Darren [00:00:00]:

Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of One of One. I’m your host, Darren Gold, CEO of The Dream Group. My guest today is Wendy McMahon, one of the most influential leaders in modern broadcast journalism. Over the course of her career, Wendy has led two of the most important institutions in American media. First, as president of the ABC-owned television stations, and later as president and CEO of CBS News and Stations. What makes Wendy’s story so compelling is not just the scale of the organizations she’s led, but the path she took to get there. She began her career in local television, working in branding, marketing, and storytelling across local stations around the country. From those early roles, she developed a deep conviction about the purpose of journalism, especially local journalism, as a public service and a cornerstone of civic life. Throughout our conversation, Wendy reflects on the realities of leading institutions through transformation and uncertainty. She shares how leaders build momentum during change, why visible signals of leadership matter, and what it means to steward an organization whose mission extends far beyond the business itself. She also introduces a powerful leadership idea that has shaped her thinking, the concept of mettle, the courage to stand in the storm when the stakes are highest and the world is watching. This is a conversation about purpose-driven leadership navigating complexity, and the character required to lead when it matters most. Please enjoy my wonderful conversation with Wendy McMahon. Hi, Wendy. Great to see you. I’m so looking forward to this conversation.

 

Wendy [00:01:40]:

Same.

 

Darren [00:01:41]:

Thanks for being here.

 

Wendy [00:01:41]:

Yes, I’m happy to be here.

 

Darren [00:01:43]:

Well, you have had such a remarkable career and have led some extraordinary news and media organizations. We’re gonna get into all of that, but I thought where we’d start was, having you take us through your personal and professional journey. I’m guessing it wasn’t obvious as you were growing up you’d be in those roles, but could you give us a little bit of the journey to maybe where you are today, and then we’ll sort of dive in from there?

 

Wendy [00:02:11]:

Yeah. Wow. My journey. So it’s, it’s interesting because I, I knew I wanted to be in journalism. I knew I wanted to be a journalist from 6th grade on. I was on my school newspaper. I took journalism in high school. I graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in broadcast journalism. So I am actually one of those few people that studied and ultimately worked in the same role. Now, I don’t know if I ever could have anticipated what that journey would look like, right? I was a typical television nomad. I lived in 6 different cities in the span of 15 years, working in branding, marketing, positioning for news organizations, and building the products and the programming that would help translate the future for these organizations that were you know, largely built in the past. And the success I had along the way ultimately enabled me to continue to be promoted and to grow in those roles. And so privileged to be able to have run really two of the most influential media organizations in the country.

 

Darren [00:03:41]:

Yeah, ABC and CBS, which we’ll get to for sure. But let’s, so let’s go back to LSU. You grew up, I think, in New Orleans, is that, is that right?

 

Wendy [00:03:50]:

I grew up in New Orleans in Gretna on the West Bank, went to all-girls Catholic high school, and then went to LSU in Baton Rouge, which I grew up being a fan— football, baseball, etc. And then got to actually realize what it was like to be a student, and it was a tremendous 4 years.

 

Darren [00:04:15]:

And graduated with the degree in journalism and broadcasting. What was your first role?

 

Wendy [00:04:21]:

Oh, my first role. So, it’s funny, I had a professor. He was my media ethics professor, and he’s like, “Have you thought about what you’re doing after college?” And to be honest, I hadn’t at that point. And he said, “I really think you should interview for this program that Aflac has.” Yes, Aflac used to own television stations, Darren. It no longer does, of course, of course, but they had a program for account executives for the next generation of television ad sellers. And so I interviewed for that role. And to this day, one of the hardest interviews I’ve ever had. I was 20 years old, one of the toughest interviews I’ve ever had. The classic sit at the top of a table and go around, you know, the room of, of 12 men who were all asking me questions about how I would lead and would work moving forward. And so I was chosen to participate in that program, and my first role was at W.T.O.C. in Savannah, Georgia, Market 100, where I quickly realized that I did not want to be an ad representative.

