Developing senior managers to lead high-performing agencies | Leadership coach | Scaled from start-up to 8-figure agency

I help companies grow by developing their most valuable asset: their leaders.

For over a decade, I've worked at the intersection of leadership development and data-driven results, showing organizations that investing in people isn't just good culture but good business.

My approach is straightforward. I design performance management systems that actually motivate people while building cultures where psychological safety and accountability coexist. I strip away leadership fluff to focus on what works: targeted people development that connects directly to business outcomes.

As a consultant, I partner with companies looking to transform their leadership teams through practical skill-building and honest feedback systems. I help organizations create environments where diverse perspectives are valued and teams feel empowered to innovate. My clients appreciate that I don't sugarcoat challenges, but I'm always in their corner.

My background in digital marketing gives me a unique perspective on measuring what matters, whether that's campaign performance or leadership effectiveness.

I'm passionate about sharing what I've learned from studying influential thinkers like Daniel Goleman, Robert Greene, Dale Carnegie, and Kim Scott. More importantly, I share what I've learned from being in the trenches myself as an executive balancing business demands with family life.

The best companies know that leadership excellence drives business success. If you're ready to make that connection explicit in your organization, reach out and let's discuss how I can help.

Kim Fitkin

Most academic leaders get the title—but not the tools. I know, because I’ve been there.

For over two decades, I was a professional musician (a tubist)—performing on five continents, collaborating with Olympic-caliber artists, and serving on faculty at several institutions.

Then I made the leap—from the stage to senior leadership.

I loved performing and teaching.
But I discovered that my greatest strengths were in building teams, designing better systems, and helping others succeed.

That led me to accept a leadership role directing a comprehensive School of Music at the University of Memphis:

➔ 80+ faculty and staff
➔ 400+ students
➔ 75 community partners
➔ 300 annual events
➔ A satellite campus

Very quickly, I saw a challenge many new academic leaders face:
You’re handed major responsibilities—with little preparation for the leadership side of the role.

Budgets and policies can be handed to you.
But building trust, managing conflict, and leading with clarity?

That's harder.

Through mentorship, coaching, and trial by fire, I learned to build people-centered systems that reduced the chaos and moved our school forward.

Together we:
➔ Planned and opened a $40M Performing Arts Center
➔ Modernized curriculum for professional opportunities
➔ Achieved record applications and enrollment
➔ Hired 50+ faculty/staff, increasing diversity and talent
➔ Established new international partnerships
➔ Expanded community engagement

Most important of all, we built a phenomenal team of people—faculty and staff who led the school forward.

Today, I help academic leaders do the same. 

I serve as Dean of the School of Music at Baylor University and as a coach and consult, work with leaders who want to: 
➔ Fix broken systems
➔ Build stronger teams
➔ Lead with clarity, strategy, and balance

Ready to feel confident in your leadership?

➔ DM me if you’d like more details
➔ https://meet.kevinsanders.me/intro/meeting

Kevin Sanders

Higher ed runs on borrowed ideas. 
But we often forget what made them work.

When I see a program thriving somewhere, 
my first instinct used to be: 
How do I replicate that? 
(I call that 'new leader energy' - I wanted wins fast).

It took me a while to realize that what worked at Institution X had everything to do with their budget, their culture, their timing, their luck (none of which I had).

The replication trap is real in higher ed. 
We see a dean who transformed enrollment, a chair who finally got faculty to buy into assessment, a program that went from struggling to nationally recognized — and we want the playbook.

But we're asking the wrong question. 
Instead of "What did you do?" try "What made that possible?"

That second question opens up the conditions — the political timing, the champion in the provost's office, the faculty member who everyone trusted, the budget surplus that created breathing room.

Conditions you may not have. 
Or...conditions you might be able to create.

The best mentors don't hand you answers. 
They help you understand why something worked so you can find your own version.

Context isn't a footnote. 
It's the whole story.

