Julie Harris Oliver interviews executive leadership coach and OD consultant Brian Duggan about helping senior leaders make fewer, better decisions. Brian shares his path from theater directing to coaching and introduces research citing that senior leaders make 70–80,000 decisions per year, with up to half being low-importance or low-impact. He outlines the “Five V Role Model” stances leaders can take—Vote (making decisions), Voice (offering opinions/advice), Vision (creating and repeatedly communicating shared reality and direction), Void (intentional areas where leaders/teams should not have visibility or involvement), and Veto (overruling decisions from above, to be used sparingly). They discuss how leaders often overuse voting and voicing, how a leader’s voice can be mistaken for a vote, and how vision enables autonomy and development in others. Brian explains why effective void requires strong vision and transparent context-setting, describes “leaky void” situations, and argues veto should be rare and reserved for cases where unseen constraints require course correction (e.g., hiring pauses and rescinded offers after financial setbacks). He also introduces a broader role “targeting system” of Level, Zones, and Lanes to clarify authority and boundaries, shares a personal burnout and resentment lesson from taking on out-of-scope work, and emphasizes the need for positive conflict at the top to align on vision and reduce churn. The episode closes with an invitation for listeners to clarify the roles they take on and communicate vision more intentionally.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work Out Loud + Meet Julie & Brian

01:42 Brian’s Accidental Path from Theater Director to Coach

04:06 Why Theater Skills Translate to Coaching & OD Systems Thinking

05:51 The Leadership Problem: Senior Leaders Making Too Many Decisions

07:32 McKinsey Decision Overload + Two Common Stances: Vote & Voice

11:14 The Better Shift: Leading Through Vision (and Developing People)

15:23 Reputation, Intention, and How Leaders Choose to Show Up

16:33 The Counterintuitive Stance: Intentional ‘Void’ and Role Boundaries

21:47 Void Needs Vision: Context Over Details, Trust Over Rumors

25:19 Matching Stances to Level: Apple Store Stories on Autonomy & Escalation

29:32 When Execs ‘Voice Down’: The Cost of One Comment (The Color Story)

30:44 Fixing the Process: Getting the Right Voices at the Right Time

31:46 The Two Questions: What Only I Can Do vs. What I’m Supposed to Do

32:35 Personal Burnout Story: Over-Voicing, Over-Doing, and Resentment

37:29 Making It a Shared Language: Bringing Voice In Early (and Using It)

39:17 Gen Z, Disillusionment, and Clarifying Vote vs. Voice

41:31 How to Ask for Feedback: Criteria, Context, and Engagement Survey Traps

44:40 From Work to Life Roles: Introducing the ‘Five Stances’ Framework

45:32 Level, Zones, Lanes: The Targeting System Behind Your Role

48:09 The Fifth V—Veto: When to Overrule (and Why It’s Dangerous)

51:12 A Real Veto Scenario: Hiring Freeze, Rescinded Offers, and Hard Calls

53:43 Wrap-Up: Positive Conflict at the Top + The ‘Five V Role Model’

55:49 Closing & Listener Invitation: Clarify Your Roles and Communicate Vision