Joyful Disruption And Whole-Person Leadership With Lynne Cuppernull

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person Leadership

 

This episode of the One Humanity Lab Podcast is for leaders, coaches, and changemakers who are curious about how innovation, imagination, and deep listening can transform the way we lead ourselves and others.

Guest hosts Pauline de Castelnau and Mia Cellucci welcome Lynne Cuppernull, leadership coach and co-founder of the SparkLit Group, for a rich and playful conversation on whole-person leadership, joyful disruption of the status quo, and the power of reconnecting with what matters most. Drawing from her work across industries, including healthcare, government, nonprofits, and more, Lynne invites listeners to explore their “heart work”—a lifelong journey of aligning purpose, values, and action.

Together, they reflect on imagination, burnout, listening, and the role of play in leadership, weaving together insights from coaching, improv, and Lynne’s own formative experiences in theater. The conversation offers both practical tools and deeper reflections for leaders navigating complexity, change, and the call to lead from wholeness.

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Joyful Disruption And Whole-Person Leadership With Lynne Cuppernull

Welcome to The One Humanity Lab Podcast, Into an Ecology of Wholeness, where we explore ways in which individuals and organizations can grow, heal, and improve to return to grounded connectivity to people, communities, and the planet. In our podcast, you’ll hear from a variety of voices in the fields of coaching and wholeness on topics like dreaming, intuition, and creativity, and how to develop inner capacities in order to expand outwards in our service to others. From the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership, please join your hosts, Ina Gjikondi and Bonnie Buckner.

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Welcome: Introduction To Lynne Cuppernull And Whole-Person Leadership

Welcome back to the One Humanity Lab Podcast.

This is Mia Cellucci, joining from Boston, Massachusetts in the United States.

And I’m Pauline de Castelnau, joining from Rabat in Morocco.

We are so excited to be guest hosts for season three of the podcast. More specifically, we’re very happy to welcome our guest, Lynne Cuppernull.

Hi, everybody, I’m so glad to be here.

Hi, Lynne, thank you for joining.

We’re so glad to have you, Lynne. I’ll just give a quick introduction for our listeners. For over twenty years, Lynne has worked with leaders across industries, healthcare, government, nonprofits, and more to grow their confidence, stretch their thinking, and lead with purpose. Lynne recently co-founded the SparkLit Group, where she specializes in executive coaching, strategic consulting, and designing innovation workshops that help teams surface and solve their most meaningful challenges with purpose, energy, and playfulness. Lynne’s superpower is helping people uncover the answers they already hold and discover strengths they didn’t know they had. We’ll put her full bio in the show notes so you can learn more.

Lynne, welcome into this space. It’s so great to be here with you. We’re so excited to have you here to learn more about your work with leaders to deepen their inner capacities, especially their capacity for innovation. So we’re going to jump right in with a very broad question to you. We know each other from joining the leadership coaching program a while back where Mia, Lynne, and I were all in the same cohort. We studied leadership coaching. So we thought we would start by asking you, to you, what does whole-person leadership mean?

First of all, it is so nice to be back on Zoom with Mia and Pauline and see your faces. It takes me back to the coaching program. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on the podcast today. I love this question about whole person leadership. For me, it means being connected to your heart and to your heart work. It’s about getting clear about what’s important for you as a leader and what it looks like to behave in a way that’s consistent with that belief, which is easier said than done. That’s why I call it work. It’s the heart work. And I think getting that clarity is a lifelong journey. We’re never truly there. We’re always on the journey. So that’s a little bit about what I think when I think of whole-person leadership.

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person Leadership
Whole-Person Leadership: Whole-person leadership is being connected to your heart and to your heart work. It’s about getting clear on what’s important for you as a leader and behaving in a way that’s consistent with that belief.

 

Beautiful. When you answer that question with “doing your heart’s work,” for me, it sparks a question about something that you recently started. You launched a group called the SparkLit Group. So first of all, congratulations. We’d love to hear more about how this new initiative or new journey is part of your own journey of doing your heart’s work.

Thanks. We did just recently start the SparkLit Group. And I said “we” because I started the SparkLit Group with Dan Ward. Dan and I worked together at the MITRE Corporation for a number of years, leading innovation workshops. There’s a whole origin story that I won’t tell right now. And when I think about the SparkLit Group and our vision for leadership, it is really about sparking, but it’s about sparking what we call a joyful disruption of the status quo.

