Bring Balance Back.

A great team isn’t just a group of superstars working side by side, we have proof of that from the 2004 U.S. Men’s Basketball Team. Known as the “Dream Team”, on paper, they were supposed to win the gold medal by a LOT, but lost 3 games by a big margin and ended up taking the bronze medal home. Even though they were a super group of all-stars, they were young and lacked the time and effort to work on building a sense of team. Most importantly, they were playing a game they knew well, but in...

No one likes to feel exposed. So they add cover, they add armor. No one likes to be sold a fake, of anything – especially when you’re hoping for the real deal. Have you ever felt like a fake, as a leader? Or you’ve put on armor to not reveal “the real deal”? Feeling the need to conform or comply to a mold, or being pressured to mimic someone who’s not any version of you can be paralyzing. “What do I do? I have to be who they want me to be.” The teller. The knower. The agitator. The doer. The...

🎉 Earlier this week I celebrated 5 years of being in business! I had a post on LinkedIn that talked about a few things that I learned last year, and all of the comments are humbling and a big boost to me. Here's more background on the first 5 years of Kinkou - most of this I haven't shared...I publicly launched Kinkou on January 27th, 2020, and then less than 2 months later, COVID locked everything down. When I launched I was wrapping up the altMBA program which pushed me to realize what I'm...

I’ve been thinking about the word “accountability” over the last year or so. It seems that most leaders have a minor obsession over it, and the word is usually only referenced when someone isn’t doing something that’s expected, and we need someone to blame. This obsession is loaded into PowerPoint decks everywhere, especially this time of year when annual strategy and goal setting is taking place. “We need more accountability!” In Finland, they do not have a word that captures the nuances of...

Kicking off a new year might spark you thinking about and setting new goals. You might even continue a few from the past year. Some like to flip through books on habits that help them achieve their goals – such as Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” or James Clear’s “Atomic Habits“. If you’re anything like an imperfect human being with big ambitions but always working on things, you’ve probably come up short on a goal once or twice. And we usually reflect after our self-imposed deadline has...

The greatest skill isn't one that you can buy. The greatest skill is one that's never done. The greatest skill is the simple act of reflection. You might wonder how the act of reflection can be a skill, but if you can be good or bad at something, it's a skill. Reflection can be done in a bunch of ways, can take just a minute or go on for hours, and be completely personal to what you need. For most of my life, I've been terrible at the skill of reflection, and even worse at taking that skill...

Welp, here we are, with only 30 days left in 2024. Reading that might stir some anxiety, especially if you have goals you'd like to move towards this year. Goals often ignite our "doing" engine, but I invite you to consider how you want to be for the rest of the year. Inspired by Ron Short's Learning in Relationship, here are three thoughts I've been pondering... 1 // Building stronger armor isn't worth it. Many leaders focus on expertise and authority, aiming to protect their image over...

"Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." ~Helen Keller Rewards mostly come to the individual; we rarely see incentives to perform well together as teams in our professional lives. How does that sit with you? Do you want to help change that? Here are some things to notice, and try... 1 // As a leader, look for times when team members are only talking to you during a meeting, perhaps answering a direct question or providing status on something. It can feel like a series of...

There are so many definitions of what leadership is, it's overwhelming. They range from a "feel" of the word to diving into the Indo-European root of what the English word "leadership" means. I have a few favorites that I reflect on often, and if any of these resonate with you, I'd love to hear from you, just send a reply. Seth Godin has a lot to say about leadership. And he does it in a simplified way that always gets me thinking. He says, "Management is required, leadership is voluntary."...

I talk to many people looking to “enhance their presence” - more specifically, they’re looking for *the* executive presence that some want. An aspirational presence that radiates calm, inspires confidence, and projects intelligence among other things. In Otto Scharmer’s work on “Theory U”, a core principle is the idea of “presencing”. It’s the act of connecting deeply to your highest future possibility. What does that mean in real life? For a leader? When a leader is building self-awareness,...