My Approach
For community leaders who work hard for change but face burnout, self-doubt, uncertainty, or conflict.
These times are heartbreaking, terrifying, and exhausting. The overwhelm and weight you carry are real.
If you’re like most of my clients when they first come to me, you may be:
- Crumbling under an overwhelming workload.
- Navigating stressful interpersonal dynamics.
- Managing with insufficient resources.
- Feeling isolated in your leadership role.
- Reeling from the senseless cruelty in our country.
Whether it’s resolving a conflict, healing burnout, pivoting your path, or something else, you long for a change. But you feel unsure about which steps to take, doubtful about your ability to create the change you need, or worried about how changes might affect your life.
In a quest for clarity, confidence, and effectiveness, you may have tried many things:
- Therapy and self-help resources.
- Conversations with friends and colleagues.
- Leadership development programs.
- Making small changes at work.
- Hoping things will somehow improve on their own.
Things you’ve tried may have worked to some degree. But you still feel stuck.
Over the past decade-plus of supporting hundreds of community leaders to get unstuck and create the changes they long for, I’ve discovered that six elements are needed for transformation. As you read the following list, get curious about which you need more of.
Six essential elements for getting unstuck, cultivating clarity and confidence, and leading in ways that make you proud:
One: Leadership Skill Development
Leading through complexity demands a complex skillset, from interpersonal communication and leadership presence to time management, decision-making, and systems thinking. All leaders reach growth moments where they need new skills, but few leaders receive the support they need to develop them.
When we invest time and energy to cultivate the skills needed to be successful, we are far more likely to achieve our desired outcomes, sustain our energy, and trust that we’re doing our best, no matter what happens.
Two: Systemic Perspective
The factors that hold us back often have little to do with us. Patterns passed down in the systems we belong to, such as our families of origin and organizations, can create dynamics that keep us stuck.
When we zoom out to see the systems we’re a part of and shine light on hidden dynamics that keep us stuck, we can untangle intractable challenges and life can flow again.
Three: Warm Accompaniment
Despite the myth of the self-made man, we humans need each other to mend our wounds, stay safe, find our way, and learn new things. In no great story does the adventurer ever go it alone. Yet, far too often, leaders feel painfully alone with their challenges. And when people feel alone, they’re less likely to respond effectively, take risks, experiment with new solutions, or survive the challenging moments intact.
We all need other humans who have our back through the hard times, help us achieve our victories, lift us when we fall, and celebrate our victories with us.
Four: Inner Transformation
Often, what holds us back from making the impact we long to make are old, limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. To become the leaders that life is calling us to be, we must heal our trauma, transform our relationship with our wounded parts, and unapologetically claim our power.
The archetypal question of any great calling is this: Who am I now? When we do the deep inner work necessary to become the person we’re called to be now, we are far more likely to achieve the victories that are calling to us.
Five: Thought Partnership
Many of us do our best thinking in conversation with a skilled thought partner—someone who can listen deeply, ask insightful questions, offer helpful perspectives, shine light on new possibilities, push us into new areas of understanding, and evolve alongside us and our changing circumstances.
Although thought partnership like this may sound like a luxury, the most cutting-edge organizations understand that this investment is one of the smartest they can make.
Six: Structured Accountability
We need more than training, courses, retreats, or one-off professional development experiences to accomplish our big goals. These one-time sources of support can elicit important insights, but they don’t provide the support necessary for integrating them.
Most of us need a structure of ongoing accountability that helps us hold true to our values, stay on track with our goals, and practice a new way of being over and over again. With steady, sustained support to stay on track, we can build habits that last a lifetime.
By receiving these six elements of support, my clients develop the ability to lead in ways that make them proud and create lives they love.
Hi, I’m Katherine Golub, PCC, MBA (she/her).
As a coach, city councilor, mother, and community organizer with over 25 years in social change work, I understand the pressures you face.
At the Center for Callings & Courage, I help community leaders, organizers, activists, and others devoted to social change transform overwhelm into effective, joyful action.
My approach emerged through years of coaching clients, professional training, and my own personal journey.
When my partner was deported while I was pregnant, when I navigated single parenting across borders, and when I faced the complexities of local politics, I learned firsthand that creating lasting change requires both inner work and systemic perspective.
I aim to root all my work in four core values:
One: Love
Whenever I begin to despair, I remember that life’s purpose is to love and be loved. We have limited control over outcomes. But in loving each other well, we’ve already won.
Two: Solidarity
Solidarity means mutual responsibility and interdependence—working together to bring forth a world in which all people’s needs are met and where strong relationships sustain our work.
Three: Friendship
The root of friend means both to love and to set free. To liberate ourselves from separation and supremacy culture, we must reclaim and recenter friendship.