You don’t always hear joyful and disruption in the same sentence next to each other like that, adjacent. We think that’s important for sparking things. It is about disrupting the status quo, disrupting whatever is the constant in your life, but doing it in a way that is joyful, that brings your whole heart into it, that brings happiness, and that brings other people. And so we came up with SparkLit because we wanted to help be that catalyst for individuals through the coaching work that I do, and with teams and whole organizations, really, to help spark what is within them to help solve some of their hardest problems.

The Power Of Play: Discovering The “Joyful Disruption” Approach To Leadership

That’s so inspiring. I’m curious to ask you more about that. The joyful disruption of the status quo. How and when in your journey did you discover that’s the lens you want to approach leadership with? Why do you think it’s important? What experiences led you to choose this perspective to work with leaders?

It was innate in terms of bringing fun to the work that we were doing. I always just found that when I was doing work that was fun, it was more joyful, even if it was hard. And I do have to say that Dan and I worked with a small branding company. They’re called The Brand Office out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I know this is not an advertisement platform, but I could not talk about joyful disruption without giving them credit because they saw that that was what Dan and I were bringing to the table, this idea that you could disrupt things, and it could be fun, that combination. I think that I’ve operated that way most of my working career but didn’t have a name for it, a label, a way to categorize it. That’s really where the term came from. The concept, I think, has been there all along.

That comes through even in the way that I’ve heard you and Dan introduce yourselves. You know, there’s the more formal introduction of your background, what brought you to work with leaders, and what you offer. And then you both add a little bit of this playfulness in your introduction. I remember Dan introducing himself as a juggler, and you, Lynne, as a triathlete, which is very impressive as well.

And as a listener, when I hear those kinds of introductions, I feel like my shoulders relax, and there’s something that happens in my body where this playfulness comes through. So I’m wondering, as I hear you modeling that, introducing yourselves as whole people with this playfulness, can you tell us why that’s so important when you step into a room to work with an individual or a group on innovation?

That’s a great question. I’m going to answer in a couple of different ways. One, I think innovation is about having fun. Dan and I used to say we put the fun in funation. It’s really hard to say it that way. I also think it is about bringing all the parts of yourself to the table. I will tell you, in almost every innovation workshop that we lead, we kick it off by asking people at their tables to introduce themselves to the people at their table, but not to say what their current role is. To tell the people at their table what they wanted to be when they grew up when they were eight years old.

 

Innovation is about having fun.

 

It’s such a fun way for people to introduce themselves. It takes them back to the childlike imagination when anything was possible. Yes, of course, you could be a professional baseball player, or an actress on Broadway, or a movie star. And I think that’s also a key component of innovation, connecting to that inner child in you, when anything was possible.

Can you tell us more about the name SparkLit? How did you choose it? Why did it speak to both of you, to Dan and you?

Okay, so it wasn’t the first thing we came up with. We came up with LIT Consulting first. And LIT stood for Learn Innovation Together. And our branding company, so lovely, very kindly said, “Hmm, not sure about an acronym as your name.” Dan and I came from government contracting, and in government work, acronyms were everything. We were thinking in acronyms. We had to get out of that mindset, but we hung on to that idea of lighting, right? Of lighting something.

And so, as we were kicking around ideas, I remember distinctly we were at dinner together. It was before we had left our full-time jobs. And just the idea of being that spark, being that catalyst that helped light other people, was really, you know, we landed on that. So the SparkLit, and then Group because it’s me and Dan, and we wanted it to sound like it was a group of people.

Anything’s Possible: Why Leaders Must Reconnect With Their Inner Eight-Year-Old

Beautiful. Yeah, that spark comes across in the way that you describe your work. And I love what you said earlier about inviting people to go back to this time when they were eight years old, when anything was possible. And for me, it brings the question of what you see as possible in a world where leaders nurture this capacity of connecting with that part of themselves that might be kind of buried under all of the heaviness of many years of living. What do you see as possible in a world where leaders are really rooted in this capacity for imagining what’s possible?

Well, I mean I guess the short answer is anything’s possible. And, you know, I think it starts with this idea of relighting something. Dan and I do a podcast with our friend Patti Fletcher called Listening for the Questions. On the very first one we did, we talked about the connection between AI, burnout, and power, which, on the face of it, doesn’t seem like there would be any connection.

 

Anything’s possible. It starts with this idea of relighting something.