 

Darren [00:05:42]:

And so what did you wanna be and where did you, how long were you in that part of the, the, the business and what, what, what came next?

 

Wendy [00:05:49]:

Yeah, look, I think first of all, we’re all in the influencing space, right? We’re all involved in ad sales, in sales one way or another. So it’s not that I didn’t love that part of the job. And ultimately I ran, um, ad sales organizations for CBS and for ABC, but I just knew that I wanted to be closer to the audience and to the viewer experiences. I wanted to be involved more directly in content and in programming and always saw, I think, an opportunity to develop a narrative and a community-focused approach to what we were doing. And the closest thing at the time to that was working in branding and in marketing. So I think after roughly 2 months in ad sales, the organization also realized that I had a real opportunity to lead the way for them in that space. And so I did. And the branding and marketing, um, experience is where I would spend, you know, the next 15 years of my career in television and in television news.

 

Darren [00:07:00]:

So for people not deep into news and media, branding and marketing, like what, what exactly does that role mean? And what were you doing for that first, 15 years of your formative years?

 

Wendy [00:07:13]:

Well, a little bit of everything, because when you work in smaller markets in local television, you are a bit of a Swiss Army knife. And so I was producing, I was editing, I was writing. And ultimately, what I was creating was in service to positioning the television station in the market as being— whether it’s the most accurate, the most in touch with the community, the very best in investigative or weather coverage. And so I would write those storylines, build those storylines, and then ensure that the messaging and the narrative made its way to stakeholders. So that could be audiences and viewers, that could be, community leaders, that could be politicians, but ultimately determining the overall positioning and messaging for each of these television stations where I worked and ensuring that it made its way from a distribution perspective to the right audiences.

 

Darren [00:08:26]:

So I’m guessing you had either an existing or an emerging vision for like the role of local journalism. Tell us a little bit about, like, what that vision was and how you were bringing it to life. And I’m imagining also it ultimately shaped how you led organizations when you got a chance to lead at scale.

 

Wendy [00:08:44]:

To me, local journalism, it’s the heartbeat of our democracy. I think so much of what we see right now in terms of the erosion of our civic fabric is because local journalism in so many respects has been decimated over the years. Local journalism is one of those things that you don’t realize how much you depend on it until you need it. When there are fires, when there are floods, when there is something happening in your community, you instantly turn to local journalism to find out what you need to do for yourself and for your family. And it’s always there. And so for me, being a part of something that was so necessary, that was so essential, that was so embedded, gave me a sense very early on of what was important to me as a leader. And that was, and that is, working in a purpose-driven organization that demands a higher calling than yourself. And when you are able to see up close how a story or how a public service outreach effort directly changes, affects someone’s life, it becomes oxygen at that point. You, you, you need it and you can’t imagine a career without that. So I’ve, I’ve always held that close in terms of my own personal motivation, and I’ve always insisted that that purpose, that mission stay front and center in any organization I’ve ever worked in, that in the race to modernize, ensuring that the mission and the purpose would not be compromised. That’s always something I’ve, I’ve held onto.

 

Darren [00:11:06]:

So is it the— your first CEO role was at the ABC-owned television stations?

 

Wendy [00:11:12]:

It’s interesting because right before I took that role, I had moved out of the day-to-day of television and had moved into digital and streaming because I saw where the audience was going, where viewers were going, and I wanted to make sure I understood how to create the products, the platforms, the experiences, the content that would serve those viewers and those audiences. And so when I became the CEO of the ABC-owned stations, or the president of the ABC-owned owned stations, it was very much with the mandate of, yes, needing to optimize the existing broadcast business, but then also to create this business of tomorrow, to rewrite its future. And so I very much went into that role with a remit to drive digital, to drive streaming. And then I think one year into that role, the pandemic happened. Which, Darren, is when we first worked together.

 

Darren [00:12:12]:

Yeah.

 

Wendy [00:12:12]:

And so many of those plans, so many of those initiatives on the roadmap, you know, had to take a bit of a backseat while we figured out how to stay on the air, how to protect our reporters, our photographers who were still in the field reporting, because again, that is what the mission requires. That is what the mission demands. And, In the 3 years that I was head of the ABC-owned stations, a year plus of that was pandemic.

