Alumni Spotlight: Talkin' Leader Passion & Purpose with Doctor Kim Perkins

From speed skating pro to leader development superstar.

Welcome to our first alumni spotlight! Our own research manager, coaching coordinator, lead coach, and superstar, Ashley Watterson, recently sat down with LeAD Labs alum and co-founder, Doctor Kim Perkins to discuss how leaders can better develop their own Passion & Passion.

Enjoy our interview with Doctor Kim Perkins by watching the video and/or reading the transcript below!

Ashley:

Hello, everyone. My name is Ashley Watson and I am a third-year Ph.D. student at Claremont Graduate University studying organizational behavior.

I'm a proud member of LeAD Labs, which is for those of you who are new to our Substack account, an evidence-based leadership assessment and development consultancy at CGU that was founded 10 years ago.

Not only am I a lab member of LeAD Labs, but I also serve as the research manager, coaching coordinator, and lead coach.

But okay, enough about me and LeAD Labs, I'd like to now introduce a phenomenal CGU and LeAD Labs alumni whom I've had the great honor and privilege of working with for the last two years, Dr. Kim Perkins, who is a co-founder of LeAD Labs! 

Dr. Kim Perkins has not only been my mentor for the last two years but has also been a mentor for other members in labs, and has truly been a selfless resource and partner to LeAD Labs overall.

So I'm so grateful for her taking the time to talk with us today. Thank you. All right. So a former journalist and pro athlete, Dr. Kim Perkins works on innovation, culture, and communication with leaders at top organizations, large and small including Warner Brothers, Modern Health, GenTech, and Dropbox.

She holds a master's degree in program evaluation and a Ph.D. in positive organizational psychology. Kim loves supporting the arts and comes from a family of fine artists. As a LeAD Labs coach with the Getty Leadership Institute, she has advised executive directors at major museums as well as helped teens and citizen artists bring large art installations to Burning Man. 

As a mixed-race person, she has spent 20 years leading groups around issues of diversity, voice, and trauma recovery as a consultant to major tech and media companies in California. She has presented workshops and partnerships with management leaders for tomorrow, which invest in Black, Latinx, talent to secure high-trajectory jobs in science, tech, and media, and led corrective gender equity initiatives at new media companies.

So has done a lot! Welcome, Dr. Kim Perkins.

Kim:

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Ashley:

So we're just going to jump right in. Can you tell me about what your area of research was while you were at CGU?

Kim:

Sure. So one thing about me is that I'm very much of an academic trespasser. When I say that I mean I'm interested in all kinds of things and I take kind of a more holistic approach rather than going deep in one area.

I came to Claremont for the Positive Psychology Program and began studying evaluation and loved it. While doing a master's degree in evaluation, I also did my thesis on flow in competitive experiences with Jeanne Nakamura because of my past athletic career as a pro speed skater. We had some fascinating results! We generally associate lower levels of flow with greater competitiveness, but that didn't sound right to me. Because, as an athlete, I experienced a lot of flow in competitive situations!

But, when I tried to extend that for my dissertation, it wasn’t going anywhere because I wanted to study it in a work setting. One of the things I discovered was that in work settings, competitiveness does not act the same way as it does in leisure settings when you're doing more discretion, you know? It's less riding on the outcome. So I ended up switching after doing a lot of research in that area and began studying passion and purpose in LeAD Labs.

Ashley:

I'm really glad that we're talking about Passion and Purpose because that is the dimension of our 6P Framework of Leader Development that is something that we're currently highlighting on our Substack. 

So, let’s talk about what you've been doing since you graduated from CGU. We got a little bit in your bio, but if you want to talk a little bit more about your professional experience since leaving CGU that would be great. 

Kim:

Sure. So while I was at CGU, I did a lot of training––that was my main consulting and practice. I worked for the Mind Gym, which is a multinational training based in London, and that's where I got a deep understanding of how a lot of the ideas that we talked about in the academy get used in practice or sort of get taken out into different tools and what the situation is there and how they get used.

After my last year at CGU, I joined Nobel, which is a consulting company that specializes in communication and meetings. And that's where I did a lot of organizational change work as a consultant. I was there for several years and then during the pandemic, it seemed like a good time to go off in my own direction and do more in private practice.

That's when I started doing more DEI work and a little bit more executive coaching on the individual level, and starting to specialize and develop the things that I was passionate about. 

Ashley:

I don't know that it was highlighted as much, but I would also like to put a spotlight on the fact that you are an amazing executive coach whom I have learned so much from. I’ve had the pleasure and benefit of being coached by you as well.

