Leadership Matters Podcast
Conversations that help leaders grow, communicate clearly, and lead with greater impact
Discover new episodes of Leadership Matters with the People's Doctors, where both emerging and experienced leaders, across for-profit and nonprofit sectors, find real conversations on every aspect of leadership, from emotional intelligence and visionary thinking to strategic planning and effective succession.
Upcoming Episode
November 4, 2026
The next Leadership Matters episode airs on November 4, 2026, bringing another timely conversation for leaders seeking practical insight and real-world perspective.
What's next on Leadership Matters?
Leadership Matters returns on November 4, 2026 with another conversation designed to equip executives, HR leaders, and nonprofit teams with thoughtful, practical leadership insight.
Latest Episode
Featured Guest
Ian B. Bautista
Ian B. Bautista is a seasoned nonprofit and community development leader. A native of Kansas City, Kansas, Bautista resides with his wife, Elsa, and his young-adult daughter Iana, in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin (Milwaukee Metropolitan Area). He is a proud alumnus of poverty and beneficiary of the public’s investment in numerous ways, including Head Start, Free School Lunches, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, f.k.a. Food Stamps), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Federal Student Loan Guarantees, and Pell Grants.
Since March 2020, Bautista has served as the Senior Director of Civic Engagement at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. In this role and as part of the Foundation’s Policy and Research Team, Bautista coordinates & leads the Foundation’s civic health and metropolitan area change work primarily focused on economic mobility.
His career is a winding path through the nonprofit and public sector community development field. From 2014 – early 2020, Bautista served as the Executive Director of the Clarke Square Neighborhood Initiative (CSNI, www.ClarkeSquare.org), a hyper-local collective impact initiative on Milwaukee’s South Side seeking to implement the neighborhood’s Quality of Life Plan.
From 2006 through 2014, Bautista served as President of United Neighborhood Centers of America (UNCA), the former national non-profit network of settlement houses, neighborhood centers, and community building organizations in the United States of America. At the end of 2013, UNCA merged with another national organization (the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities (www.alliance1.org).
Since then, that successor organization has transformed further to become Social Current: social-current.org. Prior to UNCA, Bautista served as the President & CEO of El Centro, Inc. in Kansas City, Kansas. Before that, Bautista served as a Management Consultant for NeighborWorks ® America, the congressionally chartered national nonprofit community development intermediary. Prior to NeighborWorks ® America, Bautista worked for the State of Kansas at the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission (KHLAAC) and earlier still at Kansas State University.
Bautista currently serves (and has previously served) on various boards, committees and national and local task forces and advisory groups including: board chair of the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s World Mission Ministries, and board director for Data You Can Use.
Latest Episode
Delivering for the Community: Leading Under the Pressure to Get Results for Families
Listen to the audio-only version
About This Episode
The Refined Leader and the Weight of Outcomes That Truly Work for the People We Serve
This month, Leadership Matters with the People’s Doctors takes on The Pressures of Leadership from a refined readers perspective. This week we continue the conversation as we explore what a leader carries when the people they serve, the neighborhoods they work in, and the expectations around them all press on the same set of shoulders. Chief among those expectations is the pressure to deliver community outcomes that actually work for the individuals and families being served. In this continuing conversation on the refined leader, we look at how leaders hold that weight with wisdom, humility, and integrity.
Our guest is Ian B. Bautista, Senior Director of Civic Engagement at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Ian has spent his career in community development and nonprofit leadership, from neighborhood-level work in Milwaukee to national networks of neighborhood centers. His experience and the way he shows up in the community make him exactly the voice we want in this conversation.
Together, the hosts and Ian explore:
- What it means to deliver outcomes that change real lives, not just meet a metric or a grant requirement
- How communities form their expectations of leaders, and what leaders owe in return
- How leaders stay accountable to the families and neighborhoods they serve, not just to a board or a funder
- How resources and funding, one real source of pressure, can be handled with integrity and a steady focus on mission
- What pressure refines in a leader, and what it wears away when it goes unacknowledged
Listen Live & On Demand
Listen live or catch up anytime
Leadership Matters airs live every Wednesday at 2 PM/PT. Visitors can watch live on YouTube, download episodes after the broadcast, or listen through their preferred podcast platform.
