We recently connected with Karin Hurt and have shared our conversation below.

Karin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Why in the world,” people often ask us, “would you leave successful executive careers to start a leadership development company?”

The truth is neither one of us set out to rid the world of cynical, dehumanizing leadership. We both just hit a point of such utter frustration that we started to blog.

We had witnessed too many examples of executives and managers destroying themselves and their teams with a win-at-all-cost mentality. Others were so focused on being liked by their teams (or pleasing their bosses) that they failed to speak up or hold people accountable.

How David and I met…

We plainly shared two passions:

1. Convincing leaders that they can get breakthrough results without losing their humanity.

2. Giving managers the practical tools to make the change–and to make the change stick.

We didn’t know one another at the time. We wrote our blogs from 1700 miles apart.

After a while, our blogs began attracting readers from around the world. Our readers kept asking, “When are you going to write your book?” And “Can you come to teach my team how to do that?” Neither of us could resist the urge to do this for a living. The need was too strong. And the potential to make a broader impact was apparent and appealing.

Now The Love Story

So, yes. We met online, (not the swipe right or left kind, but David swears he would have swiped right)
and started reading and supporting one another’s work.

After a while, we realized we were writing the same book, so we decided to collaborate. We wrote our first book, Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul, while David was living in Colorado and Karin was in Maryland (evidence that you can nurture creativity and trust in a remote team).

Soon after the book was complete, we realized we had fallen in love somewhere along the way. We got married. We merged our businesses.

Now we help human-centered leaders (like you) resolve workplace ambiguity and chaos so that you can drive innovation, productivity, and revenue without burning out employees.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I help human-centered leaders find clarity in uncertainty, drive innovation, and achieve breakthrough results.

After two decades as a Verizon executive, I founded Let’s Grow Leaders, a training firm focused on human-centered leadership development for those determined to get breakthrough results without losing their humanity. Leaders, I found, were hungry for practical tools and leadership development that sticks.

Since 2013, my husband David and I have helped grow tens of thousands of leaders in 14 countries with our leadership development programs and keynotes. We also provide clean water to the people of Cambodia through their Winning Wells philanthropic initiative.

We have written several books with one more in the birthing stage, including

Courageous Cultures – How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates https://letsgrowleaders.com/courageous-cultures-book/

and
Winning Well – A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results—Without Losing Your Soul https://letsgrowleaders.com/winning-well-2/

I host the popular LinkedIn show, Asking for a Friend. And was recently named by Inc. Magazine as a Top 100 Great Leadership Speaker. https://letsgrowleaders.com/asking-for-a-friend/

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

You can’t be vulnerable as a leader. https://letsgrowleaders.com/2022/04/04/how-i-learned-the-importance-of-being-an-authentic-leader/

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

https://letsgrowleaders.com/2015/01/02/biggest_lessons_of-2014/

plus milestones….

Now we are International Company doing business with small start ups and big brands including Nestle, Amazon and NIH

Links
https://nihrecord.nih.gov/2020/02/07/hurt-inspires-us-build-courageous-cultures

https://letsgrowleaders.com/strategic-leadership-and-team-innovation-programs/

Contact Info:

• Website: https://letsgrowleaders.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsgrowleaders/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letsgrowleaders/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karin-hurt/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LetsGrowLeaders
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA76vROsneNZDsHGnasov7A

Image Credits
NA