A Note from the Founder
"Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome." — Dr. Brené Brown
I began this work intent on confronting injustice in the world. After years of coaching leaders and guiding organizations through difficult transitions, I thought I knew how to bridge divides.
But somewhere along the way—through all the training, certifications, and difficult conversations—I realized the work I most needed to do was internal. The classic hero's journey.
This project doesn't come from having all the answers. After two decades in dialogue and leadership development, I still don't fully know how to navigate the fractures in my own relationships. But I'm committed to discovering whether healing is possible.
Healing doesn't require agreement. I'm learning to move toward people who see the world differently—and discovering that it's wonderful to be wrong about someone.
This is an invitation: to value connection over correction, show up awkward but willing even when we disagree.
Here's to being wrong about each other.
Peace & courage,
Jenny Kim | Founder, The Linden Leadership Collective
Trying to Name the Fracture
A Culture of Dis-Understanding
The division we see today has become almost cliché—static so constant in the background we’ve resigned ourselves to it. But in countless conversations, I keep hearing something deeper: the pain of fracture inside our closest relationships. People talk about misunderstanding as the root problem—If only they understood me… this stance… this implication.
But “misunderstanding” felt too narrow, too much about an error in comprehension, as if the fix were simply seeing things my way.
What I kept hearing instead—what I kept feeling—was disconnect, dissonance, distance. So I went back to the prefix dis, meaning “apart,” “undone,” “pulled away.”
And a different word surfaced: dis-understanding.
If it were a real word, “dis-understanding” would name a rupture in meaning between people. Not just disagreement, but being out of sync—our shared understanding unraveling. It’s less about right or wrong, more about the relationship itself fraying. That connection is holy ground. No wonder it hurts when it’s trampled.
The ancient Greek dialogos—“through words”—reminds us that dialogue was meant to bridge distance, not widen it. Conversation is supposed to be a crossing-over, not a contest.
Maybe the solution isn’t cutting ties or resigning ourselves to dis-understanding.
Maybe it’s refusing to hunker down in our own little tents—and instead widening the tent so our stories can live side by side without the whole thing collapsing.