Stop guessing about the people you lead.
I help leaders see how their people will act under pressure, before it costs them.
I spent more than 20 years leading teams in the U.S. national security community, where reading people under stress was part of the job. Now I use certified Hogan assessments and that experience to help you hire the right leaders, fix team friction and get through hard transitions.
I work with founders and leadership teams at fast-growing, mission-driven companies, especially in defense tech, GovCon and cyber.
- 20+ yearsleading in U.S. national security
- Hogan certifiedwith advanced interpretation
- National Intelligence Universityintelligence leadership and management
- Chicago Boothexecutive education in behavioral economics
Every leader is graded twice, and most hiring decisions only read one of the report cards.
The report card from above Bosses, boards, investors
- Visibility
- Confidence
- Strategic fluency
- Looking ready for the next seat
The report card from below The people they lead
- Trust
- Clarity and fairness
- Accountability
- What happens when the pressure hits
Hogan’s research is blunt. There’s almost no overlap between the traits that get executives promoted and the traits their people describe as real leadership.
So you can hire the most polished person in the room and still put your team, and your mission, at risk. Or you can build a strong, healthy team and never get noticed for it. I help you read both report cards before you make the call.
An interview shows you the résumé and the performance. It doesn’t show you the person under pressure.
I don’t screen résumés. I step in at the final stage and assess your top candidates with certified Hogan assessments.
You find out how they lead, what drives them and how they derail under stress, before you make the offer. Hiring isn’t just HR. It’s intelligence gathering.
- Résumé
- Strong. Right companies, right titles.
- Interview
- Confident, polished, says the right things.
- References
- Positive.
- What the usual process can’t see
- Under stress
- How they derail when the plan falls apart
- Motivation
- What actually drives their decisions
- Reputation
- How other people experience working for them
- Fit
- Whether your team will trust them
There are four main ways I can help you.
Each one starts with hard behavioral data, not gut feel and not corporate buzzwords.
What’s going on for you right now?
Hiring and vetting senior people
I don’t screen résumés. I step in at the final stage and assess your top candidates with certified Hogan assessments: how they lead, what motivates them and, most importantly, how they derail under stress. You get that before you make the offer.
Call me whenYou’re about to hire or promote someone into a role you can’t afford to get wrong.
Seeing how your team really works
I put your team through structured exercises and assessments that show how people actually communicate, make decisions and handle friction. Not how they act in a normal meeting, or how they describe themselves in an online quiz.
Call me whenA capable team keeps getting stuck and nobody can say why.
One-to-one advisory for founders and technical leaders
Direct, practical coaching to find your blind spots, handle high-stakes stakeholders, and turn technical expertise into the kind of authority people follow.
Call me whenYou’ve outgrown the job you started in, and the pressure has gone up.
Handovers, successions and new leaders
Stepping into a bigger role, or handing over control, creates friction. I help line up leadership styles, incentives and expectations so the handover doesn’t cost you momentum, or your vision.
Call me whenA founder is letting go, or a new executive is stepping in.
Most “personality conflicts” turn out to be broken incentives, unclear boundaries or poor design, so I look there too. See how I help in more detail
Find out what really drives your decisions when it counts.
The Executive Decision Vector Diagnostic puts the things you value head to head and shows which ones actually win when it’s on the line.
3 to 11 minutes, you choose the depth. Free, with your report by email.
Try three match-ups. Under pressure, which one wins for you?
The full diagnostic runs match-ups like these across all 45 values, ranks every one, and tells you which leader archetypes drive you: Commander, Architect, Catalyst, Artisan or Steward.
Here’s what clients and colleagues say about working with me.
I have had the opportunity to work with Kennon as my coach, and the experience has been genuinely transformational. He does much more than explain assessment results or offer generic leadership advice. Kennon combines objective data, careful observation, and direct, practical coaching to help you understand how you operate at your best, where you may be creating your own obstacles, and what you can do next.
His ability to translate complex Hogan assessment results into clear, actionable insights helped me better understand my strengths, potential risks, and leadership capabilities. Just as importantly, he challenged me constructively and helped me turn those insights into meaningful changes in how I lead, make decisions, and approach my career. I was definitely able to level up through our work together.
Kennon is thoughtful, perceptive, honest, and genuinely invested in the people he coaches. I strongly recommend him to any leader, founder, or high-potential professional who wants more than encouragement and is ready to achieve meaningful growth.
I had the privilege of leading (and working alongside!) Kennon for over two years while he served as a mid-level leader in a particularly demanding and dynamic environment. During that time, his organization of over 130 employees was navigating significant change in priorities and culture while simultaneously supporting multiple high-visibility, no-fail missions—circumstances that would challenge even the most seasoned leaders. Kennon rose to that challenge with remarkable composure and effectiveness.
Read the full recommendation
He led with genuine compassion and an infectious sense of positivity, creating stability and trust across his team even amid uncertainty. One of his standout strengths is his ability to identify and empower exceptional first-line leaders. He has a keen eye for talent and consistently built a leadership bench that positioned the organization to evolve and succeed.
Equally impressive is his commitment to mentoring and developing others. Kennon is deeply invested in growing his team's tradecraft and takes great pride in cultivating the next generation of subject matter experts. His deliberate focus on giving feedback and identifying development/growth opportunities has a lasting impact that extends well beyond his immediate team.
It is my honor to recommend Kennon to any organization seeking a leader, consultant, or executive coach who can guide teams through complexity, deliver on critical missions, and build a culture rooted in growth and excellence.
My coach gave me tools and skills to deal with personal hurdles and challenges that have hounded me for years!
I also speak to leadership teams, boards and conferences.
No generic motivational talks. Analytical rigor and behavioral tradecraft that your leadership team can put to work.
Sabotage: everything you need to know about leading a team
In 1944, the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA, wrote a pamphlet on how to sabotage the Nazis in occupied Europe. It’s also a perfect guide to how not to run an organization today.
You get what you pay for: the hidden incentives driving the behaviors you don’t want
Personality, team dynamics and incentives, and why nobody does it right when you’re not around.
Anatomy of a trainwreck: fixing your leadership track before you derail
Using Hogan data to expose the blind spots that wreck executive decisions when things get tough, or when they get too easy.
I spent 20 years where reading people under stress was the difference between success and catastrophe.
I was raised on the plains of South Dakota and I’m now based in Maryland. Before Quest Coaching, I spent more than two decades in and alongside the U.S. national security community as an analyst, strategist and leader.
Today I bring that same rigor to fast-growing companies, technical founders and leaders under pressure. Outside work I’m a published author, a martial artist, a tabletop gamer and a father of five.
If you’re about to make a people decision you can’t afford to get wrong, let’s talk.
Book a 30-minute call. We’ll get to know each other, talk through the challenges you want to address, and work out how, or whether, I can help.