 

And when we were talking about burnout, we were thinking about, is the way to address burnout to rest? You’ve burnt out. You’re tired. You need to rest. We then decided that no, it isn’t to rest. You might need to rest, but the way to address burnout is to relight something. It is to light that flame within you. And I think that’s the work for leaders. It’s to A) recognize if they’re falling into burnout or a rut, and then to think about what it looks like to relight a spark. Maybe it is going back to what you wanted to be when you were eight years old. Maybe it is tapping into, you know, what is coming up for you as your heart work. But I think that relighting that spark is part of what imagining what’s possible for leaders looks like.

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person Leadership
Whole-Person Leadership: The way to address burnout is to relight something. It is to light that flame within you. That’s the work for leaders.

 

That was such a great episode, Lynne. I loved it. I especially loved the distinction that you all made between being tired and needing rest, and feeling burnt out and needing to be relit, having the need for a spark. That seems like such an important distinction for us all, and especially for leaders who are on that longer journey of doing their heart’s work.

Yeah, and thank you for mentioning your podcast, Lynne. It’s called Listening for the Questions. If you’re listening to this, you might be a podcast fan, so we invite you to go right to Listening for the Questions after this episode. I’m going to build on that title that you chose for your podcast and the way you described how imagining what’s possible makes anything possible.

The Essential Skill For Leaders: Mastering Deep Listening And Powerful Questions

And you describe that with a list of questions. That’s how I heard you open the space. It was through a list of questions, a list of sentences that ended with a question mark. So we’re all coaches here. We know the power of good questions. So I’d be very interested to hear you tell us a little bit why this skill is so important, the skill of being able to tap into open, powerful questions, and why especially it’s critical for leaders or anyone leading a team, a project, or an organization.

The skill of deep listening is so important for all of us, but especially leaders and especially coaches, but we’re talking about leaders here. I think top of mind for me is that it helps you, as a leader, benefit from the wisdom of other people and not get stuck in a vacuum of your own thoughts and your own biases. And listening is way harder than I think people think.

So many people, especially leaders, I think, don’t take the time and the intention to listen well. It really requires setting aside so many things. Setting aside our need to be right, our need to speak our opinion or thought into being, and really just settling into curiosity. You know, “What is this person saying? What do I hear? What do I observe? What are they not saying? What can I learn?” That’s why we called the podcast Listening for the Questions. Because I really think that it’s only in the act of listening that we become better question askers.

 

It’s only in the act of listening that we become better question askers.

 

I mean, how many times, when we were doing our coaching training, did we tee up great questions before the session?Right? You were there with your list of great questions, only to not ask any of them because the client took the discussion in a different, better, important direction. And so we listen carefully. We listen carefully as coaches to the client. As leaders, we listen carefully to the folks we work with to see the right next question.

As you describe that, Lynne, I’m reminded of this, “What did you want to do when you were eight?” And I’m hearing so much kind of unlearning as a skill, like unlearning this need to know the answer and unlearning I think what a lot of leaders maybe feel expected to do, which is to know what’s next and to know what we should do in a situation. So as you describe this skill-building, I hear a lot of unlearning of that that reminds me of what you said earlier about getting people back into this state of, “When you were eight years old, what did you want to do?” And like, get back into that place of what your heart knew was possible.

As I was preparing for this podcast, I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I was eight years old. And the reason I started thinking about it was that I thought about my earliest memory of leadership. One of the first people who came to mind was my drama teacher, Una Harrison. I mean I can still remember her name, so many years ago. It’s been a long time since I was eight.

She was the first person to teach me how to breathe deeply from my diaphragm, how to project so we could be heard in the back of the house. She gave me the confidence to sing, even though I wasn’t a good singer, by encouraging me to try. So when I was eight, I wanted to be an actress, a singer, or a dancer on Broadway. I couldn’t really sing, so that dream fizzled.

But the lessons I learned from Miss Harrison still resonate. How to speak clearly, how to breathe deeply, how to project my voice, how to have confidence in myself. And when I was reflecting on her and being an actress, and wanting to be an actress, I realized she was also one of the first to teach me how to listen. In the theater, as an actor, you have to be listening all the time. It’s why you memorize your lines, so that you aren’t worrying about what you need to say next. It’s so you can respond in the moment if you need to. So I loved going back in time, thinking about what I wanted to be, but also then remembering who was influential at that time and what of them am I still carrying forward.

