The Kitchen Cabinet
Summary: The verbatim LinkedIn post behind the wiki concept of the same name — reproduced word for word as it was published.
Sources: LinkedIn Posts.md (“The Kitchen Cabinet,” posted 2026-01-06), verbatim
Last updated: 2026-07-11
Originally posted January 6, 2026.
Over the years, the moments that have tested me most as a leader have not been the technically complex ones, but the ones that felt like true crossroads. A new role, a high-risk project, a pull between career and family—those are the nights when the weight of a decision sits heavy and the room gets very quiet.
Why trust matters most
In those moments, my skills and experience help, but they are not what unlock the path forward. What has mattered most is whether I have built enough trust that the people around me will offer unvarnished truth, especially when they know it may make me uncomfortable.
Trust doesn’t show up on a slide. It shows up in behavior—who will tell me the hard thing without being asked, who will challenge my assumptions, and who believes I genuinely want the truth more than validation.
My Kitchen Cabinet
This is where my Kitchen Cabinet comes in. Over time, I have been intentional about building a small circle of people I can invite into the real conversation behind a decision, not the polished version that shows up in a meeting.
I love the term Kitchen Cabinet because most of my most important decisions have, quite literally, been made in or around a kitchen—surrounded by people who care more about my character and well-being than my title. This is not a formal governance body or a networking circle; it is a group I turn to when the decision feels heavy, the variables are messy, and the cost of self-deception is high.
Their job is not to make the call for me. Their job is to broaden my line of sight, sharpen my judgment, and keep me honest about what I am really optimizing for.
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Who earns a seat
Over time, I have learned that who gets a seat in that circle says a lot about how I think about leadership and trust. The people in my Kitchen Cabinet tend to:
- Care about me as a human first and a role second, and want me to succeed without needing to benefit from my decision.
- Bring different experiences, perspectives, and motivations—where diversity is not a checkbox but the source of insight I cannot get from my own vantage point.
- Be brave enough to tell me what I least want to hear, and willing to say it before I realize I need the challenge.
Some of these people are also mentors or sponsors, but the Kitchen Cabinet plays a different role. Mentors help me grow; sponsors help open doors; my Kitchen Cabinet stands with me at the crossroads, helping me pressure-test the path in very tactical, practical, sometimes raw terms.
Vulnerability, courage, and asking for help
Early in my Navy career, I learned that trust to stand a critical watch did not come from proficiency alone; it came from judgment. My commanding officer made it clear that he would not trust me to stand that watch alone until he believed I would recognize when I needed help—and ask for it in time for that help to matter.
That lesson followed me into the C-Suite. People will not bring their best judgment if they sense that I am more committed to looking certain than to being right. Inviting someone into my Kitchen Cabinet is an act of vulnerability and courage on my part, and a profound sign of respect for them—I am explicitly giving them a role in shaping my future.
When leaders treat that invitation seriously, trust stops being a slogan and becomes a shared responsibility: to tell the truth, to hold one another to a higher bar, and to make the hard calls with eyes wide open.
How have you built your own Kitchen Cabinet—and what is one decision that turned out differently because you trusted them enough to hear what you did not want to hear?