Leadership stories with a practical conscience.
Real Leaders Podcast is a brisk, practical leadership show built around CEOs, founders, authors, and speakers. Its strongest moments turn personal stories into usable lessons about culture, communication, purpose, and building companies that do more than chase profit.
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Real Leaders Podcast is a leadership show with a strong bias toward stories that can be used. It rarely stays in theory for long. Conversations begin with CEOs, founders, authors, and speakers, then move toward the decisions, habits, and communication choices that shape a company’s culture. Kevin Edwards gives the interviews a quick, audience-aware rhythm, especially when he asks guests to define what a real leader means to them. That question anchors much of the show’s identity. Don Yaeger’s appearance turns sports storytelling into a business lesson about culture, key messaging, and helping people see themselves inside a shared vision. Mark Van Ness brings the Real Leaders origin story back to Habitat for Humanity, real estate, media, and the early resistance to companies built around both profit and impact. Julie Van Ness gives the show one of its more personal chapters, reflecting on 14 years of leadership, succession, humility, and the community she helped build. The UNITE episodes add a different texture. They feel more like conference-room momentum than studio conversation. Samantha Kris pushes public speaking as a business responsibility, not just a stage skill. Kate Williams argues that impact leadership has no single ideal form, asking leaders to locate their own version of purpose. Jay Shetty connects media growth, wisdom, entrepreneurship, and the long arc from early visibility to a larger platform. Sage Robbins speaks about intention, service, presence, and the teams behind major public work. Jesse Henry brings sharper edges, using a near-fatal car crash and toxin-focused health claims to argue for more conscious choices in business and daily life. The show is enthusiastic, sometimes deeply earnest, and often built around a takeaway that can be repeated in a boardroom or from a stage. It favors moral language without abandoning business mechanics. It also treats storytelling as a leadership tool rather than a decorative skill. For founders and executives who like practical inspiration with names, examples, and room energy, it offers a steady stream of usable leadership prompts.
Made for: Best suited for founders, executives, coaches, public speakers, and purpose-driven operators who want leadership advice tied to real business stories. It also fits listeners drawn to impact companies, culture-building, and personal growth in professional settings.
What sets it apart: The show blends interviews with live Real Leaders UNITE sessions, so it carries both studio intimacy and conference-stage momentum. Its recurring definition-of-leadership question gives different guests a shared frame without making the episodes feel identical.
The Real Leaders Podcast is for leaders who want to do more with their influence. Each episode shares real, honest stories from CEOs and founders about how they built businesses that matter. No fluff — just the lessons, mistakes, and moves that helped them grow their impact. If you're serious about leading with purpose and leaving something meaningful behind, this podcast is for you.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Kevin Edwards turns leadership principles into concrete questions about communication, culture, ownership, growth, and responsibility inside organizations.
Real Leaders Podcast treats leadership as a set of operating choices rather than a title. Kevin Edwards uses interviews and event conversations to connect broad ideas about purpose with decisions inside organizations, from meeting cadence and remote communication to succession,…
A twice-weekly standup stops scaling, and suddenly your team calendar looks negotiable.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Storytelling is treated as a leadership tool for turning scattered messages into a shared vision.
The discussion frames storytelling as a practical leadership tool rather than a soft extra. Kevin Edwards sets up Don Yeager, a 12-time New York Times best-selling author, around a familiar problem: too many messages, products, and services competing for attention.
A founder's story about making purpose more respected in business, from Habitat for Humanity to Real Leaders.
Mark Van Ness connects Real Leaders to work that began outside the usual business frame, especially his real estate experience with Habitat for Humanity.
A 14-year handoff that returns to humility, feedback, and a North Star.
The piece centers on Julie Van Ness’s handoff after 14 years and uses it to frame a discussion of humility, feedback, and the discipline of making room for viewpoints beyond one’s own.
Sage Robbins presents leadership as a steady practice of presence, team trust, and personal responsibility.
Sage Robbins treats leadership as something that starts with presence, before it turns into management. Speaking to leaders in the room, she puts attention, language, and the way someone shows up at the center of how people connect and communicate.
A near-fatal crash frames a forceful reflection on toxins, sustainability, and the habits that shape communities.
The episode opens with a near-fatal highway crash and uses that jolt as a way into a broader argument about sustainability, biology, and everyday choice.
A practical episode on trust signals, meeting cadence, and the value of listening when a growing team says the rhythm is not working.
Real Leaders starts with a useful question about borrowed credibility: why Delta would place a large award sign, complete with major-list logos, beside the boarding door.
A grounded discussion of employee ownership, growth, hiring, mergers, and values-led leadership.
Employee ownership comes through here as a practical operating choice, not a slogan. The CEO of Solace O'Brien ties vested ownership to stronger performance, better hiring, and the kind of merger strategy that depends on shared values.
Business leaders, market lessons, real operating stories.
Leadership thinking under real pressure.
Calmer leadership, clearer teams, stronger trust.
Darren Anderson, CEO of Solace O'Brien, discusses the company's journey to becoming a 90% employee-owned engineering firm.
Host Kevin Edwards opens with a marketing tip about Delta Airlines' award displays before interviewing Derek Richardson, CEO of Deako.
This episode features an interview with Dan Green, CEO of HelpSea, discussing the growing secondhand clothing market, its environmental impact compared to fast fashion, and opportunities for sustainable work in textile reuse.
This episode features a fireside chat with Brandon Schwertner, CEO of Priority Power, discussing the intersection of AI, energy demand, and decarbonization, and its impact on communities and businesses.
Kerry Siggins, CEO of Stone Age Tools and author of Talk with Trust, tells host Kevin Edwards that she is a "recovering people pleaser" shaped by a critical father who told her she wasn't "smart enough to go to engineering school." She describes an accidental overdose on Labor Day 2006 and her mother's insistence that she take "complete responsibility" as the start of her ownership mindset.
Story is where leadership gets legs.
Mark Van Ness traces Real Leaders back to Habitat for Humanity, where 500 hours of labor and an interest-free mortgage shaped his view of earned ownership.
Kevin opens with a farewell for Julie Van Ness, the former CEO and now Chairman Emeritus, as she hands off after 14 years.
This episode is a public speaking workshop led by speaker coach Samantha Kris at Real Leaders UNITE 2025, focusing on using storytelling to enhance business impact and leadership.
Kate Williams, CEO of 1% for the Planet, shares her personal story and three mind frames to help attendees define their own impact leadership at the Real Leaders UNITE 2025 event.
Host Kevin Edwards interviews Jay Shetty about his journey from monk to bestselling author and top podcast host, discussing his books and mission to make wisdom go viral.
Real Leaders Podcast presents Sage Robbins at Real Leaders UNITE 2025, where Tony Robbins introduces her as a partner of 25 years and a leader in their 114-company ecosystem.
Jesse Henry says his body signaled a toxic business relationship before a hospital visit confirmed it wasn't a heart attack.
This episode features an interview with Darin Anderson, CEO of Solace O'Brien, discussing the business case for employee ownership as part of the ReLeaders Top Impact Companies Speaker Series.
A host introduces an upcoming interview with Gary Vaynerchuk on leadership and branding, while promoting ReLeaders magazine and reflecting on eight years of podcasting with CEOs.