 

Darren [00:12:46]:

Yeah, I just wanna like set the context here of how much complexity I imagine you were facing and sort of, and understand you were facing given our work together. There’s structural, massive structural changes taking place that are, you know, have been going on for some time. Technological change, and then there’s a global pandemic in the midst of everything. And I want to talk about— this is your first CEO role. You’re thrust into it. Maybe the first question is, why did they choose you? And what was your— putting aside the distraction of the pandemic just for a moment, you alluded to this vision of bringing really modernizing the ABC local-owned television stations. And maybe this may be not your words, but like, and but yet keeping the soul and purpose very, very front and center. So maybe just bring us into your reality as you’re taking on this big role with everything that’s going on in the background.

 

Wendy [00:13:49]:

Yeah, I, um, it’s interesting. So at the time, I was the youngest president of the ABC-owned stations. I was definitely the first president of the ABC-owned stations that had actually not been a general manager. I had not run a television station, and now I was responsible for overseeing 8 television stations. And so much of that was because from a daily broadcast television perspective, The stations were optimized. I was very fortunate to become the president of an organization that was peerless in terms of its local television news offerings and business. It was, and in many respects still is, the very best, best in class. And so choosing me was very much a commitment, a visible signal of what the future would demand, which included ensuring our brands and our business were relevant, yes, for today, but also for tomorrow. And that required a very different content strategy, a very different product and distribution strategy. It required us to look at what we were doing operationally in completely original ways. What should be centralized? What should stay local? What are opportunities to bring data and technology into the system in ways that drive effectiveness in a consumer-facing way, that drive efficiencies behind the scenes. And I have always been someone who sees around the corners, who, and it’s curiosity first that ultimately drives that, right? I’ve always wanted to understand where the business was going, where audiences were moving, to build, to transform. And so that was very much my platform when I went in and interviewed for the role. And to Bob Iger’s credit, to Ben Sherwood’s credit, they understood that the future would be determined by ultimately who had the courage and the conviction, the vision and the values to bring it to life.

 

Darren [00:16:21]:

Yeah, so I want to talk about the challenge of coming into a role like that, really, to execute a transformation. And I’m imagining, like, not everybody was completely on board with that vision, or maybe they were. But talk about what were the challenges and how— what was it about your leadership that was effective in getting people motivated and aligned around a vision that you were seeing? Maybe You know, it’s a vision that not everybody was sharing.

 

Wendy [00:16:51]:

Look, I think spending most of my career in messaging, in narrative, in storylines, and ensuring that what we are creating speaks to the hearts and minds of the people that ultimately we rely on to either drive our business forward because they watch us, because they engage with our products, those learnings ultimately helped me win the hearts and minds of the ABC-owned television station leaders and team members, right? When you think about it, in both cases, you’re speaking to thousands of people with their own sense of who you are as a brand, their own ideas for how to drive in terms of internal the organization, forward. They’re motivated by different things. They require different signals. But if you come to an understanding that most people, most people do not come to work every day inspired by the desire to drive OI or the stock price, right? They’re there because they believe in the mission. And that’s where narrative and story lands. You know, you need to be able to move people emotionally and operationally at the same time. And so my commitment always, and I think how I showed up always, was first building a coalition around the vision and the values. You simply cannot take a hill on your own. And then being able to articulate that vision in ways that, again, resonate with people who are connected to the vision emotionally, and then people who wanna understand, okay, we’ve heard big transformational plans before.

 

Darren [00:18:44]:

Mm-hmm.

 

Wendy [00:18:45]:

What are gonna need to be the measurable goals? What will be the signals of change? What’s the accountability piece? How can I believe that you’re actually going to drive us forward? So building a coalition, coming up with a messaging and narrative, that wins hearts and minds, and then creating the visible signals, the momentum that ultimately demonstrates like, this is serious, right? We’re in it for the long haul because I’ve never been in a change or transformation initiative that was set it and forget it. It’s two steps forward, two steps back on a daily basis. I think it was James Marsh who said, that skillfully balancing the poetry and the plumbing is the job of leadership. And I think that’s the case when you’re driving a change effort, especially the ability to articulate a vision in such a way that it moves people while being, like, embedded in the plumbing and in the operation to ensure the vision sticks.

