View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Business

Bred To Lead

PEOPLE AREN’T BORN TO LEAD. THEY’RE BRED TO LEAD.

Most organizations don’t fail all at once. They break down slowly:
• Missed warning signs
• Leaders who stopped seeing what’s in front of them
• Teams that quietly stopped believing

By the time someone calls in a fixer, the damage has been building for years.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

ABOUT YOUR HOST
Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs DBA, MBA, B.Ed. | The Business Doctor
• President and COO, SIPS Healthcare Solutions
• Author of Operational Blindness
• Nearly 15 years turning around struggling businesses

WHAT EACH EPISODE COVERS
• Why leaders and organizations lose their way
• The early symptoms most people miss
• The people-first habits that keep a team healthy before it needs rescuing

WHO IT’S FOR
Straight talk, real turnaround stories, and practical tools you can use Monday morning, whether you’re running a company, leading a department, or stepping into management for the first time.

Leadership isn’t inherited. It’s built. Let’s build it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 028: 90 Days to Make or Break: A $60M Leadership Collapse Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS DECIDE YOUR WHOLE TENURE

In March 2014, North Adams Regional Hospital in Massachusetts closed with three days' notice, leaving 37,000 residents without their local hospital. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs walks through how new leadership misjudged its reality, cut costs before diagnosing the problem, and lost the trust of staff and community in the critical first 90 days.

IN THIS EPISODE
• Three levels of reality assessment: paper reality, perceived reality, and ground reality
• The trust triangle: transparency, engagement with team, peers and upline, and early wins that matter to them
• The impact matrix and balanced urgency: fast enough for momentum, slow enough to bring people with you
• Why cutting costs does not always mean cutting people, and how to find the real power centers

YOUR CHALLENGE
Make five commitments for any season of change: truth, people, future, learning, and legacy.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 027: Lessons from the $8 Billion Healthcare System's Collapse Jan 15, 2025

Show notes

STEWARD HAD PLENTY OF PLANS. WHAT IT LACKED WAS FUTURE FOCUS

In May 2024, Steward Health Care, one of the largest private hospital systems in the country, filed for bankruptcy. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs breaks down how a model built on turning around struggling hospitals failed at the very operational excellence it promised, and what every leader can learn from the difference between planning for the future and leading from it.

IN THIS EPISODE
• Three failures: confusing expansion with evolution, financial engineering over operations, and no sustainable organization
• The now game, the next game, and the after next game, and why you must play them together
• Four pillars of future focused leadership and a five point future ready assessment
• The phantom tax: why leaders you develop stay loyal and leaders you buy keep moving

KEY TAKEAWAY
Culture eats strategy, and leadership is about legacy, not a paycheck. Ask what condition your organization will be in when you leave it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 026: Success by Design: Why Success Happens Before the Moment Dec 31, 2024

Show notes

YOU CAN ONLY HAVE WHAT YOU ARE

Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs comes back from his first real vacation in eight years with a lesson from his mentor: you cannot become a millionaire until you are worth a million. Success happens before the moment of opportunity arrives, and life gives you what you have prepared and trained for, not what you wish for.

IN THIS EPISODE
• A leader who rehearsed crisis scenarios for years and found the real crisis easier than the ones she imagined
• His three part framework: mental simulation, physical practice, and integration
• Why generic affirmations fail and visualization has to be specific enough to feel real
• Leadership labs and readiness rhythms: recorded practice, real pressure, and specific feedback built into the week

KEY TAKEAWAY
Hope is not a strategy. Build your career and your company on the worst happening, and practice for it, so the best is icing on the cake.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 025: Leading Without Authority: Building Influence Beyond Your Title Nov 26, 2024

Show notes

POSITIONAL POWER GETS COMPLIANCE. INFLUENCE GETS COMMITMENT.

A senior executive with every title and all the formal authority couldn't get his initiatives off the ground. A mid-level manager with no authority over most of the people she worked with kept getting things done across departments. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs explains the difference, and why the bigger your scope, the more you need influence instead of your title.

IN THIS EPISODE
• The four elements of real influence: credibility, connection, contribution, and consistency
• Why "I do my job" is not contributing to your organization
• Value-first leadership: the leader who spent her first weeks learning what each department head needed
• The three C's of scaled influence, and why he hands his own ideas to others so they get the credit

KEY TAKEAWAY
Your title might give you authority, but your impact comes from influence. Start building it now, whatever level you are at.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 024: Closing the Gap: The Hidden Cost of Leadership Isolation Nov 20, 2024

Show notes

AN OPEN DOOR NOBODY WALKS THROUGH IS NOT AN OPEN DOOR

One leadership team prided itself on its open door policy, yet almost no one walked through it, because frontline ideas kept getting dismissed. Another had every report and metric and was still blindsided by problems any employee could have named. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs breaks down how leaders drift away from the front line one logical decision at a time, and what it costs.

