PODCAST GUEST · CULTURE CHANGE · SELF-LEADERSHIP · TEAM LEADERSHIP · FUTURE OF WORK
I’m trying to make work suck a little less.
I’m Renita Joyce Smith: speaker, executive coach, and facilitator, with 24+ years in consulting. I’m an expert on culture change, self-leadership, team leadership, and organizational dynamics, and on the question underneath all of it: how do we keep work human while everything about it changes?
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Behind the mic
Meet Renita Joyce Smith
We spend 40, 50, 60 hours of our real lives a week at work. It’s also where the inner critic gets loudest, where relationships get the most strained, and where most of us quietly decide whether we’re doing a good job or a bad one. I’ve never understood why we treat that as a side issue.
I started in Big 4 consulting right out of college. I was the kid who actually looked forward to business meetings, which was unusual. Twenty-plus years across strategy, technology, program management, and change management, in technology, healthcare, utilities, and non-profits, and every one of those projects came down to the same thing: real people, with real psychology, deciding whether to trust the plan or wait it out.
Who I Work With
People. Teams. The systems they work in.
Leaders at Every Level
- Entrepreneurs and Founders
- CEOs and Executive Teams
- Senior Leaders and Directors
- The Middle Managers Holding It All Together
- Emerging Leaders Stepping into Their First Big Role
Across Industries
- Consulting
- Technology
- Healthcare
- Utilities
- Non-Profits
How the Work Shows Up
- One-on-One Executive Coaching
- Team and Leadership-Team Coaching
- Leadership Cohorts and Workshops
- Keynotes and Facilitated Sessions
- Strengths-Based Leadership Training and Coaching
Episodes we could make
Show Ideas
01
The Thing Behind the Thing
The conflict that looks like a communication problem is usually a trust problem. The burnout that looks like a workload problem is usually an identity problem.
Most leaders are solving the presenting problem, and solving it well, which is why nothing changes. This conversation is about telling the two apart: what’s actually driving the room underneath the agenda, and what becomes possible once someone names it.
Themes: organizational dynamics · team leadership · culture change · emotional intelligence
02
Between the Leap and the Land
Every significant transition has a disorienting middle.
The leap is the decision. The land is the arrival.
Almost all leadership advice is about one or the other, and almost nobody talks about the part in between, where you’ve left who you were and haven’t yet become who you’re becoming. I’ve lived it, I coach people through it, and I named my podcast after it. This conversation lives there.
Themes: self-leadership · career transition · identity · the messy middle
03
Staying Human While Everything Changes
Everyone’s teaching the tools. Yes, go learn Claude and Copilot. The harder question is what AI confronts in you: how you feel about your value, your identity, your communication style, your judgment.
AI is reorganizing how we work, and what happens to leadership and connection when the ground shifts this fast is a human question before it’s a technical one. No hype, no panic.
Themes: future of work · human-centered work · AI and leadership · identity
04
We’re Doing Confidence All Wrong
High achievers are waiting to feel confident before they act, and the feeling never shows up on schedule.
In this conversation I walk through the mistakes that keep capable people stuck: treating confidence as a personality trait, outsourcing it to other people’s approval, mistaking executive presence for performing professional.
And what to do instead, starting with the evidence you already have.
Themes: self-leadership · confidence · executive presence · women in leadership
05
Inked But Not Stained: You Are Changeable
We treat our personalities like tattoos: inked in, permanent, ours for life. They’re not. This is the premise of my TEDx talk, and it’s a conversation about who gets to decide who you are, why the characters we love most are the ones who change, and what it takes to let yourself be someone different at work than you were last year.
Themes: identity · self-awareness · personal change · authenticity at work
06
Control the Controllables
When the ground keeps shifting, most people either scramble or freeze.
Neither is a strategy. I talk to a lot of leaders about adaptability as a conscious choice: how to snap out of learned helplessness, sort what’s actually in your control from what isn’t, and get back to creating instead of reacting. Simple, concrete, and it works on a Tuesday.
Themes: change and uncertainty · self-leadership · decision-making · agency
Have something else in mind? Ask. If it’s about people at work, I’ve probably got a story for it.
Topics I Speak On
Leadership and the Inner Work
- Self-awareness as a working skill, not a personality trait
- Self-regulation and self-management: the three selves
- Quieting the inner critic and perfectionism
- Emotional intelligence as business infrastructure, not a soft skill
- Leading from strengths with Gallup CliftonStrengths
Change, Transition and the Messy Middle
- The human side of restructures, mergers, and new leadership
- Identity in transition: who you are without the old title
- The in-between seasons of a career
- Why change initiatives stall, and what actually has to move
Culture and Organizational Dynamics
- The human systems under every org chart: power, identity, fear, belonging, ambition, silence
- Psychological safety and speaking up
- Why good managers rescue their teams, and what it costs
- Reading the room and the system
- Culture change beyond the poster
Future of Work and Human-Centered Leadership
- Leading through AI without the hype or the panic
- What AI confronts in your value, identity, and communication style
- Keeping judgment and connection while the job gets rebuilt
- Using AI to clear the admin, not the human work
Women in Leadership
- The invisible work that never shows up on the org chart
- Confidence, visibility, and imposter syndrome
- Executive presence, and what it’s really measuring
Career Pivots and Self-Leadership
- Leaving corporate and building your own thing
- Curiosity and critical thinking when the ground keeps shifting
- Adaptability as a conscious choice
- What improv teaches about presence, listening, and leading without a script
Your audience. Our conversation.
