Karen A. Collins
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer
Karen helps leaders close the gap between what an organization says matters and how it actually operates, turning meaningful intent into leadership systems, practice, and follow-through.
Make the values operational.
What leaders say matters has to show up in the systems, communication, decisions, and behaviors people experience every day.
Karen helps organizations see where good intentions are losing contact with practice. A value may be clear, but the meeting cadence, decision process, incentives, or leadership habits may be sending a different message.
Her work brings those pieces back into alignment. Leaders learn through experience, practice what the organization needs from them, and build enough structure for the change to continue after the session ends.
When the organization needs practice, structure, and continuity.
Karen is especially useful when leaders understand the aspiration but need a practical way to make it visible and repeatable.
Values are disconnected from everyday decisions.
The organization has said what matters, but priorities, meetings, communication, and accountability practices are reinforcing something else.
Explore Organizational AccountabilityLeaders need usable communication and accountability habits.
A presentation will not be enough. People need a facilitated environment where they can work with real situations and practice a different response.
Explore Workshops and KeynotesThe team wants change but has no reinforcement system.
Agreements are made in the room, then disappear into daily pressure because ownership, cadence, feedback, and follow-through are not strong enough.
Explore Leadership Team CoachingLeadership development needs to reach beyond one event.
The organization needs a connected experience that develops individual leaders, team practices, and shared operating expectations over time.
Explore the Conscious Growth JourneyStructured enough to hold. Human enough to use.
Karen helps leaders move from a good idea to an experience people can practice, understand, and carry forward.
She looks at the leadership challenge and the system around it. That includes what people are being asked to do, how the organization communicates, where accountability lives, what gets reinforced, and what happens after a decision is made.
Karen uses facilitation, coaching, assessment, systems thinking, and experiential learning to make change tangible. Leaders work with real situations, receive feedback, and build practices that fit the context they are actually leading in.
Her operating role at CGP keeps her close to the question of implementation. The work has to be clear enough to run, adaptable enough to fit the organization, and durable enough to continue.
See the system
Identify where stated priorities and everyday operating signals have moved apart.
Design the practice
Give leaders a concrete behavior, structure, or conversation they can use.
Learn through experience
Use real situations, feedback, and reflection instead of relying on presentation alone.
Build continuity
Clarify ownership, reinforcement, and follow-through so the change can hold.
Leadership development through systems, coaching, and experience.
Karen is a leadership coach, facilitator, organizational consultant, and operations leader with more than 20 years of experience supporting individuals and teams. She co-founded Conscious Growth Partners and serves as Chief Operations Officer.
She is a Leadership Facilitator at Yale School of Management and has taught human development coursework at Washington State University. She also serves with Western Washington University's Morse Leadership Institute.
Karen's public professional profiles identify ICF coaching certification, professional coach training through iPEC, Energy Leadership Index practitioner training, and certification in the Hogan Leadership Assessment. She created The Coaching Lab in 2019 as an experiential environment for practicing leadership and communication skills.
View Karen's Western Washington University profile- Conscious Growth PartnersCo-Founder and Chief Operations Officer
- Yale School of ManagementLeadership Facilitator
- Western Washington UniversityMorse Leadership Institute advisory work
- Prior teachingHuman development coursework at Washington State University
- Coaching and assessmentICF-certified coach; iPEC professional coach training; Energy Leadership Index practitioner; Certified Hogan Leadership Assessment Practitioner
- Signature workCreator of The Coaching Lab in 2019
Where Karen's leadership-systems approach shows up.
Morse Leadership Institute Advisory Board
Karen's university profile connects her work in coaching, facilitation, organizational consulting, experiential learning, Yale leadership development, and The Coaching Lab.
View Karen's university profileOrganizational Accountability
Build clearer leadership systems, shared expectations, and accountability practices that reinforce how the organization intends to operate.
Explore Organizational AccountabilityLeadership Team Coaching
Help a senior team practice stronger communication, agreements, feedback, ownership, and follow-through in the work they already share.
Explore Leadership Team CoachingRituals, Reflection, and Meaningful Practice
A conversation with Karen about reflection, intention, identity, and the practices that help people live what matters to them.
Listen to the Sproutable conversationFollow Karen's current work
See Karen's current positioning, leadership systems work, facilitation, and professional updates.
View Karen's LinkedIn profileWhat will still be true after the workshop ends?
Karen pays attention to whether a leadership experience will change what people can actually do when they return to the work.
She connects leadership with identity, meaning, and legacy, then brings the conversation back to practice. The useful question is how those intentions will show up in the next meeting, decision, relationship, and operating rhythm.
Bring Karen the change that needs to become practice.
The free 90-minute Download Session gives you space to clarify the gap, identify what the system needs from its leaders, and decide what should happen next.
Start a Download Session With Karen