IN THIS EPISODE
• The elevation effect and the filter effect, and how bad news gets sanitized on the way up
• His four-part framework for staying connected: presence, process, people, and proof
• The leader who blocked two hours a week to work, not observe, alongside frontline teams
• Why good habits have to be modeled, not told, and what teaching his kids taught him about it

YOUR CHALLENGE
Will you be a bridge builder who stays connected, or a manager who drifts away? Put frontline time on your calendar as a meeting you cannot miss.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 023: Beyond Quick Fixes: The Truth About Transforming Organizations Nov 12, 2024

Show notes

IF YOUR PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE IN CHANGE, NO PROCESS WILL STICK

Watching Coach Prime rebuild Colorado football, Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs saw what he has taught leaders for years: real transformation starts with belief and culture, not metrics and process maps. He walks through why "we've tried that before" is a symptom, not an excuse, and why new systems fail when the culture underneath them never changed.

IN THIS EPISODE
• The three phases of transformation: cultural reset, technical evolution, and sustainable excellence
• Why resistance during technical change usually means your cultural reset isn't finished
• How one organization that had failed three system rollouts rebuilt belief through small, visible wins
• Why your company should run like an internal university where learning never ends

YOUR CHALLENGE
Before you touch a process or a metric, find out what your people truly believe is possible or impossible in your organization.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 022: From Manager to Executive: Mastering the Leadership Transition Nov 05, 2024

Show notes

MANAGERS PUT OUT FIRES. EXECUTIVES MAKE SURE THEY STAY OUT.

Three months after a promotion to executive, Sarah was working longer hours than ever and things were still slipping. In the first live episode of Bred To Lead, Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs explains why: she was still managing what she should have been overseeing. Managers own the how and the what. Executives own the why, the when, and the where.

IN THIS EPISODE
• Why "I can do their job" is how managers burn the bridge to their executives
• The operations leader whose firefighting strength became his weakness, and the questions that fixed it
• What King David learned as a shepherd, a harp player, and a warrior before he ever became king
• "We make 10 million a year, why can't I get $1,000?" and the business fundamentals behind the answer

YOUR CHALLENGE
Name one shift you can make this week to start thinking like an executive: stop solving the fire and ask what system would prevent it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 021: Cracking the Leadership Code: Your Blueprint for Mastery Nov 01, 2024

Show notes

THE HIGHEST PAID POSITION IN THE WORLD IS NOT A TITLE

Closing a conference in Delaware, Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs told the room that too many people want leadership roles before they have mastered where they are. Using the story of King David, who was the best at every role he held long before he became king, he lays out why playing the promotion game instead of the mastery game gets leaders exposed.

IN THIS EPISODE
• The four phases to master in order: skills, people, the business, then scale
• Why he would have a new director of periop spend three months in SPD before taking the role
• How one department head got full funding once he stopped pitching passion and started speaking ROI
• Self-check questions to tell which phase you are actually in

YOUR CHALLENGE
Be honest about which phase you are in right now, then pick one area to strengthen this week before you ask for the next promotion.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 020: The Leadership Paradox in Healthcare: Why Your Experts Might Be Holding You Back Oct 02, 2024

Show notes

YOUR BEST EXPERT MAY BE YOUR WORST CHOICE TO LEAD

Picture a hospital that promotes its top surgeon to run perioperative services and its most experienced technician to run sterile processing. Six months later, OR efficiency is down, costs are up, and both new leaders are drowning. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs calls this the leadership paradox, and explains why deep expertise and transformational leadership are rarely found in the same person.

IN THIS EPISODE
• Subject matter thought leaders own the what and how. Transformational leaders own the why and who
• Why he estimates only about 1 in 10 professionals truly have both skill sets
• A case study where pairing experts with operational leaders cut OR turnover 20% and instrument delays 50%
• His answers to "we can't afford it" and "outsiders won't understand our challenges"

YOUR CHALLENGE
Take a hard look at your leadership team. Are you building both technical expertise and transformational leadership, and giving them room to work together?

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Ep. 019: Reimagining Healthcare Staffing - Beyond the Quick Fix Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

TEMP STAFFING SHOULD BE A TOOL, NOT YOUR WHOLE STRATEGY

Picture flu season: the ER is overflowing, periop is surging, and two of your most experienced sterile processing techs just retired. Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs explains why calling in temps feels like a lifesaver in that moment, and why a pressure bandage left on without real treatment never fixes the wound.

IN THIS EPISODE
• The pros and cons of temp staffing in the ER, periop and central sterile processing
• Why a new hire needs about three months to get comfortable and 24 months to master a system
• Four scenarios for choosing temp staffing, integrated management, or a hybrid of both
• How a community hospital cut sterile processing errors 40% in six months using just two experienced temp techs

YOUR CHALLENGE
Look hard at your staffing and ask: are we just filling gaps, or are we building for the future?

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bred To Lead is powered by SIPS Healthcare Solutions.
BredToLead.com
SterileByDesign.com
SIPSHealthcare.com

Related Podcasts