Bad Days Leadership

Kacy Maxwell — Chief Marketing Officer and general manager of the marketing technology consulting practice at Provisions Group, and creator of Drawn to Lead — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Kacy opens by admitting he has never felt like a good leader, then walks through the boss who redlined everything he submitted until he genuinely believed he was bad at his job. He talks about the red flag h...

Dr. Ken Jones — president of Oklahoma Christian University, former president of Lubbock Christian University for nineteen years, and co-author of "The Core" with host Dr. Matt Paden — joins the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Ken names the three worst decisions of his career, all of which share the same root: he had a gut feeling something was wrong and let a talented team talk him out of it. He shares the Saturday morning...

Dr. Henry Cloud — New York Times bestselling author of over 45 books including Boundaries, Necessary Endings, and Integrity, and executive coach to CEOs and organizations for decades — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Dr. Cloud tells the story of buying his first hospital in his twenties with no money and no idea what a "call center" was, and how a chance dinner conversation exposed just how much...

Randy Gravitt — CEO of Lead Every Day, executive coach to NFL and MLB organizations, and author of Lead Every Day and Winning Begins at Home — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast, and opens by challenging the show's entire premise: he doesn't think there are bad days, just bad leaders. Randy unpacks why character doesn't implode all at once but erodes one small compromise at a time, why "saying it lo...

Leticia Saiid — Chief of Staff and Chief Learning Officer at CoNetrix — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Leticia shares the story of creating an official "permanent record" disciplinary form for a chronically late employee, only to have them ask what happens after the third strike — like they were planning to be late. She talks about advising an employee on workplace appearance norms that c...

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Scott Mann — former U.S. Army Green Beret, founder of Rooftop Leadership, host of the Scott Mann Podcast, and author of the New York Times bestseller Operation Pineapple Express and the new book The Generosity of Scars — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Scott shares the mission in Afghanistan that cost a teammate his life and the questions that have never stopped since, the moment...

Stephanie Henderson — CEO-turned-executive coach, keynote speaker, culture strategist, and founder of Impact Driven Partners — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Stephanie shares the software rollout that blew up within 18 hours because she and the IT director forgot to include the people it would actually affect, how waiting to give feedback until an annual review turned into an hour of tears and ...

Stuart Deming — co-founder of XPLR.NASH, serial entrepreneur, and content creator with sixty jobs since age six — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Stewart shares the story of getting physically abused by a football coach for underperforming, only to find out he had a disease that required a back brace for two years. He talks about walking into a pitch meeting, misreading every signal, and doublin...

Amanda Box — founder of Box Communications, communication evangelist, and the "Unleasher of the Awesome" — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Amanda shares the jaw-dropping story of a coach who opened the season by handing out "100 Ways to Have a Losing Season," a boss who banned talking in a call center and replaced it with red solo cups on filing cabinets (productivity dropped by a LOT), and the ...

Will Acuff — social entrepreneur, author of No Elevator to Everest, and co-founder of Corner to Corner — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Will gets honest about moving into a low-income Nashville neighborhood with a million wrong ideas about poverty, spending years repeating the same mistake because he refused to accept the data right in front of him, and how his passion kept showing up as impati...

Dr. Darwin Mason Jr. — educator, minister, consultant, and community leader — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Darwin opens up about walking into a turnaround school with a superhero complex, only to learn the staff was still grieving the leader he replaced. He shares how a bad hire derailed two and a half years of progress because he wasn't courageous enough to have the hard conversation soon en...

Dr. John Delony joins Dr. Matt Paden on Bad Days Leadership.

In this episode, John shares the story of getting publicly exposed for pretending to understand a $20M financial decision, why he spent 15 years thinking "never say I don't know" was good leadership, and the hiring blind spot he still can't fix. They also break down what real crisis leadership looks like (from a bus wreck that sent students to five hospitals), why feedback...

Dr. Kathy Crockett — executive coach, keynote speaker, founder of the Kathy Crockett Company, and facilitator of the Lead Well leadership groups — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the first episode of the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Kathy gets honest about steamrolling two teams with an "amazing idea" she pushed through without thinking about the ripple effects, walking into rooms completely blind to the political dynamics ever...