Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One of the smartest leadership strategies I’ve ever seen involved coffee, toast, hash browns and grits.
A client of mine was the only person of color on her company’s executive team. Like many executives, she understood that relationships shape careers. Yet the usual advice — golf outings, after-work drinks and exclusive networking events — didn’t fit her world. Rather than forcing herself into someone else’s playbook, she created her own.
Once a month, she invited people from across the organization to breakfast. Administrative assistants sat beside project managers. Analysts shared a table with hourly employees. Senior leaders occasionally joined, but the guest list focused far more on people than titles. Everyone came for breakfast, conversation and connection. Several colleagues questioned her approach. They assumed those relationships would do little for her career. Two years later, she became a vice president.
Her breakfasts grew into something far more valuable than a networking event. They became one of the strongest communication networks inside the company. People shared information across departments, solved problems before they reached leadership meetings, and built trust long before they needed each other.
That story confirms a pattern I’ve seen repeatedly in my research. Some of the most effective leadership skills are developed in communities long before they are recognized as leadership skills in the workplace. The ability to build relationships, bring people together, create trust and strengthen a sense of belonging can become a powerful advantage for leaders and their organizations.
Those skills come from somewhere. They come from church basements and neighborhood kitchens and folding tables where people learn how to bring others together.
Leadership starts before the meeting
Many leaders spend enormous energy trying to create alignment during meetings. By the time everyone gathers around the conference table, however, the opportunity to build trust may have already passed.
Formal meetings encourage people to manage impressions. Employees choose their words carefully because every comment can feel tied to their performance. Leaders focus on agendas, deadlines and presentations. Very little space remains for genuine connection. Community spaces work differently. People gather around food, shared experiences or common challenges. Conversations happen naturally. Relationships deepen over time. When difficult decisions eventually arise, trust already exists.
That helps explain why my client’s breakfasts became so powerful. She built relationships before she needed support. She understood that leadership grows through connection long before authority enters the picture.
As a leader, ask yourself a simple question: Where do people inside your organization actually get to know one another? If every interaction happens inside a scheduled meeting, trust has very little room to grow.
Communities built these leadership models generations ago
Organizations spend millions of dollars on leadership training, teaching collaboration, distributed leadership and psychological safety. Communities practiced many of those principles long before anyone created business language around them.
Think about the Underground Railroad. People coordinated across states without organizational charts or executive committees. Every decision depended on relationships and shared trust. The system relied on people organizing through community rather than hierarchy. The same leadership pattern appeared inside Black churches. For generations, Black women organized events, managed budgets, coordinated volunteers and led community initiatives despite having very little formal power. Those experiences developed leadership skills that later strengthened movements for social change.
Kitchen tables served a similar purpose. Families gathered to solve problems, exchange information and care for one another. Domestic workers carried stories and knowledge between households. Community leaders built networks one conversation at a time. There is a part organizations often skip. These skills were developed by women doing the work whether or not anyone paid them for it. That has not changed.
Care and community make organizations stronger, but organizations rarely share the cost with the people carrying that work. If you are going to borrow the practice, borrow that truth, too.
Three leadership practices worth borrowing
The leadership lessons developed in church basements and around kitchen tables work because they focus on people over process. That approach translates surprisingly well into today’s workplace.
Create spaces where people who rarely interact can connect
Cross-functional collaboration happens more naturally when relationships already exist. Invite people from different departments, different levels and different backgrounds to gather over breakfast or lunch with a simple goal: getting to know one another. Skip the presentation and let the conversation do the work. Those informal connections can become a powerful foundation for solving future problems.
Listen before you decide
Many leaders believe consensus requires everyone to agree. My experience tells me something different. People are more willing to support difficult decisions when they feel heard before the decision is made. A few thoughtful conversations on the front end can save weeks of frustration and resistance later. Listening may slow the beginning of the process just enough to speed up everything that follows.
Lead with the skills you already have
Many of the strongest leadership instincts come from life outside the office. Maybe you learned to bring people together through your family, your neighborhood, your faith community or volunteer work. Maybe you became the person who checked on the quiet one in the room or made sure everyone had a seat at the table.
Those experiences shaped your leadership long before your job title did. Bring those instincts into the workplace instead of leaving them at the door. Organizations spend enormous amounts of time searching for the next leadership framework. Sometimes the strongest answer has been part of your life all along.
Leadership begins around the table
My client never built her network on a golf course. She built it over breakfast. That simple decision changed her career because she understood something many leaders overlook: trust grows through consistent relationships, shared conversations and genuine care long before it appears in business results.
The future of leadership may look less like another meeting and more like another seat at the table. Leaders who create spaces where people feel seen, heard and connected can build organizations that communicate more effectively, solve problems earlier and develop the trust that every company needs.
Sometimes, the most strategic leadership move isn’t another meeting, presentation or networking event. Sometimes, it’s simply making room at the table.
One of the smartest leadership strategies I’ve ever seen involved coffee, toast, hash browns and grits.
A client of mine was the only person of color on her company’s executive team. Like many executives, she understood that relationships shape careers. Yet the usual advice — golf outings, after-work drinks and exclusive networking events — didn’t fit her world. Rather than forcing herself into someone else’s playbook, she created her own.
Once a month, she invited people from across the organization to breakfast. Administrative assistants sat beside project managers. Analysts shared a table with hourly employees. Senior leaders occasionally joined, but the guest list focused far more on people than titles. Everyone came for breakfast, conversation and connection. Several colleagues questioned her approach. They assumed those relationships would do little for her career. Two years later, she became a vice president.