If you think this way about leadership, you'd probably get a lot out of my weekly newsletter, The Academic Leader's Playbook — practical frameworks for leading with more clarity and less chaos. Link in the comments. 👇

Academic Dean & Leadership Coach | Helping Leaders Navigate Change, Build Teams & Stay Human | Artist by Training

I'm biased.
But if we want students in #highered to graduate with the skills 80% of employers say the workforce is missing, we need to rethink how we're preparing them:

👉 Problem-solving 
👉 Critical and analytical thinking 
👉 Leadership and team building 
👉 Collaboration 
👉 Communication 
👉 Interpersonal skills 
👉 Work ethic and initiative 
👉 Flexibility and adaptability 
👉 Attention to detail

🔴 Here's the problem:
Too often we give students narrow, content-heavy curricular paths that leave them technically prepared but professionally underdeveloped.

It’s like a musician that knows how to play the notes.
But not how to interpret. To listen. 
To respond or collaborate with the person next to them.
The things that matter. 

✅ Here's the opportunity:
Integrate the arts into how we educate. 
Not as an elective. Or a strategy.

🔹 Many CEOs have liberal arts backgrounds 
🔹 Major corporations use the arts to train their leadership teams

Hard skills get you hired. Soft skills get you promoted.

The arts aren't just about developing creative talent. 
They're about using creativity to unlock how we think, how we listen, and how we connect.

That’s something every student needs as they enter the workforce.

If you think about leadership and education this way, you'll love my weekly newsletter The Academic Leader's Playbook — where I share practical insights to help academic leaders build stronger students, stronger programs, and stronger teams. Link in the comments. 👇 

#LeadershipGoals #HigherEdSuccess #HigherEducation #departmentchairs #deans #programmanagers #academicleadership #LeadershipSkills

The higher you go in academic leadership, the less honest feedback you receive.

Direct reports filter what they share. 
Peers protect the relationship. 
The institutional hierarchy makes honesty feel risky. 

And somewhere in there, silence can be misread as confirmation.

Building the conditions where people will actually tell you the truth takes longer than most leaders expect. 
And it requires demonstrating — repeatedly — that honesty won't cost them anything.

The feedback won't come to you on its own.
You have to build something safe enough for it to arrive.

Recognize this image? The show is fiction. The dynamic isn't.

p.s. I write about the systems behind strong academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments. 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership #facultydevelopment

I used to think good decisions spoke for themselves.
Spoiler...they don't.

Most conflict isn't about the decision. 
It's about how people found out.

Even the best decisions fail if people don't understand them.

Good communication is rarely accidental. 
It's built on purpose. 
Through repeatable habits and intentional systems.

Now, my style isn't to casually walk the halls or "drop by your office for a quick chat."
I have to be more intentional.

So, here's how my office keeps the lines of communication open:
✅ Bi-weekly Email Updates – Events, wins, and key decisions 
✅ Monthly Faculty-Staff ('Staculty') Meetings – Faculty/Staff in one room. 
✅ Committee Chair updates – shared in public. 
✅ All-Staff Meetings – Monthly. 
✅ Advisory Board – Once per semester. 
✅ Biweekly Leadership Council Meetings 
✅ Email Summary of Leadership Council Discussions 
✅ Lunch Meeting with Student Council – Twice per semester. 
✅ Lunch with Leadership Council – Monthly. 
✅ "Coffee Talks" with Each Department/Area – Once per semester (x 15 Areas). 
✅ 1:1 Meetings with Direct Reports – Finance, HR, MAR/COM, Operations, 
Advancement, Enrollment, Chairs, and Assistant/Associate Deans.

Overkill? Maybe. 😄
But does it help prevent confusion, assumptions, and broken relationships? Absolutely.

Making good decisions is only half the job.
The other half is making sure people understand them.

What's one communication habit that's made the biggest difference in your program?


I write about the systems behind strong academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership #presidentleadership

There's a specific thing that happens when someone steps into their first academic leadership role.
They walk in thinking the job is about ideas. 
Programs. Students. The mission.

