Between the shift to AI, the ongoing tug of war over return to office, and a job market that has good people feeling shaky, leading well right now takes more than it used to. If you’re the kind of leader who’s holding your team together through all of it, often without anyone checking in on how you’re holding up, I see you. And I want you to know this door is open.

I’m a certified executive and personal coach, a Fortune 100 C-suite advisor, and a bestselling author. Through my proprietary Leadership Revival Framework, I help leaders build the capabilities that matter most in disruption: emotional intelligence, sound judgment, trust-building, adaptability, and the ability to lead people well without losing the human core of leadership.

Coaching isn’t a luxury add-on when everything around you is changing. It’s often the difference between leading from reaction and leading from clarity.

If that’s the kind of support you’ve been waiting for, hit reply and tell me a little about where you are right now or use this form to let me know. I read every message myself.

I only have two spots open right now, and once they’re filled, I won’t open more until December 1, but I will place you on the waiting list. If this has been sitting on your heart for a while, today’s a good day to say something.

Looking forward to pushing you forward…

LMS

There is a statistic that should stop every leader in their tracks. Only one in ten employees believes their feedback actually leads to action. In this episode, L. Michelle Smith takes a high-level journey through the August Circle cohort theme — The Trust Gap: Leading When Your People Are Watching Everything — and unpacks what the research says about self-trust, psychological safety, and what it actually takes to build a culture of trust that outlasts the pressure.

WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE

Why the trust gap begins inside a leader before it ever shows up between a leader and their team and what Dr. Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy research tells us about why self-trust is the foundation of everything.

What the listening-to-action gap actually is, why nine out of ten employees are experiencing it right now, and how Dr. Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety explains what happens when people stop believing their voice leads anywhere.

Why psychological safety is a performance metric, not a culture metric — and what the 2026 Wiley Workplace Intelligence Study found about teams that feel safe enough to speak.

How Dr. Charles Feltman’s definition of trust reframes every interaction a leader has with their team as a daily trust decision being made by the people they lead.

What it takes to build a trust culture that holds its shape even when you are not in the room and what Gallup’s 2024 Workplace Study found about the link between transparent communication, engagement, and productivity.

A micropractice for naming your trust commitment and making it visible to the people who need to see it.

YOUR POWERFUL THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Your people are not waiting for you to be perfect. They are watching to see if you are consistent. That is what trust is actually made of.

YOUR POWERFUL QUESTION FOR THE DAY

When you are no longer in your current role, what will the people you led say about the culture of trust you built, and is that the legacy you are currently creating?

CIRCLE RESET CALL TO ACTION

The Annual Circle Reset is September 21 through 25 — five days, one hour each day, built around the work of reviving your leadership from the inside out. It is asynchronous, which means it fits your schedule. Register before August 31 at the early bird rate.

Register here.

GO DEEPER

Free leadership toolkit + FlightPath newsletter: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — private leadership development community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Request L. Michelle for keynotes, workshops, or executive coaching: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Subscribe to FlightPath — in your inbox every Monday: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

Read the essays that go deeper: lmichellesmith.substack.com

ABOUT HER NEXT POWER MOVE

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture — in ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle.

Subscribe at lmichellesmith.substack.com.

RESEARCH AND REFERENCES

Albert Bandura — Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control (1997)

Amy Edmondson — The Fearless Organization (2018)

Wiley Workplace Intelligence Study (2026)

Charles Feltman — The Thin Book of Trust (2008)

Gallup Workplace Study (2024)

IMD Leadership Trends (2026)

DDI Global Leadership Forecast (2025)

© L. Michelle Smith / Her Next Power Move / no silos communications llc

I get it.

It is an easy leap from the release of a buzzy, ground-breaking book with weighty cultural impact called Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church to assuming that the pursuit of a masters degree in theological studies—that perhaps I’m pursuing the pulpit.

However, it would be furthest from the truth. That book is neither a religious text either.

If you made that leap, it could be an indication that you probably haven’t been very attuned to the nuance and rigor that is embedded in my work, especially my commitment to the research and evidence-based learning that has been the hallmark of everything I’ve tackled since leaving the big company in 2019. And it’s ok. We all get busy, don’t have time to go that deep. Honestly, others lose interest, and that is ok.

