Meet Kristine Sloan

We were lucky to catch up with Kristine Sloan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Kristine with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

I am the child of entrepreneurs. I saw my parents work multiple jobs to make ends meet, and work late in the evenings to build and scale their businesses. Their home office was in my childhood bedroom, and I’d often have to find another place to play while they were getting things done.

I also saw how a strong work ethic paid off for my parents – pulling them into the middle class and creating a different life for my sister and I.

I’ve tried to model that same work ethic throughout my career. I washed dishes for my moms catering company when I was 12, got my first job at 15, and worked 4 jobs to help pay my own way through college. After graduation, I worked full time and waited tables while building my first social enterprise in West Africa.

For me, a strong work ethic is a signal of hopefulness – If I work hard, I create new possibilities for my life. If I create new possibilities, maybe I can change something for the better in our world.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I believe that for so many people, work sucks.

And I don’t think we should spend the majority of our lives in workplaces that we hate.

I’m working to shift the culture of leadership, so that we can create workplaces that people enjoy – where their genius, innovation, and heart can be expressed fully.

I’m doing that through my role as the Executive Director of Leadership Triangle. Leadership Triangle offers cohort-based professional development programs to professionals who are ready to shake things up and build better workplaces. We’ve been doing this for 30 years, with significant proven impact, both in our participants workplaces and in how they show up in the broader Triangle community as leaders.

If you want to get involved, applications are now open for all of our Spring programs. You can develop yourself personally as a leader (our Transforming Leaders program), grow your network and understanding of key community issues (our Regional program) or shift your entire workplace alongside your team (Transforming Teams).

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Persistence. I often say that life is seasonal – when things feel really hard, or really unclear, I always tell myself that this is just a season. When I’ve kept going and persisted through those periods, I always come out with greater clarity, understanding, and a sense of purpose.

Knowing when to stop. I know, it’s kinda the inverse of what I just shared. But the discernment of being able to say no, or I’m done here, or I need a break – that is so key to my journey. I’ve taken three month sabbaticals in-between all of my roles, where I’ve really tuned into what I was excited about, where I wanted to continue growing my career, and how I might shift roles in order to achieve a new lifestyle. Those breaks have been key for me – I would have made very different choices without the time to rest, pause, and get strategic about what was next.

Integrity. You don’t have control over much in this world, but you can control if your actions line up with your values. I have tried to hold my integrity in all of my relationships through time. Sometimes that’s really hard – it means not pursuing opportunities or ending professional relationships that could have been profitable. It’s worth it.

How would you describe your ideal client?

I love working with people who have just enough awareness to say – “I’m missing something in my leadership tool belt. I don’t quite know what it is, but I know I could be stronger.”

That self-awareness is so key when a person is coming into a Leadership Triangle program. It helps open you up in a spirit of curiosity and enables you to grow and really get something out of our programs.

But if you think you’re a perfect leader and have nothing to improve upon, I’ll work with you too. Just might be a little harder on your end, ha!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://leadershiptriangle.com/
• Instagram: @leadershiptriangle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadershiptri/

Image Credits

Emily Bennett Creative