 

Darren [00:19:55]:

It’s such a great quote. And I’m interested maybe just going into the plumbing for a moment. And I’m a big believer in the power of signals to communicate this is serious. This isn’t just another messaging that people can ignore. What were some examples of some powerful visible signals that you set and sent that got people’s attention and had them believing this was really real?

 

Wendy [00:20:22]:

I think there’s necessity in both long-term and then day-to-day signals. And I always, whenever I advise leaders who are new to a position or who, who are trying to drive change in their organization, I often ask, what will you do in the first 30 days and the first 60 days? And it doesn’t need to be big, but it does need to be a visible signal of change that demonstrates the seriousness of your vision. It’s not as beautiful as a quote of James Marsh, Plumbing and Poetry, but it is nonetheless as viable when I say that hope is not a strategy. And the reality is, is that if you’re going to articulate a vision and values-based goal and path forward for the organization, then you need to instantly set up the workflows, the systems, the practices that are ultimately going to help ensure progress in that space. So for instance, at ABC, it was very much communicating that we would no longer hold stories for broadcast, full stop. If a story broke, and this might seem very quaint and, you know, early 2000s in terms of, you know, how people felt about news and editorial distribution and consumption at the time, you know, organizations would hold stories for broadcast. They’d hold it for the evening news because that was the flagship. That was where we wanted our viewers to, to find us. It was still very much appointment television. So the shift from holding stories for the broadcast behemoth to releasing stories as we learned, as we were able to report across digital, across social. That was— that was a new way of thinking. And so by immediately setting that as the expectation, “We will not hold,” it became a line in the sand. And once you create that line in the sand, you start changing culture. You start creating space for people to offer up their own thoughts on how to modernize, on how to transform. And then it becomes, you know, a crescendo across the organization. And that is very much, I believe, what happened with the ABC-owned stations.

 

Darren [00:23:00]:

Such a powerful example. How, uh, how far into the role were you when you made that decision, and how difficult was the decision for you or not?

 

Wendy [00:23:11]:

It wasn’t difficult. I, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. I have, once I see something so clearly and once the team that I’ve surrounded myself with has pressure tested and either pushed back, challenged, or advocated for, I have always been fairly decisive in moving forward. I think that’s incredibly important. You know, we talk about signals of change, we talk about what it takes to move a change initiative or an organization forward, and it all comes down to momentum, right? Visible signals of change are signals of momentum. If you are indecisive, you’re holding up or you’re pausing an entire organization as they wait to hear what you will do, what you will decide. So once you do decide, the ability to move, that urgency, that speed, I’ve, I’ve always felt that. I’ve always felt that the audience, the technology was moving faster than we were. And it drove so much of my decision-making, so much of the team’s decision-making that even with imperfect information, you needed to take a stand on how the organization would move forward. Are you going to be set in your ways? Are you going to operate and think like a legacy company? Are are you going to rewrite the future by taking conscientious, innovative steps forward? Will you be agile? Will you adapt? And to me, the spirit of that, the meaning in that is almost more important than any one decision itself.

 

Darren [00:25:18]:

Yeah, totally agree. And, and you, what was this first 100 days or, How, how far into your tenure did, did you make a decision like this?

 

Wendy [00:25:26]:

Oh, soon.

 

Darren [00:25:28]:

Yeah, I imagine it was.

