Why I'm Rebranding from Next Level Leadership to Leading Edge Leaders
Edgar Schein, one of the leading voices on organizational culture, said that a founder's DNA always lives on in the organization. Just as biological evolution carries the DNA of its ancestors forward while new qualities emerge, cultural evolution carries its ancestry with it too.
My mother founded Next Level Leadership, then Moynahan & Associates, from our home in 1986, the year I was born. I grew up in the company, and eventually scaled it and took it over. What I know now is that my mother's founding principles are the bedrock of what I do. I didn't see it when I was young. How could I have? But her work has always been revolutionary.
She was bringing improv and storytelling into leadership development long before they were trendy. She understood that leadership is a full-body experience- bringing in tango dancers, sculptors, yoga teachers, and creatives of all sorts into the training room.
Most fundamentally, my mother has led with love. I know that's a word we shy away from in the corporate world, but she loves her clients. I'd watched her coaching well into the evening, then come to dinner telling me stories about the people she was supporting. There was no work-life boundary, because her work was her passion and an expression of who she is.
In the '90s she began doing inclusion work with her late partner, Walter Manley. At the time, the standard approach was to bring people into a room to talk about their differences. They'd walk out feeling those differences more sharply, more alienated from each other, and with no idea how to move forward. History repeats itself, and that's still how most so called inclusion work is done today.
What Walter and my mom discovered was that their own relationship changed the room. They were a black man and a white woman with a genuine friendship, real rapport and generosity toward each other. Just by being in that spirit together, they could open up more playful, open, curious conversations. People connected first on what's true for all of us, and that built the foundation to go on and celebrate their differences.
This is my approach to leadership development. I have never once seen someone change through shame and blame. The only way I've ever helped people grow is by creating a space of radical acceptance, where they can become aware enough, and brave enough, to grow in the ways they want to. We are not cans meant to be pried open. We are life forces that need space to unfold, so we can give our unique gifts to the world as generously as possible.
So today, as I rebrand from Next Level Leadership to Leading Edge Leaders, I'm stepping further into the work my mom began. The point isn't to be less of what this company was founded on, but more.
In my own work I've gone deep into meditation, ceremonial spaces, dance, theater and improv. I've spent as much time on the fringes of society as I have in the hallowed halls of academia and the sometimes stifling rooms of the Fortune 100. I've always tried to be a bridge between those worlds, because the truth is we're all human. We all want to give our best. We all want to become who we're meant to be.
Leading Edge Leaders is a space for leaders who are ready for a new level of conversation. They're ready to bring their whole selves, and ready to see and be seen.
That doesn't mean it's only for people who feel no fear. Courage is acting in the face of fear. Courage means seeing that what others call weakness is really the strength of vulnerability. You don't have to feel ready, strong, or brave to be a Leading Edge Leader. All you have to do is show up with curiosity, playfulness, and openness to grow.
Leading Edge Leaders understand that leadership is about bringing out greatness in others. The ways I'll teach you to do that might surprise you. It might mean getting quieter, not louder. Softer, not harder. Curious in a world where everyone is fighting to be heard.
This level of work will touch every part of your life, and it will touch it in a beautiful way. I think we all crave integration: to feel like one whole person instead of a compartmentalized version of ourselves. This work isn't about walking a tightrope. It's about finding our dance.
How can we be with ourselves while we support others?
How can we align with an organization's values while staying true to our own, every single day?
How can we find a true north inside us that no role, layoff, or promotion can shake?
How can we be leaders in our lives, not just in our workplaces?
How can we inspire people to move from ambition to aspiration, from what they want to attain to who they want to be?
This is the work of Leading Edge Leaders. Join me.
Our first ever virtual retreat!
✨Locked In: Aligned Leadership ✨
Saturday, Nov. 21 | 10 AM–1 PM EST | $65 | Optional 1:1 coaching add-on: $165
Good conversation, powerful practices, & elevating peers to discover your aligned leadership.