Let’s find the right conversation for your show.
Podcast conversations
A feel for the conversation, before we have one.
Guest conversations and episodes from my own show.
Making Work Suck Less | Renita Joyce Smith on The Jeff Crilley Show
Renita Joyce Smith joins The Jeff Crilley Show to talk about four generations in one workforce, AI, and why nobody wants a boss pretending to be calm.
Authenticity Is an Experiment
Authenticity at work isn’t a declaration. It’s an experiment you run to find out whether a room has space for you. On Impatience Is a Virtue: the slide, the ladder, and what executive presence is really measuring.
TEDx: Inked But Not Stained. You are Changeable
TEDx – You are not stuck with the version of yourself you settled into under pressure. Change is coming either way. The question is who is holding the needle.
Ep 2. We’re Doing Confidence All Wrong
Stop waiting to feel...
Ep 1. Perception is the Thief of Joy…and Progress
You know the voice. The...
On the other side of the mic
Between the Leap and the Land · My podcast about the messy middle of leadership and life. Start with Ep 02, We’re Doing Confidence All Wrong.
Speaker reel
Ninety seconds of what I’m like in a room.
Why Hosts Like Working with Me
Good conversation. Easy collaboration.
Studio-ready.
Professional mic and camera setup, and I’m comfortable on both. Between keynotes, TV, and podcasts, being on mic is a normal Tuesday for me.
I can help with the flow.
I’m a facilitator and a speaker, so I know how a good conversation moves: when to go deep, when to keep it light, and how to leave room for you. Happy to work with you on the arc before we record.
No script required.
Five years of improv means tangents are welcome. Take it wherever your listeners need it to go.
I’m living this work, not just teaching it.
I’m in it with clients and organizations every week, and I’m doing the work on myself too. The stories are current, real, and always anonymized.
I’ll help the episode travel.
I share every appearance with my network and newsletter, and I’m happy to record a short promo clip.
What people say about Renita
Deep, real, and a little unexpected.
“Her presence was both powerful and kind, and her no-nonsense truth-telling was exactly what we needed to hear.”
“Lovely blend of comedy, engagement, and useful things to take away.”
“She didn’t approach this from a grandiose philosophical orientation but rather a decision-oriented framework to concretize action. Really well done. Best speaker yet.”
“She just has an energy that makes you feel safe, bold, and invincible.”
“Rooted in real raw human emotion.”
“Incredible. I want to watch every talk she’s ever given.”
“Renita is engaging, insightful, and real. Her speaking skills leave you wanting more.”
“I love the framework mixed with personal narrative to make it deep and real.”
“Engaging, actionable, funny, moving, inspiring.”
“So relatable, so relevant. Delivery was amazing. I want to be her very best friend.”
Credentials & Experience
Depth behind the conversation.
24+
Years in consulting
600+
Executive coaching hours
200+
Facilitation hours
TEDx
TEDx Speaker
ICF
ICF Associate Certified Coach
Gallup
Gallup CliftonStrengths Expert Trainer & Facilitator
Facilitation
Master Certified Facilitator
Prosci
Prosci Certified Change Practitioner
SHRM
SHRM Inclusive Workplace Culture Specialty
Questions you could ask
A few places we could begin.
- You spent 24+ years in consulting across strategy, technology, and change. What were the projects really about, underneath the deliverables?
- What’s “the thing behind the thing,” and how does a leader learn to spot it?
- Why do good managers end up rescuing their teams, and what does it cost everyone?
- What does the middle of a big transition actually feel like, and why does most advice skip it?
- What’s the most common mistake high achievers make with confidence?
- What should leaders protect as AI changes how work gets done?
- What’s the invisible weight women in leadership carry, and what would it take for organizations to see it?
- How did five years of improv change the way you coach and lead?
- When does “being professional” turn into hiding?
- What’s one thing a listener could do this week to make work suck a little less?
Frequently Asked by Hosts
The practical details.
What topics can Renita Joyce Smith speak about on a podcast?
Culture change, self-leadership, team leadership, and organizational dynamics; change and career transition; confidence and executive presence; women in leadership; identity, inclusion, and belonging, including leading as a Black woman, LGBTQ+ leadership, and neurodivergent teams; and human-centered work as AI changes the job. The full list is above.
What is Renita like as a podcast guest?
Funny, down to earth, and a little unfiltered. She has five years of improv training, so she’s comfortable following the conversation wherever it goes, and she’d rather say what’s true than what sounds polished. Audiences describe her sessions as “a lovely blend of comedy, engagement, and useful things to take away.” Expect real stories alongside the frameworks.
What kinds of audiences does Renita connect with?
Leaders at every level, from entrepreneurs and CEOs to middle managers and emerging leaders, across consulting, technology, healthcare, utilities, and non-profits. She speaks often to women’s leadership and LGBTQ+ communities, including two years at Out in Tech, and loves tech audiences and engineers.
Can she tailor a conversation to my audience?
Yes. Send your show, your listeners, and the angle you have in mind, and she’ll shape the conversation around them. The show ideas above are starting points, not a script.
How do I book Renita as a podcast guest?
Use the form below with your show name, a link, who listens, and the topic you’re thinking about.
Invite Renita
Let’s make an episode your listeners will send to someone.
If your audience is trying to lead better, change something, or figure out what’s next, I’d like to be part of the conversation.