You know the moment.

You walked into a conversation knowing exactly what you wanted to say. You were calm. You were reasonable. You explained everything beautifully.

And somehow, twelve minutes later, they're mad, you're frustrated, and you're seriously considering a career involving significantly fewer humans.

Welcome to leadership.

Leadership sounds pretty easy when somebody puts it on a PowerPoint slide. Communicate clearly. Build trust. Motivate your people. Manage conflict. Hold people accountable.

Sure. No problem.

And then real humans get involved.

We see someone's behavior and immediately start explaining it. They're lazy. They're difficult. They don't care. They're overreacting.

Sometimes we're right.

Sometimes we're wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

Because there's usually a lot more happening underneath what we can see.

Which means that before we decide we know exactly what's going on, there's a much better question we can ask:

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What am I missing?

People Don't Follow Five-Step Formulas.

Let's face it. We love a good model. We've heard enough of them. They sound easy.

Step One.
Step Two.
Step Three.
Step Four.
Step Five.

But we never seem to talk about the inevitable Step Six: Put the notes in a drawer and forget about them because we know they'll never work anyway.

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And we've just wasted an hour of our time.

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Because knowing a leadership model and standing across from a real, live human are two very different things.

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Let's face it. Humans are much more complicated than leadership models make them out to be.

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When Leadership Becomes Real uses stories, humor, real situations, and a little uncomfortable self-recognition to look at what happens when we slow down our assumptions, get curious about the people in front of us, and recognize that...

We are part of the equation.

We'll leave with a different way of looking at the people around us—and ourselves—and one question we can take into almost any difficult situation:

What am I missing?

Every Audience Is Different

Every workplace, organization, and community has its own people, challenges, and realities.

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Before the event, we'll talk about who's in the room, what they're facing, and what you want them talking about afterward.

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Then I'll build the experience around your people.

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Bring When Leadership Becomes Real to Your Organization