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Podcast

Learning through Experience

Leadership isn’t just what you know—it’s how you show up. Learning Through Experience is a Yale School of Management podcast hosted by Dr. Heidi Brooks. Each episode explores how leaders learn through the moments that matter: meetings, relationships, decisions, and dilemmas. Drawing on guests’ wisdom and questions from listeners, the show turns insight into practice and transforms life into a learning laboratory.

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Heidi Brooks

Heidi Brooks

Senior Lecturer in Organizational Behavior

Bio

Heidi Brooks teaches and advises on the subject of everyday leadership: the everyday micro-moments of impact that shape our lived experiences. Creating more courageous communities—especially within organizations—is a particular passion of hers. Dr. Brooks specializes in large-scale culture change projects focused on individual and collective leadership effectiveness in organizations.

Interpersonal Dynamics, the MBA elective she has taught for 15 years, is one of the courses most in demand at Yale School of Management. Dr. Brooks pioneered the Everyday Leadership course at SOM, where she first taught the Principles of Everyday Leadership. She has also taught Emotional Intelligence, Power & Politics, Managing Teams and Groups, and Coaching Skills for Managers. Dr. Brooks received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. She is a lifelong experiential learner; you can find her as a student in classrooms as far-ranging as improvisational theater and immersion language lessons.

Episodes

A Reflection on Season 1

A Reflection on Season 1

Ok, Season 1 of Learning Through Experience is a wrap. (Woohoo!) I am learning a ton through the experience of podcasting- it’s much more fun and definitely more work than I expected! 

Maybe You Can Go Home Again

Maybe You Can Go Home Again

I love this episode with Rhona Weinstein! It’s about coming full circle, working for what you dream about and how all people exist in context. Part of that context can include the experience of inspiring mentorship.

The Power of Creating Learning Spaces

The Power of Creating Learning Spaces

I have a very clear memory of chasing Robin Rose down the hallway at college and asking her: “How can I be like you when I grow up?” I was fascinated with the way she invited people to step into learning through personal experience. Since most of my idea of learning involved lectures and assignments, this approach was refreshing and evocative. Discovering the power of learning through reflection on experience was a fundamental shift for me—and I never turned back. In this conversation, we discuss learning laboratories, the need for risk, and how leadership is, at its core, an art form.  

practice, Practice, PRACTICE

practice, Practice, PRACTICE

Learning through experience is an everyday practice — as Bill Torbert knows well. In this episode, he speaks about the power of surrendering to the part of us that is quite a “numbskull.” 

How Do You Actually Notice Your Life?

How Do You Actually Notice Your Life?

In this episode, family systems experts Phil and Carolyn Cowan talk with grace and wisdom about their process of confronting aspects of family dynamics that they experienced but did not wish to pass on. If there’s one thing you take away from our conversation, let it be this: pay attention to your story.

A Quick Check-In

A Quick Check-In

In order to learn through experience, our doing needs a good pairing with reflective inquiry into what’s working. 

The Scariest Book I Had Ever Read

The Scariest Book I Had Ever Read

In this episode, I spoke with Parker Palmer about the connection between teaching and learning, healing the heart of democracy, and following the path of integrity.

Learning Outside of the Classroom

Learning Outside of the Classroom

Not everything we learn in college comes from the classroom. When you think about learning and insights that have mattered most to you, you may find that the most powerful associations include people, events, feelings and places.