A team member sits down and says three words: "I'm at capacity." Watch what happens in your body in the next three seconds, because that reflex is the whole problem. Most leaders do one of three things. They clear the plate before understanding what's on it. They agree, sympathize, and then change nothing. Or they quietly decide it's a performance issue. All three skip the only step that matters: diagnosis. In this episode, Kim breaks down why "at capacity" is a symptom rather than a verdict,...
Aug 10
18 min
There will never be a good time to hold a problem employee accountable. Not next quarter, not after the reorg, not once things calm down. But that's not usually why we wait. In this episode, Kim tells the story of an employee she knew was a problem, documented as a problem, and still did not confront. The reason wasn't cowardice. It was evidence. She had never once seen accountability actually work in that organization, and she drew the rational conclusion. She also corrects the ending she's ...
Jul 27
21 min
You keep getting left off the invite, and it's not an accident. In this episode, Kim goes deeper on professional FOMO, the need some leaders have to be in every meeting, every conversation, every room. But this one isn't really about the invite. It's about why the invite never comes. Kim breaks down what the research actually says: workplace FOMO is less about missing information and more about the fear of relational exclusion. It runs hottest in people whose sense of identity and belonging i...
Jul 19
19 min
You have been in the room where everyone knows the right call and nobody will make it. That is not a process problem. That is insecurity, wearing a business suit. In this episode, Kim breaks down what insecurity actually looks like at the top, and why it has almost nothing to do with a leader protecting the organization. It's a leader protecting themselves from it. When the question quietly shifts from "what's best for the mission" to "what keeps me safe," decisions stall, credit flows up, ri...
Jul 7
13 min
Look around right now. The trust is low and the fear is high, and you can feel it everywhere from the headlines to your own hallway. In this episode of Leadership After 5, Kim takes the trust deficit we're all sensing in the wider environment and brings it home to where it quietly does the most damage: inside our organizations. How do you actually know your team trusts you? And if that trust is already slipping, can you rebuild it on purpose? Kim walks through a four-step path for doing exact...
Jun 24
18 min
Nobody warns you about this part. When the mentor who guided your whole career retires, the hard part isn't that they can't help you anymore. It's that you realize you never built your own judgment. In this episode, Kim gets honest about the years she lost sitting still after her mentor left, the Olivia Dean lyric that finally woke her up, and why an executive coach is a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have. A mentor gives you answers. A coach builds the muscle so you become your own pair o...
Jun 14
13 min
The better your work gets, the more people show up wanting a piece of it. Most of them mean well. Some of them don't, and the hard part is they can look exactly the same. This episode is about the opportunist. The person who studies how to look like your friend, says the perfect thing at the perfect moment, and positions themselves right next to your success the second there's something to gain. I get into how to tell the loyalist from the opportunist, why your decency is the exact thing they...
Jun 9
10 min
Most leaders don't hold back because they lack vision. They hold back because they've read the room and understood the consequences of going too far. In this episode of Leadership After 5, Kim introduces one of the most underexplored and least discussed dynamics in organizational leadership — the tempered leader. The one who can see exactly what the organization needs. Who believes in the work deeply. Who has the capacity and the conviction to do something significant — and who operates every...
May 27
17 min
Most leaders don't avoid problem employees because they don't care. They avoid them because they don't know if they'll be supported when they do something about it. In this episode of Leadership After 5, Kim gets honest about one of the hardest parts of leadership: dealing with the employee who is quietly destroying your team's culture while the organization looks the other way. She shares her worst leadership story, including what it felt like to return from maternity leave and walk directly...
May 20
14 min
The Sunday scary is real. And leaders get it too. In this episode of Leadership After 5, Kim gets honest about her own Sunday scary. What it looks like, what it's actually pointing at, and why it has almost nothing to do with not liking the work. She breaks down the real math of the weekend, why Saturday is not actually a day off, and what it means when the dread shows up right on schedule at six o'clock Sunday evening. But this episode isn't just personal. It's a leadership accountability co...
May 18
12 min
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