In this heartfelt and deeply meaningful wisdom conversation, I sit down with Kathleen Walker—a trusted friend of more than 25 years, a respected leadership consultant, an entrepreneur and one of the most compassionate people I know.
Kathleen works with leaders, teams, and organizations to strengthen communication, clarity, and performance. But beyond her professional expertise, Kathleen brings a rare blend of empathy, insight, and lived wisdom that has shaped countless lives—including mine. This conversation is an invitation to slow down, look inward, and lead differently.
Lead With Love – wisdom, Relationships & the Choice That Changes Everything
We explore Kathleen’s powerful “main thing” wisdom—lead with love—and how it applies in both leadership and personal life. From hiring and workplace communication to parenting, grief, friendship, and everyday relationships, Kathleen reveals how love can become a conscious, transformative choice instead of a reaction driven by fear or frustration.
You’ll be moved by stories of her father’s influence, her journey as a leader and mother, and the simple daily practices that help her choose love again and again. This conversation is filled with encouragement, perspective, and practical insight you can apply immediately.
What You’ll Learn from Our Wisdom Conversation
- How love transforms leadership, feedback, and workplace culture
- The difference between reacting in fear and responding in love
- How relationships directly shape fulfillment, health, and longevity
A Bit More About Our Wise Guest
Kathleen Walker is the co-founder of Epiphany Consulting, a leadership and assessment firm serving individuals, teams, and organizations. Her professional background spans telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, law, and personal services. She specializes in communication, leadership alignment, hiring, and personal development.
Kathleen is a South Charleston native, a devoted wife and mother of two daughters, and a lifelong encourager. We spoke with her in her office on the campus of the WV Regional Technology Park in South Charleston, West Virginia.
Podcast Resources
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Credits
Editor + Technical Advisor Bob Hotchkiss
Brand + Strategy Advisor Andy Malinoski
PR + Partnerships Advisor Rachel Bell
Marketing, Social Media and Graphic Design Chloe Lineberg
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Episode Chapters
[00:02:45] – Why hiring & onboarding are frustrating; Kathleen’s keys to success
[00:04:48] – Kathleen’s elevator pitch; why she loves what she does
[00:05:21] – Understanding our communication styles; generational differences
[00:06:15] – What she wanted to be when she grew up
[00:07:05] – Assessments: key to understanding ourselves and personal impact
[00:08:10] – One morning at the bagel shop; how Kathleen & Skip are connected
[00:09:37] – Inviting you to support our mission of delivering wisdom to the world
[00:10:40] – Kathleen reveals her Main Thing
[00:11:11] – The impact of a mentor – Kathleen’s father; wisdom + love in action
[00:13:30] – Humanity; three things every human needs (and craves)
[00:15:20] – Choosing love over fear
[00:18:40] – Seasons of life, friendships and community
[00:20:11] – Kathleen shares a parting thought; the butterfly effect
[00:22:45] – Skip’s final reflection on Kathleen’s wisdom lesson
Episode Keywords
Wisdom, love, pause, communication, style, leadership, humanity, generations, management, coaching, feedback, praise, consulting, relationships, mentors, mentoring, parenting, community, friendship, longevity, friends
Episode Transcript
Announcer
[00:00:00]
Wisdom. It’s an incredibly valuable asset. Some would say more precious than gold. It’s attractive, appealing, admirable. Conversely, a lack of wisdom is the basis of immaturity, blind spots, and bad decisions. Wisdom. It can be gained over time, but it can’t be rushed. But wisdom can be shared. That’s precisely what we are here to do right now today. We are here to hack wisdom—to distill it, to understand it, and to process it. Why? To get better at life. Welcome to The Main Thing. This is your new wisdom podcast. I’m your host, Skip Lineberg, and I’ve set out to interview the wisest people I know. We’ll see what we can learn from each one when they’re faced with an incredibly difficult, soul-piercing question.
