Most leaders inherit cultures they did not build. They are told to transform organizations while managing people who have been doing things the same way for decades. They face resistance, burnout, and the quiet skepticism of teams who have watched other change efforts fail.
Felice Upton knows how to break through.
As Assistant Secretary for Juvenile Rehabilitation in Washington State, she led 1,100 employees across 11 locations with a $180 million budget. Within her tenure, use-of-force incidents dropped 40 percent. Program participation exceeded targets by 100 percent. Staff-driven innovation replaced institutional inertia. She did not achieve these results by ignoring resistance. She transformed it.
Her secret is disarmingly simple: people change systems when they feel seen, heard, and trusted to be part of the solution. Felice developed the "Just Us" framework to help leaders build cultures where accountability and compassion work together instead of against each other. Where data drives decisions without dehumanizing people. Where staff retention improves because people actually want to stay.
Before her executive role, Felice spent years on the front lines of organizational life, learning what motivates people to give their best and what drives them out the door. She has managed volunteers, coordinated community partnerships, investigated complex workplace issues, and coached leaders through crisis after crisis.
A TEDx speaker and nationally recognized voice on leadership and culture, Felice has been featured on NPR, Lifetime Television, and at conferences nationwide. She holds degrees from the University of Washington and serves as a Performance-Based Standards Coach for the Center for Improving Youth Justice.
Through her consultancy, Just Us by Felice Upton LLC, she works with organizations ready to stop managing dysfunction and start building cultures that perform.
Because here is the truth: the hardest part of leadership is not strategy. It is getting people to move together. Felice knows how.
You have a culture problem you think you cannot fix. You have inherited a team you did not build. You are being asked to transform something while managing people who have watched change efforts fail before.
I know that weight.
I also know what it takes to move through it. I spent 20 years learning how to build trust in environments where trust was scarce, how to hold people accountable without losing them, and how to create cultures where people perform because they want to, not because they have to.
The hardest part of leadership is not strategy. It is getting people to move together when they have every reason not to.
I do not just speak. I equip leaders to build cultures worth staying for.
