Tom Davidson

Background

About Tom Davidson

SHORT STORY: During 42 years in the forest sciences, agricultural economics and people management, I learned leadership the hard way - from the ground up. Like most folks in our scientific professions, I learned that the science is easy, while managing people is hard. Having made all the management mistakes I teach about but still failing forward to vice president of human resources and organization development, I now get to pass along what I learned to leaders at all levels to help them hit the ground running (and not just hit the ground). LONGER STORY: My career actually started when I was a teenager with Scouting and all the crazy high-adventure stuff my parents would allow, like 50-mile backpacking trips in the snow, rock climbing along the Potomac River, and caving in the Shenandoah Valley without any of the right equipment! This grew my hours of expertise in a hurry with wilderness skills, outdoors survival and trail guiding jobs. So forestry was a natural career path after high school. After becoming a professional forester and firefighter, I was responsible for wood procurement, land management and landowner assistance, but I soon became much more interested in people and how they work together, much like an ecosystem. After that, my jobs and post-graduate education intertwined: public affairs manager, MBA, training manager, HR manager, MS in organization development, HR director, and vice president of human resources and organization development. That's how I went from natural resources to human resources. When people ask me what I do today, I ask them back,"Have you ever seen a great technical expert who didn't make a very good people manager right away?" People usually start nodding before I finish the question, because it's an endemic problem no matter where you work. My training and speaking is interactive, fun, relevant and memorable. My mentoring and coaching are personable-yet-challenging, honest-yet-safe, and thought-provoking while being action-oriented. People like my lessons in the form of principles and tools they can use right away, and they remember many of them because of my metaphors and analogies from the great outdoors. Today, I also enjoy riding and driving our 6 horses, playing with our 3 border collies, social dancing with my wife, and practicing marksmanship. If you want to talk about your neck of the woods, email me anytime at Tom@LeadershipNature.com or call/text me at 804-339-4653.