Can everyone really lead? What does that look like?

The Kansas Leadership Center recently published a national best-seller called When Everyone Leads. This book inspires us, but how do people actually put these ideas into practice?

Join co-hosts Chris Green and Brianna Griffin in conversation with special guests for season one of When Everyone Leads: The Podcast! This season explores what is possible when people exercise leadership on topics such as immigration, civic culture, polarization and more!

Tune in every other week for rich conversations about what is possible when everyone leads!

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Listen to When Everyone Leads: The Podcast

S1:E1 Episode 1 – Immigration with Claudia Yaujar-Amaro

What would happen if everyone led on immigration?

An immigrant and business owner outlines a world in which we listen more closely to one another’s stories.

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S1:E2 Episode 2 – Civic Culture with Eric Liu

What would happen if everyone led on improving the civic culture?

In this episode, Eric Liu outlines a world in which more people are invited and engaged in civic life starting at the local level.

Eric Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Citizen University, which works to build a culture of powerful and responsible citizenship in the United States. He also directs the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship & American Identity Program. He is the author of several acclaimed books.

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S1:E3 Episode 3 – Performing Arts with Jill Landrith

What would happen if everyone led on cultivating growing audiences for the performing arts?

A ballet artistic director and dance studio owner shares her vision of how the performing arts can enrich the community.

Jill Landrith is a lecturer in dance history for the Dance Department of Wichita State University and director of Metropolitan Ballet, having previously served as artistic director of Ballet Wichita for 20 years.

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BONUS EPISODE: Embracing the Possibility of a Bilingual City

We’re halfway through Season 1! And we’re taking a brief intermission this week to prepare the next few interviews. To tide you over, we’re posting a short bonus episode with an excerpt of a Journal story about bridging linguistic divides in Emporia, Kansas. It’s just eight minutes. But if you listen closely, we think you’ll hear ideas from the book popping out “in three dimensions,” as our friend Eric Liu might say.

BONUS EPISODE #2: Letting Loss Speak

We have another bonus episode for you before returning to our regularly scheduled programming on May 4.

Nearly 2 months ago, we lost our dear colleague and friend, Thane Chastain. Thane gave nearly a decade to this work and cared deeply about the ideas we here at KLC are trying to share with the world.

This episode features a reading from the Spring 2023 edition of The Journal where Chris Green wrote a few words on navigating loss in this time.

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S1:E4 Episode 4 – Polarization with Joseph Shepard

What would happen if everyone led to reduce the political divide? How can individuals and communities come together to work across differences?

Join Chris and Brianna in conversation with Joseph Shepard for a rich dialogue on an episode of When Everyone Leads: The Podcast.

Joseph is the Chief of Staff at Lead for America. He is dedicated to working alongside individuals and communities to tackle adaptive challenges in the area of leadership, diversity and equity, education and professional development.

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S1:E5 Episode 5 – The Workplace with Sheila O’Connor

Can everyone really lead at work? How can individuals authorize themselves to exercise leadership regardless of position? What is the role of authority in building leadership capacity for employees?

A tech industry professional, Sheila O’Connor, joins Chris and Brianna in a conversation about these questions and more on When Everyone Leads: The Podcast.

Sheila suggests that a tool for positive culture change is intentionally introducing a shared language. She experienced this first-hand when a number of her colleagues attended Kansas Leadership Center training together.

She also doesn’t believe that everyone has to lead, all the time. Organizations and companies may just need just enough people exercising leadership in order to make progress.

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S1:E6 Episode 6 – Education with Dr. Randy Watson

How do we navigate the politicized nature of education today? And what does it look like to work across factions or choose among competing values with student success in mind?

Join Chris and Brianna in conversation with the Kansas Commissioner of Education for a rich dialogue on When Everyone Leads: The Podcast.

Dr. Randy Watson has served as the Kansas Commissioner of Education since November 2014. Dr. Watson’s extensive career in education, from teacher to superintendent, brings a wealth of experience. During his tenure with the Kansas State Department of Education, Dr. Watson has become known for his passion to position Kansas as an innovator in rethinking a century-old school model.

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When Everyone Leads on Making a Podcast

What sparked the idea for When Everyone Leads: The Podcast? How did the team get together? What were some highlights from Season One?

The whole podcast team will be on the mic today discussing these questions and more! Listen in for a special episode to hear the story of how we got started and our lessons learned along the way.

The Story Behind the Gap with David Chrislip

We’ve had a blast planning, recording and producing When Everyone Leads: The Podcast! While the season has come to a close, we do want to share two bonus episodes with you.

This conversation features a longtime friend of the Kansas Leadership Center, David Chrislip. David has been connected to KLC since before our beginning and co-authored a KLC book on civic leadership. We sat down with him to hear about the origin of The Gap questions and why they work.

1. When you think about the future of (your topic, organization, community, etc.) what concerns you the most?
2. What are your greatest aspirations?
3. What gets people stuck in the gap between concerns and aspirations?

Julia Fabris McBride gets to say the unsaid

Sixteen episodes into this show and we’re finally sitting down with one of the co-authors of the book that was a catalyst for this podcast! And despite tons of interviews and podcast appearances promoting the book, she still finds she has something new to say.

Julia join us today to talk about her experience co-authoring When Everyone Leads and what she’s been up to since the book was published at the end of January. She shares how this yellow book is the “why” behind what we teach at the Kansas Leadership Center.

Listen in for our conversation with KLC’s chief civic leadership development officer and co-author of When Everyone Leads, Julia Fabris McBride!

This Is Not A Goodbye Episode

Our small but energetic team began with the goal of creating six episodes. We hoped to reach 3,000 listeners with KLC’s first-ever podcast. We didn’t know what our path would look like, but we knew there was a leadership opportunity before us to connect more deeply with the ideas in “When Everyone Leads,” KLC’s national best-seller.

Today, we are publishing the 18th episode to our feed after having already garnered nearly 5,000 listens. We’ve surprised ourselves, heard from thoughtful guests and enjoyed thought-provoking and honest conversations this season.

But the leadership moment is shifting, for us and for you too.

We wrapped up Season One of the show (we think we mean it this time!) and our co-host and lead producer, Brianna Griffin, has big news to share.

This episode isn’t a goodbye but a cliffhanger. What will happen next? We aren’t sure yet and we need your help.

Tell us what you think we should do next by leaving us a voicemail at 316.469.5976. You can also email us a voice memo.