We had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Hunter, founder of Uncommon Teams and host of the Uncommon Leadership interview series. Michael has a unique take on leadership, team dynamics, and personal growth. I’m really excited to have him here today to share his insights and talk about what makes great leaders and teams really thrive.
The Spark Behind the Uncommon Leadership Podcast
Since Michael was talking to leaders at the beginning of his career, he noticed something. Most of them acted like everyone else had everything working except for them. They felt they were the only ones always failing, and assumed those who had “made it” were always on top from the beginning.
“And none of this is true,” Michael said. “I struggle all the time even now.”
He realized that most leaders fail to appreciate their value because their strengths are either unknown to them or ignored by those who know them. That’s when the idea for the podcast was born.
“With my podcast, I wanted to show how wrong all of this was, that everyone is successful right from the start, that we all struggle all the way through,” he shared.
His goal was to showcase the real journeys of leaders: the setbacks, the experiments, the moments of clarity, and the continuous process of finding their next best step.
How ‘Uncommon’ Leadership Stands Apart from Traditional Leadership Models
Where traditional leaders might give up after an approach fails, uncommon leaders see every action as an experiment that brings data. They iterate, adjust and continue forward.
“They just keep going,” he said. “It’s resilient, adaptable, and easeful.”
Michael helps leaders develop on three main aspects starting with resilience, where they can bounce back no matter what happens. Next there is adaptability, where one can respond in several real ways to different situations. And lastly there is ease, where leadership is natural, intuitive and playful.
“That sense of play and ability to just try things and see what happens… is what helps us solve all the gnarly problems,” he said.
The Framework Behind Uncommon Leadership
Michael does have a framework. And at the most basic level, it starts with a daily practice of reflection.
“Spend a few minutes every day reflecting on what happened today. Where did it go exactly the way I wanted? What helped it do that? Where did it turn out differently than I hoped?”
He takes leaders on a journey of finding their inner self, what he terms their “disco ball” and makes them realize how these traits connect to what he calls the six pillars of uncommon leadership. They are handling change, showing up to play, maintaining movement, remaining in alignment, managing impact and leading uncommonly.
The process also involves becoming attuned to one’s own inherent pace, slow and steady or rapid, and embracing different energies of feeling like encouragement, containment or grace.
“Every person that we interact with, this question is in the back of our mind of how does this show up for me and them in this interaction,” he explained.
What Uncommon Leaders Achieve That Traditional Ones Don’t
Michael described it in a ping pong ball metaphor flying in an open space. Without awareness, everyone is bumping into each other all the time. But few leaders know their own path and begin to move with intention.
They stop bumping into others. And in the process, they make room for others to move with intention as well.
“If I can do this and also help my team start doing this even just a teeny tiny bit, then everyone else starts being able to do this as well,” he said.
This, he said, is how you see actual results in business metrics like efficiency and employee engagement. “Everything that the business is measuring, that’s all gonna go through the roof,” he added.
The Journey That Shaped Michael Hunter’s Approach to Leadership
Michael has always been drawn to helping people discover who they are. That mindset started early, growing up in Sierra Leone where his parents were missionaries.
“They were there as… how can we help you build that stronger?” he explained. That attitude of collaboration and mutual respect left a lasting impression.
Life in America appeared to be more complex. He experienced dissonance in relationships and expectations. That dissonance pushed him to “debug” people’s behavior just as he once debugged code.
“I started out debugging code, and then I switched to debugging people, and now I help people debug themselves,” he said.
His leadership style evolved naturally over the years by doing it with teams, reflecting continuously, adapting and refining what worked. His model slowly fell into position, sharpened by those real-world discussions and experiences.
One Key Piece of Advice for Truly Connected Leadership
Michael shared two.
The first is to start meetings with something that welcomes people to show up as who they are. It can be as simple as asking for one word that describes how they are feeling.
“This shows your team that you want them to show up as who they are. You don’t want them hiding what’s going on,” he said.
The second is to take five minutes every day to ground yourself.
“Just ask, what’s present for me right now? What do I want to do about that?”
By doing that, you’re not only helping yourself. “You’re helping everything settle down and be a little more present, a little more conscious, a little more intentional,” he added.
Michael is putting all he’s learning into a book, releasing fall 2025.
Each chapter will present a leadership problem, transition or method, and a demonstration of how that plays out in the real world. The reader will have concrete steps to take the concepts personally and with their team.
There will also be self-assessments, reflections and even an interactive electronic workbook to further enable discovery.
“My intent here is I can’t work one on one with everyone in the world. And so this is a way for an offline me to work with everyone who’d like to start in this,” he said.
And after this conversation, one thing’s for sure. Uncommon leadership is not being perfect. It’s being purposeful. Being resilient. And being here, fully and authentically, every single day.
I wish you a productive day, and I’ll see you next week, same time and place, for further managerial wisdom. Bye for now!