 

Wendy [00:25:29]:

Yeah, very soon. I mean, there are some things, again, you know, there are some things that require real analysis, real pauses, things that you cannot— are harder to correct. But if you are sitting at a table on a Zoom, in person, making a decision, and you can see we’re going to make this decision, and then you can tell everyone. And if, look, it doesn’t work, we’ll come back, we’ll address it. This isn’t brain surgery. We’re in the business of television. We’ll come back and we’ll, we’ll address it. But for now, we all know we need to be leading the way digitally. We need to be leading the way in streaming. So let’s make this move and then let’s come back. Let’s always keep the communication lines open so that we can revert, adapt if needed. And 9 times out of 10, 30 days, 60 days later, it just becomes part of the operation. It becomes part of the fabric. You can start pointing to milestones. Look, we drove X number of people. On our digital platforms today as a result of we served our viewers in a more direct way. We found our audiences versus making our audiences come to us. And isn’t that what it means to be a public service in the news and information space? So I think introducing some of these changes early in the process immediately communicates the kind of leader you’re going to be. You get a win, you earn trust, you make another change, you get another win, your trust continues to grow. And so then when you’re a year into the organization and you have these multiple trust deposits because of the number of changes you’ve met, you’ve taken on along the way, the momentum that you’ve built along the way, then you can really lean into these incredibly difficult decisions, these harder decisions that are more difficult to rewind.

 

Darren [00:27:49]:

Any examples of those that you faced in, I think it was your 3-year tenure at, in this role?

 

Wendy [00:27:55]:

Yes. Well, look, it’s, it’s hard to not talk about that without talking about the pandemic. And I think the pandemic is one of those moments where everything felt existential, Taryn. You know, are we going to continue to put reporters and photographers in the field? Do we believe lives are on the line if we do that, if we make the wrong choice here, if— I make a decision with imperfect information in this situation, am I risking someone’s life? And that feels impossible to walk back from or to shift in real time. I, I think the pandemic is the most humbling leadership experience of my career because you’re taught or you believe that when you’re running an organization of that size, you are meant to have the answers. You’re meant to bring together the smartest people, the smartest team members, executives, bring them, surround yourself with, and then ultimately have enough information at your back where you can make a thoughtful, almost perfect decision. And no one had ever experienced this before, and the threat had never been at this level. And so you quickly accept the fact that there is no blueprint, there is no spec, there’s nothing hiding in your office drawer that’s going to guide you forward. And you do the best, very best you can, and you acknowledge what it is that you don’t No.

 

Darren [00:29:52]:

Yeah. Any specific thing that comes to mind for you and, or, you know, key lesson learned given this dynamic for you as a leader?

 

Wendy [00:30:00]:

It’s interesting because often in these moments of challenge, and I think this is life and ultimately what helped me when I moved to CBS News and television stations, I often think that crisis reveals character. It’s also just an incredible learning experience about how to deal with unknowns and how to deal with complexity. I also think it can accelerate initiatives that maybe would’ve taken 3 to 5 years on a roadmap instantly become overnight. I mean, when you think about what the pandemic required, we went into 24/7 coverage and we did it across digital, social, television. So any cultural, you know, concerns about doing that quickly eroded in service to the viewer. You know, we talked about adopting new ways of distribution, new technologies to make our operations more efficient. The, again, the cultural obstacles to that went away immediately while engineers and, and some of our smartest and brightest minds in the tech space instead instantly figured out a way for us to do remote work, how to not be in a studio, how to do everything with— in a bit of a smarter, more, you know, progressive, more modern way. So you learn whether it’s the acceleration of the entire organization through the pandemic in modernizing operations, in modernizing how we were reaching viewers, And then I think also the acceleration from an individual leader perspective, and then as a group, what it taught us, how it elevated us, elevated me as a leader. I don’t know that we would’ve moved as fast. I don’t know that I would’ve been as prepared for what was to come in my career if not for that moment, if not for that experience.

 

Darren [00:32:09]:

Yeah, the saying, you know, never let a crisis go to waste comes to mind. I had Frank Blake, the former CEO of Home Depot, on the show recently, and he became CEO in 2007, which was right when the residential construction market was collapsing, and then of course 2008, and had a similar reflection. So really interesting to hear that from you. Maybe just we could sort of turn now to CBS. So you, you wrap up your 3-year run at ABC, and you get this incredible opportunity to run CBS. And maybe talk about how that opportunity came about, what that opportunity was for you, and how you went into that. What were you thinking? What was your vision when you took that role?

