Unicorn Leaders (Unicorn Labs - Fahd Alhattab)

Fahd is a consultant, coach, leadership speaker, and millennial workplace expert who teaches new managers how to lead multi-generational teams. He specializes in transformative leadership and team dynamics training for high-growth startups.

He created this podcast to take a deep dive into the world of building a billion-dollar company (a unicorn) in every episode. 

Join us while we explore the leadership and environments that create unicorn startups straight from those with first-hand experience (startup founders, VPs of talent, and more). 

“We ultimately believe that it’s our role as leaders, as coaches, to find out what about that individual is going to make them fulfilled and be able to achieve their best outcomes in both work and in life and in order to do that you have to be radically committed to that employee.”

- Michael Johnson

Do managers always have a negative reaction when a cherished employee decides to leave their team or even their company?

Why is it such a new idea that a leader should champion for what the individual employee wants first? 

Michael Johnson is the president & CEO of Multiview Financials, a comprehensive financial and accounting software company. Michael started his career as a corporate accountant in the investment industry as an asset manager at AGF Management & Brookfield Renewable Energy Group before becoming CFO at Multiview. 

In this episode Michael talks about how radical commitment to people is the foundation of a good leader and leaders need to take the wants of employees more seriously. 

He also goes into detail about “boomerang employees” and how with the right company environment, your workplace may start seeing this phenomenon for itself.

Lastly, he discusses the importance of conflict on a team, why you should fire half your team if they’re all “yes people” and some wisdom Jean Chrétien, the 20th Prime Minister of Canada shared with him.

Tune in to hear all about how Michael’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

When you’re busy fighting for survival is there any room for growth?

‍When any failure means disaster, the stakes are too high for you to take risks — this means you’ll always choose the safe route.‍

Craig Handy leads a Global Revenue Operations team at Shopify, a fast growing startup, and he is also the founder of Jameson Strategies, his own RevOps consulting firm. He’s most passionate about how we can use psychology and human performance to dig deep and create team environments where high performers can thrive.

On episode #2, Craig shares why, as a manager, it’s so important to create an environment where there’s psychological safety and strategies to help you create this beneficial environment in your workplace.

We’ll also dive into the connection between psychological safety and trust and how it’s actually beneficial for different kinds of people to have different leadership styles instead of forcing people to fit in this one-size-fits-all leadership mold.

Tune in to hear all about how Craig’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

Did you know that 70% of employee retention is based on their manager and no other factor? People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.

Aydin Mirzaee  is the co-founder and CEO of Fellow.app, a meeting productivity platform that helps organizations have fewer, better meetings.

In this episode Aydin talks about how managers can influence team performance and shares his thoughts on why he thinks getting advice can be dangerous.

‍He also discusses statistics and studies that help explain why it’s necessary for you to incorporate missions, values and self-reflection in your management journey to improve your team or greater workplace dynamic. 

‍Tune in to hear all about how Aydin’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

We often have the preconceived notion that leaders have to treat everyone the same in order to be fair. However in truth, managers need to respect everyone’s individual needs and motivators.

On episode #4, Cassy Aite, the co-founder and CEO of Hoppier, shares how different values, environments and involvement can influence your employees’ motivation in the workplace. 

Cassy also discusses the importance of being genuine with your employees and how recognizing an achievement can backfire if you’re not careful.

Lastly, we dive into why he chooses to be transparent with his team and rallies everyone together to be on the same page.

Tune in to hear all about how Cassy’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

Have you ever been in a position where you didn’t feel proud of what you were doing in your career? Has your chosen field ever caused you emotional distress?

Sam Witherspoon is the founder and CEO of IMRSV Data Labs, a company dedicated to increasing the safety and security of Canada and its allies through the effective, transparent use of data.

In episode #5, Sam talks about how important it is to not chase money for the sake of making money and staying true to yourself and your vision. 

He also discusses how the key to a good team is the relationships you make with those around you and how every company working with clients is at the client’s mercy to some extent.

Lastly, Sam shares the biggest mistake he’s made and how “type two fun” is key to entrepreneurship.  

Tune in to hear all about how Sam’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

“If you are building a talent strategy that’s based on a sample you saw online or a great book you read, you will not match what your business needs and so I think whenever I’m doing any kind of talent strategy or when I was consulting I was always asking people “what’re your business goals” and it was shocking to me where I would look then at the talent strategy and I couldn’t see the business connect.  I couldn’t see the EVP (the employee value proposition) connect. And I’m like that’s why you’re struggling,  because your programs probably aren’t resonating with people and you’re spending money where you shouldn’t be spending money.”

Have you ever asked yourself “what would have to be true for my company to get to 10 million, 25 million, 50 million, or even 100 million”?

The people on your team are a huge factor.

Amanda Gordon is currently the Vice President People at Rewind, a company with a mission to help businesses protect their SaaS and cloud data. 

