SPRING LEADERSHIP SERIES 2025 – Featuring Scott Bowling

Last year, I launched a Spring Leadership Series to think about leadership in nontraditional ways. As 2024 continued, I presented additional ways to think about leadership during my Olympics Leadership Series and Holiday Leadership Series. With a new year upon us, I've invited 25 thought leaders to share their responses to five questions relating to team-building, reading, and leadership. My #SpringLeadershipSeries2025 began the first day of Spring and continues through June 20th, the first day of Summer.

Before we begin, I'd like to applaud two special individuals for providing the inspiration for this series. First, big applause goes to Erika Andersen, a leadership expert and author who I've had the pleasure of knowing for nearly 15 years, and she's appeared on my blog 13 times since 2011. She wrote an article for Forbes entitled, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders," and that article serves as the core of the series as its first question. Second, I also applaud Joseph Lalonde, a leadership expert and author of a book called REEL LEADERSHIP, for planting the seeds for last year's Spring Leadership Series on my blog. After I read Joe's book, I started looking at movies as well as works of fiction, TV shows, and TV characters with "leadership-tinted glasses."

For today's post, I'd like to introduce Scott Bowling, based in Colorado. I met Scott back in 2013, when I worked as the marketing director for his nonprofit in Southern California. He was an enthusiastic leader with whom I enjoyed collaborating and making a difference for individuals with special needs. His description on Twitter/X says it all, "Devoting my life to service and engaging in action to contribute to healthy, inclusive communities." Scott relocated from Los Angeles to Denver following 33 years of leadership, including 23 years as the President and CEO of a large, multi-service nonprofit. Upon arriving in the city of the Broncos (his favorite football team), Scott launched a unique consulting business, TML Solutions, to help nonprofits across the country with services including leadership transition, strategic planning, board development, events, and more.

QUESTION: Leadership expert and author Erika Andersen wrote an article for Forbes entitled, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders." In the article, Erika compared gardening to management and leadership. What are your thoughts, or was there something that stood out from the article?

SCOTT BOWLING: Erika Anderson's astute comparison of gardening to management and leadership is brilliant. For a garden to develop and thrive, it requires the research, thought, care, and ongoing attention, in every season, to achieve the bountiful desired outcomes. The same principles applied achieve the best outcomes and culture of any successful business. Our employees and managers need to be cared for in every season, and placed in the best roles and environments that bring out their optimal potential, contributing to the whole. 

QUESTION: What was the most recent example of inspiring leadership that made an impact on you?

SCOTT BOWLING: If one is alert, our world offers a myriad of examples where great leadership inspires the best of us to step forward. There is an absence of that leadership in American politics right now, but inspiring leadership can be seen everywhere: in sports, in business, in communities. Leaders don't need a particular title, and they don't need an audience. Each one of us, every day, has countless moments to lead, by showing kindness, by picking up a small piece of litter on the street, by making good decisions that inspire someone watching, or that benefits another person or marginalized communities. Try it...it ripples through communities fast.

SHARE THIS: Leaders don't need a particular title, and they don't need an audience. ~@ScottDBowling #SpringLeadershipSeries2025 #DebbieLaskeysBlog

QUESTION: What is your favorite team-building activity, and why?

SCOTT BOWLING: Anything that requires a group of people (particularly otherwise mismatched people) to communicate with each other and work together to create something together. Those activities not only encourage and promote oneness, but the challenges bring out individual qualities that may have been previously hidden or unknown.  

QUESTION: Which book is on the top of your to-be-read pile, and why?

SCOTT BOWLING: I don't read books often; rather, I read articles by journals, writers, and reporters I respect (even if I don't always agree). While all of us enjoy reading material that supports our existing framework, position, or paradigm, I also enjoy and learn from being offered alternative perspectives, as it is those moments when I grow, and humanity becomes closer to the oneness I want to see. 

QUESTION: In the past year, has a TV show, film, or work of fiction stood out as a result of its emphasis on leadership?

SCOTT BOWLING: The movie "The Apprentice" shows us how one's background and mentors can shape how someone of privilege and influence sees the world and himself in that world. The movie and the portrayal of Donald Trump by the brilliant actor Sebastian Stan illuminated for objective audience members the forces that helped shape our country's 47th President's view of himself and the world.  

My gratitude to Scott for sharing his leadership insights and for being a part of my #SpringLeadershipSeries2025. Did these questions open your eyes to think about leadership in nontraditional ways? That was the hope!

Image Credit: Pixabay via WordSwag.

Read Erika Andersen's article, "How Springtime Can Make Us Better Leaders"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2015/05/14/how-springtime-can-make-us-better-leaders/

Read Scott's previous appearance here on my blog:

Leadership Insights from the Nonprofit Sector (January 2015)

https://www.debbielaskeysblog.com/2015/01/leadership-insights-from-nonprofit.html

Connect with Scott at these links:

Website: https://tmlsolutions.org

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

Twitter/X: https://www.x.com/ScottDBowling