Russ Powell Consulting

05/05/2026

Please join me in congratulating the newest graduates of Leadership and the Middle Path! 👏🎉

Aaron, Bianca, Brandi, Geoff, and Pema have completed our foundational leadership program — one designed to help managers at every level develop greater mastery in the art of collaborative problem-solving.

Congratulations to each of you. May you and your teams "play to win with honor!"

04/13/2026

A lot of leadership development gives people a temporary high.

The offsite.
The workshop.
The breakthrough moment.

Everybody feels inspired.

Then they go back to work and run the same meetings, avoid the same conversations, and tolerate the same fuzzy agreements.

And that’s the problem.

Leadership is not an event.

It is not a burst of insight.
It is not a two-day emotional experience.

It is repeated behavior.

How you show up.
How you listen.
How you decide.

How you speak when the stakes are high.
How you respond when someone drops the ball.
How often you do what you said you would do.

Culture does not change because people were moved.

It changes because leaders behave differently, consistently enough that other people can trust it.

That's the work.

Not intensity.
Discipline.

04/10/2026

M. Scott Peck wrote this while reflecting on the Vietnam War, the My Lai massacre, and what he saw as the dangers of collective narcissism.

The line from that passage that stays with me most is this: we were wrong because we never seriously considered that we might not be right.

That feels relevant far beyond war. It applies to leadership, organizations, and teams.

When certainty outruns curiosity, people stop learning. When people stop learning, they make avoidable, sometimes extraordinarily costly, mistakes. And they do it with enormous confidence.

Humility is not weakness. It is one of the few real protections against error.

03/24/2026

Want people to actually act on your requests — especially in tough conversations?

Balance your challenge with empathy.

In our Middle Path workshops, we teach that effective leadership means balancing moves of empathy with moves of challenge. When we want something from someone, we're navigating two things at once: understanding the human in front of us AND asking for what the situation requires.

I found a brilliant 60-second example in a scene from The Pitt.

A kid whose mom is dying of cancer is standing outside her hospital room. An attending doctor approaches with a challenge. When her first attempt doesn't land, she shifts — making brief, deliberate moves of empathy. She relates to him, even mirrors his posture, just long enough to say: "I see you. I hear you."

Then she offers her challenge again. And he acts on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7amQq3yS-8

The lesson: when you're about to make a tough request, pause. Make some moves of empathy first. Show the other person you understand what's happening in their world. Then state your challenge. You'll dramatically increase the chance it's heard — and acted on.

When has a moment of empathy made someone more open to a tough ask? I'd love to hear it.

Want people to actually act on your requests — especially in tough or awkward conversations?Balance your challenge with empathy.In our Middle Path workshops,...

03/04/2026

Turns out juggling and leadership have more in common than you’d think.

I recently sat down with Kassy LaBorie-Stone for a conversation that connected my work as a musician—and my former life as a professional juggler—to one of the most overlooked ideas in workplace performance:

If you want to change behavior, stop focusing only on the people.
Start looking at the *system* around them.

We also talked about:
🎹 What performing as a musician taught me about reading a room
🎭 A few stories from my juggling days (yes, really)
🧠 Why environment shapes behavior more than most trainers, designers, and managers realize
😄 One of my favorite networking icebreakers—one that almost always gets a laugh

Kassy is a terrific host. She has a gift for pulling out the stories you didn’t realize you were going to tell.

Her podcast is relatively new and well worth a listen. If you enjoy the episode, please give it a like and follow the show so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

Links below. 👇

In this engaging conversation, Kassy LaBorie interviews Russ Powell, a multifaceted artist and leadership trainer. They explore the connections between juggl...

03/03/2026

"Whoa. Sudden burst of gravity there. D'ya feel that?"

Years ago, when juggling was a regular side hustle — parties, parades, markets, clubs, the occasional TV appearance — that was my go-to drop line. Every juggler has one. A phrase at the ready for when something hits the floor.

Acknowledge it, get a laugh, keep moving.

Leave it to Kassy LaBorie-Stone to help me dust off that memory. 😄

I had the real pleasure of sitting down with Kassy for her podcast, The Spark Konnect — a show where she draws out the stories of skilled training and performance improvement professionals, especially those who've found unexpected inspiration in creative, artistic, and athletic backgrounds. She has a gift for helping people uncover and articulate how they think about and approach their craft.

In our conversation, one thing surfaced pretty naturally: juggling turns out to be a surprisingly useful metaphor for how we work and lead. We're all jugglers — trying to accomplish more with less.

