The Executive Appeal with Alex D. Tremble

Hosted by Alex D. Tremble

Business Education

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Episodes

200

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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About the show

The Executive Appeal is the show for CEOs of early eight‑figure, operations‑heavy companies who feel like the business only really moves when they push. If you’re running a $10M–$25M company and every big decision still rolls up to you… your leaders are smart but misaligned… and you’re tired of being the hero that keeps everything moving… this is your room. Host Alex D. Tremble – Industrial‑Organizational Psychologist, bestselling author, and CEO of GPS Leadership Solutions – sits down with CEOs and senior leaders (especially from multi‑location and logistics / industrial services businesses) to talk about what it actually takes to: Stop being the bottleneck in every major decision Build leaders who own problems and bring solutions Install a simple leadership operating system so the company runs fast without you in every fire You’ll hear unfiltered stories about wins, misses, and the behavior changes that made the biggest difference – not canned talking points. Alongside CEO interviews, Alex releases occasional short solo episodes breaking down specific leadership behaviors, operating rhythms, and 90‑day plays you can apply directly in your company. New episodes available on all major podcast platforms and YouTube. If you want a company that can run without you carrying it on your back, hit play.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

August 19, 202639 min

EP 235: The Legacy Thinking Trap for CEOs

Most leaders try to fix slow execution by improving what's already there. Claus Jensen says that's the trap. Small tweaks to an old system just make you a little better at being slow. Claus Jensen is Chief Information Officer at The University of Texas at Austin's Dell Medical School, where he leads technology and innovation strategy across a large, multi-site academic health system. On this episode, he breaks down "future backwards" thinking: starting from a clear picture of the outcome you actually want, then working back to remove the constraints in your way, instead of asking how to slightly improve what you're already doing. This is for you if you're still optimizing systems built for a smaller version of your company, if every location seems to move at its own speed, or if you sense your team is solving the wrong problems well. You'll learn: - Why "how do I improve current state" locks you into incremental, not real, change - How to identify which of your operating assumptions are outdated across locations - A framework for planning backwards from your future state instead of forward from today - How to combine human judgment with technology without losing the human component - Why speed of thought, not speed of action, is often the real bottleneck Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/ If this hit home, share it with another who's still fixing yesterday's system.

August 12, 202647 min

EP 234: Building the Shared Language That Makes Your Leadership Bench Move Faster

Your leadership bench can be full of smart, capable people and still move slower than it should, not because anyone's dropping the ball, but because they're all speaking slightly different versions of the same language. Fix that gap, and execution speed compounds fast. Chris Condon is Founder and CEO of Aircon, the decision layer for air freight. They help freight forwarders structure the evidence behind a quote so they know what they are committing to before they make a promise to their customer. After 30 years in the industry, Chris has learned that most execution problems aren't people problems. They're language problems. In this episode, Chris breaks down how he built shared language and context across a growing leadership team so priorities stop getting reinterpreted differently at every level. You'll learn: How to spot when your leaders are looking at the same decision through different lenses before it costs you a customer Why "more context" often solves what looks like a motivation or accountability problem How slowing down enough to ask why a decision was made can prevent the same mistake from repeating across locations Why taking direct ownership as the CEO, including your tone and your mistakes, ripples through the entire organization faster than you think This is for you if your team is smart and capable, but the same directive still gets executed three different ways depending on who's holding it. If you're the one who ends up retranslating decisions after they've already left your mouth. And if you suspect your bench isn't actually misaligned, they just need a shared language to move as fast as you need them to. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

August 5, 202635 min

EP 233: Why Alignment Breaks Down When Your Leadership Bench Grows Fast

Your leadership bench just doubled in size, so why does alignment feel harder to hold onto, not easier? Dianna Fioravanti is President of Kuehne+Nagel Canada, the first woman to hold the role, and author of Flip the Switch. Leading a matrix organization with 15 VPs across business units, she has seen firsthand how alignment breaks down as a leadership bench grows: priorities compete, messages get reinterpreted as they cascade through layers, and decisions slow because leaders wait for certainty or permission before acting instead of owning the call. In this episode, you'll learn: - What actually causes alignment to erode as your organization scales - Why explaining the "why" before you need execution is what keeps decisions from getting lost in translation - How to run pre-mortems that surface risk before it costs you real downtime (including how her team managed an unplanned strike) - How psychological safety changes whether your leaders hesitate or move without you - Why staying close to the front line keeps your decisions grounded in what's actually happening at each location. This is for you if your leadership bench has grown but alignment hasn't kept pace, if priorities get reinterpreted differently by the time they reach your locations, or if you've built a strong team on paper but execution still feels slower than it should. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/. Share this episode with another CEO whose leadership bench is outgrowing their alignment.

