Coach the Person, Not the Problem.

I started on the brand and creative side of a large organization, building brand systems, running large-scale creative production, and pitching marketing ideas to corporate business partners who had every reason to push back.

Some of it was surprisingly basic. I remember walking financial business partners through why a designer’s choice of color wasn’t the creative equivalent of “well, my favorite color is blue.” There was research, strategy, and years of training behind decisions that could look arbitrary from the outside. My job was to help people on either side recognize the expertise sitting across the table.

That work taught me how to lead without authority, how to translate between teams that didn’t speak the same language, and how to carry something from a rough idea all the way to real work at scale.

At a certain point I moved closer to the ground. I spent a stretch in frontline and operational work, the kind where the plan meets reality every single day.

It reset how I thought about leadership. The sharpest idea in the room doesn’t matter much if the people doing the work don’t feel set up to win.

Most recently, I led field operations for a service company, running a team of technicians and field supervisors across multiple divisions and two markets. I was selling services and products to clients, building the training and onboarding that helped new people contribute quickly, and coaching frontline leaders through the hardest shift there is: learning to lead a team instead of just doing the work yourself.

One of the best parts was watching a talented technician grow into a trainer, and then a supervisor. My job wasn’t to teach her how to become me. It was helping her trust what she already did well, see where leadership asked something different of her, and develop her own way of doing it. Eventually our conversations shifted from how she should handle the work to how she could coach someone else through it.

I learned to do this work in the middle of the mess. When the numbers weren’t good. When confidence was low. When someone was newly promoted, or had just screwed something up. When the customer was frustrated, the owner wanted answers, and the person in front of me still needed enough space to think.

Across every version of the work, one thing held constant. Whether I was pitching to corporate partners, leading peers, coordinating across functions, or standing next to a technician on a job, the work that mattered most was the people. Helping them find clarity. Helping them see what they already bring. Helping them develop their own judgment and lead in a way that’s genuinely their own.