Bad Days Leadership is a podcast where bad days make better leaders. Hosted by Dr. Matt Paden, President and Managing Partner at Great Days Leadership, each episode explores the moments we’d rather forget, the cringe-worthy decisions, awkward conversations and leadership missteps that taught us the most.
In a relaxed conversation, guests share stories from their own leadership journey like:
A decision they still wince at
A boss behavior they vowed never to repeat
A “bad leader alert” phrase or action they’ll never forget
These honest, often humorous reflections reveal powerful lessons about growth, humility and resilience. Each guest leaves listeners with one piece of practical advice, something they wish they’d known ten years ago.
The show is conversational and authentic, designed to remind us that even our worst days can make us better leaders.
"When You Get Mad, You Turn Into a Whole Different Person" - Dr. Vannesia Darby on Getting Out Of Your Own Way
Dr. Vannesia Darby — Digital Marketing Director at Shondaland, founder and principal consultant at MOXIE Nashville, and an award-winning marketing leader with a Ph.D. in business administration — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Vannesia shares the performance review where her boss told her she did everything right but became a completely different person when she got angry. She talks about icing out a longtime friend at work instead of having the conversation, the all...
22 Sept 2026
"I Knew It Was a Mistake While I Was Still Saying It" - Coach Matt Doherty on Coaching Scars
Coach Matt Doherty — starter on the 1982 national championship team at North Carolina alongside Michael Jordan and James Worthy, former head coach at UNC, Notre Dame, SMU, and FAU, and now an executive coach and author of Rebound: From Pain to Passion — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Doherty shares what he calls coaching scars, the moments that surface at red lights years later. He tells the story of breaking a player's trust in front of the whole team during a timeo...
8 Sept 2026
"I Honestly Thought I Was Bad at Everything" — Kacy Maxwell on Red Lines and Rebuilding Confidence
Kacy Maxwell — Chief Marketing Officer and general manager of the marketing technology consulting practice at Provisions Group, and creator of Drawn to Lead — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Kacy opens by admitting he has never felt like a good leader, then walks through the boss who redlined everything he submitted until he genuinely believed he was bad at his job. He talks about the red flag he spots fastest in other leaders because it is the one he fights hardest i...
25 Aug 2026
"You've Got to Get Me Out" — Dr. Ken Jones on the Year He Told His Board He Was Breaking
Dr. Ken Jones — president of Oklahoma Christian University, former president of Lubbock Christian University for nineteen years, and co-author of "The Core" with host Dr. Matt Paden — joins the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Ken names the three worst decisions of his career, all of which share the same root: he had a gut feeling something was wrong and let a talented team talk him out of it. He shares the Saturday morning phone call from Dr. John Townsend that opened with "Jones, I've got you f...
11 Aug 2026
"You Fall to the Level of Your Training" w/ Dr. Henry Cloud
Dr. Henry Cloud — New York Times bestselling author of over 45 books including Boundaries, Necessary Endings, and Integrity, and executive coach to CEOs and organizations for decades — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Dr. Cloud tells the story of buying his first hospital in his twenties with no money and no idea what a "call center" was, and how a chance dinner conversation exposed just how much he didn't know he didn't know. He breaks down why leaders operate as clos...
28 Jul 2026
"You're Never Persuasive When You're Abrasive" — Randy Gravitt on 40 Years of Leadership Lessons
Randy Gravitt — CEO of Lead Every Day, executive coach to NFL and MLB organizations, and author of Lead Every Day and Winning Begins at Home — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast, and opens by challenging the show's entire premise: he doesn't think there are bad days, just bad leaders. Randy unpacks why character doesn't implode all at once but erodes one small compromise at a time, why "saying it louder" never makes a leader more right, and the H.E.A.R.T. framework he use...
14 Jul 2026
"You Need to Pour Water on This" w/Leticia Saiid
Leticia Saiid — Chief of Staff and Chief Learning Officer at CoNetrix — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Leticia shares the story of creating an official "permanent record" disciplinary form for a chronically late employee, only to have them ask what happens after the third strike — like they were planning to be late. She talks about advising an employee on workplace appearance norms that completely backfired, spending a decade quietly resenting a comment from a superv...
30 Jun 2026
"Build Trust When Risk Is Low. Leverage It When the Stakes Are High." w/Scott Mann
Lt. Col. (Ret.) Scott Mann — former U.S. Army Green Beret, founder of Rooftop Leadership, host of the Scott Mann Podcast, and author of the New York Times bestseller Operation Pineapple Express and the new book The Generosity of Scars — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Scott shares the mission in Afghanistan that cost a teammate his life and the questions that have never stopped since, the moment a junior captain told him to slow down and drink the tea when he'd forgot...
16 Jun 2026
Episode 7 - "We Knew in 18 Hours We Had Made a Terrible Decision" w/ Stephanie Henderson
Stephanie Henderson — CEO-turned-executive coach, keynote speaker, culture strategist, and founder of Impact Driven Partners — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Stephanie shares the software rollout that blew up within 18 hours because she and the IT director forgot to include the people it would actually affect, how waiting to give feedback until an annual review turned into an hour of tears and a permanent lesson, and why she stopped calling her company a "family" and...
2 Jun 2026
Episode 6 - I Doubled Down When I Should Have Shut My Mouth w/Stuart Deming
Stuart Deming — co-founder of XPLR.NASH, serial entrepreneur, and content creator with sixty jobs since age six — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Stewart shares the story of getting physically abused by a football coach for underperforming, only to find out he had a disease that required a back brace for two years. He talks about walking into a pitch meeting, misreading every signal, and doubling down on a proposal when he should have stopped talking — a mistake that ...
19 May 2026
Episode 5 - "A Boss Banned Talking and Replaced It With Red Solo Cups. It Got Worse." w/Amanda Box
Amanda Box — founder of Box Communications, communication evangelist, and the "Unleasher of the Awesome" — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Amanda shares the jaw-dropping story of a coach who opened the season by handing out "100 Ways to Have a Losing Season," a boss who banned talking in a call center and replaced it with red solo cups on filing cabinets (productivity dropped by a LOT), and the client relationship that stressed her into cold sores because she couldn't...
5 May 2026
Episode 4 - "I Spent Years Repeating The Same Mistake Because I Wouldn't Accept The Data Right In Front Of Me" w/Will Acuff
Will Acuff — social entrepreneur, author of No Elevator to Everest, and co-founder of Corner to Corner — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Will gets honest about moving into a low-income Nashville neighborhood with a million wrong ideas about poverty, spending years repeating the same mistake because he refused to accept the data right in front of him, and how his passion kept showing up as impatience and anger early in his career. He breaks down why overconfidence gets...
23 Apr 2026
Episode 3 - "I Walked In Like A Superhero And Forgot To Honor Who Came Before Me" w/Dr. Darwin Mason, Jr.
Dr. Darwin Mason Jr. — educator, minister, consultant, and community leader — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Darwin opens up about walking into a turnaround school with a superhero complex, only to learn the staff was still grieving the leader he replaced. He shares how a bad hire derailed two and a half years of progress because he wasn't courageous enough to have the hard conversation soon enough, why loving the idea of leadership without loving the people is a rec...
14 Apr 2026
Episode 2 - "I Was Texting Under The Table Because I Didn't Know The Words" w/Dr. John Delony
Dr. John Delony joins Dr. Matt Paden on Bad Days Leadership. In this episode, John shares the story of getting publicly exposed for pretending to understand a $20M financial decision, why he spent 15 years thinking "never say I don't know" was good leadership, and the hiring blind spot he still can't fix. They also break down what real crisis leadership looks like (from a bus wreck that sent students to five hospitals), why feedback only works inside relationship, and the three phrases John u...
8 Apr 2026
Episode 1 - "I Had To Send My Team Flowers Because Of What I Did To Them" w/Dr. Kathy Crockett
Dr. Kathy Crockett — executive coach, keynote speaker, founder of the Kathy Crockett Company, and facilitator of the Lead Well leadership groups — joins Dr. Matt Paden on the first episode of the Bad Days Leadership podcast. Kathy gets honest about steamrolling two teams with an "amazing idea" she pushed through without thinking about the ripple effects, walking into rooms completely blind to the political dynamics everyone else could see, and the gut-wrenching decision to end a program she h...
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