I attended orientation for my new program, the Masters in Theological Studies (MTS) (not to be confused with the Masters of Divinity M-Div) which tees people up to become pastors and other ministry leaders) over the past three days; and there was one professor who encapsulated the way I see theology, and I realize that everyone may not see it the same as I. She quoted a conversation partner, as they put it, another authority in the space by saying that theology and philosophy were closely related disciplines, only that “theology has a membership and philosophy is freelance.”

I see theology as a way of thinking about humanity, the world we live in and the Divine. That membership simply means that we think about things while centering God’s love, but we are philosophers because they too ask the questions that bring us closer and closer to meaning.

Recently, a client saw an email that I distributed broadly to my coaching community that announced that my fall schedule for sessions was shifting because of my pursuit, and the predictable text came back to me nearly as quickly as I had hit send.

“Rev. Dr. L. Michelle!!” he said. Another client shared with another that I was going to seminary. No doubt, Brite Divinity has its elements of seminary, but not every seminary is a divinity school where academics converge to go deeper in the discipline of thinking theologically. How can I put it plainly? I’m not attending Sunday School or for that matter Bible College. My particular degree program prepares me for further study in theology at the PhD level. Within all the study tracks, this particular program positions me as the academic in the bunch.

But to understand my direction, you have to look at the entire body of work together. I’m leaving none of it behind. My practice stands. When you add culture, applied science and leadership theory together and then layer on theological thinking, you root the practice even more deeply to ask the bigger questions that the world work demands: What is the meaning behind X? Which zeros in on purpose. How does this impact human dignity, human rights? Which centers justice. How does X move the world forward or send it hurling backward? Which speaks to the authority that moves a deep thinker into critical action.

Some of my fellow classmates are definitely taking the traditional route and bringing that authority to the pulpit, and while plenty of people tell me that when they hear me speak that I did indeed preach (one of the professors of preaching actually told me that over lunch last week as well), I plan to bring this added authority to my work as a leadership strategist in corporate America, as an author who interrogates the issues we face in our culture and as a C-suite whisperer.

Ironically, it also positions me as a pastor whisperer, especially as many of them are in the business of the formation of the leaders who are faced with being those movers and shakers in the broader world.

So if she isn’t becoming a reverend, what is she becoming?

I am adding ethicist (in business, media and tech) to my credential stack along with the S on my chest, revealed only when those particular super powers are called for, public theologian—a great thinker who understands all the things that make our current world so fractured, challenging and complex when it comes to business and the broader cultural context beyond it.

So yes, there will be more books, the “Leadership Revival Framework” will receive more wings, and my work as certified and credentialed executive coach will deepen even more.

For those of you who missed it, that article on the Southern drop biscuits explained it extremely well. I suppose my predisposition to speak/write, explain or exegete in metaphors gets scrolled past often. But knowing where my biscuits get buttered is key to understanding the moves I make.

I’m rewiring my own brain to sit with texts longer, and attempting to sideline my superpower of being able to skim super fast and summarize succinctly for executive audiences in favor of savoring and soaking in what’s before me for deeper reflection and thought. That is going to take some doing and undoing.

I also know that I’ve lost so many people who knew me as the strategic communicator, or much simpler, the PR practitioner. They fell off the minute I started talking about things that had nothing to do with PR, like neuroscience and positive psychology, even the executive coaching, and quietly wondered, “what the hell is she doing?” It happens when you pursue your broader purpose and people begin to realize that the work you did before had absolutely nothing to do with them. It is funny how that bothers some.

Well, as my pastor once put it so wisely, “everyone can’t go up the mountain with you.” And you know, every one Harriett Tubman invited to come with her to freedom didn’t always understand her methods either, she had to ultimately leave them behind…

…or shoot them.

I don’t plan on the latter, only looking forward, and whomever would like to see what’s next for me is welcome to go on this journey. You’re in the right place to see that unfurl. My Substack members get all the unbridled, unedited, unscripted and stream-of-consciousness or behind-the-scenes scoop and thoughts before anyone else. Typos and all.

I promise you that it is never boring.

Some of you already know.

Warmly…

LMS

There is a ledger that does not show up in any performance review or quarterly report. And yet it is the one that will ultimately determine what kind of leader you actually were.

In this episode, L. Michelle Smith explores the third and most demanding lens of the Leadership Revival Framework — World Work — and asks the question that too many leaders let the urgency of the moment crowd out: when the pressure of this season finally passes, what will still be standing?

