Operationalizing Leadership with Kevin Chemidlin
RSS Feed What does it take to turn leadership values into repeatable action? In this episode of Leadership Blueprints, BJ Kraemer welcomes Kevin Chemidlin, MCFA’s new Director of Client Activation. In a twist, Kevin takes the interviewer’s chair to ask BJ how systems thinking can coexist with the human realities of leadership. They discuss how structure and empathy work together, why growth depends on choosing the right challenges, and how leaders create clarity around expectations and shared responsibility. BJ and Kevin also unpack MCFA’s values of love, entrepreneurial spirit, accountability, and how culture becomes visible through decisions, habits, and relationships. BJ also reflects on the importance of connecting employees’ life plans to professional growth. Tune in to learn how thoughtful leaders turn values from words into consistent action and meaningful career growth.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Find out where BJ first learned to turn goals into repeatable systems.
- Hear how to pair systems thinking with the challenges of leading people.
- Discover where BJ developed the emotional intelligence to meet people where they are.
- Learn how trust helps leaders know when to push and when to support.
- Explore why MCFA embraces hard things without making difficulty the goal.
- Consider when leaders should persevere, simplify, or cut their losses.
- Uncover why love is an MCFA value and a deliberate choice.
- Understand how entrepreneurial spirit creates shared value.
- Distinguish individual accountability from the protection teamwork can provide.
- Recognize when leaders take on too much accountability.
- Advice on how teams can delight clients by creating a white-glove experience.
- Gain insights into operationalizing the MCFA concept of stretch.
- Reframe discipline as restraint when success creates too many opportunities.
Quotes:
“When you are working together with other people, hard becomes a little more fun and a little easier.” — BJ Kraemer [0:17:45]
“Balance occurs in the macro, not the micro.” — Kevin Chemidlin [0:23:17]
“Love is hard. Love is an investment. Love is a choice.” — BJ Kraemer [0:30:08]
“Teamwork can also be the thing that disguises individual accountability.” — BJ Kraemer [0:37:25]
“When I always think of discipline, I think of exertion and getting yourself to do hard things, when really these days it sounds like it’s about what you don’t do.” — Kevin Chemidlin [0:54:13]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
