Dave Kline

Become the Leader You’d Follow | Founder @ MGMT | Coach | Advisor | Speaker | Trusted by 250K+ leaders.

Hey, I’m Dave Kline.

I teach leaders how to build All-Star teams and level up their careers.

After decades of leading in pretty intense environments, from Bridgewater Associates to Moody’s Analytics, I know what it takes to be the manager your team remembers (for the right reasons).

Why I can help you is simple:

I’ve been through it.

And to prove it, here’s my background (by the numbers) ⤵️

2: Decades leading high-impact teams in asset management (Bridgewater), consulting (PwC), & financial services (Moody’s Analytics).

4: Years as an entrepreneur. My portfolio includes Skillscouter (an online course & career site), and MGMT Accelerator (a cohort-based management training course).

14: Cohorts of early-career leaders that I’ve taught at multiple companies.

100: Managers I recruited, onboarded & mentored at Bridgewater Associates.

1,000: Performance evaluations with grace and respect for stars and terminations alike.

205,000+: My community across LinkedIn & Twitter interested in management tactics & leadership lessons

385,000,000: My team’s top revenue year at Moody’s.

Now that we’ve covered the why, here’s the how:

- The MGMT Accelerator – an intensive management training course for both new and senior leaders
- MGMT Fundamentals – a course that covers all the need-to-know management basics for rookie leaders
- The MGMT Playbook – a weekly newsletter that gives practical management insights

Through our MGMT courses, my wife Marsden and I have played the assist with over 1,100 leaders so far, who’ve now learned how to:

- Practically tackle the most common leadership challenges
- Build their Management OS’s CODE (Coach, Operate, Delegate, Engage)
- Refine their individual leadership Decision-Making System

With our 30+ years of combined experience, you won’t just get our knowledge.

You’ll get to ask us questions directly and get access to coaching that’s more tailored to your own experience.

We always say – if we could do it like a dinner party, we would.

If you’re interested in leadership advice (that doesn’t just sound nice but actually works), drop me a follow – I post daily.

And if you like what you see, our MGMT courses could be just what you need to level up.

DM me if you’re interested.

Co-Founder

We created the MGMT Accelerator to help managers rapidly develop into trusted leaders by combining the art & science of management. 

This 4-week program consistents of eight 90-minute modules where I share the tactics I learned leading high-performing teams for 25 years. During each session, we tailor those insights together to build your personalized management system together. 

You'll learn alongside ~50 peers and become part of an expert community of more than 300 alums.

11 visuals that will transform your life
(simple changes you can start today)

These high-signal graphics were created by Ash Lamb.
Give him a follow!

1. Everything Is Built Brick-by-Brick
• The best time to start was 20 years ago
• The second best time is today

2. Don’t React, Respond
• You can’t control what happens
• You can always control your response

3. A Purpose Outlasts A Paycheck
• Teams need to know how to win
• The “why” keeps them playing

4. Focus On What You Can Control
• You are your best investment
• Put your energy into getting better

5. Saying “No” Is Your Superpower
• If everything’s a priority, nothing is
• “No” takes courage and creativity

6. Progress Over Perfection
• Waiting for perfect means waiting forever
• Act, learn, adjust, repeat

7. Conviction Beats Adversity
• Internal drive outlasts outside motivation
• No one’s watching as closely as you think

8. Imposter Syndrome Is A Growth Signal
• Growth happens at the edge of comfort
• The more time you spend there, the faster you grow

9. Closed Mouths Don’t Get Fed
• Not asking and “no” get you the same thing: nothing
• Asking gives you a shot at “yes”

10. Mistakes Are Not Failure
• The worst failure is never starting
• The second worst is quitting too soon

11. 80% Of Success Is Selection
• Effort matters, but it’s not enough
• Pick games you’re built to win

These 11 lessons are proof:
Small, relentless changes add up fast.

Which one hit home for you?
Drop your favorite in the comments ⬇️

♻️ Repost to help your network
🔔 Follow Dave Kline for more high-signal insights

 11 Ideas That Will Change Your Life

Most of what you do as a manager doesn’t matter.

These 5 levers will make or break you.

After 25 years of working with teams, 
The same pattern repeats:

Average managers try to do everything.
The great ones focus on what really matters.

These are the 5 factors every high-performing team gets right:

1. Clear Goal | Singular Focus
• If everything’s a priority, nothing is
• One mission everyone can recite from memory
• Make progress visible—post your key metrics publicly

2. Best People | Talent Density
• Filling seats with whoever’s available kills momentum
• Recruit constantly, raise the bar relentlessly
• Tap your top performers’ networks

3. Right Tools | Force Multipliers
• “We can’t afford good software” is an excuse
• Invest in systems that amplify talent
• Pre-approve any tool under $500/year

4. Least Friction | Ruthless Simplification
• “That’s how we’ve always done it” is a red flag
• Eliminate every unnecessary step and meeting
• Ask weekly: “What got in our way?”