July 29, 202643 min

EP 232: How Multi-Location CEOs Build A Leadership Bench That Stops Escalating Problems

If your leadership bench can execute but can't decide, you don't have leaders yet, you have very reliable followers. This episode features Brice Ravussin, Vice President of Customer Care and Aftermarket at Demers Ambulances. Brice has led multi-site, multi-country customer support teams built out of company acquisitions, turning former competitors into one aligned organization focused on a single end game: an exceptional customer experience. Brice and host Alex D. Tremble unpack what it actually takes to build a bench that owns decisions instead of routing them back up, even when that bench is spread across locations, cultures, or teams stitched together through growth. You'll learn: - How to give your leaders the clarity they need to decide without checking in first A simple three-step process for resolving customer conflicts without defensiveness or blame - Why chasing full managerial coverage across your team is the wrong goal, and who to develop instead - How to keep multiple locations or newly merged teams aligned to one end game, even when daily priorities differ - Why treating customers "fairly, but not equally" protects both your top relationships and your team's time This is for you if you're still the one troubleshooting the toughest customer calls, if your regional or branch leaders wait for your sign-off before acting, or if growth has outpaced the clarity your bench needs to lead without you. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

July 22, 202644 min

EP 231: Multi-Location CEO Leadership: Building a Bench You Can Trust to Lead

Most CEOs don't run out of good ideas as they grow, they run out of leaders ready to carry them. The real ceiling on your expansion isn't demand or capital, it's how many people you trust to make the call without you. Brian Bruckner is President of Bruckner Truck and Equipment, a multi-location Mack and Volvo dealer with more than 45 locations across 10 states and over a thousand employees. He's spent his entire career in the family business, working his way up from the shop floor to leading one of the largest truck dealership groups in the country. In this conversation, Brian breaks down what it actually took to move from a three-location shop to a 45-location operation without becoming the bottleneck on every decision. The core problem: as your company grows, you can't keep being the one person who has to sign off on everything. The fix isn't motivation, it's a deliberate system for building leaders before you need them. You'll learn: How to spot "informal leaders" on your team before they hold a formal title A practical framework for developing an intern and emerging-leader pipeline, even at a smaller company Why letting go of decisions gets harder as you grow, and how to do it anyway How a culture of trust and integrity makes real delegation possible What changes on your calendar once your leaders start owning decisions instead of escalating them This is for you if you're still the one every regional manager calls first, if you're not sure your team could run a location the way you would, or if you know your growth is capped by how much you personally can oversee. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

July 15, 202636 min

EP 230: For Multi-Location Leaders Whose People Stay Silent Until It's Too Late

If you're not hearing the truth from your leadership bench until something's already broken, this episode is for you. Alex D. Tremble sits down with Mark Phillips, Vice President of Operations at Sharkey Transportation, Inc., a multi-entity trucking company running multiple shops, drop lots, and equipment lines. Mark walks through how he rebuilt trust with a newly assembled leadership team fast enough to get 90-day buy-in on a vision he originally expected to take six months, and why lasting trust starts with the CEO's own posture, not a new policy. In this conversation, you'll learn: - Why coaching people "with" them instead of "at" them gets you the truth sooner, not just agreement - How treating team members as individuals with their own story, not interchangeable labor, builds ownership across locations - Why redefining "toughness" from silence to honesty stops small problems from turning into resignations - How leading with visible vulnerability, not authority, earns faster buy-in from a leadership bench you didn't hire yourself - What changes across your locations once people stop filtering bad news on the way up to you This is for you if your team looks solid on paper but you suspect problems get smoothed over before they reach your desk, or if you've inherited a leadership team and need real buy-in faster than the usual six-month runway. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

July 8, 202639 min

EP 229: How Multi-Location CEOs Escape Being the Only Decision-Maker in the Room

Two years and a significant investment into a technology decision, Simon Kaye recognized it was the wrong call and walked away, even as his own vendor questioned how he could abandon that much sunk cost. That willingness to admit a mistake and act on it is central to how Jaguar Freight has operated for over 33 years without every decision escalating back to Simon's desk. Simon Kaye is the founder and CEO of Jaguar Freight, a global logistics company he built from a single office in 1993 into a fully distributed operation trusted by leading global brands, powered by his proprietary Cybertrax platform. In this episode of The Executive Appeal, Simon discusses: Building a culture where employees are expected to challenge leadership decisions Why admitting a mistake early is a leadership strength, not a weakness How cutting a failing initiative early protects margin more effectively than defending it The hidden risk created by client concentration Where AI fits as a complement to people, not a replacement for judgment This conversation is for CEOs and executives who are still the final approval on every major decision, or whose leadership teams tend to tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to know. Listen to the full episode and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to identify your organization's leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