The episode drops Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a little teaser.

👇

What if leadership feels like… juggling knives in a windstorm? This week on 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗞𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁: 🎙️ Ep. 017 | A Sudden Burst of Gravity w/ Russ Powell From street performing in New Orleans to executive coaching, Russ Powell shares what juggling, musi...

02/07/2026

Friends — Many leadership mistakes don’t happen because people aren’t smart or committed.

They often happen because pressure narrows our attention.

I wrote about this—what it costs, and how to work with it—in my latest newsletter.

If you’re feeling stretched or pulled in a dozen directions, this may be timely.

👉 https://mailchi.mp/a553e3f02b6f/leadership-and-team-development-useful-notions-and-news-from-russ-powell-consulting-12775430

— Russ

01/25/2026

I don’t usually share longer writing here, but I wrote something this morning that's important to me.

It’s about leadership, grief, trust, and what it takes to stay human in chaotic times.

I’ve been noticing how many thoughtful, capable people seem quietly worn down—and how often teams stop saying what they’re really seeing and thinking.

If you’ve been feeling some version of that, you’re not alone. This is for you.

👉

When systems we believed in cause harm, something inside us gets injured. That injury often shows up as fatigue, cynicism, and disengagement. But underneath it is often moral sorrow: the pain of caring in environments that don’t always seem to value care.

11/18/2025

If your system is working against your people, no amount of training is going to magically save the day.

This came up in a podcast recording today, and it sent me right back to an old blog post that still hits the mark.

Before rolling out more training, do a quick reality check:
• Have we defined what “good” looks like?
• Are people getting real, timely feedback—not mysterious hints?
• Are workflows something people can find and follow?
• Do people have the time and tools to do the job well?

If the environment is a mess, your training budget is basically setting money on fire.

Fix the system, and everything clicks faster.

Here’s the post:

If You Pit a Good Performer Against a Bad System, the System Will Win Almost Every Time -- https://www.russpowell.com/post/if-you-pit-a-good-performer-against-a-bad-system-the-system-will-win-almost-every-time-rummler

Here's a brilliant model of behavioral influence that I find useful in my day-to-day work. It's particularly useful for coaches, trainers, instructional designers, managers, executives—really, any leader invested in helping people and teams perform better.

01/21/2025

"The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." –George Bernard Shaw

I first heard this profound quote from Edward Tufte during his *Presenting Data and Information* workshop a few years ago. It immediately resonated with me. As business leaders, we've all experienced situations where we thought we communicated something clearly, only to later discover that the message wasn't received as intended.

I recently asked a colleague to complete a task, and despite thinking that I had given clear instructions, he didn't start until I followed up. Even then, the end result differed from my expectations. This led to a second, unplanned conversation to get aligned. Sound familiar? How often have you heard (or said) things like "Well, I *told* her!" or "He should know. I said it quite clearly."

The truth is, just because we say something doesn't mean we've communicated effectively. Especially in fast-paced environments like startups, it's all too easy to assume shared understanding when there is none.

So what can we do to avoid the illusion of communication? A few tactics I recommend:

1. Use the "reverse confirm" — Ask the other person to repeat back their understanding of the task and expectations before agreeing to take it on.

2. When delegating, explicitly discuss expected outputs, requirements (must-haves) and nice-to-haves. Don't assume anything is obvious.

3. Provide context — Instead of simply assigning tasks, explain how they fit into the bigger picture. Understanding the "why" can prevent misinterpretations and yield better results.

4. Seek feedback — After delegating, ask questions like "What additional information do you need?" or "What potential roadblocks do you foresee?" This can uncover any lingering confusion.

These simple steps can save hours of lost productivity and frustration.

If you're a startup leader or manager looking to level up your team's communication skills, let's connect. I'd love to hear more about where you're experiencing communication gaps and explore more actionable strategies to make sure your message is coming through loud and clear.

https://www.russpowell.com/

01/10/2025

My January newsletter just dropped. In it you’ll find an exploration of the “sucker’s choice” trap, tips on training strategies and team building, recommended resources for navigating difficult emotions, and pointers to a few upcoming leadership workshops. Here's a link: https://mailchi.mp/127e01365c22/leadership-and-team-development-useful-notions-and-news-from-russ-powell-consulting-12727271 Enjoy!

And if you'd like to receive this more directly, here's a link for that! https://russpowell.us21.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=932f3fe6fc69466043e18f564&id=c244820649