Tune in live every Wednesday
Watch Leadership Matters live on the VoiceAmerica Business YouTube streams page each Wednesday at 2 PM/PT.
Watch Live on YouTubeDownload after the broadcast
After each broadcast, episodes are available to download and listen to at your convenience.
Download the ShowAlso listen on popular podcast platforms
Have a leadership question?
Send leadership questions or suggested topics to Leadership Matters for a future conversation.
Leadership Matters
Pressure, Purpose, and People: Leading for Outcomes
The People's Doctors welcome George Winn, Chief Strategy Officer at Judson Center, to explore how leaders meet high expectations without losing sight of people or purpose. They discuss balancing accountability with compassion, supporting high-performing teams, and letting pressure strengthen leadership.
Leadership Matters
Advancing from the Pressures of Performance Woes to Setting Expectations, Addressing Underperformance, and Achieving Success
The People's Doctors welcome Dr. Pegah Teymoorian to explore setting clear performance expectations, giving ongoing feedback, and addressing underperformance early. The discussion focuses on building accountability, navigating difficult conversations with empathy, and helping employees succeed.
Leadership Matters
Culture by Design: Why Alignment, Not Perks, Keeps People Engaged
The People's Doctors welcome Yengyee Lor to discuss how gaps between organizational strategy, values, and day-to-day systems can weaken workplace culture. They explore communication, alignment, and practical ways leaders can strengthen engagement through intentional culture design.
Leadership Matters
Workplace Culture: What Are You Willing to Own?
The People's Doctors welcome Joy Freeman to explore the difference between the culture organizations describe and what employees actually experience. They discuss leaders' responsibility for shaping workplace culture and Joy's Own It Moment™ framework, focused on Story, Strengths, Wellness, Voice, and Joy.
Leadership Matters
Rebuilding After the Breach: Restoring Culture When Trust Has Been Broken
The People's Doctors and guest Nicholas Dillon explore how broken trust affects communication, engagement, and workplace culture. The conversation looks at rebuilding relationships through accountability, transparency, consistent leadership, honest conversations, and meaningful action.
Leadership Matters
The Quiet Exit: When Culture Erodes and Employees Check Out Before They Leave
This episode examines how workplace culture can erode quietly through unaddressed issues, unkept promises, and unwritten rules that disengage employees long before they resign. The People's Doctors discuss warning signs such as silence in meetings, playing it safe, and going through the motions before top talent checks out.
Leadership Matters
Is This the Way It's Supposed to Be? — An Author Spotlight with Dr. Undraye and Dr. Loretta Howard
This author spotlight turns the microphone toward Dr. Undraye P. Howard and Dr. Loretta A. Howard as they discuss their book, Is This the Way It's Supposed to Be? Lessons in Leadership and Lived Experiences. They share personal stories and challenge familiar assumptions about control, certainty, influence, lived experience, and what leadership looks like in practice.
Leadership Matters
Leading Under Pressure — A Clinician's Guide to Stress, Resilience, and the Whole Leader
This episode examines what sustained stress does to leaders and how they can respond before burnout takes hold. The People's Doctors are joined by Natasha Mullen to discuss stress responses, genuine resilience, trauma-informed leadership, and building organizations where wellness is part of the culture.
Leadership Matters
Leaders and Stress: When the Body Sends the Bill
This episode examines how prolonged leadership stress affects the body and mind. The People's Doctors are joined by Dr. Yvonne Bell Gooden to discuss warning signs leaders miss, the connection between unmanaged stress and chronic health conditions, and what genuine restoration and recovery look like.
Leadership Matters
The Weight of the Chair: Stress, Burnout, and the Leader's Well-Being
This episode explores the hidden cost of leadership stress, including sleepless nights, decision fatigue, and burnout. The People's Doctors discuss the difference between healthy pressure and harmful strain, why self-care is a core leadership discipline, and how organizations can support long-term leadership well-being.
Leadership Matters
Managing Stress in the Workplace: What Leaders Can Do to Stay Fortified and Protect Their Teams
This episode looks at how leadership stress affects communication, decision-making, and team morale. Dr. Sheryl White, Dr. Undraye Howard, and Dr. Loretta Howard sit down with mental health expert Jacqueline Manley to discuss stress signals, emotional regulation, boundaries, psychological safety, and supporting team members on the edge of burnout.