July 1, 202637 min

EP 228: Why Multi-Location CEOs Can't Let Silence Become the Story

You can't be in every branch, every day. So when something goes unresolved, your people fill that silence themselves, and it isn't always with the truth. Matt Schroeder is President of Truck Equipment, Inc., a heavy-duty parts, repair, and equipment upfitting company with five locations across Wisconsin and Michigan, recently named 2025 Distributor of the Year at Heavy Truck Aftermarket Week. In this episode, Matt gets candid about a challenge nearly every multi-location CEO faces: getting leaders across branches to actually own communication and development, instead of treating it as a distraction from "real work." Matt and host Alex D. Tremble dig into what happens when a CEO can't be everywhere: how silence between locations gets filled with assumptions, how unresolved issues turn into stories nobody asked for, and why getting ahead of a conversation matters more than getting it perfect. You'll learn: - How to frame leadership development so resistant managers buy in instead of push back - Why "assess before you fix" prevents CEOs from solving the wrong problem - How silence between locations quietly becomes someone else's version of the truth - A simple mental model for separating your expectations from actual facts - How to build cross-branch collaboration so problems get solved locally, not escalated This is for you if you're still the one making time to visit branches just to keep the real story straight, or if you suspect your leadership bench is filling in gaps you haven't addressed yet. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

June 17, 202637 min

EP 227: Why Multi-Location CEOs Are One Departure Away From a Serious Execution Problem

If you're running a multi-location, operations-heavy business in the eight-figure range and you still can't name three people who could step into a critical leadership role tomorrow, this episode is for you. Alex D. Tremble sits down with Jamila Cowan, NA Public Sector Programs & Partnerships Strategy Lead at Dell Technologies, where she has spent nearly two decades in senior leadership roles spanning global service delivery, sustainability, ESG partnerships, and cross-sector strategy. Jamila has represented Dell at the United Nations, the World Bank, and the White House Leadership Development Program, leading high-stakes, multi-stakeholder initiatives across government, education, and industry. In this conversation, Jamila and Alex dig into one of the most overlooked proactivity problems in growing companies: the failure to intentionally develop the next tier of leadership before the seat is empty. You'll learn: - Why reactive talent development leaves CEOs as the permanent decision bottleneck across locations - How exposure, not just training, builds leaders who can represent you in the rooms you can't be in - What happens to execution speed and trust when leaders are never brought into critical decisions before they need to make them - Why the loudest person in the room is rarely the best choice for your next key role and what to look for instead - How failing to communicate through change causes your team to fill in the gaps with their own conclusions, and why that kills execution This episode is for you if: you've delayed succession planning because it never feels urgent until someone walks out the door, and you realize nobody is ready to step up. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: 👉 https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/

June 10, 202643 min

EP 226: From Intern to President | How to Build an Operations Team That Leads Without You

If your team is talented on paper but problems still roll up to you before they get handled, this episode is for you. Andrea Piering is the co-owner and president of Sun State Builders, one of Arizona's longest-running design-build general contractors. She started as a college intern, spent 25+ years working nearly every role in the company, and took the helm as president in 2024. She knows what it actually takes to build a team that executes without the CEO embedded in every decision. In this conversation, Andrea and host Alex dig into the leadership behaviors that determine whether your team owns problems proactively or waits for you to find them. You'll learn: - Why relationship investment with your leadership bench isn't soft, it's the foundation that makes honest feedback and hard conversations possible - How Andrea's field teams catch and fix quality issues before she ever sees them, and the cultural standard that makes that repeatable - What it actually looks like to model accountability as a president, including covering a midnight concrete pour when the team needed it - How to start stepping out of day-to-day operations without losing touch with the business fundamentals that matter - Why proactivity is a leadership standard you set, not a personality trait you hire for If you're still the person who finds the problems first, still the one who has to push for ownership, or still watching decisions stall until they hit your desk, this episode gives you a clear picture of what a proactive, execution-focused culture actually looks like from the inside. Listen now, and take the free Scorecard Diagnostic to find your specific leadership bottleneck: https://gpsleadership.org/scorecard/