Ep 327 High Stakes in Business: The Signals You Send as a Leader with Alan McLaren, Co-founder of Strata Originals; Oakville, Ontario, Canada

What if every interaction you have as a leader is silently answering one question for your team: Are you safe to follow?

In this episode, I sit down with Alan McLaren, co-founder of Strata Originals, to explore the invisible signals leaders send in every conversation, meeting, and interaction. Alan shares the powerful concept of “leadership signal,” explaining how trust is built or lost in real time based on how leaders show up emotionally, communicate under pressure, and respond to challenges. We discuss the neuroscience behind leadership presence, the hidden questions every team member is asking, and how leaders can become more intentional in building trust both inside the organization and in the digital world.

Here are the highlights:

• Leadership Signal: Every action, reaction, and tone a leader brings into a room sends signals that either build trust or quietly erode it.

• The Four Questions Followers Ask: Team members subconsciously evaluate leaders by asking, “Are you safe to follow? Do you mean what you say? Will your actions match your words? Should I align, resist, wait, or leave?”

• Your Nervous System Runs the Room: Leaders often believe communication is about words, but emotional reactions and nervous system responses can shape trust and credibility more than the message itself.

• The Hidden Cost of “Meetings After the Meeting”: When leaders unintentionally shut down ideas or create psychological tension, conversations move underground and teams lose alignment.

• Leadership Visibility in the Digital Age: Building trust today also requires showing up authentically online, where visibility and genuine communication help leaders connect with future partners, investors, and collaborators.

About the guest: 

Alan McLaren is a leadership thinker and co-founder of STRATA Originals, a Leadership Signal Architecture firm working with CEOs in high-stakes environments.

His work centers on leadership signal, the way a leader’s voice, presence, values, perspective, and style are experienced when pressure is real. Alan often says every room is quietly answering four questions about a leader: Are they safe to follow? Do they mean what they say? Will reality match their words? And should I align, resist, wait, or leave?

Drawing on patterns seen across hundreds of senior leaders, Alan helps audiences understand why capable leaders can still misfire in critical moments, and what changes when leadership holds steady and trust forms.

Connect with Alan:

Website: https://strataoriginals.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanmclaren/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.mclaren1 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanmclaren23/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Alanmclaren23 

Connect with Allison:

Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/ 

Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/  

#CEO #leadership #startup #founder #business #businesspodcast 

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