The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff
The Learning to Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff
Helping Good Leaders Become Great—One Practical Insight at a Time
You’re busy. The demands are real. But your desire to grow as a leader hasn’t gone anywhere.
That’s why The Learning to Lead Show is designed for leaders like you—driven, growth-minded, and always on the go. Hosted by Executive Leadership Coach Mark J. Cundiff, this podcast delivers practical leadership insights you can use today, not someday.
Each week, you’ll get:
- Short, focused teaching episodes packed with real-world lessons from decades of leadership experience, bestselling books, and proven frameworks.
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This show is for growth-minded professionals who want more than titles and tactics. It’s for those who want to lead with purpose, develop a legacy, and make their future bigger than their past.
So whether you're leading a team, a business, or yourself—tune in, take notes, and let’s grow together.
The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff
#57 Leadership Insights from my Conversation with Preston Zeller
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5 Leadership Takeaways from Preston Zeller: Empathy, Trust, Storytelling, and Sustainable Growth
Host Mark Cundiff welcomes listeners to Learning to Lead episode 57, reflecting on his prior conversation with Preston Zeller from episode 56, “The Art of Empathy in Leadership.” He highlights themes of empathy, resilience, grief, storytelling, trust, leadership, and business growth, including Preston’s journey after losing his brother and creating a daily painting for 365 days that became the documentary The Art of Grieving.
Cundiff emphasizes that people need leaders who listen and care, then shares five takeaways: empathy as a leadership superpower; small daily actions compounding into big results; using stories to inspire beyond facts; building trust through alignment between intentions and the employee experience; and recognizing that many growth problems are operational issues. He encourages listeners to watch the documentary, download leader notes, subscribe, and leave a rating.
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🔎 About LeaderNotes
LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go. It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.
Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com
Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead show. I'm your host, Mark Cundiff, and this is episode number 57, where we're gonna discuss my conversation with Preston Zeller. That was episode number 56, The Art of Empathy in Leadership with Preston Zeller. When Preston joined our show last week, we had a powerful conversation about empathy, resilience, grief, storytelling, trust, leadership, and business growth. As an entrepreneur, consultant, filmmaker, artist, and business leader, Preston has spent years helping organizations solve growth challenges, improve operations, and navigate change. But some of his most important leadership lessons came not from the boardroom, but from one of his most difficult seasons in life. After the loss of his brother, Preston embarked on a deeply personal journey that led him to create a painting every day for three hundred and sixty-five days. That experience ultimately became the documentary, The Art of Grieving, and transformed the way he thinks about leadership, empathy, and human connection. And if you do nothing else after listening to this episode today, I would challenge you to go to The Art of Grieving. We have that in the show notes and in the leader notes. Make sure you download those. At the center of our conversation is a leadership truth every leader needs to remember. People don't need leaders who have all the answers. They need leaders who are willing to understand, listen, and care. During this episode, we discussed a number of different topics. We talked about leading with empathy, supporting people through difficult seasons, building trust inside of organizations, the power of storytelling, solving growth challenges, navigating AI, developing habits that fuel long-term growth. I want to take a moment and give you five key takeaways for growth-minded leaders. Number one, empathy is a leadership superpower. One of Preston's most powerful insights was that leadership is not about fixing people, it's about supporting them. Leaders often feel pressure to solve every problem their team faces, but sometimes what people need the most is someone willing to listen, understand, and simply be present. Empathy creates connection. Connection builds trust. Trust fuels leadership influence. The leadership lesson here is the strongest leaders aren't always the smartest people in the room. They are often the people who make others feel seen and understood Takeaway number two: small daily actions create extraordinary results. After losing his brother, Preston committed to creating one painting every day for three hundred and sixty-five days. The goal wasn't perfection, the goal was progress. That experience reinforced a principle every leader should embrace. Small, consistent actions compound over time. Whether it's reading, exercising, developing a new skill, strengthening relationships, or improving leadership effectiveness, consistency wins. The leadership insight there, success rarely comes from one dramatic moment. It usually comes from hundreds of small actions repeated consistently over time. Takeaway number three: Great leaders learn to tell better stories. Preston's background in filmmaking taught him something that many leaders overlook. Facts inform, but stories inspire. Leaders often communicate goals, metrics, and objectives, but people don't just need information, they need meaning. Stories help people understand why their work matters and where the organization is headed. The leadership lesson here is if you want people to follow the vision, learn to communicate it through stories instead of bullet points or even PowerPoints. Takeaway number four: trust is built through alignment. One of the strongest themes from this conversation was trust. Preston emphasizes that leaders often judge themselves by their intentions, while employees judge leaders by their experiences. The result, a trust gap. Building trust requires leaders to understand how others experience their leadership, not just how they intend to lead. Transparency matters, consistency matters, and self-awareness matters. The key leadership insight here is that trust grows when actions consistently align with words. The fifth takeaway, growth problems are often operational problems. Many organizations assume growth challenges are marketing or sales problems. Preston sees something different. Often the real issue lies beneath the surface: broken systems, poor processes, lack of measurement, weak execution, customer experience breakdowns. Instead of constantly chasing new opportunities, leadership first understand what's already working and what's preventing growth. The leadership lesson here is before adding more complexity, strengthen the foundation. This was a great conversation I had with Preston. If you have not listened to episode number fifty-six, I challenge you to go back and listen to the full conversation. It's a compelling dive into how grief can impact us and then how that can transform us into being more empathetic with our team. If you have not already, please go and subscribe so that this hits your podcast app when we publish a new episode. Also, those ratings really help us, and if you've gotten any value out of today, please go give us a rating, preferably a five. Those really help us rank so that others can hear about the Learning to Lead show. And then also make sure that you go download a copy of Leader Notes that gives you a good summary of everything that we've talked about during the episode. And make sure that this week you go out and learn, grow, and lead and take your team, your organization, your family to the next level