5. Shortest Time | Speed as Strategy
• Waiting for perfect conditions means you’ll never act
• Run rapid experiments, learn fast
• Cut every cycle time in half—then do it again

The brutal truth:
Most teams have 3 out of 5 levers working.
Elite teams obsess over all 5, all the time.

One broken pillar pulls everyone down.

The diagnostic question:
Which lever is your bottleneck right now?

Fix that one first.
Everything else multiplies from there.

Want more practical frameworks like this?

Subscribe to the MGMT Playbook. 
My free weekly newsletter for leaders who want to level up.

https://mgmt.beehiiv.com

♻️ Share to help leaders focus on what matters
🔔 Follow Dave Kline for more practical leadership insights

The 8020 of Management

Robin Daniels

Chief Business Officer @ Zensai #HumanSuccess & #AI | 3xCMO | 2.5xIPOs 😆 | Ex @Salesforce @WeWork @LinkedIn @Box @Matterport | LinkedIn Top Voice | Creator of Epic Teams | Dad | Runner | Made in Denmark 🇩🇰

Hi, I'm Robin Daniels, The James Bond of B2B, at least according to one legenday VC 😆

I'm an experienced executive focused on growth, marketing, GTM, product innovation, and leadership development to deliver epic results through ground-breaking, fun, and highly differentiated activities, while empowering people and teams to do the best work of their lives. 

I'm Chief Business Officer for Zensai (zensai.com) - where I run Product, Marketing, Partnerships, and GTM.

Throughout my career I've held executive leadership roles in high growth companies of all sizes, including Matterport (IPO) WeWork (near IPO), Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box (IPO), Veritas, and Vera (acquired).

My areas of expertise include growth strategy, product innovation, marketing, product marketing communications and media, GTM strategies, org design, leadership development, innovation management, mergers & acquisitions, top-level leadership, category-creation, brand building, public speaking, and sales transformation.

Here's more about my life story and journey during the last two decades: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/roadmap-life-love-happiness-robin-daniels/

I spent over 20 years in the US and UK, but I'm from Copenhagen, Denmark and an avid runner and movie nerd.

Founding Member & Advisor

byFounders is an early stage venture fund actively investing in tech startups across the Nordics and Baltics. Made up of some of the region's most accomplished entrepreneurs (Zendesk, Unity, Skype, and more), the byFounders Collective invests in and supports the next generation of globally ambitious founders. I help byFounders portfolio companies with deal sourcing, go-to-market strategy, business development, and fundraising advice.

Here's an incomplete list of companies who rejected me at some point:

Apple
Google
Yahoo
Adobe
Splunk
EMC
Asana
Microsoft
Gainsight
Facebook
Lucasfilm
Amazon

These are just a handful of the companies that didn’t want to hire me over the last 25 years. The full list is much longer. Each rejection stung at the time.

Then there were the layoffs, yeah that happened to me a few times too. Once was 2 months before I was about to become a father. That was stressful as all hell and I really felt like a failure.

Yet I keep going on. 

Giving up is never an option.

You might get knocked back. 

Get rejected. 

Lose your job. 

What will set you apart is the will, determination, grit, persistence, energy to keep going.

You've got this.

I believe in you.

LFG 💪

If you have the choice, privilege, opportunity to choose what you do for a living, then go do something that makes you insanely happy.

The consequences of this for your life, your health, your family, and society can't be overstated vs slogging it out in a job you hate.

If you don't have it today, don't panic, go find a way to make it happen... even if that takes years to do.

What defines a "Rockstar"?

Let me give you my framing of it, since I got that question recently. Maybe it will help you.

Nobody on the planet is equally good at EVERYTHING, but a Rockstar is good at their main thing. Like really good and they spend 80% of their time in that zone.

For that main thing (whatever it is), the Rockstars need to be a 5-10x multiplier of what came before or what can be done. If they are just a little better, that’s good too, but not really Rockstar territory.

For the minor things, it’s fine if a Rockstar is just "okay" (and not an a**hole). As long as those minor things stay minor. The moment that becomes their main thing and they suck at it, then they are out of Rockstar territory and maybe it’s time to find a new project, job, vocation, whatever for them.

Let me give you a concrete example.

I’m pretty damn good at storytelling, vision, category creation, branding, marketing, product, and GTM. I've done it for over 20 years at some of the most iconic tech companies where I was surrounded by insanely great people.

I’m okay with project management, nitty gritty details, creating detailed and complex systems, but it's not my zone of genius and it drains my energy spending too much time on this stuff. Thank god I have people around me much better at this than me because if my work was only for this kind of stuff, I would suck. And I would probably need to go find something else to do.

If you are a leader and you have "Rockstars" who are veering out of their territory, it's your responsibility to get them back so they can focus on what they are insanely great it. It helps everyone.

#leadership #rockstars

Sometimes I meet mega successful people, experts in their field, top of the top. 

And then I discover…

They are not on LinkedIn 😳

Gasp!!!

