Leadership Development
Clarity. Synergy. Productivity.
Leading actual human beings changes everything.
You can know exactly what needs to be done and still have no idea how to get ten intelligent, opinionated, very different human beings moving in the same direction.
People don’t arrive at work as tidy collections of competencies.
They bring experience, assumptions, loyalties, ambitions, uncertainty, brilliance, blind spots, competing priorities, different communication styles—and occasionally very different recollections of the meeting everyone attended yesterday. And somehow, you’re supposed to lead all of that.
That’s the territory I love.
For more than 25 years, I have worked with executives, managers, entrepreneurs and leadership teams across more than 35 cultures, helping people navigate the human dynamics that can either unleash exceptional work or make accomplishing it unnecessarily difficult.
Some Leadership Questions Are Worth Spending Time With
- They may not be this clearly expressed, but they’re in the room with you nonetheless. Take a minute to consider:
- Can you be clear without becoming controlling?
- Can you listen without surrendering your own authority?
- Can you make a difficult decision without needing everyone to approve of it?
- Can you distinguish disagreement from disloyalty?
- Can you recognize when the problem you’re trying to solve isn’t actually the problem?
- Can you change your mind without experiencing that as weakness?
- Can you acknowledge an error without losing your authority?
- Can you stay grounded enough when things become difficult that everyone else doesn’t have to manage your reaction as well as the problem?
- And can you create enough trust that the intelligence of the people around you actually makes it into the room?
These aren’t abstract leadership questions. They’re the ones that show up for leaders every day. Having someone guide the process so you can work out the questions and determine the best path forward is not only enormously useful it can be the game-changer.
Teams & Organizations
Leadership Development
Executive & Leadership
Coaching
Learning that reaches the work.
I don’t have much interest in training people to perform leadership beautifully in a workshop.
I’m interested in what happens Monday morning.
So my leadership and executive education programs work with real human dynamics, real organizational situations, meaningful conversation, experiential learning, and practical tools people can actually use.
Programs can be delivered as keynotes, seminars, workshops, intensives, leadership retreats, multi-session programs, executive education, university courses, or customized organizational engagements. The broader executive education catalog includes leadership, communication, collaboration, decision-making, strategic planning, conflict transformation and organizational culture.
Relational Leadership by Design
Leadership happens through relationship.
This program explores the practical behaviors through which leaders build trust, communicate clearly, establish accountability, navigate difficult conversations and create conditions in which people can do their best work.
Strategic Decision-Making
For leaders making consequential decisions amid complexity, competing priorities and incomplete information.
We examine how to clarify what matters, distinguish assumptions from what is actually known, evaluate competing options, make sound choices and translate decisions into action.
Communication Mastery Series
• Connected Communication
• Impactful Communication™
• Beyond Conflict
Communication can be challenging in the best of circumstances. It gets particularly interesting when we don’t agree.
This progressive series develops increasingly sophisticated capacities for listening, clarity, dialogue, disagreement and conflict resolution—without requiring people to avoid what matters or make one another wrong in order to address it.
Facilitating Difficult Conversations Across Differences
For leaders who need to guide conversations when perspectives differ, emotions run high or the thing everyone needs to discuss has become the thing everyone is avoiding.
Participants develop practical facilitation and dialogue skills for creating conversations in which differing perspectives can actually contribute to better thinking rather than simply producing opposing camps.
The C.O.R.E. of Female Leadership
Our world and our businesses thrive when there is dynamic balance. That’s not always the case, and the potential of female professionals often goes untapped due to workplace culture and patterns that disrupt the optimal contribution of all. Women do not need to become better versions of men in order to become powerful leaders. They do deserve to have the tools and support to be the best versions of themselves.
This program explores communication precision, authority, boundaries, emotional intelligence, power literacy and behavioral adaptability while creating room for women to develop leadership that is genuinely their own.
Sometimes you need somewhere to think.
Some things you can’t appropriately work through with the people you lead. You may have a decision you’re not ready to announce, a conflict involving someone on your executive team, doubts about a direction everyone assumes you’re certain about, or a problem you can’t quite see your way through – yet.
Or maybe you’ve become so busy responding to demands of the job and what everyone else needs that you haven’t had enough uninterrupted space to simply hear yourself think.
That’s where coaching can become enormously useful.
Not another person telling you how to lead.
You’ll find coaching with me is a confidential, strategic thinking partnership where you bring the business, leadership, relationship or organizational realities that you’re actually navigating, and I bring more than two decades of experience in leadership, human dynamics, communication, conflict, organizational development, strategy and working across cultures. I have no agenda or a set program of how to do what you do. Instead, what you can expect is that:
- I listen clearly.
- I question.
- I challenge when challenging is useful.
- I notice patterns.
- I help distinguish what happened from what you’ve made it mean.
- I may point toward something sitting in plain sight that has somehow become difficult to see from inside the situation.
And sometimes I’ll ask irritatingly useful questions that changes the entire conversation.
My purpose is to guide, question, reflect and illuminate along the way.
The decisions and actions remain yours.
What Might We Work On?
Our coaching process is tailored to you, your situation and your needs rather than organized around a predetermined curriculum. Our work may include:
- Clarify Purpose, Direction & Priorities — Identify what matters most, where your greatest contribution belongs, and what deserves your attention now.
- Navigate Complex Decisions & Change — Make high-stakes decisions and lead effectively through uncertainty, transition, crisis, or expanded responsibility.
- Strengthen Communication & Relationships — Develop executive presence, navigate difficult conversations and conflict, and build strong relationships without sacrificing necessary boundaries.
- Understand Teams & Organizational Dynamics — See what is happening beneath the surface and clarify roles, authority, accountability, and recurring patterns affecting performance.
- Lead From Your Own Mastery — Recognize and fully use your expertise while creating professional success that supports the life you actually want to be living.
When useful, a 360° assessment can also provide a broader picture of how your leadership is experienced by the people around you.
The Point Is to Not Need a Coach Forever
One of the things coaching with me will do is strengthen is your trust in yourself and your ability to see clearly, discern and choose at intentionally.
Experience has shown that, with time, you’ll become increasingly able to recognize your own patterns, ask yourself more useful questions, separate the indicator from all the noise, and respond deliberately, rather than simply reacting to what you’ve been asked or what has landed on your desk.
You’ll be lighter on your feet. Not because every situation will be easy but because you’ll be confidently able to meet the situation that is actually there.