Colt Briner on Purpose, Workplace Conflict, Toxic Culture, and Difficult Leadership

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of Civility Matters, Colt Briner joins us for a discussion about purpose, workplace conflict, toxic culture, and the leadership behaviors that undermine trust and performance. Briner, author of “The Race to Relevance” and co-creator of the “Wayfinding” system, discusses how purpose helps people navigate work and life with greater clarity and alignment. We explore how rudeness, poor communication, and unhealthy power dynamics show up in teams and why addressing them early matters for both people and organizations. Colt also shares practical strategies for leaders, HR professionals, and managers who want to improve workplace communication, strengthen leadership and respect, and create a healthier workplace culture. They explore how civility connects to purpose-driven leadership, why rudeness happens in organizations, and practical strategies for building more respectful workplaces. The conversation highlights that treating people well isn’t a soft skill—it’s a strategic advantage grounded in purpose-centered messaging and human-centered leadershipAbout Colt Briner:Colt Briner is a strategist, speaker, and creator focused on helping individuals and organizations reconnect with what makes them fully human. As the founder of an award-winning marketing agency and a senior marketing leader in healthcare, Colt has spent over two decades driving growth at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and purpose. His work challenges conventional, performance-driven models by introducing more relational, intuitive, and holistic ways of thinking. Colt is the co-creator of Wayfinding, a reflective system designed to help people navigate life with greater clarity and alignment, and a leading voice behind the Invitation to Wholeness—an emerging body of work exploring the balance between logic and intuition, structure and flow, and the seen and unseen forces that shape our lives.Whether working with executive teams or individuals, Colt’s approach is rooted in a simple idea: the path forward isn’t something we force, it’s something we learn to sense, trust, and follow.Contact Colt at: https://coltbriner.com/You can also contact him at: [email protected] more on my work on rudeness and incivility, you can find information at:www.activatesuccess.orgwww.rudenessrehab.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmobrienphd/https://www.youtube.com/@RudenessRehab