It's a challenge to create a safe workplace where each of us can thrive, and the pressure falls hard on our leaders. It takes courage and significant motivation to help leaders improve so they can better lead their people in this complex time.

In this episode of Fifth Dimensional Leadership, I interview Edward Sullivan, CEO & Managing Partner at Velocity Coaching. Edward has coached and mentored start-up founders, Fortune 500 executives, and political leaders for over 20 years. Edward helps startup CEOs and their executive teams scale their leadership skills and build cultures of collaboration, high performance, and psychological safety. When working with more established companies, he focuses on helping CEOs transform their teams and culture to be more agile and responsive to compete in today’s fast-paced environment. 

In our conversation, Edward talks about transforming leadership to build cultures of collaboration, connection, and psychological safety.

Edward holds an MBA from the Wharton School, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, and trained as a coach at Co-Active Training Institute and New Ventures West. In addition, Edward has  co-authored several books including Leading with Heart: Five Conversations That Unlock Creativity, Purpose, and Results; The Secret to Becoming a Better Manager; and How to Protect Your Team From a Toxic Work Culture.

Things you will also learn in this episode:

• Executive coaching as a competitive advantage.
• How to proactively address toxicity.
• Why we are in a leadership crisis
• How to help manage your team’s mental health as a leader.
• Why Edward wants to wage a war on “executive presence.”

“Coaching is now viewed as a proactive investment in performance as opposed to a remedial bandage that we put on poor performance.” - Edward Sullivan

“Change has to come from [leaders] for the system to heal. Not all systems heal because one person is able to be brave.” - Edward Sullivan

“When a company is printing billions of dollars per year, there’s really no incentive to change. But it takes transformative leadership to stop and think if it’s the company you want to build.” - Edward Sullivan

“Have the courage to ask for what we need and the curiosity to ask other what they need” - Edward Sullivan

“We can create change in the dysfunctional system by taking off our masks, putting down our shields, and being vulnerable again.” - Edward Sullivan

“Often, the CEO or the Founder has the clearest lens of what good looks like, but if no one is meeting that expectation, it’s a leadership problem, not performance.” - Edward Sullivan

“If we endure for months that feeling of not being seen, not emotionally connected, and not appreciated by our team and leaders, that’s when we start to feel emotionally exhausted and that is the true cause of burnout.” - Edward Sullivan

“Often, our gifts come from something we had to learn to do to get by in this world.” - Edward Sullivan