (we mean that literally) conversational journey to-date, Marlene and JR with guest, leadership development coach Alisdair Smith, take you from critical explorations of authoritarianism and idealism, through tactical approaches to balancing effectiveness with efficiency, the value of naming, being a "learn-it-all," honouring but not dwelling on the past, and the role of nurse logs in old growth forests. Just in case you're worried they might lose the way, no fear - this is all harnessed to together exploring exactly how Leadership Practitioners use forward-focused mindsets to co-create possible positive, compelling and intriguing futures.



About Alisdair Smith

Alisdair is an International Coaching Federation certified coach who works with executive leaders and teams across Canada. He specializes in human creativity and development related to governance, ethics, strategic thinking, teamwork, and leadership and works with diverse clients, from large corporations like Microsoft to NGO’s in Goa, India. Alisdair has also taught leadership and teamwork at the Masters level at 3 Canadian universities and has facilitated dialogues for the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education and Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue.



This podcast is listener supported. If you find value in what you've just heard, please consider supporting us by joining a Leadership Practitioner™ Connection. Monthly subscriptions start at $0.00. Go to https://leadershippractitioner.org/connection for more details.