In this episode Amanda talks about all things human resources and building a star team of employees starting with three key questions: why did they join, why did they stay, why did they leave?

She also discusses the keys to building a successful talent strategy for your business and being honest with candidates during the interview process.

Lastly, she shares why she advocates for people to take steps before they think they’re ready and why working for small companies isn’t a step backwards in your career journey. 

Tune in to hear all about how Amanda’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

What does leadership mean to you?

Ex-Shopify Chief Talent Officer Brittany Forsyth, used to think it was the same thing as management. 

Over the years and various leadership roles she realized it means creating a following and driving that following towards a common shared goal. 

In episode 7 she gives us insight into how she recognized her natural leadership tendencies and how they helped her land different roles - from managing a bar to becoming a C suite executive. She also shares the tricks she learned first hand to manage a team and create the best dynamic possible.

She made lots of mistakes along her leadership journey and doesn’t shy away from sharing what they were and how to eliminate them. 

Her main piece of advice: figure out what’s in your leadership toolbox and constantly add things to it throughout your leadership journey.

Tune in to hear all about how Brittany’s leadership experiences and advice can help you improve your leadership style!

Shawn MacDonell shares his unconventional story of saying yes to experiences from sports coaching, to facilitating tools for teaching in Columbia, to branding strategy, to professional coaching, to founding a creative agency.

He speaks to how all of these offered him the experience of not being afraid of conflict and instead reframing it to curiosity and exploration. To understand why people make certain decisions and encourage them to learn to ask the same questions.

In episode 8 he shares with us how to reframe conflict from being a dirty word, the importance of believing in yourself to try new things, how illusive giving good feedback actually is through our communication pitfalls, and more.

Tune in to hear some truth bombs from the ultimate holder of the mirror and reflect along on your own beliefs and whether your current actions and practices are holding you back.

In episode 9,  Julia gives us insight into how she uses her humane recruiting approach to create a reputable employment brand that plays big dividends both inside and outside the company.

She offers actionable tips on how to initiate trust on a team, how to lead the recruitment process to attract candidates with best practices, and how to show up in with an effective employer brand no matter the labour market conditions.

Her main piece of advice is to lead the recruitment process in a humane way as at the end of the day - all candidates are people first.

Tune in to hear all about how Julia’s experience and advice can help you improve your recruitment practices!

Laura Mindorff is the brilliant COO at Wicket. Laura has developed years of experience under her belt and shares her very tactical advice on how to create effective culture through things like rituals, culture champions, and what metrics to watch out for to check-in on your progress.

I’m so happy to bring you this conversation because of Laura’s purposeful and relentless approach to constantly prioritizing culture and fostering relationships in her own team and how you can borrow her practices to do the same.

When things pile up for leaders, it’s easy to push things that facilitate healthy and positive culture by the wayside. But this episode inspired me on the importance to stay consistent, because that basis, that foundation is also the springboard for good work. For impactful work. For employee happiness. Give it a listen and share your ways on how you work to create a positive culture at work.

Today we have Shawna Stewart on the podcast, VP of People and Operations at Railz Financial. Shawna is truly a people-focused leader, she has extensive background in psychology and organizational behaviour and experience involving performance management, full scope operational effectiveness, succession planning, employee engagement and talent development. 

I’m so excited for you to listen to her episode because this was one packed full of with incredible insights, the common realities of today’s labour landscape and more. Not to mention Shawna shares her personal people-first approach and how that has helped her ability to deliver and collaboratively support her employees and together elevate organizations.

Florent Schmahl, Chief of Staff of highly purposeful agtech company, Growcer, shares his journey and learnings along the way as he shifted his work from being focused on developing hard skills to now pursuing purposeful work.

Over the years he’s has time to gather his insights on finding the work that drives you and how important it is in today’s labour market pressures.

Despite this, Florent’s advice releases that pressure from the concept of pursuing purpose and instead reframing it as a journey.

He encourages instead to explore of what drives people in their work rather than trying to answer existential questions of a singular life purpose.

In this episode Florent helps translate these questions into a team setting and how to find that drive if your place of work doesn’t feel like it has the most impact in the most pressing of issues.

His main piece of advice is focusing on problems instead of tormenting with questions of passion. 

Listen to the episode to hear to the rest of Florent’s insights!

Chris Williams, former VP of HR at Microsoft has over 40 years of experience building and leading teams.

Through his journey, starting from installing car stereos and while being pulled into firing employees because of his people skills, to eventually transitioning to a computer science and going on to start a consulting business before selling it to Fox Pro before eventually starting his work with Microsoft. At Microsoft he worked in product before stumbling into HR and eventually becoming VP of HR and responsible for 32,000 employees.

Through it all, he’s seen his share of bad leadership and what makes teams succeed and fail as he noticed a common denominator to these failures and successes. Having a clear and crisp vision. 

He shares his advice on how to discern whether your team or organization may be struggling with vision too, and how to re-engage your vision with a clear direction and destination, and something that is active, not passive.

