#55 Leadership Insights from my Conversation with M. K. Palmore

What separates good leaders from truly great leaders?

According to M.K. Palmore, it's not strategy, authority, or expertise.

It's people.

In this episode of The Learning to Lead Show, Mark Cundiff shares key leadership insights gained from his conversation with M.K. Palmore, Founder and CEO of Apogee Global RMS, former FBI executive, U.S. Marine Corps officer, U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and cybersecurity leader with Google Cloud and Palo Alto Networks.

Drawing from more than three decades of leadership experience across the military, federal law enforcement, and corporate America, M.K. shares powerful lessons on trust, integrity, accountability, resilience, mentorship, and why leadership is ultimately about investing in people.

M.K. explains why risk is fundamentally a leadership challenge, how great leaders build cultures of trust, and why the small moments of encouragement and mentorship often have the greatest impact.

Whether you're leading a team of two or an organization of thousands, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about leadership and the lasting legacy you leave behind.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

•  Why do the best leaders focus on people before mission 
•  The leadership lessons M.K. learned at the U.S. Naval Academy, the Marine Corps, the FBI, and Silicon Valley 
•  How mentors helped him beat the odds and build an extraordinary career 
•  Why trust is built through integrity, transparency, and accountability 
•  The hidden ways leaders unintentionally damage trust 
•  How to rebuild trust after it's been broken 
•  Why high-performing teams practice before pressure arrives 
•  The role of reflection and self-awareness in leadership growth 
•  How leaders can create cultures of psychological safety 
•  Why every leader has a responsibility to develop future leaders 

Free Learning To Lead Resources

• Free Book: The Trust Gap
• The Learning To Lead Newsletter
• LeaderNotes

🔎 About LeaderNotes

LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go. It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.

