Our Values

Shiner Leadership strengthens leaders by integrating behavioral science with the realities of leadership and organizational life. We help leaders listen deeply, think clearly, speak skillfully, and act with wisdom in the moments that matter most. Our mission is to develop reflective, adaptive leaders who build trust, strengthen relationships, and create the conditions to cultivate thriving and mobilize high performance.

🤝 High trust

We believe high trust helps leaders, teams, and followers get more done.

We support leaders in building trusting relationships, repairing ruptures, and avoiding the behaviors that undermine trust. 

🌱 Human Flourishing 

We believe leadership is, at its core, about doing what’s right for group success and human flourishing.

🔍 Reflective Practice

Great leadership begins with listening, observation, and reflection  to inform skillful action.

 We help leaders slow down, examine their biases, and make deliberate choices to produce behavior that aligns with their values and goals

🧠 Behavioral Science and leadership in Action

We translate evidence-based research into habits and practices that help leaders do the right things to achieve their goals, strengthen teams, remove obstacles to their best performances.

🎯 Behavior change for greater impact

Leaders grow the most when they change their behavior – improving what’s working and stopping what’s not. Insight and awareness are translated into new results through behavior change.

💡 Smart Emotions

Human emotion can undermine leaders and help them succeed. On one hand, great leaders regulate their emotions when they can lead to rash behavior. On the other, the leverage emotions for understanding, relating, and mobilizing action.

We help leaders understand, interpret, and use their emotional signals wisely—so they respond with clarity rather than react from habit. 

🔄Adaptive Leadership

We believe in the need for leaders to constantly adapt to a changing world and for them to practice Adaptive Leadership to tackle problems for which solutions don’t yet exist.

Who We Are

I’m an executive coach, educator, and leadership advisor with more than 20 years of experience helping leaders think more clearly, communicate more effectively, and lead with greater confidence.

My work sits at the intersection of behavioral science, adult development, and real‑world leadership practice. I help leaders understand themselves more deeply, navigate complexity with greater skill, and move their organizations forward with clarity and purpose. At the core of my work is helping clients identify and shift the behaviors that matter most.

My Approach

Leaders grow when they change how they think, decide, and act. My coaching creates the conditions for that change.

I focus on:

  • Expert, personalized, evidence‑based development work

  • Warmth, collaboration, confidentiality, and trust

  • Behavioral‑science foundations shaped by training and teaching at Harvard, MIT, and Brown

  • Adaptive leadership and leading without authority in complex environments

  • Business experience that grounds leadership work in real organizational dynamics

  • Helping clients translate insight into sustained behavior change

  • Optimism and steadiness in the face of real challenges and meaningful opportunities

Professional Background

I’ve coached and taught leaders across corporate, higher‑education, healthcare, and government sectors.

  • Executive Coach & Consultant — Shiner Leadership

  • Entrepreneur and family‑office investor with decades of business experience

  • Instructor, Psychology of Decision Making — Brown University

  • Leadership Advisor — MIT Leadership Center

  • Professor of Leadership & Ethics — U.S. Naval War College

Credentials

  • Ed.D., Harvard University

  • MBA, University of Toronto

  • Ed.M., Harvard University

  • Bachelor of Music (Performance), University of Toronto

  • Certified in Immunity to Change, and MSC Emotional Intelligence Test

Michael Shiner, Ed.D., MBA

Principal

michael@shinerleadership.com

617-797-2594