Closing that gap is all I do — one-on-one with a handful of leaders, and through Take the Lead, the leadership development system we built at First Class Leaders.
The call is 30 minutes · no commitment · no pitch
First Class Leaders is the coaching company I co-lead with Kyle Freiburger. Our method, Take the Lead, develops leadership and emotional intelligence the way Lean develops operations: a shared vocabulary, a repeatable practice loop, and measurement at three layers — what you did, how well you did it, and what changed because of it.
We built it for aviation, where the gap between knowing and doing carries the least room for error. A pilot can hold every procedure in memory and still go quiet in the moment that counts. Take the Lead trains that moment — signal, decision, action, feedback — until showing up well stops depending on a good day.
The core of the work is group coaching: leaders practicing together, with shared language and honest measurement. It's the same gap I've always worked. Now there's a discipline a team can run.
Leadership can be practiced like a discipline, not waited for like a trait.
Explore First Class LeadersI've spent most of my adult life in rooms with people who lead — and I kept noticing the same thing. Not their accomplishments. The distance between the leader they were and the leader they showed up as when it counted. I do this work to close that distance, with them, from the inside.
I'm not a consultant, and I won't hand you a generic program to run. What I bring is a method — a disciplined way of working, built on years of practice and held to professional coaching standards. The structure is real. It's pointed at drawing out what's yours, not installing what's mine.
I came to formal training after years of doing this work. The structure added precision to what was already there. The practice came first, and that order shows up in how it runs.
I work with a select number of leaders at a time. I keep it that way on purpose.
Not this time. You're doing the work, doing it right, and nothing moves. Everyone's waiting for you to have the answer. There's nowhere to say you don't.
"Everything that worked before isn't working."The knowing was never the problem. The moment is. The conversation you rehearse and skip. The decision you make from fear. You feel it from the inside.
"I can't seem to lead that way when it counts."Your capability is intact. What oriented you stopped. You're still leading, still moving, and none of it is arriving anywhere.
"Something has to change. I can't name it yet."Things just don't click. In my case, it was coaching. I don't know how it works, but it works. Lean into it.
Melanie Thorley · Employment Attorney · BrisbaneI've tried to do so many things by myself. Having someone listen — and then ask the question that gets things to move — that's what changed everything.
Dr. Andrew Rostenberg · Founder, Red Mountain Natural Medicine · BoiseWe start with a 30-minute call. No pitch, no close. You'll know quickly whether this fits, and so will I.
Not symptoms, not surface goals. The work goes to the real obstacle — the pattern running the decisions. And because you find it instead of receiving it, it holds.
Not a to-do list. A different relationship with the moment you've been freezing in.
I work with a select number of leaders at a time. If you're wondering whether this fits, reach out. The call is free. The conversation is honest. You'll know by the end of it.
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