Build The Managers Your Team Deserves.
New manager cohorts, supervisor development days, leadership academies, all-manager meetings, and conference breakouts.
Your supervisors were promoted because they were excellent at the work. Give them a little of what nobody taught them about leading people and the return shows up fast, because this is the layer that decides whether your staff stays and how good they get. Chris Sund has built and run that layer for two decades, and speaks to it without condescension.
People stay for the person they report to. That is where leadership pays off first.
My KC Live, KCTV5 Kansas City →Managers can spot a theorist instantly.
A room of supervisors will know within a minute whether somebody has ever actually run a team. Send a clip and let them decide. Chris has been on morning television in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, all collected in the media hub.
Five things a manager uses on their next shift.
No competency model, no leadership styles quiz, no theory they will never open again. Managers have almost no discretionary time, so everything here has to survive a real week.
On what the manager session is about
- The promotion nobody prepared them for. Being the best at the work and leading the people who do it are unrelated skills. Saying that out loud takes an enormous amount of private guilt out of the room.
- Leading people who were your peers last month. The single hardest transition in the job, and the one almost no training addresses. There is a way through it that does not require pretending the friendship never happened.
- Raising something early, and kindly. Most manager problems are avoidance problems. The skill is specific, teachable, and lowers the number of conversations that ever become formal. See the accountability session.
- What is actually in your control. A supervisor cannot fix pay bands, staffing models, or the org chart. Letting them believe they should is its own harm. What they can change is whether people feel seen, get better, and hear the truth.
- One move, not a program. Every session closes on a single specific action, sized for somebody who is back running a shift tomorrow.
Eight ways organizations book this session.
This is the layer most organizations underinvest in, and it is also where a single session shows up fastest in retention numbers.
All-Manager Meeting
Every supervisor and manager in one room, usually annually or at the start of the year.New Manager Cohort
People in their first year of leading. The highest-return audience for this material anywhere.Supervisor Development Day
A working session rather than a talk. Real situations from the room, worked through together. Workshop details.Leadership Academy Module
A recurring slot inside an internal leadership program, delivered once or across several cohorts.Frontline Supervisor Session
Shift leads, charge nurses, foremen, branch managers, and crew leaders promoted off the line.HR & Association Conference
General session or breakout where manager capability is the theme. HR conferences.Take Back Your Time With AI
Practical relief for managers buried in admin instead of leading. Full details.Conference Breakouts
Repeatable concurrent sessions alongside a general session at a conference or association event.Built for the layer that holds it together.
The framework holds across all of them. What changes is who is in the room and what they are supervising tomorrow.
Healthcare & Nursing
Charge nurses and clinical leads promoted for clinical excellence. See nurse leadership.Manufacturing & Plants
Shift supervisors and line leads across multiple shifts. See manufacturing speaking.Construction & Trades
Foremen and superintendents who came up off the tools. See construction speaking.Banks & Credit Unions
Branch managers promoted off the teller line. See credit union speaking.Retail & Service Teams
Store and site managers running teams with high turnover and thin margins for error.Sales Management
Top producers promoted to lead producers, which is its own specific problem. See sales speaking.Government & Public Sector
Municipal supervisors and department leads. See government speaking.HR & Learning Teams
The people responsible for building manager capability across an organization. See HR speaking.Associations & Chapters
Conferences where member organizations all share the same supervisor gap.Four movements. Ten principles.
Every session runs the same architecture as the book, which is what lets a manager session and an all-staff keynote land as one message rather than two.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What a supervisor genuinely controls, and what is not theirs to carry.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. Why new managers freeze, and why nobody admits it.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. The core manager skill, and the centre of this session.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. What the job is actually for when it is going well.A copy for every new supervisor.
A session gives managers an hour. A copy gives an entire management layer the same ten principles and the same language, which is what makes a leadership program feel like one thing rather than a series of unrelated sessions.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements, written plainly and short enough that a working supervisor will actually finish it. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide sized for a team meeting, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge. Nothing is gated behind an email address.
The feedback speaks for itself.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris would be an incredible addition to any live audience. Each time he finds a unique way to connect on both a personal and professional level, keeping everyone engaged and attentive.
Events already on your calendar.
He promoted a lot of people badly first.
Chris Sund is the bestselling author of You Are Capable of More, a keynote speaker, and an executive leader.
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare, and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in revenue in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, based in Nebraska, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. Building a company that fast meant promoting people quickly, and he got plenty of it wrong before he got it right. That is what the room hears, rather than a model.
Details your team will ask for.
HR and learning leaders ask these.
How is this different from your leadership keynote?
How much does a manager development speaker cost?
Our managers are exhausted and cynical about training. Will this work?
What is the single highest-value session?
Can you do it as a workshop instead of a talk?
Can this slot into our existing leadership academy?
Does it cover managing former peers?
Can we get books for every manager?
How do we start?
Other ways organizations book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.