Leadership Matters
Most Conflicts Aren’t About What They Appear To Be
This episode goes beneath the words, tension, and friction to examine what is actually driving the conflicts leaders face every day. The conversation explores unmet expectations, unspoken values, identity threats, power dynamics, and how leaders can respond to the root of conflict instead of reacting to the surface.
Leadership Matters
Conflict, Courage, and the Leader's Choice
This episode explores how leaders can face conflict with clarity, courage, and conviction. The conversation looks at why avoidance is the real danger, how to navigate hard conversations, and what emotionally intelligent leadership looks like when pressure is on.
Leadership Matters
The Cost of Doing Right: Ethics, Integrity, and the Leaders Who Choose Both
Ethical leadership is easy to talk about—and much harder to live. On this episode of Leadership Matters with the People's Doctors, Dr. Undraye Howard, Dr. Loretta Howard, and Dr. Sheryl White are joined by Romero Davis for a deep, unfiltered look at what it really means to lead with integrity—even when it costs you. From the ethics of power to the price of silence, they explore the gap between what organizations say and what they actually do.
Leadership Matters
Ethics and Integrity in Leadership
What happens when doing the right thing costs you something? This Leadership Matters conversation looks at ethics and integrity, challenging leaders to lead with courage, consistency, and character when pressure, performance, and shortcuts make compromise feel easier.
Leadership Matters
Team Leadership Gone Rogue: When the Rules No Longer Work, It's Time to Rewrite Them
This Leadership Matters conversation looks at what happens when conventional leadership stops working, and what it takes to challenge dysfunctional norms, build stronger cultures, and lead with both people and performance in view.
Leadership Matters
Leadership Matters, April 8, 2026 Episode
Ever wonder how top leaders actually build teams that thrive? This Leadership Matters conversation explores what strong leadership looks like in action, with practical insight on empowerment, growth, and achieving lasting results together.
Leadership Matters
Leadership Matters, April 1, 2026 Episode
Watch the Leadership Matters conversation from April 1, 2026, and listen to the audio-only version below.
Emotional Intelligence
The Leader in the Mirror: Mastering Emotional Intelligence at the Top
This conversation focuses on how emotional intelligence shapes leadership at the top, influencing self-awareness, communication, decision-making, and the way leaders shape culture.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence: The Leadership Edge You Can't Afford to Ignore
A practical look at why emotional intelligence remains one of the most important leadership strengths for navigating people, pressure, and organizational change.
Emotional Intelligence
Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
This episode explores the connection between strong leadership and emotional intelligence, with insight on awareness, influence, and relational effectiveness.
Visionary Leadership
The Anatomy of Visionary Leadership
A focused conversation on the qualities, mindset, and strategic posture needed to lead with vision in a changing environment.
Visionary Leadership
Becoming a Visionary Leader: Roundtable Discussion
A roundtable conversation on how leaders grow into vision-setting roles and guide organizations with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.
Nonprofit Leadership
Visionary Leadership from the Nonprofit Lens
This episode considers visionary leadership in the nonprofit space, with attention to mission, stewardship, and the distinct realities nonprofit leaders face.
Nonprofit Leadership
2025 in Review
A year-end conversation reflecting on lessons, leadership trends, and major themes that shaped the work and conversations of 2025.
Nonprofit Leadership
Nonprofit 3.0: When Crisis Becomes the Catalyst for Overdue Change
An episode on how crisis can force long-delayed decisions and create momentum for meaningful organizational change in the nonprofit sector.
Succession Planning
Building Tomorrow's Leadership Today: The HR Guide to Strategic Succession Planning
A strategic conversation for HR and executive leaders on preparing future leadership early and building stronger pipelines for continuity.
Succession Planning
The Succession Question: Essential Conversations Every Nonprofit CEO Needs to Have
This episode highlights the critical leadership conversations nonprofit CEOs need to have before transition becomes urgent.
Succession Planning
Passing the Torch: Mastering Succession Planning
A practical episode on succession planning, leadership handoff, and the intentional work required to prepare the next generation well.
No episodes matched your search. Try a different keyword or topic.