IMPACTFUL Teamwork

Hosted by Julia Felton

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115

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Jun 2026

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About the show

This podcast is for you if you’re a business owner, business leader, entrepreneur or executive who knows they want to make a real impact in the world and knows they can’t do it alone. Your host is Julia Felton, a leadership and team engagement specialist provides unique insights into how to harness the energy of your people to create massive business momentum through unlocking the super-power of teamwork. Some of the questions we grapple with are: - You know you need a team to help you but how do you get your team on the same page? - How do you get them pulling in the same direction and not pulling apart? - How do you create a connected, collaborative, cohesive team? In this podcast I will be sharing with you strategies and tactics to help you become the best leader you can be so that you can inspire IMPACTFUL teamwork. Teams that make a real difference. Each podcast will be full of actionable steps you can take and implement immediately. We’ll also be interviewing guests to learn from them what has worked for them and importantly what hasn’t. Rest assured there will also be a good dose of wisdom from the natural world as I believe that nature contains a blueprint for how we can all work together to create engaged, enthusiastic, empowered teams.

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60 recent

June 15, 202631 min

Has Your Org Chart Outlived Its Use? What the Herd Already Knows

The episode argues that teamwork is a key competitive advantage and explores why work often gets stuck departments due to unclear ownership and accountability. Drawing on Deloitte’s 2026 Human Capital Survey, it highlights that 66% of C-suite leaders say pushing beyond traditional functions (HR, finance, IT, legal, procurement) is critical, yet only 7% report real progress, creating a 59-point gap. It describes simultaneous pressures on functions—cost-cutting via shared services and automation, alongside executive calls for substantial reinvention—while noting structure and “turf” impede change. Using a horse herd and the diamond model of shared leadership as an analogy, it contrasts “running the business” (repeatable work suited to automation) with “growing the business” (cross-functional work requiring dynamic leadership). Examples include Moderna, Unilever, Cisco, Workleap, and Highmark Health, and the host invites listeners to assess where energy leaks and consider the Unbridled Teamship roadmap and a team audit.00:46 Work Stuck Between Teams01:34 Deloitte Gap Revealed03:30 Why Functions Strain07:09 Running Versus Growing09:44 Horse Herd Leadership12:28 Tension And Delays16:36 Decouple Expertise20:35 Turf And Clarity23:16 Unbridled Adaptability26:56 Key Takeaways28:14 Teamship InvitationConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

June 8, 202631 min

Breathwork for Leaders: Regulate Stress, Boost Performance & Build Impactful Teams

Host Julia Felton welcomes high-performance coach and breathwork expert Lucas Kulbis to discuss how breathwork helps leaders regulate stress and improve team performance.Lucas shares his journey from an AI-focused computer science path and startup burnout to discovering breath as a foundational tool for state control, presence, and resilience. They explain how shallow breathing can reinforce anxiety and how intentional breathing can shift the nervous system from fight-or-flight (amygdala-driven) to calmer, clearer decision-making (prefrontal cortex), supporting emotional regulation and co-regulation with others.Lucas teaches practical techniques including the physiological sigh for rapid resets, a bedtime diaphragm-breathing practice to improve sleep, and coherence breathing (about 5.5 seconds in and out) to align heart, breath, and brain. He also describes client results, including a 10X revenue increase alongside broader life improvements, and invites listeners to his free Skool community and coaching.00:00 Teamwork Advantage Intro00:46 Meet Lucas Kulbis01:55 From Startup to Burnout02:45 Why Breath Matters04:03 Breathwork for Leaders05:02 Stress Reset Framework08:54 Safety and Co Regulation12:06 Neuroscience of Breathing15:52 Crisis Breath Exercise20:02 Sleep and Daily Habits21:21 Client Results and Revenue25:19 Coherence Breathing Basics28:43 Resources and ClosingConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

June 1, 202627 min

Why Your Leadership Team Is Accountable for Everything and Owns Almost Nothing

This episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast explores “decision drag,” where routine decisions climb back up the hierarchy and leave leaders returning from holiday to a backlog of unresolved calls. Citing McKinsey research that executives spend 37% of their time on decisions that could be made lower down, the host explains how leaders inadvertently train teams to wait, creating an accountability trap that limits scale. Julia reframes accountability as proactive ownership of outcomes (not blame), distinguishes it from responsibility, and outlines three levels—individual (clarity, capability, psychological safety), team (mutual investment or “teamship”), and organizational (systems that reward or punish ownership). Julia shares five behaviours of high-accountability teams and three immediate actions: publicly declare ownership, stop rescuing, and review weekly “committed vs delivered,” plus an invitation-only forum on June 17.00:49 Holiday Decision Pile02:42 Decision Drag Costs04:51 Accountability Trap06:52 Redefining Accountability07:46 Responsibility vs Ownership10:06 Three Accountability Levels10:51 Individual Accountability شروط12:31 Team Accountability Teamship14:13 Organizational Systems Matter15:41 Five High Accountability Habits16:00 Public Ownership16:51 Stop Rescuing18:02 Monday Momentum18:36 Challenge Every Direction20:27 Named Owner When Wrong21:26 Three Actions Now23:41 Executive Forum Invite25:21 Final Leadership TakeawayConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

