Your Brain Wasn’t Built to Hold Everything | Lead Yourself First | #039

Stop Evaluating Behaviors. Start Understanding Outcomes. | Dr. Melissa Robinson-Winemiller | TLAL #042

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/fan_mail/new]  Most leaders call it empathy. What they are actually doing is evaluating — deciding whether someone's behavior makes sense to them. Dr. Melissa Robinson-Winemiller spent six years watching institutional leadership fail because of exactly that distinction. In this episode she reframes empathy as a strategic leadership skill and breaks down what actually changes in a team when you stop assessing behaviors and start understanding the outcomes people are trying to reach or avoid.  PodMatch [https://www.podmatch.com/?ref=17512137400373593c7f7fadc] PodMatch: A platform to connect podcasters with perfect-fit guests or hosts, saving time.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/support]

How To Make the Right Call When There Is No Time to Think | Dennis Mellen | TLAL #041

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/fan_mail/new]  At 400 miles per hour there is no pulling over. No pause to regroup. The only thing that cuts through pressure and paralysis is three words: What is important now. Dennis Mellon is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former Alaska Airlines fleet captain who built every leadership framework he teaches from situations where the wrong call had no second chance. In this episode that framework comes into every room where pressure and decisions collide.  PodMatch [https://www.podmatch.com/?ref=17512137400373593c7f7fadc] PodMatch: A platform to connect podcasters with perfect-fit guests or hosts, saving time.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/support]

The Internal Work Nobody Does | Rob Hinds | TLAL #040

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/fan_mail/new] The most capable people are often the most defended. The higher you climb, the harder it becomes to look honestly at what is actually running your decisions — because the higher you climb, the more you have to lose. Rob Hinds is a leadership and behavioral skills coach who spent nearly two decades in education, effort, and motion without real traction. What finally broke the pattern was not a strategy change. It was the internal work that most leadership development content skips entirely. In this episode he gets into why knowledge and skill are not the same thing, what it means to lead yourself before you ask anyone else to follow you, and why the people who build the most real things are usually the ones who were willing to do the uncomfortable work in private before any of it showed up publicly. This is the episode for the leader who has tried every external fix and is ready to look somewhere else. 📞 Book a 45-minute Clarity + Control Call: meetwithdorian.me  🧠 Free Overwhelm Check: go.thinklikealeaderpod.com  📋 Free Weekly Reset Tool: weeklyreset.thinklikealeaderpod.com Connect with Dorian: → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mr.albritton/ → LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dorianalbritton → Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1JeHqK29Vy/ → Podcast: www.thinklikealeaderpod.com PodMatch [https://www.podmatch.com/?ref=17512137400373593c7f7fadc] PodMatch: A platform to connect podcasters with perfect-fit guests or hosts, saving time.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/support]

Your Brain Wasn’t Built to Hold Everything | Lead Yourself First | #039

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/fan_mail/new] When was the last time your head actually felt clear? In this solo episode of Think Like a Leader, Dorian Albritton continues the Lead Yourself First series with a direct conversation about mental clutter, cognitive overload, and the cost of carrying everything in your head. The core idea is simple: your brain is a processing system, not a storage system. When unfinished tasks, unresolved decisions, pending conversations, and unkept commitments live in your mind, they do not just sit there quietly. They pull attention. They create background stress. They make you reactive. They make it harder to focus, think, lead, and follow through. Dorian shares a personal story from the season after his son Dominic was born, when he was balancing work, security shifts, gig work, family responsibility, and the pressure to build something bigger. That season revealed a lesson that became foundational to his self-leadership philosophy: If it is still in your head, it is still open. In this episode, you’ll hear: Why more time does not help when your head is crowded  Why your brain should not be used as a storage system  The three hidden costs of cognitive overload  How mental clutter creates the “11 PM tax”  Why reactive days are often a system problem  How forgotten commitments quietly damage self-trust  Why capture is the first act of taking yourself seriously The practical move from this episode: pick one trusted place and do a full brain dump before the day ends. Get the Open Loop Audit here:  think-like-a-leader-lbfmb7.subscribepage.io Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/support]

The Relationship Across the Hall Is Running Your Company | Morag Barrett | TLAL #038

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/fan_mail/new] Most leaders spend their energy managing up or managing down. The relationship they almost never invest in is the one across the hall — the peer who can quietly stop your project from moving forward without ever saying a word. Morag Barrett is the founder of SkyeTeam, executive coach, and author of Cultivate and You, Me, We. She spent years in commercial finance watching which companies survived downturns and which ones didn't — and the differentiator was never the spreadsheet. It was the quality of relationships between people at the same level. In this episode she breaks down why horizontal relationships actually run a company, how to make the implicit explicit before unspoken assumptions become resentment, and what the listening tour looks like for every leader stepping into a new role, a new team, or a new quarter. If you have ever had a peer quietly undermine a project you were leading, this is the episode. 📞 Book a 45-minute Clarity + Control Call: meetwithdorian.me  🧠 Free Overwhelm Check: go.thinklikealeaderpod.com  📋 Free Weekly Reset Tool: weeklyreset.thinklikealeaderpod.com Connect with Dorian: → Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mr.albritton/ → LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dorianalbritton → Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1JeHqK29Vy/ → Podcast: www.thinklikealeaderpod.com PodMatch [https://www.podmatch.com/?ref=17512137400373593c7f7fadc] PodMatch: A platform to connect podcasters with perfect-fit guests or hosts, saving time.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514298/support]