Contact Mark at: mark@markjcundiff.com

Transcript

0:01

Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead show. I'm your host, Mark Cundiff, and this is episode number fifty-five, where we're gonna discuss some of my key takeaways from my conversation with M.K. Palmore. In just a moment, we'll dive into those details, but I wanted to share a few stats with you about how the Learning to Lead show has grown in recent weeks. We are now in 54 different countries, 40 states, and we're also in 355 cities around the world so I just wanna take a moment and thank you for sharing the Learning to Lead show with your audience, with your network, with your friends and family, and helping us expand our reach around the world, literally. Also, if you have not done this, make sure that you go and download a copy of Leader Notes. It gives you a summary of our interviews with the key takeaways, gives you some quick facts about the conversation, also provides you the resources that we discuss, books, podcasts, that type of thing. If you haven't subscribed, go and subscribe so that we automatically get sent to your podcast app. Whatever your favorite podcast app is, whether it's Apple, Spotify, Audible, Amazon, just make sure you go and subscribe. And one thing that would really help us, and it'd be a great big favor to me, is if you could go and leave us a rating. Those five ratings really help us move up in the charts so that others know about the Learning to Lead show. Those would be really helpful if you would do that. We're gonna talk about episode number fifty-four with M.K. Palmore. In this episode, I sit down with M.K. He is the founder and CEO of Apogee Global RMS. He is a former FBI executive, special agent for the FBI. He served in the US Marine Corps as an officer. He graduated from the US Naval Academy, and has been a cybersecurity leader with Google Cloud and Palo Alto Networks. So he's had a amazing career working for some amazing companies. Graduating from the US Naval Academy, being a Marine, he's got some great leadership training and experience. So drawing from more than three decades of leadership experience across the military, federal law enforcement, and corporate America, M.K. shares powerful lessons on trust, integrity, accountability, resilience, mentorship, and why leadership is ultimately about investing in people. M.K. explains why risk is fundamentally a leadership challenge, How great leaders build cultures of trust, and why small moments of encouragement and mentorship often have the greatest impact. Whether you're leading a team of two or an organization of thousands, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about leadership and the lasting legacy you leave behind. I'm gonna give you a few key takeaways from our conversation. The first is h-he talks about, and he really stresses this throughout our whole conversation, that people are the mission. If you don't get the people part right first, then everything else will crumble or be frustrating or be difficult for you as a leader. Many leaders become so focused on results that they forget the people responsible for producing those results. MK argues that leadership changed dramatically for him when he shifted from a mission-first mindset to a people-first mindset. Secondly, never tell me the odds. When you listen to MK's story about where he grew up in a difficult part of Washington, DC, the sacrifice that his parents made, it tells you a lot about the person. One of the things that became a mantra for him is, never tell me the odds. MK learned early that circumstances do not have to determine outcomes. He let this define his life, the way he attacks things. If it looks like he's an underdog or that it can't be done, he's even more determined to make things happen. Through intentional planning, discipline, support from mentors, and personal accountability, he built a remarkable career serving in the Marine Corps, FBI, and executive leadership roles with companies like Google Number three, MK sees leadership as a stewardship. He stated to us that someone is always watching your behavior, watching what you do, watching what you say. Whether you realize it or not, your actions, decisions, and character are influencing others. Make sure you capture that. Whether you realize it or not, your actions, decisions, and character are influencing others. Great leaders understand they have a responsibility to encourage, mentor, and develop future leaders. In one clip that MK shared, he talks about some personal interactions he had with key people in his life. One was a general who reached out to him in a difficult time. Another was a boss who was a mentor. Those people stopped, had personal moments with him that he remembers decades later to this day. He even has a note from one of them that he still keeps and reads today, what are some things, simple things, a note that you could write to a team member, a special thing that you could recognize? What are some little things, little moments that you could do to help encourage and help your people go to the next level? Leadership is a stewardship. People are watching. Number four, trust is built in small moments. People rarely remember the boss who simply demanded results. They remember the leader who took time to ask how they were doing, sent a handwritten note, or offered encouragement during a difficult season. Leadership influence is often built one conversation at a time. That is such a powerful concept, that if we will realize that the power of our influence and the magnitude of our effectiveness is really built one conversation at a time Number five, integrity is the foundation. Teams cannot perform at a high level without trust. Trust grows when leaders, number one, admit mistakes, number two, take responsibility, number three, give credit to others, number four, demonstrate transparency, and number five, model accountability. Integrity isn't optional, it's foundational. And one of the key things that he talked about during our conversation was being willing to admit you're wrong in front of your team, apologizing when you need to apologize if you said something in a way that wasn't the best way to say it. If you made a mistake, owning it. Those type of things elevate your influence with your team. Number six, give people their credit. He talked about one of the quickest ways to erode trust is when you take credit for someone else's work, or you don't properly assign credit to someone who's done a great job. This can undermine your trustworthiness, your credibility, and your influence with a team member. When it is so easy that we give people the credit and acknowledge the great job that they've done. One of the fastest ways to destroy trust is failing to recognize the contribution of others. Great leaders consistently shine the spotlight on their team and celebrate the people responsible for success. Number seven, accountability starts with the leader. Leaders who create accountable cultures model accountability first. When leaders openly acknowledge mistakes and focus on learning rather than blame, accountability becomes contagious throughout the organization. Make sure that you have an accountable organization, that you're number one, accountable yourself and own your responsibilities and your mistakes, but two, hold your team accountable. Number eight, grace matters. I thought this was one of the most powerful parts of our conversation when he talked about having grace. You don't hear leaders talk about that, and you've got a guy here that's coming from the military. MK was a special agent with the FBI, and he brought up the word grace. He talks about when you're having difficult conversations, and those are inevitable as a leader, the best leaders confront issues directly while also creating space for growth, learning, and restoration. Accountability without grace creates fear. Grace without accountability creates mediocrity. Great leaders balance both that's eight key takeaways that I got out of my conversation with MK. If you have not listened to episode number 54, I'd highly encourage you to go back and listen to the full conversation. He's a very engaging and astute leader who has gained a lot of wisdom in all his different experiences. If you have never checked out Leader Notes, make sure that you go and download a copy today. It gives you a great summary and outline of the key topics discussed during our conversations. It also gives you a list of the books, podcasts, and other materials referenced during our conversations. It'll also give you links to connect with our guest for each episode so that you can follow them and engage in their content as well. Make sure that you go and subscribe in your favorite podcast app so that we appear in your library as soon as we upload a new episode. And one thing that you could do for me as a big favor, if you've got value out of today's content, is go and provide a rating. Those ratings help us rank higher in podcast searches for good leadership content so that we can attract more interesting, engaging guests in the future, so that others can learn about the conversations that we're having here on the Learning to Lead show, and that we can provide more content that's valuable to you so that you can learn, grow, and lead, taking your organization to the next level