Chris also highlights the importance of trust between team members as a contributing factor to success. Trust that is fostered by going through hard things together which are often motivated by the vision.

Besides his passion for vision Chris helps hone into how to elevate from good to great leadership through personalized understanding of individual differences.

Listen to this episode to hear Chris and all his stories! 

Natalie Furness, CEO of RevOps Automated and Revenue Operations Consultant shares her journey and learnings along the way onto remote work and falling into the world of operations.

She speaks of finding your people through value alignment for both the work you do and the work environment you prefer. Though she’s the biggest remote work proponent, she acknowledges that its’ not for everyone and a reshuffling can and should naturally occur for the best possible match.

She encourages remote individuals not to lose sight of their personalities and not allow slack only to be a platform for work. Instead, she reminds us to use it to continue fostering social bonds as we would in person, and also continue to empower others to check in with one another and release the pressure off yourself as a leader for the need to control everything. 

One of her main pieces of advice is to lead with empathy and understand the challenges of remote work to then better help those you lead.

Kyle Racki, the co-founder and CEO of Proposify, Kyle helps thousands of businesses remove the bottleneck of proposals and get more visibility into the close. 

In true serial entrepreneur form, Kyle also co-host his own podcast, The Racki and Symes Podcast, where he discusses ideas and strategies to push through growth.

Kyle got his start in marketing and design, and ran a digital agency for over five years before selling it and starting Proposify.

Since then he’s amassed a wealth of experience and lessons that he shares with us in this episode.

In episode 15, Kyle lays out the framework of the job of a CEO and some of the important pieces they’re faced with including: creating vision and auditing values, building out the executive team (title politics are real), hiring leadership contextually, having difficult conversations and holding people accountable.

He even offers a tool to conceptualize cash concerns that are big on the mind during periods of recession.


Listen to the full episode to hear more from Kyle!

On this episode we look at organizational systems and how to think when designing the organizational structure. Realizing that it should not be designed from a people centric place but rather around the needs and direction of your business. It’s important to be mindful when you do design around people and whether it is sustainable long term. 

Krista shares the top two reasons to consider when looking to expand a team.  First, think about whether the growth is significant and if in fact, a talent acquisition specialist becomes a specialty that is needed. Second, you reach a point and realize that the evolution of your organization and the complexity of products and solutions is growing. 

Some trends to look forward to: The skillsets for managers are looking very different, we promote people into roles and the manager role is the one they’re least prepared for while adding new skills on top of that.

Jeanette Dorazio, CEO of Leadpages, a no-code website and landing page builder. She has had various executive-level positions at leading organizations, including Oracle, 8thBridge, Verifone, and Solera. Jeanette’s passion comes from breaking down barriers and championing the inclusion and success of women in STEM fields as female leaders in tech.

In episode 17, Jeanette lays out how to reach the next level of your leadership career. She shares 3 lessons gained through her journey: knowing what is happening in the market, which she calls “outside in” because “nothing important happens in the office,” listening first and understanding all sides before communicating, and finally, understanding how to interpret data.

Her main piece of advice is to lean into your strength no matter what the judgements might be. With this advice, you will succeed in reaching the next level of your leadership journey.

In episode 18,  Jonah Midanik shares his journey and experience in a growth mindset of recognizing that ‘what got you here won’t get you there. He has been lucky enough to have seen the startup journey from a variety of perspectives: as a successful bootstrapped founder/CEO, having helped launch new corporate divisions at BigCo, and as the founder/CEO of Limelight, a Venture backed company.  Jonah currently spends his time helping companies grow with Forum Ventures as the COO and General Partner. 

Jonah shares a crucial tip in the discussion around ‘what got you here won’t get you there’. The tip for every founder or leader involves 3 key steps:

• Conduct an honest self-assessment. Asking yourself what you’re struggling with, what does the company need from you right now,  where I need to go? Identify the gaps in the stage. 
• Approach your peers, mentors, founders, etc. Ask what they think you are really good at vs not great at. Write all this down.
• Finally, review your notes and ask if you can do this, or if you event want to do this. If it’s absolutely yes, then you will find the resources that will get you there. 

In episode 19, Andre dives into how he found his way into creating a socially impactful business while sharing valuable lessons and principles that he embraced on his journey to success as a leader. 

From letting go of micro details to building high performing teams and influencing decision making processes, discover some actionable insights that will transform your leadership approach and help you create a meaningful impact. 

Get ready to unleash the unicorn leader within! Tune in to hear about Andre’s experience and journey.

In episode 20, Eva shares her use of a product led mindset for developing new strategies of learning and development at Fullscript with about 800 employees. She dives into how the traditional models of learning and development are not always agile or adaptive especially with the rise of AI, remote and hybrid work environments. 

Eva dives into a new strategy she used to build community among teams in her current role. She shares the tools, resources, and approach used in developing opportunities that helped individuals blossom in their own way.