I commend you for the work that you do, in working with women and people of color from underrepresented groups. You are great at what you do.

Kim:

Thank you so much. Honestly, it's such a privilege to do executive coaching because you get to feel like you're close to somebody's life, and I know that a lot of executive coaches have a more hands-off approach. We're just gonna talk about performance and it's gonna be all kind of at an arm's length thing.

And that's not my approach at all. From what I learned about Passion and Purpose from my work at CGU and LeAD Labs and also, many of the experiences that I'd had in working at the community level with DEI issues and issues of identity.

I've come to see leadership as intensely personal and that's the place where really, that's where the fruit is. You know, that's where the juice is––to connect to the person and their whole being to what you're doing and not just try to tweak the way people are acting or maybe put on your mask a little bit better.

Ashley:

Well, now I want to ask a different question. As you know, LeAD Labs is a consultancy group that focuses on leader development, so if you were to give one piece of advice on leader development, what would you say to organizational leaders?

Kim:

A lot of times people get really good individual contributors, who get promoted into positions of leadership, and then they don’t succeed. That can either be a lack of managerial skills, you know, like first-line training. But a lot of times, what I see, and I find this very interesting, is that especially for women and other underrepresented minorities, people get into these leadership positions, these places of legitimate authority in the hierarchy, because they have a student mentality. You say jump and they say how high. At a certain point in the hierarchy, or especially in entrepreneurship, you can't just jump through the hoops that other people put out for you.

You have to put out your own hoops and decide which hoops you're going to jump. You take those bets and then make it work. And that's a whole different ball game for people. Sometimes they just don't have the depth of experience in a leadership role that they do when they're trying to hit external marks as a follower.

And to me, that's the heart of the matter because, like I said, leadership is intensely personal, and your motivation is your value. This is where you get through some of the bad stuff that can happen with leadership, especially for underrepresented people who experience a lot of criticism. There's a lot of self-doubt that can turn into a headwind.

A lot of the time you have to commit to something that will help you stay the course and that means addressing your real needs and your real desires, rather than just meeting the extrinsic marks set for you.

And so the advice I have for organizational leaders is to not neglect connecting what you're doing to your larger life and what you want. Because if you're kind of going with the flow at a certain point, that flow is gonna start flowing in your face and you're going have to persist. And if it's not, if you're not flowing towards something that you legitimately want in this part of your life, it's not going to work.

Ashley:

I'm going to add another question here. In LeAD Labs, we like to talk about the 70/20/10 breakdown of leader development. 70% of leader development comes from work (or non-work!) experience, 20% from developmental relationships, and 10% from formal training. I wonder what would you recommend to somebody regarding the 70%. What type of experience should people be looking for to build on that passion and purpose?

Kim:

That's a great question. When we talk about passion, we have to talk about harmonious passion versus obsessive passion, right?

Harmonious passion distinguishes itself as kind of a positive passion where you like something and you want to do it all the time. And that therefore it's in harmony with the other activities of your life. Obsessive passion is on the more negative side, which means that you'll ignore everything else in your life to pursue this one thing. I think our hustle culture often sounds like it's going to reward obsessive passion because that's how leaders are typically portrayed. Like Steve Jobs, right?

When I was teaching in tech land, everybody was looking to apply methods that Steve Jobs used and that's not going to work for anybody. 

We're conditioned to think you’re supposed to be working 90 hours a week and loving it. That's not going to help us at this point. That would be obsessive with passion and not harmonious passion. And so, I think that it's really important in that 70% of experiences for people who are pursuing a passion should be aware of all the other forces in their life.

And that sometimes means journaling. That means a lot of self-care in the original Bell Hook sense of self-care, not getting manicures, but in terms of honoring your body as a person who, as a living being with a right to be here and not getting caught up in all of the markers and the extrinsic measures of success, can keep their passion harmonious, and not let it get obsessive.

Ashley:

Yeah. I love that. Thank you for taking that because I know I threw that to you. It took a minute to think about. It was great. Well, I appreciate everything you shared today. 

Finally, where can we learn more about what you're up to? How do we get in contact with Dr. Kim Perkins right now? 

Kim:

My website is probably the best one Kim Perkins.com. There will also be some new Substacks and other things like that coming in the next few months. 

Ashley:

Well, again, thank you, Kim. I think you're a perfect first alumni spotlight. You've been a true champion of LeAD Labs and an amazing resource to us. I can't thank you enough for your mentorship. It's been an amazing experience and I’m looking forward to doing more work with you soon.