 

Wendy [00:32:53]:

So I, I loved working at ABC. I loved leading the ABC-owned stations forward. Before I went to ABC, I had worked for 2 CBS-owned television stations. So I knew the company really well, and I saw so clearly how I could lean into that organization and really help build it in terms of the public service, the promise to viewers that I knew the ABC-owned stations felt so inherently. And the opportunity to build, to create, has always been part of my DNA. Maintenance or minding the store has never been of interest to me. And so the opportunity to move into a role that I knew was a bit chaotic, was a bit messy, that required vision and value-led leadership, that required signals of change, that had really done very little in terms of transforming for the future. I, I felt they needed my kind of leadership. And so I felt that pull. And I had not worked on the network news side before. And so, of course, I was intrigued. I mean, to me, every local— every national story is a story that started locally. And the opportunity to go into CBS News and stations and unite the local stations and the network to super serve the viewer, to scale the business, was just incredibly incredibly attractive. I, I couldn’t say no to that as much as I loved leading the ABC-owned television stations. I mean, how often in your lifetime does an opportunity like that come along? A, to lead the great CBS News, and then to, you know, ultimately be responsible for charting its path forward. Like when you think about the history of broadcast television news, CBS News invented it. CBS News created it, and they did it with a whole lot of chutzpah and a whole lot of scrappiness. And to be able to come in and with equal parts swagger and soul, like, restore that and elevate it, it was, it was— I said, I said yes immediately.

 

Darren [00:35:34]:

And if you think about your own leadership arc, this is now your second CEO role, bigger scale, both the local owned stations and the news part of that business, and what did it require of you? What were you ready for and what did you need to stretch into given what I imagine was a bigger, different, maybe more complex challenge than what you had been facing at ABC?

 

Wendy [00:36:01]:

It was definitely more complex. From a local station perspective, there wasn’t the same foundational purpose, meaning that inherent understanding at every layer, at every level of the organization, what it means to work at the CBS-owned stations. And so going in and instantly resetting and reminding people of why they’re here, what it means to work here, to be the very best in local news and information, to serving our community. That was day one. And at the time, the CBS-owned stations had been in the paper for— there have been any number of investigations, allegations of wrongdoing by prior leadership. And that was— it haunted the organization. And so I remember on day one, I gathered the general managers together and said, we’re here to serve our communities. We’re here to be the very best in news and information. We’re here to build a business around that, and we’re here to do the right thing. And if you have any questions about what it means to do the right thing, I’m here. And so for the OWN stations, it was very much the vision and value set. And for CBS News at the time, I had a co-head. So he was focused on the network news piece, and I was focused on local in my first 2 years there. But it was about collaboration. How do we bring local and network together? And that was messy because the network had an opinion of the quality of their storytelling and their coverage and often looked at local as less than. And prior, um, leadership on both sides had made it very difficult to work together. And so the systems and the processes weren’t there, without a doubt, that’s true. But more challenging was the culture piece and the fact that no one necessarily believed in the value of working together. So talk about changing hearts and minds, talk about enacting visible signals of change, It was so incredibly important in the first 30, 60, 90 days to be in front of as many people as possible signaling what it would look like to work at this organization moving forward.

 

Darren [00:38:41]:

Yeah, with the extra challenge of, at least for the first 2 years of your role, not having complete authority, right? You were in partnership, and I imagine that added a layer of complexity. Did it help? You alluded to it after 2 years, you sort of had both roles together. What was the first 2 years like? How did that transition work? And how important was it that you had the full sort of authority at some point?

 

Wendy [00:39:09]:

I think the first 2 years, it was incredibly important. The stations required so much attention.

 

Darren [00:39:17]:

Yeah.