May 25, 202634 min

Customer-Centric Leadership with Nate Robinson

In this episode of the Impactful Teamwork podcast, Julia interviews senior retail and quick-service restaurant veteran Nate Robinson about building customer-centric teams and improving the customer journey. Nate explains his “Three I” framework—Inspire, Invest, Innovate—sharing how leaders can learn employees’ “why,” invest in team development, and use creative training methods (including games like Diner Dash) to build skills like urgency. They discuss how leadership requires adapting to individuals rather than following a one-size-fits-all playbook, the importance of culture and authenticity, and the challenges middle managers face balancing KPIs with increasing coaching and wellbeing expectations. Nate also outlines the value of clear “non-negotiables” (e.g., punctuality, uniform, asking questions) and closes by inviting listeners to reflect on three words that describe themselves.00:00 Teamwork Advantage Intro00:52 Meet Nate Robinson01:54 Customer Service Roots02:46 Quick Service Explained03:27 Motivating Frontline Teams08:20 Three I Framework Origin10:28 Inspire Invest Innovate11:46 Generations Pay Training14:47 New Manager Boundaries16:54 Non Negotiables Standards21:36 Purpose Engagement Culture26:46 Three Words Authenticity30:36 Middle Manager Squeeze32:14 Connect Wrap UpYou can connect with Nate on LinkedIn here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-robinson-015a1594/Connect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

May 18, 202625 min

Regenerative Leadership: What Nature Already Knows (That Most Businesses Don't)

In this Impactful Teamwork episode, Julia Felton explores what nature teaches about regenerative leadership, inspired by adopting a lamb named Charlie and observing Canadian geese offspring. Using Yellowstone’s trophic cascade, she explains how removing wolves collapsed ecosystem relationships and how reintroducing them restored balance—paralleling how organisations remove key relationships and then wonder why performance collapses. She critiques extractive, command-and-control leadership that fuels silos, poor collaboration, CEO bottlenecks, and change fatigue, citing data on business failure and cross-functional unity. Drawing on lichen and horse herds, she highlights interdependence, rhythm over relentlessness, and relationships as infrastructure, and outlines three regenerative leader behaviours: investing in relationships, building “teamship,” and leading with attention. She also identifies sabotage patterns: extraction disguised as standards, busyness as avoidance, and mistaking compliance for commitment, and invites listeners to connect via businesshorsepower.com.00:00 Teamwork Advantage00:47 Nature Inspired Leadership01:53 Yellowstone Regeneration04:07 Extraction Leadership Trap07:08 Accountability Breakdown08:30 Lichen Interdependence10:12 Horse Herd Teamship13:25 Three Regenerative Principles14:21 Regenerative Leadership Practices18:41 Sabotage Patterns22:49 Choose Regeneration24:03 Closing And SubscribeConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

May 11, 202634 min

Mindful Leadership: Why Your Nervous System Is Shaping Your Team’s Performance

In this Impactful Teamwork episode, Julia Felton talks with neuroscience-based mindfulness expert Kelly Corbett about the inner game of leadership and how mindfulness improves presence, connection, creativity, and decision-making.Kelly explains “beginner’s mind” as approaching meetings without labels or fixed assumptions, and shares evidence that mindfulness/meditation strengthens the prefrontal cortex and executive function.She describes how reframing problems can unlock innovation, including a company that replaced harmful chemicals with water by rethinking industry standards. Practical tactics include mindful breathing—especially the “cyclic sigh” technique—to calm the nervous system, plus walking meditation and time in nature (shinrin-yoku/forest bathing) to reduce cortisol and boost natural killer cells.They discuss leader “entrainment,” gratitude practices, and how Aetna saw reduced healthcare costs and improved retention from meditation programs, with resources available at kellycorbett.com.00:45 Meet Kelly Corbett02:53 Mindfulness and Beginners Mind04:30 Science and Creativity Wins07:07 Leading With Openness09:36 Breathwork for Calm10:49 Cyclic Sigh Demo14:33 Walking Meditation Nature17:37 Gratitude and Daily Anchors19:39 Loving Kindness Practice23:51 Leader Entrainment Ripple26:55 Mindfulness ROI at Work29:11 Resources and ContactYou can connect with Kelly here.Connect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

