The Third Turn Podcast

The world-class leader’s journey has three turns.

In the first, you learn to lead your self. You learn about you, your capacities, your boundaries, and how to lead where you are concerned.

In the second, others have acknowledged your gifts and invite you to lead a team or an organization. You learn about the organization - its capacities and its boundaries, and about how to lead where others are concerned.

Once these turns are mastered, the world-class leader can enter turn three —a uniquely sculpted place. You have opportunity to craft deeper vision out of chaos, to discover and orchestrate future value for the organization you steward, and to lead where legacy is concerned. Executive leaders whose careers take them to ultimate guidance of an organization are challenged to move into futures they might glimpse but often cannot fully see. A firm's future value, as well as the executive's succession and legacy, is tied to how they lead from this point. This is Maestro-level leadership.

The Maestro-level leader is entering the third turn of a journey; this is where our conversations will flow as a resource for accomplished leaders who intend to soar toward that future.

Episode 62: A Call to Leadership Courage
Guest Dave Cornell is an author, coach, trainer, and speaker to leaders and organizations, helping them recognize and navigate the ways that fear and courage impact us personally and professionally. In this episode, he reminds us that we all have fear but seldom admit it, and unpacks fear’s role in practical leadership realities like our struggle to hold people accountable, temptations to command-and-control (versus trust and inspire), and—especially for Third Turn leaders--hanging around too long, not making the leadership handoff, and stepping into the unknowns of life beyond organizational leadership. Join us as Dave reminds us about the unique kind of courage required to lead well, lean into the unknown, and learn as we go.

Episode 58: A Chance to Workshop It! – CLA Workshop
This episode presents a unique, roughly 20-minute opportunity to mentally walk through your last four years of organizational leadership—and begin developing a thoughtful, planful approach with the end in mind. Mark L. Vincent delivers a concise and informative audio visual walk-though that allows you as a leader to personally reflect, and/or process with colleagues. What does the last four years of executive leadership look like for you, with the goal of finishing well and with the end in mind, and slingshotting your successors into a thriving future?

Episode 54: Leadership Transition & Like-Minded Friends
Tom McGehee and Jim Stollberg currently serve as Co-Executive Directors of Halftime Institute, an organization that helped them each navigate their own transition from success to significance, career to calling, and stepping into a new season of Third Turn leadership, vision, and contribution. As they now lead the organization through its own Halftime transformation of sorts--actively working to build a global community of Halftime alums with multiplied impact--they share with us here the deep values and compelling stories that inspire the Halftime mission and their work.

Episode 51: Being a CEO and a Board Member
Our guest in this episode, Sherry S. Jennings, PhD, is founder and principal of Sound Governance, and has been referred to as a “governance guru.” Sherry started Sound Governance out of the belief that board leaders need a safe space. While Sound Governance is grounded in the solid principles of Policy Governance©, Sherry brings education and practice in psychology and organizational psychology to help an organization move forward quickly. And she shares her unique vantage point and refreshing viewpoints with those of us serving on or working with boards.

Episode 49: Maestro-level leaders and their CFO
Arnie Hendricks has 30 years of senior financial management experience, with a special focus in the financial and operational management of mid size companies. He currently serves in an exit-planning consultant and in part-time CFO roles through Financial Management Resources. For the past 25 years he’s independently consulted with over 300 companies, helping them solve issues which were hampering their profitable growth and preventing owners from increasing the value of their businesses.

Episode 48: DIY Brain
Dr. Roger Hall, psychologist, speaker, author, and practitioner, whose work focuses on helping leaders think about their thinking and reevaluate their nutritional needs toward the goal peak mental and whole person performance. He’s well aware of the challenges leaders face and trained and certified in psychological and nutritional strategies to, as he says, “change neurobiology and neurochemistry through words. I help successful people become more successful so they can live the life of their dreams.” In this podcast conversation, Dr. Hall shares insights and wisdom specifically tailored to a leader’s Third Turn challenges and realities.

Episode 46: Future Value, Succession and Legacy
David S. Bell serves as a Senior Design Partner with Design Group International™. David is an adjunct instructor at United Theological Seminary and currently serves as President and Executive Director with The United Methodist Foundation of Michigan. Our conversation with David S. Bell brings insight into long-term financial management for all of us, and most especially that Third Turn, Maestro-level leader who cares about future value, succession and legacy.

Episode 45: Developing & Living a Maestro-level Vision
Tim & Sid Burkey are brothers and farmers who lead a 130-year family farm in Nebraska that’s prospered through six to seven generations, developed numerous crop and technology products, and experienced both thriving and a near-brush with insolvency. The experiences they share from their agricultural experience provide illustrative examples and refreshing perspective on what it means to live and lead in an enduring, innovative family business with present and future value and stakeholders and partners both close at hand and clearly in view.

Episode 44: Leading Oneself While Investing in Others - WiLD Leaders
Drs. Rob McKenna and Daniel Hallak lead WiLD Leaders, with a mission to intentionally prepare a generation of courageous and sacrificial leaders who will lead the way in reflecting light into a world where darkness is the default — a generation of leaders who will bring thoughtfulness, conviction, hope, resourcing, strategic thinking, and deeply rooted care to the institutions and people they serve. They’re deeply committed to providing a practical structure and process where leaders are deepening in courageous and sacrificial leadership alongside developing in business skills and acumen--all within the context of real-world, everyday business experiences and realities.

