Jun 8, 2026 | Blog, Leadership Coaching
It was striking to watch sponsors absorb this quote. Until that moment, many had not realized the weight of what they offered. They had assumed sponsorship was transactional. A boost up the ladder, a conversation once a month. They did not expect it to be existential. That gap between what they thought they were doing and what actually mattered to their sponsees became the most important moment of the program. Not for the sponsee. For the sponsor.
May 12, 2026 | Blog, Leadership
When someone gets promoted, your gut reaction tells you a lot.
Is it a warm surge of YES!! They deserve every bit of this?
Or is it something more complicated?
Apr 7, 2026 | Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Management
As I interviewed George, I heard all the right things. But his voice and body language told a different story. Every time he said the right thing, there was a slight edge in his tone when certain names came up. A pause before responding that was half a beat too long. A way of quoting other people’s ideas that landed as a dismissal of those ideas. A slight raising of the eyebrow when he described a peer’s impact.
Underneath all of it was contempt. Unadulterated contempt.
I had to name it. And naming it out loud, with George sitting across from me, opened something that months of careful conversation had not. What followed was not unusual. What was unusual is that we finally went there.
Mar 31, 2026 | Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Management, Team Coaching
When a professional services firm I work with rolled out its return-to-office mandate last year, the executive team invested significantly in getting the communications right. Town halls, manager talking points, a well-crafted rationale. What they spent almost no time on was a harder question: did their teams have the design and leadership conditions to be effective together in person? Three months after the mandate, attendance was up. Engagement scores were not.
Mar 31, 2026 | Leadership, Team Coaching
Most leaders think they have a communication problem.
They don’t.
They have a tolerance problem.
I worked with a leadership team where:
11 out of 40 people responded to a survey…
…and that was considered a win.
Why?
Because non-responsiveness had become normal.
Unchallenged norms are what keep teams stuck.
Not lack of skill. Not lack of effort.
If you want to shift performance, don’t start with tactics.
Start with this question:
“Why is this okay for us?”
