In coaching sessions and conversations with fellow leadership development experts, we hear undercurrents of questions about balancing masculine and feminine characteristics in professional leadership. We would like to bring that conversation to the surface. 

In today’s complex and ever-evolving workplaces, leaders need to operate with emotional intelligence, balance accountability and support, and create spaces that welcome authenticity while providing clear direction and maintaining standards of excellence. Efforts to build technical skills in these capacities often fall short and we want to understand why. 

We have decades of experience in developing leaders and building high-performing team cultures. Our hypothesis is that, in order to meet the challenges of our time, leaders need to address the unexamined norms related to masculine and feminine expressions that exist in every organization. This pilot session is a thoughtfully designed experiment intended to foster productive dialogue about masculine and feminine dynamics in the workplace and how we might work skillfully to create more balance and wholeness in our leadership in the future. We hope you’ll join us!

Colleen Cruikshank is a leadership coach and educator with a deep commitment to cultivating communities that embrace differing perspectives and our common humanity. She serves as Senior Training Manager at the Constructive Dialogue Institute. Previously, Colleen was the Director of the Schusterman Fellowship, a leadership development program for nonprofit executives, and spent more than a decade building leadership programs for social impact leaders worldwide. Colleen received her coaching certification from CoachDiversity Institute and was a 2024 Severn Leadership Group Fellow. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and an informal minor in rowing. She lives in Maryland with her blended family and one sweet rescue pup. Learn more about Colleen’s work at www.accompanyllc.com

Dr. Max Klau is a consultant, author, speaker, and Integral Master Coach based in Boston, Massachusetts.  He received his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005 with a focus on civic leadership development.  He served as the Chief Program Officer at the New Politics Leadership Academy (NPLA) from 2016-2024.  NPLA is focused on bringing more servant leaders into politics, and Max designed leadership programs that have graduated more than 2,500 servant leaders to date.  Previously, he was the Vice President of Leadership Development at City Year, the education-focused AmeriCorps program.  His second book, Developing Servant Leaders at Scale:  How to Do It and Why It Matters, will be published in August 2025. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and two children.  Learn more about him at www.maxklau.com.