What happens when a successful leader hits a wall despite outward success? Leadership coach Paula Shannon shares her journey from deputy superintendent to coaching executives through burnout. Learn why productivity as identity holds leaders back and how to reconnect with joy.

Paula Shannon is the founder of Whole Leader Lab, where she helps teams and leaders improve how they communicate, engage, and influence. Every business has three things: products and services, plans to design and deliver them, and people. The products and the plans are tangible and visible. The people dynamics are not, and that is where Paula works. She helps teams communicate and collaborate, supports leaders and owners in engaging in ways that empower and expand their influence, and works with the emotional dynamics always at play so leaders and their teams move from reacting to responding.

Before founding her practice, Paula spent more than seventeen years in senior and C-suite roles, including as Deputy Superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, leading organizations of thousands through complex, high-stakes change. That experience taught her how much the way people experience an organization shapes whether they stay, trust, and do their best work. She is now training as an X-Factor Certified Consultant, deepening her ability to apply behavioral psychology to the design of experiences that build connection and belonging. Paula is especially interested in this work as technology reshapes how organizations relate to the people they serve.

Paula is a certified executive coach, consultant, and speaker.

Connect with Paula Shannon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paularshannon/
Website: https://wholeleaderlab.org

Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:
Mirasee

Credits:
Host: Meredith Eisenberg
Editor: Marvin Del Rosario
Executive Producer: Danny Iny

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