“Yes, And”: How Improv Comedy And Theater Became A Business Skill For Innovation

As you mentioned this lady who was instrumental in your upbringing, how would you connect what she taught you to the work you’re doing today with SparkLit? Are there some lessons that you are still using, or deploying, or teaching to others that came directly from her?

Well I think that sense of playfulness. We were acting, which was fun. You know, Miss Harrison did not teach me this specifically, but we do some work with improv in a lot of the innovation workshops that we do, specifically around a technique called “yes, and.” If people are familiar with improv, it’s affirming and building. So whatever somebody says to you, you affirm it by saying yes. It doesn’t mean you agree. You just affirm, yes, and then you build on it.

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person Leadership
Whole-Person Leadership: If people are familiar with improv, it’s affirming and building. Whatever somebody says to you, you affirm it by saying yes. It doesn’t mean you agree. You just affirm by saying yes, and then you build on it.

 

It is such a simple, although not easy, a simple technique that leaders can use to foster collaboration within their teams. Because when you say, “Yes, and,” the person immediately feels heard, and then you begin building on their idea to expand it, make it better. So I learned to love improv from Ms. Harrison. I learned how to make it a business skill that other people could learn through the work of leading innovation workshops that Dan and I have done.

I remember very precisely a time when you used it with me, the “yes, and.” I already told you that, Lynne, but in this program that we did together, you were one of the stronger to give feedback to me, I guess, in my eyes. I remember one moment where it was through this phrase, “Yes, and here is what you could have done differently.” So it’s working. I can attest.

I love how you brought up improv and theater in the context of deep listening. I’m seeing this image of someone on a stage, other actors on a stage, needing to listen to each other, not just in what is being said, but in what’s being felt among the group and kind of in between each actor, what the body language is saying, and also to the audience, and just being attentive to the audience. And so as I’m in this image listening to you, I kind of thought about comedy. Comedy came up, and then you started talking about improv. And it’s such a gift that you learned this skill from theater so young and are weaving it into your work now.

The other thing that I hear is in the “yes, and” exercise, there’s this immediate kind of overturning of this assumption that it needs to be “either, or,” which is a critical skill for leaders. Can we get into a space where it can be both “yes, and this,” or add some nuance rather than pick one or the other? It gets us back into that space of what’s possible. So you gave us a great example of what someone might do in a group, or in a pair, even, as an exercise to nurture this. What could someone do who’s maybe listening and doesn’t have a group right now, to nurture their inner innovator?

Such a great question. Well, first of all, I like to think we all do have a group somewhere. If you’re a solopreneur, you still have a community of people to connect with. So the first thing to do is to think about maybe expanding the definition of what my group is. “Who are my teammates?” even if you’re not on an intact team. And I think, sometimes, it helps to use a tool or two. I can send you the link to this. I’m going to talk about a tool that I know I’ve used with both of you all that I love, which helps with ideation and you can do it by yourself, even though it’s more fun to do it with other people. It’s called the Lotus Blossom.

It starts with a central question. I love to use it to help plan my next year. That’s totally something you can do by yourself. You put a central question in the middle that says, “What’s most important for me in 2026?” And then you expand out around that central question with a few themes, like, “Things I want to cook. Podcasts I want to listen to – let’s put this one on the list! People I want to connect with. Purposes.” I feel like we all have more than one purpose. Maybe you have a portfolio of purposes.

 

We all have more than one purpose. Maybe you have a portfolio of purposes.

 

Those themes go around the central question, and then each of those expands into another blossom where you can ideate around multiple ideas for what you might want to cook, what you might want to listen to, or what your purposes are. Anyway, I think that’s one of the things you can do if you’re innovating alone, although Dan and I love to say you never innovate alone. There’s an I in it, but it really does take a team.

The Lotus Blossom Tool & 2026 Vision: Holding Outcomes Lightly And Staying Open To Possibility

I can double down, saying that this is a great tool that Lynne showed us several times, and it is working. So we’ll put the link in the show notes for anyone curious about it. And I kind of want to return the question as we are close to wrapping up this conversation, turning the question back to you, Lynne. What do you feel is going to be most important to you in 2026?

