In this episode of the Business Leaders Coach podcast, Toye Oshunbiyi sits down with renowned leadership expert and author Kevin Eikenberry to explore what it truly means to lead in times of uncertainty.
Based on his latest book, Flexible Leadership, Kevin shares how leaders can develop the mindset, skillset, and habit set needed to adapt to change without losing their values or direction.
You’ll learn:
Why flexibility is essential for modern leadership
The difference between reacting and responding with intention
How to use the Cynefin framework to understand the context you're leading in
How to balance consistency with adaptability
Why confidence in leadership doesn’t come from having all the answers, but knowing how to flex
Whether you're leading a team, running a business, or preparing for what’s next, this episode will give you practical insights and a powerful framework to help you lead with clarity and confidence, no matter what comes your way.
🎧 Listen now and discover how flexible leadership can help you thrive in uncertain times.
🧰 Mentioned in the Episode:
The Book: Flexible Leadership by Kevin Eikenberry
Free Resource: Get Kevin’s Confidence Masterclass – normally $79 – FREE: kevineikenberry.com/gift
More from Kevin: kevineikenberry.com
Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn: Kevin Eikenberry
In this brand-new season of the Business Leaders Coach podcast, Toye is joined by his wife and leadership coach, Eniye Oshunbiyi, as they explore the question: Why does leadership really matter?
Through honest conversation, personal stories, and lessons from years of coaching CEOs and founders, Toye and Eniye unpack what it means to lead from the inside out—and why self-awareness is a superpower for today’s leaders.
Whether you're a startup founder, team leader, or seasoned executive, this episode will inspire you to think differently about leadership, growth, and the people you serve.
🔍 Key Themes Covered:
1. The Journey into Leadership
How Toye and Eniye discovered the value of leadership through very different paths—and how it eventually brought their perspectives together.
2. Leadership from the Inside Out
Why authentic leadership starts with self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and values—not just charisma or confidence.
3. The Coaching Shift
What happened when Toye stopped telling and started asking—and how coaching skills like the GROW model transformed his leadership.
4. Business Stages & Leadership Gaps
Why leadership challenges differ at each stage of a business and how many founders overlook the need to develop leaders around them.
5. Personality, Strengths & Team Dynamics
How understanding yourself and your team can close gaps, reduce conflict, and build stronger organisations.
💡 Mentioned in This Episode:
🎧 Subscribe for more episodes focused on human-centred leadership, practical coaching tools, and equipping you to grow personally and professionally.
Have a question or comment? Drop us a message—we’d love to hear from you and may include it in a future episode!
Having a clear strategy can help your business navigate in turbulent times -however, creating a strategy that is simple and easy to understand is usually quite difficult.
In this second part, I walk through the final questions that can help you develop a strategic plan for your business.
Key Questions:
1. Where will you play? The focus Question.
2. How will we win? The Success Question
3. What Capabilities must we have? The Resource Question
4. What management systems do we need? The Systems Question
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/strategicplan2
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
Having a clear strategy can help your business navigate in turbulent times - however, creating a strategy that is simple and easy to understand is usually quite difficult.
In these next two episodes, I walk through some questions that can help you develop a strategic plan for your business.
Key Questions:
1. The Purpose Question – why do we exist?
2. The Core Values Question – what do we stand for?
3. The Vision Question – what do we want to see?
4. The Goals Question – how will we measure our success?
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/strategicplan1
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
If almost all successful people have encountered failure along the way, then failure could be seen as the path toward success.
This is the last episode in our series on How to Fail Forward. In this part 5, I highlight that our perspective must be to embrace failure and see it as part of the journey. And then take on the mindset that "Failure is the path towards success".
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/howtofailforwardpt5
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
When we fail, sometimes we find it hard to forgive. The capacity to forgive ourselves and others could be daunting, but it is necessary if we want to move forward.
Over the last few weeks, we have been going through a series on How to Fail Forward. In this fourth episode, we see why it is important to: Forgive yourself and others.
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/howtofailforwardpt4
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
Have you ever felt the need to blame something or someone when you have failed at something? Well, most of us do.
Over the last few weeks, we have been going through a series on How to Fail Forward. In this third episode, we see the benefit of asking ourselves: Have I Done Everything I Could?
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/howtofailforwardpt3
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
We are going through a series of five episodes looking at the topic: How to Fail Forward, and in this second episode, I ask; “What Do I Still Need To Learn?
Sometimes the reason why we are facing a failure is because we need to learn something from it.
Therefore, asking the question; “What Do I Still Need to Learn?” is important.
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/howtofailforwardpt2
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
How we handle failure can play a key role towards how we achieve our goals.
Over the next five episodes, we are going to be looking at the topic: How To Fail Forward, and in this episode, I ask; “How Do We See Failure?
I share some mindset statements that should help us start to see failure from a more healthy perspective.