Skip
[00:00:58]
Welcome, everyone. I’m Skip Lineberg coming to you again from Parkwood Studios in Charleston, West Virginia. Whether you’re a returning listener or joining us for the very first time, I’m so grateful you’re here.
Before we dive in, let me ask one quick favor. Tap that subscribe button wherever you’re listening. It helps our show rise above the noise and the algorithms so that more wisdom seekers just like you can discover these wisdom conversations.
Now in your world, who are those special people who naturally bring people together, who listen deeply, and who make you feel understood?
Kathleen Walker, our wise guest today, is one of those rare individuals. She’s what Malcolm Gladwell would call a connector—someone who spots potential where others see separation, someone who communicates with insight and empathy. Her professional path has taken her through telecommunications, transportation, health care, law, and personal services. But her true calling emerged when she cofounded Epiphany Consulting, where she helps individuals, businesses, and teams strengthen communication, management, and leadership through self-awareness and clarity.
Kathleen is a South Charleston native, a wife, and a devoted mom of two daughters, and someone who wakes up every single day with a desire to make people’s lives meaningfully better.
Skip
[00:02:33]
Kathleen Walker, good morning, and welcome to The Main Thing Podcast.
Kathleen Walker
[00:02:42]
I appreciate the ask.
Skip
[00:02:44]
So, Kathleen, I want to start with a frustration. Hiring people. At my church, at a community board that I’m on, at work—everyone’s trying to hire, and everyone’s frustrated. Can’t find good people. Part of what you do in your work is helping companies make good hires, make better hires. I wanna go back to 2004. I was running a company. It was an early-stage startup with a couple of partners, and we had just made two horrible hires. People that looked good. They interviewed well. They had experience in our industry. They had relevant job experience. Interviews went well—and both were just disasters. And so we came, hat in hand, crawling to you and Epiphany Consulting for help.
Kathleen Walker
[00:03:42]
The main thing when you bring someone on is onboarding—that’s really the integral part of any new hire integration into an organization. If you have some reliable data, you can sit down and have a great conversation, and you can be vulnerable enough as that hiring manager to say, “I want you to look at mine too. Let’s look and see where we have some similarities and differences.” It’s like that new relationship where you have a three-to-six-month window to really see that person. This takes the bandwidth down from day one. You can understand where you need to show support, where they’re gonna be great. Some managers forget to highlight the great things people are doing, and they have a tendency to focus on what they’re not doing well. If you have a tool that opens up those abilities to have open conversations about how it’s affecting performance at work, then you’ve got the data and a path to be consistent.
Skip
[00:04:46]
You’re on an elevator. You’re going up one floor with someone. How do you explain what you do in ten seconds?
Kathleen Walker
[00:04:52]
Anytime two or three are gathered, there are opportunities to help people. We’re all about people. And we as people are just amazing human beings. Giving people the opportunity to be seen for what they bring to the table, to make good decisions, to be set up to succeed—I love what I do. Anywhere there are people, we want to help people become empowered. I’m watching my children navigate the work world. They want to know what their mobility is, what opportunities they have to grow and learn new things. I crave that generation. They teach me so much. They teach me not to be afraid of all the new technology coming down the pike. Life is about relationships, and anything we can do to help people be seen and valued and to empower both managers and employees matters deeply.
Skip
[00:06:08]
There you go. That’s your impact. If we were to go back to your 21-year-old self, what were you gonna do in your career?
Kathleen Walker
[00:06:18]
Law school. I wanted to get paid to argue and talk because I love it. I was gonna go to UK, work on a horse farm, and go to law school. I met him a long time ago, though—might be why I took a different path. You’d think I’d be an expert on how I display my style, but you get caught up in your comfort zone. As mindful as I try to be about the impact I have on other people, that’s still the crux of it for me.
Skip
[00:07:09]
I’m sitting here laughing so much—laughter of recognition—and tears are coming out of my eyes because it’s so true.