Oh Pauline, that’s such a good question. I haven’t done my Lotus Blossom yet. I think there are a few things. Dan and I are five months into this new business. We have learned so much. One of the things we’ve learned is that what we thought we’d be doing when we started this business is maybe not what we’re going to be doing. Yes, coaching is going to be foundational. Working with teams around innovation is foundational, but what that looks like is shifting. And so being open to these multiple possibilities for how I work within the SparkLit Group, how Dan and I work, and how we help the organizations and teams I think is shifting a little bit. And so, stay tuned as we discover more.

But I think the key takeaway for me is to not be too attached to outcome, to stay true to why we founded the company, but to hold what we do lightly, which is so related to our work as coaches. You know, we cannot be attached to outcomes for our client. We hold the session loosely. We have it as a container for them. And I feel like I’m trying to bring that same wisdom and caretaking for myself as I head into 2026.

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person Leadership
Whole-Person Leadership: Do not be too attached to the outcome, to stay true to why we founded the company, but to hold what we do lightly.

 

Beautiful, Lynne. I really hear in your reply this openness to possibility, this playfulness, this ability to respond and flexibility to respond to what’s needed rather than going in with a specific picture as you answer a question about 2026. What a beautiful example. So this has been such an inspiring conversation, Lynne. We really have enjoyed it. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the podcast. And as we wrap up, we want to ask, how can listeners follow along with your work at the SparkLit Group, the podcast that you co-host called Listening for the Questions? How can folks get in touch with you and follow along?

We would love to have people listen to Listening for the Questions. You can find it anywhere you find your podcasts, Apple, Spotify. The SparkLit Group, we do have a website, SparkLitGroup.com. We have a place if you sign up, we send out little gifts occasionally, so sign up on our website to get surprise free gifts. And then please connect with me on LinkedIn @LynneCuppernull. And again, Mia and Pauline, this has been so fun. I really appreciate the invitation to be on the show.

Thank you! Thank you for making the time. And before we let you go, what would be one word or one intention you would like to leave our listeners with?

I always get stressed out with the one-word questions.

It can be several.

It can be anything. It can be an intention or just something that you’d like to close with.

You know, I will say the word that came up immediately, though, is just one word, and that word is listen.

Beautiful.

Thank you so much, Lynne.

And with that word, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it, leave a review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And we hope you’ll join us for the next episode of the One Humanity Lab Podcast.

Thank you, everyone. Bye.

 

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About Lynne Cuppernull

One Humanity Lab: Into an Ecology of Wholeness | Lynne Cuppernull | Whole-Person LeadershipLynne Cuppernull is based in the DC-Metro area. She holds a Master of Arts in Human Resource Development from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Arts from James Madison University in English, with a minor in Journalism.

She is an ICF accredited ACC-level leadership coach and received her certification and training through the ICF-accredited One Humanity Lab Coaching Certification program at the GW Center for Excellence in Public Leadership.

From CEOs and public health executives to IT Directors and program directors in both government and the private sector, Lynne works with leaders to deepen their understanding of their strengths and how to leverage these strengths to be even more effective leaders. She has been coaching senior and mid-level leaders for the past six years, both as an internal coach and now as the co-founder of and Executive Coach with The SparkLit Group.

She is certified in the Leadership Circle Profile and has experience administering “live” 360-degree assessments involving tailored questions based on an organization’s specific leadership competencies. She has also been trained in using imagery and metaphor to help clients see beyond the surface challenge or obstacle to gain greater clarity on how to move forward effectively.

In addition to being a leadership coach, Lynne is a certified innovation toolkit facilitator, which she uses to help organizations and teams learn to innovate together to identify and solve mission-oriented, meaningful challenges. Expert in leading innovation workshops and culture development, and strategic planning sessions, Lynne has deep domain expertise in organizational culture transformation, communication and storytelling skills, rapid human-centered design innovation practices, and leadership development.

For over 20 years, Lynne has worked with leaders across industries—healthcare, government, non-profits and more—to grow their confidence, stretch their thinking, and lead with purpose. She is not about cookie-cutter solutions or fluffy jargon. She is here for the messy, meaningful work: helping people and teams navigate complexity, unlock new possibilities, and turn bold ideas into real, lasting impact.

Along the way, she’s designed leadership development programs for hundreds, coached senior leaders through big transitions, and facilitated everything from strategic planning to innovation sprints. She brings a mix of curiosity, clarity, and playfulness to every conversation—because great leadership starts with deep listening and meaningful questions.

Her superpower is helping people uncover the answers they already hold and discover strengths they didn’t know they had. An Ironman triathlete, she now finds joy in simply crossing the finish line.

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