Today we’d like to introduce you to Dennis LaRue.
Hi Dennis, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My leadership story really started long before I ever called myself a coach.
I spent 23 years serving in the United States Air Force. Like a lot of young leaders, I initially thought leadership came with rank, responsibility, and having the right answers. Over time, I learned something very different: people don’t follow a title. They follow people they trust.
Some of my greatest leadership lessons came from getting things right, but many came from getting things wrong. I learned what it felt like to lead people well, what it felt like to fail people, and what it meant to have leaders who saw something in me before I could see it in myself.
Eventually, those experiences shaped a simple belief that has become the foundation of everything I do today: Leaders Develop Relationships.
After retiring from the Air Force, I continued working in leadership development and eventually moved into coaching. The more leaders I worked with, from emerging leaders to senior executives, the more convinced I became that many leadership problems are really relationship problems.
That led me to create LDR – Leaders Develop Relationships.
Today, I work with leaders who want to reconnect with their people and realign with their purpose so they can become the leaders their people deserve. My approach to leadership can be summed up in three sentences:
Meet people where they are.
Love them for who they are.
Don’t leave them where they are.
Those words have become much more than a leadership philosophy for me. They shape how I coach, how I teach, how I write, and how I try to lead my own life.
Along the way, I’ve had opportunities I never would have imagined when I first put on an Air Force uniform, from coaching leaders and executives, to teaching and developing other coaches, to writing my weekly leadership newsletter, #STEELTOESREQUIRED.
But the mission underneath all of it has stayed remarkably simple.
Leadership is a responsibility, a privilege, and a calling. I want to help leaders become the kind of leaders their people deserve.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not at all….and I’m actually grateful that it hasn’t been.
Some of the most important lessons I teach about leadership today came from moments when I didn’t get leadership right.
I’ve made decisions that affected people differently than I intended. I’ve had difficult conversations I could have handled better. I’ve experienced what happens when communication breaks down, when trust gets strained, and when a leader becomes so focused on the mission that they can lose sight of the people accomplishing it.
Those experiences taught me that good intentions aren’t enough. As leaders, we have to be willing to look in the mirror and ask, “What are my people experiencing from my leadership?”
Another challenge was transitioning after 23 years in the Air Force. In the military, there is structure, rank, a defined mission, and a clear sense of where you belong. When you leave that environment, you have to rediscover some of those things for yourself.
Building LDR has required me to do exactly that.
I’ve had to figure out who I am outside of a uniform and a title, what I’m uniquely equipped to contribute, and who I’m called to serve. I’ve had ideas that worked and plenty that didn’t. I’ve had seasons when opportunities seemed to come quickly and others when I wondered whether I was making any progress at all.
But those struggles have helped shape the work I do today.
They’ve also given me empathy for the leaders I coach. Leadership can be lonely. You can be successful on paper while privately questioning whether you’re getting it right. Sometimes you need someone who isn’t there to judge you, impress you, or tell you what you want to hear. You need someone willing to help you see what you can’t see for yourself.
I’ve needed those people in my life too.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road. But I don’t think I would have developed the same understanding of leadership if it had been.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about LDR – Leaders Develop Relationships Executive Coaching?
LDR stands for Leaders Develop Relationships, and that name really says what we believe about leadership.
I help leaders reconnect with their people and realign with their purpose so they can become the leaders their people deserve.
At LDR, we work primarily with executives, senior leaders, emerging leaders, and leadership teams through executive coaching, leadership development, team coaching, workshops, and facilitated peer groups. But regardless of the service, the work usually comes back to relationships.
I believe every leader has four important leadership relationships to develop: their relationship with themselves, with the people they lead, with the people who lead them, and, for leaders who share my faith perspective, their relationship with God.
What sets my approach apart is that I’m not interested in simply giving leaders another leadership model to memorize. Most experienced leaders already know a lot about leadership. The harder question is: What are people actually experiencing from your leadership?
That question is at the heart of something I’ve developed called the Executive Mirror™. It creates an opportunity for leaders to examine how they are showing up, where there may be gaps between their intentions and their impact, and what they might need to see differently without judgment.
That “without judgment” piece matters to me.
Executives and senior leaders often have fewer places where they can be completely honest. The higher they move in an organization, the harder it can become to know who they can trust, where they can admit they don’t have the answer, or who will challenge them without having an agenda. I want my coaching relationships to be one of those places.
I’m also the writer of #STEELTOESREQUIRED, a weekly leadership newsletter built around practical leadership lessons and sometimes uncomfortable questions. The name is intentional. Occasionally leadership requires someone to step on our toes a little not to tear us down, but to help us grow.
What I’m most proud of isn’t a particular program, credential, or recognition. It’s seeing the idea Leaders Develop Relationships become bigger than a business name. It has become the lens through which I think about leadership.
My definition of leadership captures it best:
Meet people where they are.
Love them for who they are.
Don’t leave them where they are.
That’s what I want LDR to be known for.
Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to simply help someone become a more successful executive. I want to help them become the kind of leader their people deserve.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Absolutely. I don’t believe any of us gets where we are by ourselves.
First and foremost is my family, my wife, our three children, and our five grandchildren. They are a huge part of my “why.” Building something of your own requires time, patience, sacrifice, encouragement, and faith—not only from the person whose name is on the business, but from the people walking alongside them. My family has supported me through different seasons of my life and continues to remind me that leadership begins long before we ever walk into an office.
I’ve also been blessed with some incredible mentors and voices in my life.
John C. Maxwell has had a significant influence on my leadership journey. Eventually, I had the opportunity to become part of the Maxwell Leadership Team, serve on faculty developing other coaches, and even be interviewed by John on stage in front of thousands of people. Those were opportunities I never could have imagined earlier in my journey.
I’ve also had the privilege of learning from people like Bob Beaudine, Bob Burg, and Coach Lou Holtz. Each has influenced me differently—through conversations, encouragement, wisdom, and the way they live out the principles they teach. Having people like that willing to invest in you, challenge you, and sometimes simply believe in you can change the trajectory of your life.
My 23 years in the Air Force also put incredible leaders in my path. Some taught me through their example exactly what great leadership looks like. Others taught me lessons in a very different way. I learned from both. And I learned an enormous amount from the people I had the privilege of leading. Your people can be some of your greatest leadership teachers if you’re willing to listen to them.
My clients, students, fellow coaches, colleagues, friends, and professional network deserve credit as well. They’ve challenged my thinking, referred people to me, shared my writing, invited me into rooms, and trusted me with their stories.
My clients in particular have made me a better coach. Coaching is built on trust. Every leader who has allowed me into their world—the victories, frustrations, difficult decisions, mistakes, relationships, and questions they may not be able to discuss anywhere else—has taught me something.
And my faith is foundational to all of it. I believe God places people in our lives at different seasons for a reason. Some stay for decades. Others may be there for a particular chapter, conversation, or opportunity. But each contributes something.
That’s probably one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned about success: very little of what we accomplish is truly ours alone.
Someone taught us. Someone believed in us. Someone challenged us. Someone gave us an opportunity. Someone opened a door.
And when we’re fortunate enough to experience some success ourselves, I believe we have a responsibility to hold that door open for someone else.
Contact Info:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-larue-jr/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dennislaruejr2950
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/steeltoesrequired-7232486751049498624/
Image Credits
LaRue Leadership Definition: by Kerri Heddell
Dennis LaRue being interviewed by John Maxwell by: Christian Del Rosario Photography