 

Wendy [00:39:18]:

And because we had such success at the station level, you know, I talked earlier about deposits of trust. You earn trust on a day-to-day. The team at CBS News saw that. They saw what we were building at stations. They saw the changes that were happening. They felt now the collaboration between CBS News and stations. So when I was named responsible for the entire portfolio, I was, I was accepted because I had the 2 years where people were able to watch me in their habitat and they saw the success, they saw the milestones. And so I actually think the 2 years for me as a leader was helpful. I think it slowed down the unification of news and stations of that ultimate vision to, you know, let’s bring more local reporting into our national news organization. Because by the way, local reporting, local television reporting is more trusted, more relevant than most national news content. And then from a national news perspective, how do we bring some of that quality, some of that rigor, that editorial excellence? How do we integrate that more into the local space? Those things were slowed down because of the 2 years. But there had also been any number of successes. Like, we completely unified network news and stations into a 24/7 streaming operation. And You know, took that product from number 3 to number 1 in a year and a half because there was collaboration. So I would say the, the biggest shift in having the entire portfolio was just I was able to move faster on so many of the things that we had on a roadmap.

 

Darren [00:41:20]:

So I’m, I’m wanting to imagine you’re sitting with a CEO who’s about to step into an environment with sufficient scale and complexity, like you faced in both roles, frankly, and maybe in particular at CBS, what would— what’s the one piece of advice you’d offer? And let’s assume that that person has maybe been CEO before, but not really with the kind of complexity that, you know, we’ve been talking about.

 

Wendy [00:41:49]:

One piece of advice. That’s tough. I have a few. So, I think there are two things I would share with a CEO or a new CEO. First, you know, when you enter into a role, when you are CEO of a complex, a massive organization, thousands of people, billions of dollars in revenue, you become surrounded by well-intentioned scaffolding and infrastructure by an entire team of people who are there to help you as a CEO. And that is amazingly helpful. It is wonderful in so many ways. But I would advise to resist the scaffolding, resist the layers and the levels of support, to always be working in the organization versus working on from on high. And the things that got you into the CEO chair, I often find that they’re the things that people start removing from you once you’re there. Well, you know, we’ll, we’ll take first draft of comms or, you know, we’ll do this series of meetings and then we’ll boil it all down to a PowerPoint deck that we present to you. And if you are leading a transformation project, and who isn’t right now, we’re all changing.

 

Darren [00:43:23]:

Yeah.

 

Wendy [00:43:23]:

In response to new audience and business and consumer realities. If you are in the middle of it, you have to stay close to it. You have to stay immersed in it. So that would be one piece of advice. Resist the well-intentioned scaffolding and infrastructure work in versus just on. And then the other thing I would say, I think we talk a lot about resilience as leaders, right? The ability to learn from our mistakes, to recover. And I’m right now a bigger proponent of METTLE, M-E-T-T-L-E. And it’s interesting because Leslie Stahl, 60 Minutes, has been with CBS News for decades. She’s a force. When she received the First Amendment Award in 2025, she told me after the fact that it’s a privilege in this life to test our mettle, that it’s not so often that we get the chance to put so much on the line, to plant our flag for a worthy principle. And I started thinking a lot about the word mettle versus resilience, right? If resilience is how well you recover from a storm, mettle is the extent to which you stand in it. And I grew up in New Orleans, right? So I’ve been through hurricanes, I’ve been through gale-force winds. And if you’ve ever been through that, you know that it takes just about everything you have to stay upright. And I think increasingly, as CEOs, as leaders, our teams need mettle from us even more so than resilience. Do they see us standing in the storm with courage, with conviction? Do they see our values staying true when when everyone is watching, when the consequences are so intense that it will affect people, jobs, teams, families. And to me, that’s the requirement of a leader in this moment right now. Do you have the mettle?

 

Darren [00:45:49]:

I think it’s an amazing piece of advice, and it occurs to me that it’s advice that anyone— you don’t have to be a CEO— could benefit from, right? We’re living in a world where everyone, no matter what their position in their personal or professional lives, is being tested. And what an extraordinary piece of advice for anyone listening to have received. How has that been for you? I know your mettle has been tested. You can’t be in your industry, and frankly any industry at this point, without your medal being tested, what has it meant for you? And, you know, as you sit back and look back on this incredible career, and I know that you’ve got more career left in you, what does it, what does it mean?