Four: Learning
Creating the world we long for requires that we stop seeking perfect answers and, instead, that we walk with liberating questions, reclaim ancestral wisdom, and approach life as an adventure.
My approach is especially effective for:
- Leaders in progressive policy, community organizing, transformative facilitation, and social innovation.
- Executive directors, coordinators, organizers, founders, managers, and other leaders.
- Social entrepreneurs prioritizing people and planet over profit.
- Elected and appointed government officials.
- Ministers and faith leaders.
- University professors and higher education professionals.
- Advocates in healthcare and education.
- People who long to make a greater impact in the world.
My Commitment to Creating Supportive Spaces for All Clients
If you are Black, Indigenous, Latine, AAPI, or a person of color, you may be wondering: Does Katherine create a safe and supportive space for people of the global majority? I appreciate you taking the time to consider what support system might best serve you.
As a white person socialized in white supremacy culture, I am committed to developing my anti-racist facilitation skills, centering group agreements that limit harm, and maintaining open lines for feedback to make my coaching as supportive as possible. If you choose to work with me, I will do everything possible to create an environment of trust, safety, and genuine support.
At the same time, I want to acknowledge that I cannot promise to prevent all harm. There is always the risk that white supremacy culture could surface in our work together, and—depending on group makeup—you may be the only person of color in the group. I also acknowledge that you may face forms of racism in your career that your white peers do not encounter.
You deserve a space that centers your experience, and you may feel more trust and resonance with a coach who shares your racial or ethnic identity. For these reasons, I offer recommendations to practitioners of color should you feel better supported by someone whose lived experience aligns more with yours.
If, after reading this, you still feel called to work with me, it would be my honor. Either way, I hope you find precisely the support you need, and I welcome you to reach out with any thoughts or questions. Feel free to email me at katherine@callingsandcourage.com.
—Tanisha Arena, Executive Director, Arise for Social Justice
A Latina friend, who has shared her mistrust of white folks with me many times, posted about Katherine’s work on LinkedIn. I felt surprised and texted my friend to check her opinion. She had glowing things to say about working with Katherine and encouraged me to reach out. So I did.
When I first reached out to Katherine, I was feeling stuck with a lot of big questions about my work. Did I want to run for public office? Did I want to continue with my current job?
That first free conversation with Katherine felt like releasing a pressure valve. There were important things I needed to do, and I wasn’t doing them. But Katherine’s suggestions made the next steps feel so simple that I got up and took them.
The first breakthrough I experienced was reconnecting with the feeling of being held by my loving ancestors. Katherine reminded me that my people were behind me, which, of course, I always knew, but it’s so easy to forget. This reclamation has been incredibly powerful, allowing me to move forward in both my work and life.
Another breakthrough came from releasing unconscious contracts compelling me to do things that were not mine to do. With Katherine’s support, I broke free from old chains, let go of tendrils to past trauma, and freed myself to do the things that are important to me. That was such a relief.
Katherine taught me to “not waste a good trigger,” to recognize that my discomfort is trying to show me something, and to take a closer look. I’d never paid attention to what was happening in my body/mind before. I used to just focus on getting things done, regardless of anything else. But Katherine taught me to slow down, notice what I feel in my body, figure out what I need, and take steps toward meeting those needs.
One of the most significant gifts of working with Katherine was the simple acknowledgement that things are hard and shitty and that I’m doing my best. I have been socialized since childhood to set the bar at excellence, and I’ve shied away from support and affirmation. This experience taught me that I actually need these things.
When I’m at my wits’ end and holding so much, having someone bear witness and let me know that they see me without trying to fix me makes everything feel less challenging.
They say people want to know more that you care than what you know. Katherine cares. Her validation and recognition helped me relax and breathe more deeply, despite the political craziness around us. Just the space to breathe has been so helpful.
My eyes are now open to what else might be possible for me in my work. However, I no longer feel the same urgency or desperation to leave my organization. If I someday leave, it will be for something I truly want. And I will have done my best to leave the organization on solid ground.
For Black women and other people of color considering working with Katherine, you will, of course, have to judge for yourself. My experience is that Katherine creates an atmosphere and a container where I feel safe bringing my authentic self. She is committed to self-reflection. She will call out white people shit if it comes up in the space, even if it feels awkward and uncomfortable.
I received the support, thought partnership, and perspective I needed from working with Katherine. I am grateful for it.
Work With Me
If you’re grappling with conflict, burnout, or uncertainty in your social change work, and longing for greater clarity, confidence, and skills to lead effectively without burning out, I’d love to support you. Learn more about my offerings here:
Not sure where to start?