Episode 43: Essential and Intentional Things Among the Demands
Phil Bergey is an executive leadership coach who builds on 30 years of diverse leadership experience in business and non-profit roles to form trusted relationships and deliver results with humor, flexibility, and depth. He grew up and was a partner in what is now a three-generation-led family business and has led both start-ups and 300-year-old organizations. Phil has served hundreds of leaders, boards, businesses, and organizations as an executive leadership coach, process consultant, facilitator, and educator. His coaching is focused on helping executives and other senior leaders live with greater effectiveness, more meaning, and increased health as they grow personally and professionally.

Episode 39: Narrower and Deeper: Finding Your Next Focus After Success
Our guest in this episode is nutritionist Chelsea Gloeckner. Chelsea helps business leaders and parents strengthen their bodies for living a full abundant life. This episode is helpful to people who work in the gig economy, making themselves available as subject matter experts, specialists, contractors, and consultants. This conversation provides valuable insights for Maestro-level leaders moving into their Third Turn, where they consider future value for their organizations and, subsequently, their lives beyond the C-Suite.

Episode 37: 360 Wisdom for Leadership Inflection Points
Jodi Hubler, our guest for Episode #37, is a very accomplished leader with deep experience in the C suite, the boardroom and as an investor, all of which give her lots of wisdom, insights, and pitfalls to share about transformational change, executive transition, and board governance. At the core, Jodi's contributions center on leading and governing in industries facing transformative change. And now in her own Third Turn calling, Jodi is using her passion and expertise to amplify impact for underserved, underrepresented communities--specifically nonprofits, women-led businesses, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Episode 36: Building Future Value with the Long-Term in Mind
Our guest, Don Bielen--a principal with Perkins & Co.--is a strong advocate and facilitator for a multi-dimensional approach to business transition and succession planning for privately-held (the majority of which are family) businesses. Listen in as we hear his perspective on what a multi-dimensional approach entails, along with the central question that guides it: How do you create a sustainable organization that perpetuates itself, hopefully into perpetuity--taking an infinite vs. finite view, and making sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Episode 31: SMEs As a Litmus Test for Leadership
Join Mark & Kristin for the 31st Episode as they discuss the critical role of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Especially at the Third Turn, as we intentionally peer into the mist of future opportunity, vitality, and value, Subject Matter Experts in areas like trends and innovation, strategic finance modeling, and talent development can bring much-needed perspective to serve and grow the mission in fresh, timely, market-relevant ways. And whether, when, and how we engage them can serve as a litmus test both for the types of leaders we are and for our outcomes and probability of success.

Episode 29: Managing Polarities
In this episode we feature a rebroadcast of colleague Phil Bergey’s “Leadership Meets Life” podcast (Episode #2) on this important topic--identifying and managing polarities. The world we live and lead in today has no shortage of problems and polarities on numerous fronts--culturally, organizationally, strategically, and relationally, just to name a few. And certainly, as leaders, a key part of our role is to help our organizations (as well as ourselves!) manage and navigate problems and polarities productively. But are we insightful and objective enough to distinguish between the two?

Episode 28: Our first year!
To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the Third Turn Podcast, in Episode 28, Kristin and Mark share their favorite excerpts from this past year -- a reprise of sorts -- reminding us how beautiful the work of Maestro-level leadership is, and how difficult it is to navigate by oneself. Their choice to use the labels of Artisan, Artist, and Maestro when identifying the Three Turns of Executive Leadership point to the problems inherent in working alone. Leaders need followers, partners, and colleagues!

Episode 27: Maestro-level Leaders as Steward Leaders
Dr. R. Scott Rodin joins us in Episode 27 of the Third Turn Podcast. He is a well-recognized author, advocate, consultant, and executive coach who has a burden for leaders ‘struggling under the weight of ownership in their approach to work.’ And he recognizes it because he’s lived it. Scott shares about his own personal and paradigm-shifting journey from leading others with a sense of ownership to leading others with a sense of stewardship, and the freedom and joy that were byproducts of this shift.

Episode 23: A Maestro-level Journey
In Episode 23 of The Third Turn Podcast, we speak with Dennis Gingerich, a unique leader with a rich viewpoint on Third Turn living and leading. After an intentional 5-year prep and planning process, Dennis transitioned in title and responsibilities from Senior Pastor to Founding Pastor of Cape Christian Fellowship, the church he’d planted 20+ years earlier. He stayed with the ministry for roughly 12 years since and served alongside three successive successors.

Episode 20: Leading as a Woman Into and Through 3 Turns
In Episode 20 we talk with Dawn Yoder Graber. She is another great example of how our Third Turn giftedness and calling is oftentimes birthed from our life challenges and crucibles. She’s had a keen eye attuned to women leaders (or the lack thereof!) starting as a young girl, that’s now blossomed into a mission and passion to use her own transforming influence for the benefit of others--equipping and advocating for women in context of today’s leadership roles and realities.

Episode 19: My Third Turn Journey
Our greatest leadership and life crucibles are often the birthplace of our greatest giftedness and contributions, and Kenneth Cox’s story brings this to life in a powerful way. In fact, Kenny’s leadership journey brings lots of Third Turn principles to life:

leveraging lessons learned in Turns 1-2 into a powerful Third Turn focus;
laying groundwork for a very creative “future value” vision for his company;
living his life focused now on legacy and future impact;
and even having a brand new grandbaby that underscores his “future generations” focus. (Kenny even considers his new grandfather role as his ‘Third Turn in parenting leadership’!)

Episode 14: Parent to Child Business Transitions
Brian Van de Water's Third Turn entailed moving out of a President's role to the work he now does with SPL Consulting in strategic planning, lean process, and succession planning, largely in family-owned firms. We invited Brian to talk through his extensive experience in creating bridges between a Founder-Owner and the child or otherwise-appointed heir to a business. The result is an informative conversation for all of us working in or advising family- and privately-owned companies.