Turns out it's more like a dig site.
And they discover the job is mostly about the people who were there before them.
The history they didn't create. 
The agreements that were never written down. 
The faculty member who tried to change this exact thing eight years ago and failed and hasn't trusted administration since.

Nobody tells you this in the interview.
Nobody tells you that the first 6 months aren't about what you'll build — they're about proving you're safe enough to be trusted with what already exists.

I spent a lot of energy trying to lead forward before I understood I needed to lead backward first. Into the history. Into the grievances. Into the relationships that predated me by decades.

That's not in any leadership handbook I've read.

What caught you most off guard when you stepped into your first leadership role?

p.s. Every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook, I write about the parts that don't show up in a job description. It goes out to 1000+ campuses every Saturday. Link in comments. 👇 


📷 Jurassic Park 
#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

"I love working here. But I think I've hit my ceiling."
One of my best staff members said that after three years with us.

She wasn't wrong.  
It was a small staff. Flat org chart. No upward mobility on the horizon.

Most staff don't leave because of the org chart.
They leave because nobody bothered to figure out what they actually needed.

Tomorrow's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is about what you can actually offer when a promotion isn't on the table.

Subscribe in the comments. 👇 
It goes out to 900+ campuses tomorrow morning.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

"Listen for a year before making changes." 
That's the advice most new leaders get. 
And it sometimes works...

✅ When the program is high-functioning and stable 
✅ You're following a long-standing leader 
✅ Trust is low — and fear is high

But what if you walk into dysfunction? 
🛑 Toxic behaviors are unchecked 
🛑 Accountability is missing 
🛑 Morale is low 
🛑 Your best people are quietly burning out

Instead of defaulting to 12 months of observation, try this:
👉 Fix the obvious things fast 
(Yes, you can make a few early wins without knowing everything.) 

👉 Name what you're learning 
(Let people know what you're observing and what questions you're sitting with.)

👉 Build shared urgency 
(Invite others to surface the pain points they've been living with for years.) 

👉 Decide which timeline fits the culture you're walking into 
(Not the one your leadership book told you to use.)

Listening matters — but only when it leads somewhere.

Because going slow doesn't always build trust. 
Sometimes, it just prolongs the decisions you already know need to be made.

So, if you've inherited a mess, don't wait for a permission slip. 
The system won't fix itself.

Know the playbook. 
Respect the culture. 
But trust your instincts — and lead.

What's the one thing most new leaders wait too long to address?

I write about navigating the hard parts of academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #departmentchairs #universityleadership

Nobody wants to hear their boss complain.
I know that's a hard thing to say. 
Because leadership in higher ed is genuinely hard. 

Budget headaches. Faculty frustrations. Decisions made above you that you have to implement below you. The gap between the resources you need and the ones you have.

The frustration is real. 
And venting is human.

But how you handle your frustration matters.
Because when leaders vent down the org chart, it doesn’t just “blow off steam.”
It sets a tone you might not intend.

“The dean never listens to us.” —> they hear: this is hopeless
“We’ll never get the funding we need.” —> they hear: stop trying
“The same people always drop the ball.” —> they hear: we're a broken team
“Students don’t care anymore.” —> they hear: our work doesn't matter
“This whole system is broken.” —> they hear: our leader has given up

So what can you do instead?

Vent laterally — to a peer, a colleague, someone outside your direct chain who gets it. Pair the hard truth with a path forward. Use your words to show people how to stay steady, not to confirm their worst fears.

Anyone can vent. That part is easy.

What's harder is deciding what tone you leave in the room when you walk out.

Most of what actually determines whether you succeed in this role never makes it into a handbook. That's what I write about every week in the Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments. 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #universityleadership

Every year, universities spend millions on the same things.

New marketing campaigns. 
Facility upgrades. 
Reorganizations.
New initiatives.

They're all strategic.
But most of these investments quietly share one thing:

They depend entirely on the quality of the leaders implementing them.

And most of those leaders — the chairs, directors, and coordinators making roughly 80% of daily institutional decisions — were never trained to lead.

They were hired to teach. To research. To excel in their discipline.
Then someone handed them a department and hoped for the best.