May 4, 202627 min

15 Ways to Reinvent Your Business in the Age of AI

Host Julia Felton shares why teamwork is a competitive advantage and argues businesses are in a full-scale reset driven by AI, citing widespread company failures, declining revenues, layoffs, and the reality that team members now face around 10 major changes at once. She explains that success now depends less on pressure and more on the pace of reinvention, as companies must reinvent roughly every three years rather than optimise old models. Drawing on insights from the Reinvention Academy and shifts in consulting, she outlines 15 practical areas for reinvention—products/services, platforms, holistic solutions, ideal customers, customer experience, revenue streams, processes, teamship-based organisation, resilient supply chains, expanded markets, partnerships/distribution, brand meaning, purpose/vision, experimentation-friendly culture, and clarifying the “why.” She challenges listeners to pick one or two shifts, take her Turbocharge Your Team quiz, and focus on trust, energy, and curiosity to make reinvention natural. 00:50 AI Reset Reality 03:21 Reinvention Imperative 06:31 Horses And Alignment 07:07 15 Reinvention Lens 07:49 Offer And Platform 09:42 Solutions To Experience 12:33 Revenue And Process 15:41 Teamship And Supply 17:33 Markets And Partners 20:22 Brand Purpose Culture 23:08 The Final Why 23:59 Pick One Shift 25:34 Quiz And Next StepsConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

April 27, 202635 min

Curiosity Is Not a Soft Skill, It Is a Leadership Survival Skill

Host Julia Felton welcomes Ryan Ware, CEO of Connective Consulting Group, to discuss why curiosity is essential in business, especially in construction where teams and conditions constantly change. Ryan explains how “hand-me-down” answers and routines can prevent validation and learning, and how fear on both sides of change can block curiosity, making psychological safety critical. They explore connecting the human side of work to technology and process shifts (including AI), building relationships as social capital, and reducing judgment through asking better questions. Ryan shares an example of leading a change-fatigued team by apologising for past churn, creating space to learn, testing like a laboratory, and building shared ownership that enabled larger national projects and leadership growth. He closes with his legacy: helping people build stronger relationships with change through empathy, clarity, choice, and connection.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro01:00 Why Curiosity Matters02:49 Questioning Old Habits04:45 Fear and Psychological Safety07:45 Connecting Humans to Change12:02 Building Connection on Projects16:04 Social Capital and Conversations19:47 Case Study Leading Through Change24:57 Experimentation and Industry Shifts30:10 Legacy and Staying Curious32:29 Where to Find Ryan34:17 Final Takeaways and GoodbyeYou can connect with Ryan at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankware/Connect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

April 20, 202627 min

How Coaching Stops Leaders Being the Bottleneck in Business

in this episode of the Impactful Teamwork Podcast, Julia Felton explores how leaders can scale without becoming the business bottleneck by shifting from control to coaching. She explains how leaders become the “answer person,” creating dependence, decision drag, mental clutter, and stalled momentum even though they appear busy and visible. Using herd leadership and “Teamship” as a model, she contrasts compliance-driven control with capability-building coaching, emphasing that the goal is transferring judgment, not just delegating tasks. Practical coaching prompts and a meeting reset question (“What’s stuck and what needs to happen for it to move?”) help teams build ownership and decision velocity. She lists signs of bottleneck leadership and offers three weekly shifts: ask better questions, audit a recurring meeting, and coach with context and guardrails. She invites listeners to explore support via the Unbridled Teamship roadmap and the Turbo Charge Your Team audit quiz.00:00 Teamwork Advantage00:48 Leader Bottleneck Problem04:10 Hidden Costs and Drag07:37 Horses and Teamship08:34 Why Leaders Stop Coaching11:37 Control Versus Coaching13:28 Coaching Questions in Action15:50 Delegate With Judgment18:46 Trust Lessons From Horses21:54 Bottleneck Warning Signs22:46 Three Shifts This WeekTake the Turbo-Charge Your Team Quiz at www. businesshorsepower.com/quizConnect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify

April 13, 202630 min

Authentic Leadership with Anthony Garone

On the Impactful Teamwork Podcast, Julia Felton interviews Anthony Garone, founder of Edify Content, which helps B2B tech companies create sales and marketing content. Anthony shares how he discovered writing as his “superpower” after years in IT leadership and a company acquisition, then went all-in on content when COVID ended face-to-face selling.The conversation focuses on authentic leadership, helping team members bring their whole selves to work, and building strong relationships to uncover hidden talents. Anthony argues many leaders get stuck playing a role, and advises subtracting what isn’t essential to better serve customers, using the question “How is that working for you?” to cut through reality distortion. He challenges “just keep grinding” advice and leaves listeners with his key message: be serious and reject the reasonable life.00:00 Teamwork Advantage Intro00:46 Meet Anthony Garone01:36 Finding a Writing Superpower04:43 Leaders Unlock Hidden Talent07:41 Authenticity at Work09:47 Subtract to Lead Better12:57 How Is That Working15:20 Reject the Grind Mindset19:39 Music Channel and DNA24:56 Calling and Being Unreasonable27:46 Final Takeaways and WrapYou can connect with Anthony at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonygarone/Connect with Julia:WebsiteLinkedInFacebookInstagramTake the IMPACTFUL Teamwork Quiz to assess your team's communication, creativity culture, goal clarity, and conflict resolution skills!Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify