Leading Through the Storm: Lessons from Bombs, Bacon, and Bankruptcy

What can business leaders learn from bombs, bacon, bankruptcy...and even waterboarding? In this episode of Starbold Signals, Jeremy Ames sits down with leadership expert and author Henry J. Evans to explore what it really takes to lead when the stakes get high. Drawing on Henry’s extraordinary experiences in national security, counterterrorism, and business, they unpack why trust beats coercion, why vulnerability may be a leader’s greatest tool, and why the person with the most expertise isn’t always the person who should lead in a crisis. They also tackle the increasingly blurry line between AI and human intelligence, the danger of allowing technology to make the “last mile” of critical decisions, and how leaders can prepare before disruption becomes an emergency. The goal isn’t simply to survive the storm...it’s to build an organization capable of thriving because of how it responds to it. Leading Through the Storm: Lessons from Bombs, Bacon, and Bankruptcy is a conversation about courage, trust, judgment, and knowing when leadership means stepping forward...and when it means getting out of the way.