Ok, ok. 

Keep calm and carry on ☺️

Just a friendly reminder to go out there and live your life 💙

I wish I were big…

But I’d take world peace too 😝

No alternative text description for this image

I learned to juggle and here’s what it taught me about SaaS 😆

Okay, maybe not so much except this one critical life skill: focus. 

This video was actually take 3 because every time my focus would shift to something other than what I was doing, I would fail and drop the ball… or rocks in this case 😬

Work is much like this too, imho, focus is a superpower - and something I’m constantly trying to get better at. 

So, as they say, I’m a WIP and would rate myself 6/10 (maybe 7-8 on a good day) on focus. 

What about you?

Here's a simple but mega powerful work hack ✅/❌ with massive and immediate payback - but so few actually do! 

At the beginning of each meeting do this:

STATE THE INTENTION OF THE MEETING.

This is what happens:

1. People
✅ If you have the right people, carry on
❌ If you don't have the right people, stop, or else it's a waste of time

2. Needed or not
✅ If you need a live discussion, carry on
❌ If this can be decided async, stop, or else it's a waste of time

3. Time
✅ Do you need 15/30/60/etc for a decision, carry on
❌ If you don't know, stop, or it will lead to more meetings

4. Outcome
✅ If you have a clear outcome, carry on
❌ If you don't have a clear outcome, stop, or else it's a waste of time

Yes, I understand some meetings will be free-flowing and definitely worth it, but the vast majority can fit into this framework and save you a lot of time.

What do you think?

My good friend and past colleague Roderick Jefferson wrote a great book about his life, survival, and insights for how to build a successful career.

Go check it out https://lnkd.in/gD-8Cb6k

Proud of you my friend 💙

AI usage in our Learn365 platform has gone up 172% year over year to help our customers learn in the flow of work 🚀 

Our customers are seeing more engaged employees with personalized AI-powered learning paths that we made so every person can experience growth, development, and momentum in their lives in a way that's perfect for them.

Super excited to see Fosway Group, David Wilson and Fiona Leteney recognize how much love, innovation, and focus we put into delivering a platform that our customers love 💙 

Thank you for the partnership and the recognition. I know everyone at Zensai appreciates this 🙏 

Onwards and upwards!

Studied and trusted by EMEA’s learning leaders, the 2026 9-Grid™ for Learning Systems is out today. 

The research shows that the market is growing but uncertainty and complexity remain; nevertheless, vendors are continuing to focus on AI-enabled functionality.

Revealing the market and solution trends in the learning systems market, the 2026 9-Grid™ report shows that:

- While AI is the top priority for the coming year – alongside skills, according to Digital Learning Realities 2025 – staples such as compliance and regulatory training are still critically important but have ceded the spotlight to AI due to the market-wide effectiveness of their delivery in modern learning. 
- The proliferation of AI sees face-to-face, cohort-based learning achieve premium status, with the research noting that “…leadership judgement, surgical precision, craftsmanship, [and] complex negotiation” remain capabilities that need observation and social interaction.

Fiona Leteney, Senior Analyst at Fosway Group, commented on the report’s learning experience insight: "It’s official: The LXP as a standalone category of learning system is finally behind us. Organisations still care deeply about the learning experience, but what used to be differentiators like personalised recommendations, intuitive UX, seamless content access, are now baseline expectations. AI is accelerating this shift, and even potentially transforming the traditional ‘Netflix style’ front door of learning into adaptive, conversational experiences where AI coaches and tutors guide learners in real time."

Myself and Fiona Leteney will take questions on the research in a live online ‘Ask the Analyst’ session on 19 March 2026 at 3pm GMT. Register for your free place here.

There are other market analysis models, but there’s only one 9-Grid™. Examine it today to accelerate your buying knowledge.

The links can be found in the comments below.

#Learning #LearningSystems #AI

Thanks for the great conversation about purpose, sleep, exercise, and happiness. I loved it Eric Bomyea - keep doing awesome work.

Podcaster | B2B Brand Director | Yoga Instructor

You don’t need a perfect sleep routine. You need portable anchors.

You already know the sleep science: 

Same bedtime. 
Same wake time. 
Dark room. 
No screens. 
Total consistency.

But your life moves.

Travel. 
Clients. 
Team dinners.
New beds. 
Different time zones.

So when the routine breaks, you feel behind.

In my conversation with Robin Daniels, he shared two anchors he protects wherever he is:

Sleep as a priority — even when it’s imperfect.
Daily physical regulation — move the stress out.

Two commitments that can travel with you. That reframed how I think about living dynamically, not perfectly. 

If your day goes sideways tomorrow, what would you still protect?

https://lnkd.in/gjpvNeF9

Open video: Stop Chasing Perfect. Lead a Dynamic Life (Without Burning Out) | Robin Daniels on youtube.com

Stop Chasing Perfect. Lead a Dynamic Life (Without Burning Out) | Robin Daniels

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