Herding Tigers: The Creative Leader Podcast
Business & Finance
About
Leading creative people is one of the hardest jobs in any organization. Bestselling author Todd Henry (Herding Tigers, The Accidental Creative, and others) brings you practical strategies for creative leadership — from managing creative teams and building a culture of innovation, to helping your people stay prolific, brilliant, and healthy. Each episode delivers actionable insights on workplace creativity, team productivity, and what it really takes to unleash the full potential of the talented people around you. If you lead creative pros, or are one, this is your show.
Episodes
- The 3 Things You Own as a Leader
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses leadership as owning responsibility in three crucial areas: culture, talent, and work. It explores how culture is defined by what leaders model, reward, and tolerate, and emphasizes developing talen…
- Optimizing: You're Probably Playing Different Games at the Same Table
This episode of Herding Tigers explores the concept of leadership optimization, identifying that team members often pursue different goals like stability, recognition, or meaning. It provides a framework for leaders to understand and discu…
- 5 Conversations To Have With Your Team
This episode details five essential conversations for teams: Clarity, Truth, Receptivity, Commitment, and Accountability. It emphasizes empathy, trust, and formalizing discussions to improve focus, manage expectations, and foster a healthi…
- Self-Care For Leaders
This episode focuses on self-care for leaders, emphasizing its importance for team health and modeling positive habits. It explores five critical areas for leaders to maintain their well-being and effectiveness.
- Exorcise The Ghost (Rules)
This episode of Herding Tigers explores 'ghost rules,' which are invisible assumptions and limiting narratives that hinder team member ideas, collaboration, and overall function. The podcast discusses the nature of these rules and provides…
- Shift From Maker To Manager
This episode discusses the challenging transition leaders face when moving from a "maker" role, focused on individual contribution, to a "manager" role, focused on leading others. It explores the inherent tensions in this shift for creativ…
- Why Your Perpetual Optimism Might Be Killing Your Team
This episode discusses how leaders prioritizing perpetual optimism over reality can damage team trust. While optimism is valuable, an irresponsible extreme detached from truth creates dissonance and dysfunction, ultimately hindering effect…
- Leaders, Your Team Needs You To Be Precise
Creative leaders face challenges in mitigating risk, especially in creative work where early wrong decisions can be costly. Leaders who lack precision and clarity in their expectations create a trickle-down effect, causing team members to…
- Are You Committing This Leadership “Sin”?
Changing your mind in public is often criticized as a leadership 'sin.' However, learning and evolving are essential for leaders, requiring openness to new information and the possibility of being wrong. This episode explores the importanc…
- The Two Types Of Relationships Every Leader Needs
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses the two types of relationships essential for creative leaders. The podcast offers leadership conversations and tips to help teams perform at their best.
- How To Handle Conflict
This episode of Herding Tigers: The Creative Leader Podcast discusses how to handle conflict, an inevitable byproduct of the creative process. Three core principles are shared for managing conflict in a healthy way to ensure team health.
- Dealing With A Culture Of Blame
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses the human tendency to assign blame as a self-protective mechanism. It explores how a culture of blame can negatively impact a team and offers ways to identify and address it.
- How To Handle Failure
This episode emphasizes the importance of addressing team failures by conducting postmortems instead of moving on without reflection. Leaders are encouraged to use these moments as coaching opportunities, offering questions to help teams l…
- 3 Critical Pressures Every Manager Faces
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses three unique pressures that creative leaders face. It offers advice on managing these challenges and questions to help managers assess their own effectiveness.
- Why Great Leaders Tell Great Stories
This episode of Herding Tigers explores how creative leaders can leverage storytelling to shape market perception and build trust with their teams. Consultant Lisa Johnson suggests that leaders should share personal stories to reveal aspec…
- Four Traps Leaders Fall Into (And How To Avoid Them)
This episode of Herding Tigers: The Creative Leader Podcast identifies four common leadership traps that emerge under pressure: deferring, blaming, bending, and hovering. It explains how falling into these traps can impede a team and creat…
- Staying Inspired As A Leader
Leaders must stay inspired to inspire others. This episode shares three effective strategies for leaders to maintain their own inspiration, connect with their core motivations, and build trust and respect with their teams.
- Your Leadership Philosophy
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses leadership philosophy, emphasizing that controlling team work limits scalability. Great leaders establish guiding principles to empower their teams to make sound decisions amidst uncertainty.
- How To Protect Your Creative Team
This episode of Herding Tigers features Todd Henry and riCardo Crespo discussing practical strategies to protect a creative team's time and attention from organizational demands and pressure.
- Know What Motivates Your Team
This episode of Herding Tigers focuses on coaching creative teams by helping leaders understand and leverage the primary motivators of their team members, as discussed in Chapter 5.
- The Three Challenges Of Leading Creative Work
This episode of Herding Tigers discusses the three main challenges of leading creative work: opacity, insecurity, and subjectivity. It offers practical tips for creative leaders to navigate these difficulties.
- Herding Tigers: The Unique Nature of Leading Creative People
Todd Henry and riCardo Crespo discuss the unique nature of leading creative people, differentiating it from traditional management styles on the inaugural episode of Herding Tigers.
- Herding Tigers Intro
This episode of Herding Tigers: The Creative Leader Podcast, titled "Herding Tigers Intro," features Todd Henry, riCardo Crespo, and guests discussing how leaders can help their teams achieve their best creative work.