17 years in special operations & intelligence · 30+ combat deployments · Founder of DeliverFund, the world's only private intelligence organization fighting human trafficking · Trained under leaders like Gen. Mattis · Worked directly with Elon Musk's core team
The Problem
Your best people are drowning in advice that can't be measured.
"Check your ego at the door." "Just work harder." "Be more of a servant leader."
None of it is quantifiable. None of it is coachable. And none of it tells a struggling manager what to actually do on Monday morning.
You already know, in your gut, which people on your team need to go — but you have no defensible way to prove it.
Your top performers are getting less of your time than your problem employees. Everyone on the team notices. Morale erodes.
You're pouring effort into people who will never become leaders, because you have no framework to tell the difference early.
When something goes wrong, nobody can trace why — because the "system" was never a system in the first place.
The problem isn't effort. Your people work hard. The problem is that they have no algorithm.
The Core Idea
What if leadership worked like code?
When you write code, you build it top to bottom and hit "go." When it breaks, you don't panic — you trace it backward, line by line, until you find the exact point of failure.
That is what a leadership algorithm makes possible. It runs forward when you're building a team. It runs in reverse when something breaks, so you can find your mistake — because it is always, at least in part, your mistake.
This isn't theory borrowed from a business school. It's the operating system Nic used to lead two-man teams into the most hostile environments on earth. The battlefield version and the boardroom version turned out to be the same algorithm.
leaders_algorithm.run()
The Framework
The four steps. In order. Non-negotiable.
Establish and maintain a culture of trust.
If you skip this, everything downstream fails. Your leaders learn to break trust into its two measurable components: Character × Competence. Competence is easy to quantify. Character is where most leaders fly blind — so we make it measurable.
Establish and maintain standards, discipline, and mission focus.
A standard that isn't written down isn't a standard. Discipline isn't rigidity — it's doing the right thing when motivation is gone. Your leaders learn to set the line, hold the line, and hold themselves to it first.
Manage talent and egos.
"There are no egos in this room" is the biggest lie in business. You can't remove ego — you can only channel it. Your leaders learn the difference between destructive individual ego and the collective ego that makes elite teams unstoppable.
Serve your team — last, not first.
Real service comes after trust, standards, and talent management are in place. Serve before that, and you're not a servant leader — you're a doormat.
The Centerpiece
The Character Diagnostic: 10 traits, scored 1 to 10.
The core of the workshop is a hands-on diagnostic your leaders will use for the rest of their careers. They score themselves — then score each other — across ten quantifiable dimensions of professional character.
The insights land hard and fast. A "10" on humility means you have none. A "10" on integrity means you're lying to yourself.
Who do I invest in? And who do I let go?
The two hardest questions in management — answered with a number.
10 Dimensions of Professional Character
Your team scores themselves. Then scores each other. Then runs it again every quarter. The map gets more accurate every time.
The Compounding Promise
0.01%
Better every day.
Get one one-hundredth of a percent better each day and you are 36.5% better in a year. Three years in, you're a completely different, better leader. Three years after that, better again.
This workshop isn't a motivational high that fades by Friday. It installs a system your leaders keep running long after Nic leaves the building — because a leader's real job isn't to lead. It's to create other leaders.
Why Nic
The résumé is the proof. The stories are the delivery.
Air Force Pararescue (PJ): the unit you call when everything has already gone wrong.
CIA Officer: 30+ combat deployments, leading small teams in the most hostile environments on earth. "As close as you're going to get to the real Jack Ryan."
Harvard educated.
Founder & CEO of DeliverFund — the world's only private intelligence organization dedicated to combating human trafficking.
Tech & investing: founder of a data & AI company and Second Watch Capital; operator across venture and private equity.
Nic teaches through the reps — real operations, real consequences, real mistakes he'll tell you were his fault. No PowerPoint. No death by slides. No childhood-trauma navel-gazing. Just an interactive, uncomfortable, genuinely useful day.
"The military doesn't create good leaders. The business community does. What special operations gave me was thousands of high-consequence reps — and the ability to turn what I learned into something you can quantify."
Format & Logistics
Built for your team, delivered at your site.
Location
In person, on location
At your offices — no travel from your team required.
Duration
1-day intensive or 1.5-day deep dive
Choose the format that fits your team's schedule.
Who it's for
Executives, managers, high-potential leaders
Anyone responsible for the performance of other people.
Format
Fully interactive. Laptops closed.
Attendees write, draw, score, and debate. Egos engaged.
What they leave with
Completed diagnostic + full algorithm
Plus a quarterly cadence to keep improving beyond the workshop.
The Guarantee
"If you don't walk away with more time and better choices, we've failed — and we'll give you your money back."
— NIC MCKINLEY
Book a Discovery Call
Stop managing on gut feeling. Start leading on an algorithm.
Bring The Leader's Algorithm to your team. Tell us about your organization and we'll design the right format for your leaders.