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SOF-Leadership

Better leaders. Stronger teams.

Every solution starts with leadership.

Leadership development drives organizational growth; but too often, it becomes a priority only after problems arise. SOF-Leadership offers development services to help leaders and teams get ahead of those challenges.

Customized leadership programs

Get a leadership development plan tailored to your goals, challenges, and budget, with a clear path to results.

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Most culture work is delivered in a single session. The effect does not survive it.

An offsite. A speaker. A workshop with a binder. People leave the room with good intentions and return to the same meetings, the same incentives and the same habits.

Nothing was wrong with the day. There was only one of it.

One day. Then the other 364.The sessionEvery day after it

Building cohesive teams.

Where your group sits now decides what the work looks like. No group moves from the first stage to the third without passing through the second.

Each one here for themselves.

  1. ME: Here for myself.

    Contribution is real but transactional.

    From the outsideEffort arrives when someone is watching and leaves when they are not. Meetings are attended. Credit is tracked closely.

  2. WE: Here for the group, on conditions.

    The commitment is genuine and still self-referential: I am here because of what this group gives me, or because of who I am in it.

    From the outsideIt holds while things go well. Under pressure it splits into factions, each loyal to its own.

  3. THEE: For one other person, with nothing returning.

    Not the collective. A specific individual.

    From the outsideNobody announces it. It is only ever seen afterward: the person who stayed with someone else’s problem and never mentioned it.

Months, not a morning.

The engagement is built around one measurement taken twice. Everything between the two is sustained contact with your leaders.

Proportions illustrative. Most of the engagement is the long middle.

  1. Diagnostic

    [2–3 weeks]

    A structured read of where the group sits now, taken from the people in it. This becomes the baseline.

  2. On-site engagement

    [X days]

    Working sessions with leaders and teams, built from what the diagnostic found. Not a presentation.

  3. Sustained work

    [6–9 months]

    Regular contact with leaders between sessions. Small commitments, followed up. This is where most of the time goes.

  4. The same measurement again

    [Month X]

    The same diagnostic, the same questions, the same people. The comparison is the report.

The founder: Shawn Harkins

The founder, mid-sentence, talking with a group of young people beside a running track.

1 / 3

Retired U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. Detachment Command, Afghanistan.

  • [YEARS OF SERVICE]
  • [UNIT]
  • [DEPLOYMENTS]

He spent [X] years responsible for small teams working where the consequences were not abstract. The model comes from watching which groups held under that pressure and which did not.

His record is why the model gets a hearing. The model has to earn the rest.

Where he has worked.

With teams across the United States and overseas. Select a place for detail.

6 places. Map data: Natural Earth.

United States

Colorado
Work
[SAMPLE] Team engagement
When
[SAMPLE] 2021

[SAMPLE] Worked with program leads across three teams on the move from WE to THEE during a period of rapid growth.

Florida
Work
[SAMPLE] Military service
When
[SAMPLE] [YEARS]

[SAMPLE] Assignment detail to be supplied. Publicly releasable information only.

North Carolina
Work
[SAMPLE] Military service
When
[SAMPLE] [YEARS]

[SAMPLE] Assignment detail to be supplied. Publicly releasable information only.

Overseas

Germany
Work
[SAMPLE] Military service
When
[SAMPLE] [YEARS]

[SAMPLE] Assignment detail to be supplied. Publicly releasable information only.

Africa
Work
[SAMPLE] Military service
When
[SAMPLE] [YEARS]

[SAMPLE] Assignment detail to be supplied. Publicly releasable information only.

Afghanistan
Work
Military service
When
[YEARS]

Detachment command. [SAMPLE] Further detail limited to publicly releasable information.

Organizations that have seen results.

No two organizations on this list came in with the same problem. None of them left with the same program.

  • [ORGANIZATION]
  • [ORGANIZATION]
  • [ORGANIZATION]
  • [ORGANIZATION]
  • [ORGANIZATION]
  • [ORGANIZATION]
[TESTIMONIAL]
[NAME, ROLE, ORGANIZATION]
[TESTIMONIAL]
[NAME, ROLE, ORGANIZATION]

Questions a careful buyer asks.

These usually come up on the first call. They are answered here instead.

What this is not.

Not a keynote. Not a motivational program. Not a personality assessment. There is no stage, no slogan and no merchandise. It is structured work with your leaders over months.

How it fits our constraints.

Scope, schedule and headcount are set during the briefing. Sessions are planned around your operating tempo, shift patterns and budget cycle. [FILL: minimum engagement, remote options.]

Insurance and clearances.

[FILL: liability coverage, carrier, limits.] [FILL: clearance status; background checks on request.] Documentation is sent before any contract is signed.

How we would know it worked.

The diagnostic is run at the start and again at the end, with the same instrument and the same people. You see both sets of results. No other outcome is claimed.

Request a briefing.

Thirty minutes with [FOUNDER NAME], not a salesperson. Bring the hardest question you have.

[Reply within X business days.]