 

Wendy [00:46:32]:

I do know so much more about myself as a leader and as a person, and I’m so much more grounded now in why I’m here. And I think, you know, Leslie’s comment that it’s a privilege to be able to test your mettle, she’s right. When you’re going through a challenge, an obstacle, there’s a bit of a woe is me aspect to it. But the reality is, is if you’re a leader, it’s a privilege to be able to demonstrate that you are a champion, that you are an advocate for the people who look to you for leadership, for the work that they’re doing each and every day. What an amazing thing to be in that position, to take a stand in service to the organization that believes in you and wants to believe in you, wants to believe in something. And so for me, it affirmed why I chose this journey to begin with. It affirmed why I want to continue this journey moving forward. The role of a leader has never been more important. And it’s also, you know, shifted my thinking in terms of what integrity is. You know, there’s that saying, Darren, that integrity reveals itself when no one is watching. I actually think integrity reveals itself when everyone is watching.

 

Darren [00:48:13]:

Yeah.

 

Wendy [00:48:14]:

And so being comfortable when everyone is watching and still staying true to who you are and staying true to the people that trust you, whether that’s your family or your team, that’s— that is how I’ve led, and that is how I will continue to lead.

 

Darren [00:48:33]:

Yeah, it sounds like you were made for this moment in many ways. And I’m wondering if there was a person or persons in your life, or a moment in your life that you could trace the line back to where you knew you’d be that kind of person that would stand in the storm and hold true to her principles and values and act with integrity. Is there, Sarah, is there anything that you could look back on?

 

Wendy [00:48:58]:

I think two things. I mean, as a— as a kid, I mean, I grew up in Louisiana in lower middle class family. My dad worked on the oil field, you know, 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off. That’s intense. And, you know, he showed up every day doing the right thing, what he thought the right thing was. And so I saw that, and my mother was the same. You know, she lived for my brother and I. And so I always, I think, took away from that, that it’s one thing to say you believe in something. It’s one thing to support and hold up something. It’s another to actually work in service to it and make decisions that are best for the family, for the organization, for the group versus for yourself. And so I think I learned that early on. And then I had a great general manager at my station, um, at KBC in Los Angeles. And he loved spirited debate, loved it. And he would bring everyone together in the room and we would talk about, well, what’s the best thing for the business? What’s the best thing for the brand? And then Without fail, at the end of every one of those meetings, he would say, okay, but is there a right thing to do here? And without fail, if there was a right thing to do, that was the thing we did. And I’ve always, I’ve always clung to that because these are difficult decisions, right? Like, will you, will you make a decision that’s ultimately going to put yourself, your position, your team, in jeopardy, what is the right thing to do? It’s immediately clarifying. Immediately makes all the noise disappear.

 

Darren [00:51:01]:

Yeah, incredible advice and a great way to sort of bring our conversation to a close. I’m so grateful to you, first for being in the conversation on the show, but also for being such a wonderful example of leading with purpose and with mettle. And I’m taking away a really powerful lesson in leadership from our hour together. So thank you so much for doing this conversation.

 

Wendy [00:51:27]:

Thank you, Darren. Thank you so much.

 

Darren [00:51:36]:

What a thoughtful and deeply human conversation. Wendy’s journey from a young journalist in Louisiana to leading two of of the most influential news organizations in the country is a powerful reminder that leadership is ultimately about purpose and conviction. What stood out most to me was her reflection on Mettle. In moments of real pressure, when the future is uncertain and the consequences are significant, leaders are called not simply to recover from adversity, but to stand in it, to lead with clarity, courage, and integrity, even when the path forward isn’t obvious. It’s a perspective that feels especially relevant today when so many leaders are navigating complexity and change. Wendy’s example reminds us that the role of a CEO is not just to manage organizations, but to steward institutions, serve communities, and remain anchored in the values that define who we are as leaders. I look forward to being with you on the next episode of One of One. Until then, I hope you live and lead with courage, wisdom, and above all, with love.