Tomorrow's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is about the one investment that makes every other investment actually work.

It's not what most institutions are spending money on.

Subscribe in the comments.
It goes out to 900+ campuses tomorrow morning.


#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

Few things damage trust faster in higher ed than this: 
An administrator overruling a search committee's recommendation.

Yes — the leader gets the candidate they want. 
But at what cost?

As someone who has served on both sides, I've seen it up close. 
And when it happens, it's a flashing red light that something in the process is broken.
It does more than ruffle feathers: 
🚫 Undermines months of committee work 
🚫 Shatters trust between leadership and faculty 
🚫 Drains morale across the department 
🚫 Puts the selected candidate on shaky ground from day one (often without realizing it)

What's the solution? 
Try these two basic check-in meetings:

✅ Meeting #1: 
Align at the Start Before the search begins, I sit down with the committee to clarify:
- Workload expectations
- Salary constraints
- Must-have qualifications
- Departmental needs
This ensures we're not evaluating different jobs in our heads.

✅ Meeting #2: 
Debrief After Final Visits After all campus visits, I meet with the search chair to hear their perspective and share mine. That input is shared with the committee before they finalize their recommendation.
The goal? No surprises.

Because let's be honest: 
👉 Committees and administrators sometimes weigh different qualities in candidates.

But those viewpoints should be resolved through collaboration, not override.

Overruling the committee isn't just poor form — it's poor leadership. 
An ounce of prevention here saves a year of fallout later.

Which of these two conversations do you think most administrators skip?

I write about shared governance and the hard parts of academic leadership every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. Link in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered #sharedgovernance #facultydevelopment

This week's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook went out to 900+ campuses this morning.

It's about what to promise when you can't promise a promotion.

"I love working here. But I don't see a future." — One of my best staff members said this after three years with us. 

And that conversation changed how I think about retention.

Most of what keeps great staff isn't the org chart. 
It's whether they trust someone is in their corner.

Link in comments.
#highereducation #academicleadership

Yesterday I had a conversation with a colleague about arts pathways, and it left me sitting with a question I can’t shake.

In their downtime, what do most people turn to?

Music.  
Films.  
Television.  
Games.  
Live performance.  
Design.  
Stories.

We rest inside worlds that artists create.

Yet at the same time, arts education pathways are being quietly reduced, underfunded, or treated as optional extras rather than essential learning. We are relying on the outputs of creativity while slowly dismantling the systems that nurture the people who make them.

If arts education fails, what then fills that space?

Who composes the soundtracks we use to regulate our emotions?  
Who tells the stories that help us understand ourselves and each other?  
Who designs the games that build problem-solving and connection?  
Who creates the films, performances, and visual worlds we escape into at the end of long days?

The arts are not a luxury. They are infrastructure for human experience, identity, empathy, and innovation.

Every industry draws on creativity. Every community benefits from it. Every person consumes it, often daily.

Protecting arts pathways in education isn’t about preserving a subject area.  
It’s about protecting the future of culture, wellbeing, and imagination.

Because if we stop growing artists… we eventually run out of what everyone turns to when they need to feel human again.

Leadership development is everywhere — and nowhere — depending on who you ask.

What does it look like on your campus?

Most strategic plans talk about developing people.

But how does that translate to actual support?

Drop more context in the comments if your situation doesn't fit neatly into one of these.

I write about building leaders in higher ed every week in The Academic Leader's Playbook. 
Link in comments 👇 

#highereducation #academicleadership #highered

What support has shaped you most as a leader?

This week's issue of The Academic Leader's Playbook is out.
It's about the one investment that makes every other investment succeed — and why most institutions keep skipping it.

Marketing gets people through the door. 
Leadership determines whether they stay.

80% of the decisions shaping your campus happen at the middle management level.  And most of those people were never trained to lead.

Let's do something about that.

Link to subscribe in comments.

#highereducation #academicleadership

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Kim Fitkin

Kevin Sanders

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kevin Sanders's LinkedIn Performance

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