In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with DeDe Halfhill, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, Georgetown-certified executive coach, and leadership advisor whose story is featured in Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes, for a conversation about the part of leadership that most organizations have systematically removed from their playbook and are now paying for in ways they cannot quite name.

DeDe spent 25 years in the Air Force leading thousands of airmen, serving two tours in Iraq, and advising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What she discovered along the way, through a 1948 Air Force leadership manual and a famous moment involving Cocoa Puffs and a garbage can in an Iraq dining facility, is that emotional fluency is not a soft skill. It is a precision tool. And the organizations that treat it as optional are not avoiding the emotional work. They are just paying for it later, in avoidance, attrition, and the kind of quiet disconnection that looks like exhaustion but is actually loneliness.

The conversation covers why emotional language has dropped 60 percent across all published texts in the last century and what that has cost leaders, why anger gives you one move while precision emotion gives you options, and why the men who wrote the Air Force’s very first leadership manual in 1948 understood something about the relationship between empathy and results that most modern organizations have unlearned. DeDe also makes the case that as AI takes over more of the technical work, the leaders who can navigate the human side will not just be more effective. They will be the ones with the real competitive advantage.

About the Guest

DeDe Halfhill is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, keynote speaker, and leadership advisor who helps leaders Master the Unseen™: the human side of leadership that most people avoid but everyone feels. Over a 25-year military career, she led thousands of airmen, served two tours in Iraq, advised the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and directed press operations for the Department of Defense. She was also Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Today she speaks and advises across industries, from construction and finance to Fortune 500 companies, helping leaders surface hidden tensions, build trust, and have the conversations teams tend to avoid. Her leadership story is featured in Brené Brown’s bestseller Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes. A Georgetown-certified executive coach and former National Security Fellow, DeDe brings a rare view of what it actually takes to lead people well.