Ep 201: The Leadership School Hidden Inside the Black Church

What if the most sophisticated leadership training you ever received happened before you turned 15, and it happened in church? In this fireside chat recorded live at Greater Life Church in Dallas, L. Michelle Smith joins Pastor Stephen G. Brown for a conversation that moves between sermon and scholarship, between science and story. Drawing from her bestselling book Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church, L. Michelle traces the origins of her keynote career back to a Sunday school floor at Good Street Baptist Church, where she learned to stand in front of a room and deliver. This is not nostalgia. It is a leadership masterclass grounded in neuroscience, positive psychology, and the lived wisdom of Black excellence. In this episode, you will hear: - Why real team bonding requires going through something real together, and what the science of social cohesion and oxytocin reveals about how trust is actually built in high-performing teams. - The story of Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive, who was deliberately left behind by her new leadership team at the Kentucky Derby, and what she did next. - Why resilience is pliability and not strength, and how the name-it, tame-it, reframe-it framework turns adversity into a passport for growth. - How hope theory, neuroplasticity, and the music ministry of the Black church connect to what the most rigorous leadership research is only now beginning to name. - What it means for the future of leadership development that the generations who need these formation lessons most have largely left the building. Go deeper: Free leadership toolkit: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co The Circle (community for leaders): lmichellesmith.com/thecircle Speaking requests: lmichellesmith.com/speaking FlightPath newsletter: soaracademy.nsccoaching.co/subscribe Heart-Centered Leader Assessment: SOARacademy.nsccoaching.co/a/CallandResponse Substack: lmichellesmith.substack.com #HerNextPowerMove #HeartCenteredLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #CallAndResponse #BlackChurch #CultureSoupPodcast #GreaterLifeChurch #PastorStephenBrown #Resilience #SocialCohesion #BlackLeadership #FaithAndLeadership #LeadershipLessons #BlackExcellence