LEAD3R

Confidence is often treated like an individual personality trait. For a healthy team, it's an output—and trust is what produces it. We recently came across a team that illustrates this exact point. Picture this… The 2026 North American University Mine Rescue Championship in Sudbury, Ontario. Mid-scenario in the First Aid Mass Casualty Incident, first-time Briefing Officer Connor Keddie slipped in fake blood. The realism was beyond anything he had seen in training, and he was well outside his comfort zone. Elsewhere in the competition, Tail Captain Dylan Shilling lost radio communication early in a scenario — the very channel his role depended on. He improvised, rerouted, and reestablished contact once they reached the refuge station. Two roles. Two pressure points. Two moments where individual preparation hit its limit and the team's trust in one another – their confidence – took over. What got Connor through? He confirmed, "... the confidence of my teammates helped me focus and remember that we were prepared for anything." Not **his** confidence. Theirs. Borrowed against the trust he'd built with them long before the moment arrived. The end result? WVU finished 2nd overall — the top U.S. team — and won the Confined Space Challenge. Organizations can get this backward, focused on recruiting "confident individuals" when confidence is what a healthy system produces. In this case: → Competence — built in 6 a.m. practices → Camaraderie — built through shared reps and earned trust → Commitment — built through clarity and ownership → Confidence — what the first three produce Trust is built before it's tested. You can't workshop it mid-crisis. Teams either laid the foundation beforehand, or they didn't — and the crisis is where the answer shows up. At HTS 2026, attendees work the 4Cs in real time with peers facing the same gap between the team they have and the team they'll need when things don't go to plan. Come build with us this October in Boston: https://hubs.li/Q04hlLK_0 Don't miss out! Early-bird closes May 31. Story: https://hubs.li/Q04hlMPn0 #HealthyTeams #Leadership #Teamwork #FutureOfWork #HTS2026 #LEAD3R

Sandy Speicher is joining HTS 2026 Former CEO of IDEO. Advisor to executives, philanthropists, and public leaders shaping the future with intention. Her entire career rests on one idea: some teams have values on a wall. The best ones have conditions -- designed on purpose. Great teamwork isn't an accident. It's engineered. Deliberately. Through choices most leaders never think to make. Sandy is bringing that thinking to the HTS 2026 mainstage, and you're going to want to be in the room. Early bird pricing ends May 31st → https://hubs.li/Q04h6B_K0 #LEAD3R #TheFutureOfTeamwork #HealthyTeams #HTS2026

Most leaders follow the map. The best ones draw it. We're getting closer to announcing another HTS 2026 speaker—and this one belongs squarely in the second category. Her career has been built in the places most leaders find hardest: where there's no playbook, no precedent, and no "best practice" to copy. Where the right path forward doesn't exist yet and must be imagined before it can be built. If your team is staring down a year of "we've never done this before"—of choices without precedent, of futures that must be invented rather than inherited—this announcement is going to land. Coming soon. And more names after that! Only two more weeks to secure the early-bird discount. https://hubs.li/Q04gRyqz0 #LEAD3R #TheFutureOfTeamwork #HealthyTeams #HTS2026

Every May, Mental Health Awareness Month rolls around with a familiar script: teal ribbons, "we care" social posts, and reminders about the EAP quietly pinned to Teams or Slack channels. But as soon as June arrives, most workplaces go right back to business as usual—like nothing was ever said. This isn't just a 'nice to have' conversation. The WHO's 2024 Mental Health at Work fact sheet estimates that 12 billion working days are lost each year globally to depression and anxiety—roughly $1 trillion in productivity. Their recommendations are clear: train managers to talk about mental health, help everyone build mental health literacy, and redesign work itself. Not just awareness campaigns—real skill building and system redesign. That gap—between performative awareness and real, operational capability—is exactly what Melissa Doman, MA, organizational psychologist, former clinical therapist, and author of Cornered Office, unpacks in the latest episode of The Future of Teamwork with LEAD3R CEO Dane Groeneveld. The line we keep coming back to: "We don't need more people saying mental health matters. We need people who can actually talk about it." Here are a few of the system-level reframes that emerged from the conversation: ➡️ Build a fence, not a wall or an open field. Boundaries beat both silence and oversharing. ➡️ Pair self-awareness with self-management. Leaders modeling what they do with stress beats leaders simply naming it. ➡️ Build discomfort tolerance, not just resilience. "If you can't sit in discomfort, how can you bounce back from what you won't face?" ➡️ Watch the "father goose/mother hen" archetype—leaders who shield their teams from every hard conversation, then quietly burn out alone. Or, as Melissa puts it bluntly: "Can we please stop pretending that success and struggle don't exist in the same body?" This is just one of the conversations we're opening up at the Healthy Team Summit 2026: https://hubs.li/Q04gFBG90 🎧 Full episode with Melissa Doman is linked in the comments. #LEAD3R #TheFutureOfTeamwork #HealthyTeams #HTS2026 #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth

Meet the next voice taking the Healthy Team Summit stage in Boston, October 7-8. 🎤 Michael Ioffe, Co-Founder & CEO of Arist, Thiel Fellow, and one of the most exciting young builders in enterprise AI, is joining the lineup. Under his leadership, Arist has become the AI-powered enablement platform behind Novartis, EY, and dozens of Fortune 500 companies—and was recently chosen to power the U.S. Department of Labor's "Make America AI-Ready" initiative, delivering free AI literacy training to every American via text. We're also proud to welcome Arist as a Playground Partner for the Summit (more on that to come!). This is the future of how teams learn, grow, and stay healthy. Healthy teams don't happen by accident. They're built, and the playbook is shifting fast. Don't miss it. Early-bird pricing ends May 31—after that, prices go up. Lock in your seat now: https://hubs.li/Q04g9mLY0 #LEAD3R #HealthyTeamSummit #TheFutureOfTeamwork #Arist #HTS2026

Next week, Kurt Landonwill be joining LEAP HR Life Sciences West in San Diego to explore the leadership and team challenges shaping today’s workplace. If you’re headed to LEAP HR West, be sure to connect with Kurt and join the discussion. Register here and be sure to use the discount code: https://hubs.li/Q04g8Ns70 Connect with Kurt: https://hubs.li/Q04g8TyW0 #LEAPHRWest #HRLeadership #Leadership #TeamPerformance #LifeSciences #LEAD3R

Mother's Day is about appreciation, but it's also about seeing what often goes unnoticed. Motherhood doesn't fit one shape. It's the parent raising biological children. The one who adopted or fostered. The stepparent who showed up and stayed. The aunt, grandparent, or chosen family member doing the daily work. The mentor who poured into someone else's child. The woman grieving a child she lost, or the one who is still hoping. All of it counts. All of it shapes lives. And all of it carries the same invisible load. The daily juggling. The way mothers navigate complexity with limited time and resources. These aren't just personal qualities—they're real capabilities. Yet too often, our systems don't recognize or support them. What helps? Genuine flexibility. Real support, not just policies. An understanding that great work doesn't always look the same—and neither does mothering. To all the moms out there, we see you, and we appreciate you!! #MothersDay #LEAD3R

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein That quote came to mind while listening to the recent episode of The Future of Teamwork with guest Calvin Correli. Most organizations say they want innovation, experimentation, and growth. But many teams still create environments where people are afraid to get it wrong. The problem? Success often reinforces what we already know. Mistakes expose blind spots, challenge assumptions, and create learning. That’s where growth happens. That’s where stronger teams get built. In this conversation, LEAD3R CEO and host Dane Groeneveld and Calvin explore: ➡️ Why fear of mistakes limits performance ➡️ How judgment impacts trust and learning ➡️ Why teams need psychological freedom, not perfection If your team avoids mistakes at all costs, it may also be avoiding growth. Listen to the full episode: https://hubs.li/Q04fZ3790 #LEAD3R #TheFutureOfTeamwork #Coaching

Heritage isn’t only about the past; it’s about what we carry forward. Jewish American Heritage Month honors the generations who’ve shaped our culture, thinking, and communities. It’s also a chance to reflect: Are we creating spaces where people can bring their whole selves to work? Or are we asking them to check part of their identity at the door? When people feel they must separate who they are from how they contribute, we lose more than authenticity. We lose valuable insight. #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth #Inclusion #Leadership

23 to 1. Last out of the gate. First across the wire. Golden Tempo’s victory at the 152nd Kentucky Derby wasn’t just luck. It was the result of a system. Cherie DeVaux was the first woman to train a Derby winner. Jose Ortiz beat his own brother, who rode the favorite Renegade, to claim his first Derby win. Two ownership groups, Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable, shared the risk together. And the horse? He started the race with cracked heels. None of that should have worked. All of it did. Why? How? This happened because the 4Cs of healthy teaming were already in place before the race even began: 1. Competence: DeVaux didn’t hesitate when she saw the cracked heels. She had seen this injury before and understood what was serious and what wasn’t. Real expertise means knowing the difference between a real threat and something that only seems like one. 2. Confidence: Ortiz was in last place but stayed calm. In a field of 20, with his brother riding the 5-to-1 favorite, he stuck to the plan. True belief keeps you going, even without seeing results right away. 3. Commitment: Trainer, jockey, both ownership groups, and everyone in the barn focused on one goal. Each person stuck to their role and didn’t try to take over someone else’s job. 4. Camaraderie: Trust when it matters most. When Ortiz made his move, no one questioned it. The team had already agreed ahead of time who would make the call. Most teams think performance is about leading from the start. But in real conditions, performance is about whether your system holds when you're behind. Golden Tempo didn't win because everything broke right. He won because the entire team knew exactly what to do when it didn't. This is what we build at the Healthy Team Summit. Not theory. Not panels. A lab where leaders practice the 4Cs under pressure, so when your team is in the back of the pack with the favorites pulling away, you're not hoping. You're executing. Because you don't learn this by watching the race. You learn it by being in it. You have less than a month to get early bird pricing. Claim your spot today! https://hubs.li/Q04frCfM0 #LEAD3R #HTS2025 #TheFutureOfTeamwork #healthyteamsummit #healthyteam