I help leaders create better conditions for their employees. That work sits at the intersection of leadership, systems, and human behavior, which is the result of a long, winding path through military service, operational leadership, research, and writing. I’ve spent most of my adult life studying leadership and human behavior to understand how to create the conditions that allow people to leverage their skills and discover what they’re truly capable of.
From Experience to Inquiry
My early years were shaped by sports, reading, and a constant curiosity about how people interact with one another. That curiosity eventually led me to the United States Marine Corps, where I served as an infantryman, completed multiple leadership schools, and deployed twice. The Marine Corps taught me discipline, accountability, and the weight of leadership decisions. More importantly, it showed me how much outcomes depend on the systems leaders create, not just individual effort. I left the Marine Corps in 2018 after four years of service, having earned the rank of Sergeant. Like many veterans, I stepped directly into civilian leadership, first as a frontline manager in a logistics operation. It was there that I began to see the gap between leadership intent and leadership reality. I saw how often leaders were placed in environments that make success unnecessarily difficult. That realization pulled me deeper into the study and practice of leadership.
Building Leadership Systems at Scale
I later joined West Shore Home, where I spent four years helping the organization grow from roughly 600 to 3,000 employees. During that time, I developed foundational leadership frameworks, built leadership pipelines, and aligned leadership expectations with operational reality. That work clarified something for me: most leadership problems aren’t caused by bad people or a lack of effort. They’re caused by misaligned systems with unclear expectations, broken decision rights, poor feedback loops, and environments that quietly undermine trust and accountability. It’s also where I saw the limits of intuition and surface-level assessments. To truly understand leadership effectiveness, you have to listen carefully, analyze patterns, and study the system as a whole.
Research, Rigor, and the Leadership Audit
Alongside my professional work, I pursued formal education to deepen my understanding of leadership and organizations. I earned a Bachelor’s in Political Science, a Master’s in Executive Leadership, and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership, completing my doctorate in 2024. I’m also a certified Predictive Index analyst and hold a PHR certification through HRCI.
It was during the doctoral research project that I began to find a fascination and passion for qualitative research. It’s like a detective trying to understand a case, the motives, the actions, and how it all unfolded. I am an organizational detective, helping you discover the hidden insights that only make sense when the whole picture is revealed.
Today, I apply that background as a qualitative researcher and practitioner, conducting leadership and organizational audits for companies seeking a clear, defensible understanding of how leadership functions within their organizations. These audits are designed as formal qualitative studies using interviews, surveys, and focus groups to surface patterns, risks, and constraints that are often invisible from inside the system. All data is anonymized, and findings are reported at the system level to protect participants and improve decision-making. The goal is to help organizations see the environments they’ve created and decide what to do next. These insights help leaders make better decisions.
Writing & Ongoing Exploration
I also write Perspectives on Leadership, a newsletter that explores leadership through history, research, and lived experience. The newsletter is a place to think out loud, ask better questions, and challenge assumptions about what leadership really requires. The audits are where the work gets applied. The newsletter is where the thinking continues.
Together, they serve the same purpose: helping leaders create environments where people can do their best work and where leadership actually works as intended.