About Nicki
I’m Nicki—writer, speaker, facilitator, and founder of Love-Led Leadership®.
I’ve spent 35 years learning one thing above all else:
How you live is how you lead.
That belief started long before my career. I spent much of my childhood alone, and while that wasn’t always easy, it gave me a deep appreciation for real connection—and an understanding that what people crave most isn’t recognition, but connection and relevance. They want to know that who they are and what they bring actually matters.
That understanding became the foundation of everything I believe about leadership.
Over the years, my work has taken me from business ownership to leading organizations, mentoring students, developing leadership programs, writing, speaking, and bringing people together for meaningful conversations.
Through it all, I’ve learned that leadership is about far more than strategy, systems, or results. It’s about people. And people are more likely to thrive when they’re treated with dignity, integrity, and genuine care.
I’ve also seen what happens when leadership loses sight of that—when talented, capable people begin to question their value, stop sharing their ideas, and slowly disengage.
Those experiences led me to a truth that has stayed with me ever since:
Culture is what leadership allows.
But I kept wondering: What does better leadership actually look like? What changes when we put people back at the center of it?
Then one morning, while writing a blog, the words Love-Led Leadership came to me. I kept hearing the phrase over and over, and I couldn’t shake it.
As I began researching, I discovered leaders, organizations, scholars, and thinkers who had been exploring love as a powerful force in leadership—not as sentimentality, but as a way of seeing people, building trust, creating connection, and recognizing the dignity and worth of others.
That’s how Love-Led Leadership® began.
Today, Love-Led Leadership® is the philosophy that guides all of my work. It’s built on five principles: self-care, empathy, compassion, gratitude, and service.
Whether I’m writing, speaking, or facilitating a conversation, those principles shape the perspective I bring to the room.
The topic may change, but the foundation doesn’t.
I might be talking about conflict, trust, culture, self-leadership, boundaries, communication, or the challenges of leading in an increasingly divided world. Whatever the topic, I’m interested in helping people rethink how they lead and the impact they have on others.
Because I believe something very simple:
Love belongs in leadership.
And if love changes how we see people, it changes how we lead them.
I don’t approach this work from a place of having it all figured out. Love-Led Leadership® is as much a practice for me as it is a philosophy I write and speak about. I’m still learning from it, questioning it, and trying to live it every day.
That’s part of what makes this work meaningful to me.
If you’d like to bring this conversation into your organization, group, or community, I’d love to hear from you.