Some conversations are too good to happen behind closed doors. This one happened at The Dock Bookshop in Dallas, and if you were in that room, you already know.
L. Michelle Smith sits down with Cynt Marshall — former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, trailblazing Fortune 500 executive, and one of the featured leaders in Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church — for a live fireside chat that moves from neuroscience to the AME church, from oxytocin to Madam C.J. Walker, and from the choir loft to the C-suite without missing a beat.
This is not a book talk. This is a leadership conversation between two women who have lived these lessons and are here to make sure you have the language for what you already know.
What You Will Hear in This Episode:
On Community (Lesson Two, page 49)
L. Michelle unpacks why pizza Fridays and team-building exercises do not build teams. Real cohesion requires going through something together — failing, learning, getting back up, and doing it again. She walks through the science of oxytocin, the trust and love hormone that bonds people at a neurological level, and explains why the loneliness epidemic is not just a public health crisis. It is a leadership crisis.
She traces Madam C.J. Walker's rise not from a business plan, but from a community. When Sarah Breedlove arrived in St. Louis as a young widow with nothing, the women of the AME church wrapped their arms around her. They gave her clothes, childcare, connections, and a front-row seat to what organized, community-powered leadership looked like in action. The AME church became her first network. Its women became her first sales force. And the rest, as they say, is history.
She also tells the story of Mike Haider, a young HR professional who was the only Black man on staff at a massive Detroit department store. It was not a formal mentorship program that changed his trajectory. It was Miss Bell, the elevator operator, who gathered the housekeepers, technicians, and service staff in the lower basement, prayed over him, and then told him everything they knew about every floor in that building. Within a year, he was promoted. That is the Black church finding you — no walls required.
On Collaboration (Lesson Six, page 130)
When you sing with someone, your heartbeats synchronize. That is not poetry. That is neuroscience. L. Michelle traces the roots of call and response from sub-Saharan Africa through the hush harbor, into the cotton fields, the juke joint, and eventually the boardroom — and makes the case that neural coupling is one of the most powerful and most overlooked leadership tools we carry.
On Creativity and Innovation (Lesson Nine, page 191)
Black creativity was not born from abundance. It was born from scarcity. And the neuroscience of innovation confirms what our ancestors already knew: you cannot create from a chaotic mind. The path runs through stillness, then focus, then insight, and only then creation. L. Michelle connects the practice of stealing away — the quiet act of survival and resistance — to the modern leadership imperative to slow down in a world that rewards speed above all else.
Key Concepts Covered:
Oxytocin, social cohesion, and what it actually takes to build a bonded team
Madam C.J. Walker and the AME church as the original business network
Neural coupling and the physiological power of call and response
Emotional literacy as a leadership skill
Cynt Marshall's Three L's: Listen, Learn, Love
The creativity pathway: calm mind, focus, insight, innovation
Style flexing versus code switching
Heart-centered leadership in the age of machine-led management
Featured Leaders:
Cynt Marshall, former CEO of the Dallas Mavericks
Trudy Bourgeois, former Fortune 500 executive
Madam C.J. Walker (historical)
Mike Hyter, CEO, Leadership Council
Carla Harris, Morgan Stanley
Books Referenced:
Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church by L. Michelle Smith
No Thanks: 7 Ways to Say I'll Just Include Myself e by L. Michelle Smith
Connect with L. Michelle:
Submit a speaker request: lmichellesmith.com/speaking
Get your copy: lmichellesmith.com/callandresponse
The Circle private leadership community: lmichellesmith.com/thecircle
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