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/howtofailforwardpt1
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
We all know that things are changing rapidly in the world of work, and recently Gallup pulled together what they called the 'Big 5'. According to them, the workplace is seeing the biggest disruption in some time, and it is changing the way we work and the future.
This episode covers 'The Big 5 Disruptions That Business Leaders Must Address and what you can do.
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/big5disruptions
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, is known to have said:
"In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long time perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the internet, not e-commerce. It is the unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time – literally – substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And, society is totally unprepared for it".
In this episode, I share why learning to lead yourself is the essential skill of the 21st Century, using this quote to give us this insight.
I also highlight counterintuitive behaviours we need to adopt to lead ourselves and inspire those around us to do likewise.
Key Resources
Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude by Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin
Performance Pipeline by Stephen Drotter
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/learningtoleadyourself.
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
In this short podcast episode, I share why Business Leaders Coach is explicitly on a mission to help small and medium-sized businesses grow from start-up to scaleup.
I give a very high-level overview of why the economy grows when leaders choose to grow their businesses.
Visit businessleaderscoach.com/whenyoursmallbusinessgrows for statistics shared in this episode.
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
Giving feedback sometimes can be a challenging behaviour to apply as a leader when you don't have a clear framework.
In this episode, I show you how to give feedback using four simple steps.
Key Points:
1. Position - Making sure that you position the conversation in right place and at the right place.
2. Action - Focus on the behaviour: What you heard them say and/or saw them do.
3. Impact - Share the impact that the action has on you the people or the situation.
4. Do/Don't - You want to either encourage the action or ask how it can be changed. The best way is to ask a question.
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
In this episode, I reflect on the importance of the meaning of work.
Have you ever asked yourself why we work? Of course, a simple answer would be to put food on the table and pay bills, but what if there's more?
Here, I share some deeper insights on how we should view work. Any leader with challenges attracting or retaining people needs to understand how important this is.
Key Resources:
1. The Heart of Business by Hubert Joly
2. Measure of a Leader by Aubrey C. Daniels
If you enjoy listening to The Business Leaders Coach Podcast, the best way to support us is to take just a few seconds and leave a rating and/or comment over on iTunes or share it with your friends over on LinkedIn... Thank you!
In October 2001, Jim Collins published his book Good To Great, and since then many CEOs have made reference to this iconic book. Twenty-one years later, this book is perhaps more relevant now than ever before.
In this episode, I share principles to learn from Good To Great.
Key Points:
Companies need to focus on having:
- Disciplined People
- Disciplined Thought
- Disciplined Action
Key Actions:
1. Become a Level 5 Leader
2. Choose The Right 'Who' Then 'What'
3. Face The Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)
4. Find Your Hedgehog Concept
5. Create A Culture Of Discipline
Go to https://www.businessleaderscoach.com to find out more
During a crisis, it might be tough to know what to do. In this episode, I share 5 Choices Great Leaders Make To Manage Crisis.
Main points:
Choosing to have Hope
Choosing to control Emotions
Choosing to take Action
Choosing to practice Routine
Choosing to take time to Think
Go to https://www.businessleaderscoach.comto find out more
What is VUCA? It is a term the US Army coined describing the world as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. In this episode, I give more meaning to these words and share the VUCA counter to help business leaders navigate these turbulent times.
Key Points:
• What is VUCA, and where did this idea originate?
• What does VUCA mean for businesses?
• What is the VUCA counter to this?
Go to https://www.businessleaderscoach.com to find out more
In this episode we tackle a common question leaders ask: how do I motivate and engage my people? In the current climate of hybrid working, many leaders are eager to know how to ensure that their people are motivated.
Key Points Covered:
· What is Motivation?
· The two main ways we are motivated
· P.R.E.P (4 principles to help motivate and engage your people)
· Practical ways to create a Self-Motivating Culture
Go to https://www.businessleaderscoach.com to find out more
Having leaders at all levels within an organisation is essential for business success. Yet the leadership pipeline is one area that gets neglected the most in scaling up companies until it is almost too late.
In this episode, I walk you through how to build your leadership pipeline and the five transitions that a typical leader will need to go through as an organisation grows.
I also share the leadership pipeline mindset shift that needs to occur at each level.
The leadership levels:
1. Leading Yourself (Individual contributor)
2. Leading Others
3. Leading Leaders
4. Leading a Function
5. Leading the Organisation
Resource
· The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan, Steve Drotter, & Jim Noel
Following on from Part 1, in this second episode I walk you through the final steps to apply situational leadership style.
Situational Leadership is a well-known leadership model that every manager and leader in a scaleup company must master.
This episode is divided into two parts.
In this part two, I share
· The two main overall approaches to the leadership style used
· The four leadership styles to use based on the development level of your direct report
· Final steps to apply Situational Leadership
Resource