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

What World Work actually is — and why it is the hardest of the three lenses to sustain when the margin is thinnest and the calendar is fullest.

What Dr. Martin Seligman’s PERMA model reveals about meaning as a load-bearing pillar of leadership — and what happens to a culture when a leader quietly loses sight of it.

How Dr. Adam Grant’s research on prosocial motivation demonstrates that connecting daily decisions to human impact is not a reward for finishing the hard work — it is part of what makes the hard work sustainable.

Why culture is not built during retreats or town halls, but in the daily, unremarkable, deeply intentional choices leaders make when the pressure is highest and the margin is thinnest.

A micropractice for identifying — and naming — the human difference your leadership made this week, before the week ends.

Research and References

Martin Seligman — PERMA Model, Flourish (2011)

Adam Grant — Prosocial Motivation, Give and Take (2013)

L. Michelle Smith—Leadership Revival Framework (2026) — Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

Culture is built in the choices you make when everything is hard and your people are watching to see who you really are.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

When someone who works for you looks back on this particular stretch of time, what will they say your leadership gave them?

Go Deeper

Get your free leadership toolkit and subscribe to FlightPath: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership development community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Take the Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Request L. Michelle for keynotes, workshops, or executive coaching: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Learn more about Call and Response: lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse

Subscribe to FlightPath, the weekly leadership newsletter in your inbox on Monday: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

About Her Next Power Move

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture in a powerful ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle.

Subscribe at lmichellesmith.substack.com.

What do you believe pastors should be doing today to begin more intentionally growing the leaders we need for the business world and beyond and plugging the holes in the leadership pipeline from the pews?

Want to stay in the loop with my coaching community? Get the leadership insights before anyone sees them on social media or even in this newsletter. Text the word SUBSCRIBE to 469-809-9144 for access. You'll receive a complimentary Leadership Audit tool for those of you looking to make a career pivot.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a part of a intimate club of dinosaurs because I appreciate a good fact.

It isn’t trivia I’m after,…

Read more

Most leaders moving through a hard season are doing exactly what the moment demands — keeping up, delivering, staying functional. What fewer are doing is asking the question that actually determines what they come out with on the other side.

In this episode, L. Michelle Smith draws on neuroscience and positive psychology to examine the difference between managing capacity and intentionally building it — and why that distinction is one of the most consequential decisions a leader can make, whether they know they are making it or not.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Why managing and building can look identical from the outside while producing completely different leaders on the other side of a hard season.

What Bruce McEwen’s research on chronic stress and the prefrontal cortex reveals about why pressure alone never produces growth — and what has to be added to make development possible.

How Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build Theory explains why even brief, intentional moments of reflection during a demanding season literally rewire a leader’s capacity over time.

What neuroplasticity research tells us about the specific conditions the brain requires to build new architecture — and why pressure without meaning and support is not one of them.

The two questions that activate entirely different parts of the brain, and why the one most leaders are asking is keeping them in survival mode.

A micropractice for shifting from management mode into intentional development — in ten minutes, before the weekend closes.

Research and References

Bruce McEwen — Chronic Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Architecture, Rockefeller University

Barbara Fredrickson — Broaden and Build Theory

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan — Self-Determination Theory

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The pressure you are under right now is not wasted if you decide it is building something. That decision is yours to make, and no circumstance can make it for you.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

What has managing capacity been costing you that building capacity could restore?

Go Deeper

Get your free leadership toolkit and subscribe to FlightPath:
soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership development community for leaders who are serious about building while the pressure is on:
lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Organizations: The Circle has an organizational membership tier designed for teams and enterprises investing in their leaders right now, not just during the quiet seasons. Link above.

Take the Heart-Centered Leader Assessment:
SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Request L. Michelle for keynotes, workshops, or executive coaching:
lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Subscribe to FlightPath, the weekly leadership newsletter in your inbox every Monday:
soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

Connect on Substack for essays that go deeper than the podcast.

Subscribe now

About Her Next Power Move

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture in a powerful ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle.

There is nothing more American than a 500 year old cultural institution founded in the brush harbors, down by the riverside by people determined to be free—and that same institution that continued to innovate despite the odds.

It’s like Juneteenth all over again, right?

Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church inspired my “Leadership Revival Framework,” and it will continue to free leaders from the nervous system dis-regulation that is impacting us in the midst of unprecedented disruption.

If it can ultimately free a people and imbue coping mechanisms for our ancestors and even for us today, codifying it with science allows anyone to free themselves in a stressful business environment and world.

Read more

June 2009, I was road tripping with my then fiance to San Marcos, Texas… it would be brief, since we were on a budget and planning to marry in the fall. I will never forget that it was the first indication that times had changed in the media landscape. News was traveling differently.

CNN didn’t break…

Read more

When did you last follow someone else?

Most high-achieving leaders never stop long enough to ask that question. And that silence is costing their teams more than they realize. In this episode, L. Michelle Smith draws from the final chapter of her bestselling book Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church to explore one of the most counterintuitive concepts in leadership development: the power of leading from behind.

Built on the positive psychology principle of power with over power over, this episode makes the case that sharing power is not a leadership risk. It is a leadership strategy and one of the fastest ways to re-engage a disengaged team.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

Why leaders who are always out front cannot fully see what is behind them, and what that costs the people they lead.

The social science behind power with over power over, rooted in the work of Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley and the foundational theory of Mary Parker Follett.

How Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory explains why genuine autonomy is a fundamental human need, and what happens to performance when that need is met.

Why being a good follower is an emotional intelligence skill that most high achievers have never been asked to develop.

A micropractice for identifying the one decision you have been holding onto that someone on your team could own completely.

Research and References

Dacher Keltner — Power and Social Intelligence, UC Berkeley

Mary Parker Follett — Power With vs. Power Over

Edward Deci and Richard Ryan — Self-Determination Theory

L. Michelle Smith — Call and Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, Chapter 10

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The leader who knows when to step back is always more powerful than the one who never learned how.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

Who on your team is waiting for you to trust them enough to lead, and what is it actually costing you to keep holding that power?

Go Deeper

Get your free leadership toolkit and subscribe to FlightPath: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Pick up Call and Response: Ten Leadership Lessons from the Black Church wherever fine books are sold.

Request L. Michelle for speaking, keynotes, or workshops: lmichellesmith.com/speaking

Take the Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse

Subscribe to the FlightPath newsletter in your inbox every Monday: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe

About Her Next Power Move

Her Next Power Move is the podcast for high-performing leaders navigating career ascension with clarity and confidence. Every other week, host and executive producer L. Michelle Smith delivers evidence-based leadership insights rooted in applied neuroscience, positive psychology, and culture — in a powerful ten minutes built for busy professionals. Paid subscribers on Substack hear episodes first and get direct access to L. Michelle. Subscribe at lmichellesmith.substack.com.

I wanted to burn my daughter’s raggedy old 5th grade history book.

The year was 1865, and General Gordon Granger was not sitting inside a boat reading from a proclamation off the Gulf Coast as the decades-old textbook illustrated.

The real truth is that Granger stood on the steps of the courthouse in Galveston, Texas, and read General…

Read more

I make a statement in my new book Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church that I have had a connection with pastors since I was a little girl, and I suspect it is because one of my big jobs for little people in the Black Church was taking the lapel mic to the guest preachers and the pastor himself. So I have an uncanny ease with them and they with me. It’s awesome, actually.

Once I was on a plane to Memphis, Tennessee, to a speaking engagement, and there was a man one row up from me across the aisle who I thought I recognized by his bald head. There wasn’t any chance that I would see his face until I deplaned, but I saw that he was busy pecking away on a laptop. I was thankful he didn’t have a privacy screen because I was able to see what he was writing.

It was a sermon.

Then I knew. It had to be exactly who I thought it was. I’d only met him in passing before when he and his congregation would visit once a year for what my pastor called a “pulpit swap.” It was a citywide effort to engage a cultural exchange and foster more understanding around the time that Philando Castille, Mike Brown and George Floyd were killed at the hands of police officers.

This pastor, the praise team and sometimes even the choir would come to southern Dallas County where Concord Church is located to lead us in worship, and in exchange, ours would follow our pastor to the north side of town to do the same.

Read more

My conversation with Zach Nunn of Living Corporate was so rich. I really encourage you to take a listen where ever you listen to your podcasts, or watch on Youtube or some of these video enabled platforms (like Apple Podcasts and sometimes Spotify).

