The Kintsugi Principle — Restoring Culture with Clarity and Care

This bowl wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t shattered in a single moment, but it was dropped —more than once. Each fall left a new crack. For a while, it was still used, still passed around, still holding what it could—until one day, it couldn’t. That’s when the mending began. Instead of being discarded, it was repaired with gold. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of honoring the damage, restores what was broken by making the fractures part of its beauty. The  cracks aren’t hidden; they are the whole point.

That image has become the heart of how I lead.

In some ways, I think I’ve been practicing Kintsugi leadership since I was a child. I grew up partly in the mission field, and when we returned to the United States, everything felt foreign—even my own country. My family moved often, and I was always starting over. Thrift store clothes, unfamiliar systems, new social rules. I never quite found a tribe, but I did learn how to read a room. I learned to scan quickly: Who’s kind? Who’s guarded? Who holds the influence? Where’s the tension? Where’s the opportunity?

For me, it wasn’t about survival. It was about connection. And that instinct—to observe, adapt, and quietly restore balance—shaped the way I lead today.

Now I manage teams in high-pressure hospital units, where the cracks are very real. Morale slips. Veterans burn out. New hires inherit problems they didn’t create. Everyone senses the strain, but no one quite knows how to name it. That’s when I step in. Not to fix it fast, but to listen deeper. To find the real break. To reinforce what matters. To rebuild what can hold.

And I don’t do it with quick memos or rigid rules. Restoration happens with presence, with steady structure, with a listening ear, and yes—sometimes with something as small as a piece of chocolate. Because connection matters more than correction. Because strategy only sticks when people feel safe enough to believe in it.

Over time, I’ve watched fractured groups transform into communities again. I’ve seen teams weather changes that felt impossible. And the shift didn’t come because we pretended it wasn’t hard. It came because we chose to honor what had cracked and fill it with something stronger.

This bowl sits on my desk as a daily reminder: the strongest teams aren’t the ones that never broke. They are the ones that learned how to mend.

So if your people feel worn thin, if something feels off but hard to name, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a leader. It might just mean it’s time for gold.

That’s the work I love most—reading the cracks, and helping teams rebuild what lasts.

🎧 Listen to the podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/transformationship/episodes/The-Kintsugi-Principle--Restoring-Culture-with-Clarity-and-Care-37-e388bpg