Kathleen Walker
[00:07:18]
We don’t ask people to change. You don’t take an assessment because there’s a right or wrong answer—you take it to get a glimpse of how you’re navigating. It’s not the style you have; it’s the impact you bring. Becoming aware of that as a parent completely changed how I saw my kids and how I communicated with them.
Skip
[00:08:10]
Let’s pull back the curtain. How do we know each other?
Kathleen Walker
[00:08:19]
I worked in the Huntington Bank Building in the late ’90s. Every morning I went to Chesapeake Bagel. One day Lisa pointed you out as her new boyfriend. I walked over and introduced myself. It’s funny to think about it now, but that’s how it all started over twenty-five years ago.
Announcer
[00:09:38]
One. Nine. Two. One hundred ninety-two extra minutes of wisdom—that’s what you get when you become a patron of The Main Thing Podcast. These thirty-minute special shows bring you a deeper dive into our guests’ wisdom. Less editing, more laughter. Unlock that wisdom through the Patreon platform.
Skip
[00:10:39]
Kathleen Walker, what’s the main thing you’ve learned in your lifetime so far?
Kathleen Walker
[00:10:46]
The main thing I’ve learned in my lifetime so far is to lead with love.
Skip
[00:10:54]
Lead with love. Talk us through why that’s your main thing.
Kathleen Walker
[00:11:12]
My dad … he always taught me that love was the most profound emotion we were gifted with and that we needed to be conscious of that when interacting with each other because things are seldom as they seem. If you approach everything out of love, it gives you a totally different perspective.
Skip
[00:13:31]
If I have love, I’m going to approach and deal with that person differently.
Kathleen Walker
[00:13:32]
We all crave to be seen, valued, and heard. If love is always where you go first, everything changes.
Skip
[00:14:24]
Tell us more about your dad.
Kathleen Walker
[00:14:29]
He always said, “Sissy, it’s just love. God is love.” He showed it through example. There were always people at our dinner table he was helping. He showed me we’re here to love and take care of each other.
Skip
[00:16:22]
Do you still have moments where you have to practice leading with love?
Kathleen Walker
[00:16:38]
Every day. I hit the pause button when negativity creeps in. Breathe. Choose love.
Skip
[00:18:42]
Life really is a series of relationships.
Kathleen Walker
[00:18:32]
Relationships are what life is all about.
Skip
[00:19:53]
As we wrap up, what would you leave our listeners with today?
Kathleen Walker
[00:20:24]
We’re all here to teach each other valuable lessons. Everything we do matters. That butterfly effect is real.
Skip
[00:21:14]
Your main thing—lead with love—I treasure that. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today.
Kathleen Walker
[00:21:31]
It’s been my pleasure, Skip.
Skip
[00:21:32]
Time flies when you’re hacking wisdom. Thank you for listening.
Skip’s Reflections
[00:22:57]
I wanted to share a brief reflection with you as we get very clear on how we can apply Kathleen’s main thing wisdom. She encouraged us to lead with love. And the more I reflect on it, the more I realize this wisdom really lives in two powerful contexts.
First, there’s the leadership context. Kathleen spends her life working with leaders—business owners, executives, founders, and managers—people carrying real responsibility for other human beings. Her message to leaders is quietly radical: bring love into the way you lead. Not sentimentality. Not weakness. But genuine care and humanity—the kind of love that listens better, corrects more gently, and sees people not as resources, but as souls with stories.
Then there’s the personal context—the one that meets every one of us right where we live. Kathleen’s main thing becomes a daily challenge: respond first out of love. Lead with it instead of letting fear make the first move. And if I’m honest, that’s where the real work is for me. How about you? Everyone we meet is carrying something—grief, pressure, illness, uncertainty. When you lead with love, you slow down, you listen longer, you judge less quickly, and you extend grace more freely. Her father taught her that love isn’t just a feeling—it’s a choice, a posture, a way of seeing the world.
And it leaves me with a question I’m still holding today: where in my life am I being invited to lead with love right now? Because when you lead with love, you don’t just change a moment—you change the direction of a life, sometimes even for generations.