I’m excited to share some of my favorite snippets. In the latest that I shared on social media platforms, I share more on the story of a CODA who found her purpose and went on to engineer accessibility tech for the largest tech companies and sign ASK for presidents:

Studies in positive psychology show that one certain way to find your purpose is to serve people. Through that service, you will tap into empathy which will place you firmly on your path to finding your passion.

Next stop: PURPOSE.

Read more

Something shifted this week — and if you lead people, you need to pay attention to it.

A woman recently filed for religious accommodation based on her objection to using artificial intelligence at work. She won. The accommodation was granted. What was once a philosophical conversation has become an operational reality, and it arrived faster than most organizations were prepared to handle.

In this episode, L. Michelle Smith goes beyond the headlines to explore what this moment actually reveals about leadership. When people stop asking logistical questions and start raising moral ones, the playbook changes. The leaders who come out of this moment with strong cultures will be the ones who created space for those questions before they became HR filings.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

The accommodation case that signals a turning point in how organizations must think about AI mandates and the people carrying them out.

Why moral injury — first documented in military and medical contexts by researchers Jonathan Shay, Wendy Dean, and Simon Talbot — is now showing up in corporate environments where employees are repeatedly asked to act against their values.

What Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on AI and human dignity revealed about what employees have been feeling but could not yet say.

How to lead through genuine ethical uncertainty without shutting down progress or silencing the people who need to be heard.

A micropractice you can use before your next one-on-one to create the conditions for honest conversation before a concern becomes a complaint.

Research and References

Jonathan Shay — Moral Injury Framework

Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot — Moral Injury in Organizational Contexts

Pope Leo XIV — Magnifica Humanitas, Encyclical on Artificial Intelligence and Human Dignity

Your Powerful Thought for the Day

The moment someone takes a moral objection to HR is the moment you find out whether your culture was ever really built for hard conversations. Build it before that moment arrives.

Your Powerful Question for the Day

What are the people on your team carrying about AI right now that they do not yet believe you are safe enough to hear?

Connect and Go Deeper

Read the full FlightPath essay that inspired this episode at lmichellesmith.substack.com

Join The Circle — L. Michelle’s private leadership community — at lmichellesmith.com/thecircle

Book a Summer Reset coaching session at cal.read.ai/coachlmichelle/30-min

Subscribe and Leave a Review

If this episode stayed with you, share it with a leader who needs it. And if you have not yet subscribed to Her Next Power Move, now is a good time. New episodes drop regularly wherever you listen to podcasts.

We will share the entire conversation on the next episode of The Culture Soup Podcast, this Thursday!
—

📖 Get the book — Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church: https://lmichellesmith.com/callandres...
🎙 The Culture Soup Podcast® (heard in 70+ countries)
🌐 Work with L. Michelle — executive coaching, keynotes, leadership development: https://lmichellesmith.com

Ever taste something and realize that something is missing?

Sometimes, it isn’t until after the food is done and plated that you notice.

I love to cook. In fact, in a few minutes, I’m going to make my way to the kitchen and make my daughter and I pancakes from scratch. For a long time, I only made t…

Read more

The higher you rise in corporate America, the more challenging it becomes, especially for under represented groups in top executive roles.

As I discussed recently with Carla Harris at the NYC book tour stop for Call and Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, leaning into discernment, intuition, and the riffing skills we learned on Sundays…

Read more

As I sat in the centuries-old pews with the brown wooden banisters and worn red plush seats, I peered at the little sliding door that shut …

Read more

Key Takeaways

• Lead with Strategy: Understanding how to pivot from operational management to high-level strategic thinking.

• Executive Presence: How to cultivate the growth necessary to command the room and lead effectively.

• Community Support: The importance of surrounding yourself with a “Circle” of leaders who challenge and support your professional evolution.

Connect & Grow If today’s episode resonated with you, don’t keep it to yourself! Share it with a leader in your network who needs to hear this message today.

Ready to go deeper into your leadership journey? Join our community and gain access to exclusive resources:

• Join The Circle: lmichellesmith.com/TheCircle

• Official Website: lmichellesmith.com

Subscribe & Review If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Her Next Power Move and leave a review to help other executive leaders find us.

It’s time you secured your copy of Call and Response. Learn more at https://lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse