The Missing Link Podcast

What if the biggest threat to your leadership credibility isn't what you say — but what you're communicating before you say a single word?
In this episode, Linda sits down with Kathryn Janicek, a three-time Emmy-winning media and public speaking trainer and founder of Janicek Performance Group, who has coached C-suite leaders at Oracle, Deloitte, AbbVie, JPMorgan Chase, and UPS. Kathryn has been in the room when brilliant, accomplished leaders lost the room before they even opened their mouth — and she's built a career helping leaders understand exactly why.
Together, Linda and Kathryn unpack the invisible signals leaders broadcast through breathing, posture, eye contact, and wardrobe — signals that build or quietly destroy trust long before any strategy or content lands. They explore why soft skills are actually hard business skills (with direct impact on IPO valuations), why even Fortune 500 CEOs carry the same inner critic as the rest of us, and how curiosity — not expertise — is the trait that makes leaders magnetic.
This conversation will change the way you walk into a room.

In this episode of The Missing Link, host Linda Perry introduces the concept of the "Definition Gap" — the hidden breakdown that occurs when people use the same words but hold completely different meanings for them. Drawing on 17 years in federal courtrooms and 13 years working with founders and leadership teams, Linda argues that most organizational problems — disengagement, accountability failures, poor execution — aren't capability or culture problems at all. They're symptoms of a deeper, upstream issue: nobody ever explicitly aligned on what key words like "ownership," "proactive," or "leadership" actually mean in practice. She walks through how this gap forms, how it silently compounds into belief systems that damage trust, and what leaders can do this week to start closing it.

What do most leaders miss that's quietly limiting their teams? Former President and CEO Tracie Williams built a company of fewer than 50 people to nearly $300 million in peak revenue — and she'll tell you the real driver wasn't strategy. It was people. In this episode, Tracie breaks down what it actually takes to build accountability cultures, close the connectivity gap, and lead in a way that makes people want to show up and deliver — not because they have to, but because they understand why it matters.

AI is changing how teams work. But the resistance leaders are getting back isn't a change management problem — and treating it like one will make it worse. In this episode, Linda Perry breaks down what's actually happening when a team goes quiet on AI adoption, why the logical efficiency argument fails with certain teams, and how understanding your team's WHY.os changes the entire leadership approach. If something feels off in how your team is responding to AI, this episode is the diagnostic you need.

Most founders assume that what made them successful as solo operators will translate to leading a team. It doesn't. In this conversation, business growth coach and former CEO Rich Palarea gets honest about what it cost him to learn that the hard way — a 15-year company, a 27-year marriage, and a trust deficit he couldn't close no matter how many resources he threw at it. He now coaches leadership teams using the Bloom Growth operating system, and he brings the hard-won clarity of someone who has been on both sides of that table.