Kimberly Dickman, EdD, MAPP, MA, MS is a high-energy leadership expert and founder of Humaning Better LLC, where she helps leaders master the human skills we were never formally taught, how to connect, communicate, and thrive under pressure. With over 20 years of experience across military, academic, and professional environments, she is known for turning cutting-edge science in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and positive psychology into practical, immediately usable tools that drive performance, trust, and resilience.
At the U.S. Air Force Academy, Kimberly serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Character and Leadership Development, where she teaches and develops leadership programs that go beyond theory. Participants actively practice the skills that strengthen decision-making, relationships, team performance, and well-being in high-stakes environments.
She has also led enterprise-level leadership training at the Pentagon, designing programs for senior military leaders and advising on culture and organizational effectiveness. With her rigorous academic background, Kimberly brings both scientific depth and real-world credibility to every audience. She is a high demand speaker who moves from increasing knowledge to helping audiences apply skills to impact both their professional and personal lives.
With a lifelong connection to the military as a civilian, military child, spouse, and mother to service members, Kimberly brings authenticity, relatability, and humor to her work, creating experiences that do not just inform, but stick.

Leadership educator, and solutions designer with 20+ years of experience assessing, designing, facilitating, and delivering custom leadership development and culture change solutions across complex organizations. Deep expertise in adult learning theory, instructional design, experiential facilitation, and systems-level leadership development. Recognized for translating research into high-impact, multi-day programs, keynote presentations, retreats, and scalable learning solutions that strengthen leadership effectiveness, organizational culture, trust, well-being, and performance.

A lifelong connection to the military as a civilian professional, military child, spouse, and now mother to service members provides a unique, multi-dimensional understanding of military culture and leadership. This perspective, combined with extensive experience supporting military and higher education leadership development programs, enables the design of meaningful, relevant, and impactful learning experiences that resonate across diverse populations and generations.

Core Competencies

• Curriculum Development
• Adult Learning & Train-the-Trainer Facilitation
• Experiential based learning & Adventure therapy
• Clinical Behavioral Health Counseling (LCPC) & Human Performance
• Program evaluation & Continuous improvement process
• Research Translation & Scholarly Publication
• Strategic Communication & Senior Leader Advisor
• National & International Conference & Outstanding presentation/facilitation skills
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills

Question 1) Why would a prospective client want you to be their keynote speaker or to support their speaking event? In other words, what are the most compelling aspects of your background/career/experience that we should know about? 

Here is the honest truth: I didn’t start out planning to become a keynote speaker. I spent 25+ years working alongside military leaders, from young officers figuring out how to lead under pressure to senior decision-makers at the Pentagon navigating some genuinely hard calls. What I kept noticing was that the difference between leaders who thrived and those who struggled almost never came down to strategy or intelligence. It came down to how they showed up for the people around them. 

That is what I talk about. And apparently, I cannot stop talking about it, which turns out to be a useful quality in a speaker. 

I bring together behavioral science and real-world leadership experience in a way that does not make people’s eyes glaze over. I take research on emotional intelligence, human connection, stress, and trust and translate it into things people can actually use, not someday, but in the conversation they are walking into right after lunch. My sessions are interactive, high-energy and a bit of humor, but more than that, they are human. People leave feeling seen, a little challenged, and genuinely ready to do something differently. 

What clients tell me after, the part that means the most, is that something actually changed. Not just inspired-for-a-day changed. The way-they-live-and-work-with-others changed. That’s what I am in it for. 

In a moment when burnout and disconnection are at an all-time high, I help people strengthen the one thing that drives everything else: how they show up for each other. 

Question 2) What are your primary topics/areas of expertise? Some examples may include: Conflict resolution, International Relations, Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion, Cybersecurity, as well as specific countries or geographical regions. 

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) 

High-Quality Connections (HQC) 

Leadership Development 

Communication & Relationship Effectiveness 

Character & Values-Based Leadership 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

Harmful Behaviors in the Workplace 

Energy Management 

My work lives at the intersection of human behavior and leadership performance, specifically, what helps people think more clearly, connect more genuinely, and perform more effectively when it actually matters. 

The topics I’m best known for: 

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) — not the buzzword version, but the practical kind: how self-awareness, self-regulation, and social intelligence show up in real decisions, real conversations, and real leadership moments. 

High-Quality Connections (HQC) — the research on what makes relationships work, and why trust and belonging aren’t soft skills, they are performance drivers. 

Leadership Development — translating what we know about direction, alignment, and commitment into behaviors leaders can practice, not just principles they can recite. 

Communication & Relationship Effectiveness — the hard stuff: conflict, feedback, conversations people keep putting off. I help people get better at all of it. 

Burnout, Stress & Sustainable Performance — how stress can be used for performance and how individuals and teams stay effective over time, and avoid burnout. 

Character & Values-Based Leadership — developing leaders who lead with their character strengths because they know who they are, not just because the policy says to. 

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion — the research is clear that diverse teams outperform. Unconscious bias shapes decisions, relationships, and culture in ways most people never intend. By giving people concrete tools to interrupt those patterns, build more inclusive habits, and create the conditions where different perspectives do not just exist, they actually get heard. 

Understanding and Preventing Harmful Behaviors in the Workplace — most organizations have policies. Far fewer have cultures where people actually feel safe reporting what they see, experience, or suspect. This session addresses sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other concerning behaviors. Drawing on behavioral science and extensive experience in high-stakes environments, I help organizations understand how harmful behaviors take root, why bystanders hesitate, and what leaders at every level can do to build cultures where safety is not just a value on the wall, it is a lived experience.  

Full Engagement: Managing Your Energy, Not Just Your Time —Performance is not about how many hours you put in, it is about the quality of energy you bring to those hours. We move beyond time management and into the four dimensions of energy that drive focus, resilience, and effectiveness: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. This is not a wellness talk. It is a performance conversation. 

Everything I do is grounded in positive psychology, behavioral science, and leadership research, shaped by years working with military leaders, educators, parents, teens, and high-performing organizations who do not have the luxury of getting the people stuff wrong. 

Across all of it, my goal is the same: help people move from insight to action. Understanding these ideas is a start. Using them to lead and live differently is the whole point. 

Question 3) What are the 2-4 positions you have held in your career that you would like prospective clients to know about? Please provide a brief description of each. 

HAF Air Force Chief Education and Development 
Led enterprise-level education and development initiatives at Headquarters Air Force, shaping strategy, programs, and policy to develop Airmen and strengthen force-wide leadership capability. 

Director, Character and Leadership Development 
Designed and implemented institution-wide programs to develop leaders of character, integrating evidence-based practices into curriculum, training, and culture across the organization. 

SAPR Analyst (Sexual Assault Prevention and Response) 
Advised senior leaders on prevention strategy, policy, and training; led initiatives focused on culture change, victim support, and education across diverse military populations. 

Assistant Professor, U.S. Air Force Academy 
Educate and develop future military leaders through experiential teaching in emotional intelligence, healthy relationships, and human behavior, translating science into practical skills. 

Question 4) Have you supported any speaking events recently? If so, what were the events and who were the clients? 

Recent speaking engagements include: 

• Airlift Tanker Association Symposium — Texas 

• Military mobility Airmen 

• National Character and Leadership Symposium — Colorado Springs, CO 

• US Air Force Academy 

• International Positive Psychology Global Conference — Vancouver, Canada 

• Psychology professionals 

• American Psychological Association Annual Conference — Virtual 

• Psychology professionals 

• Colorado Teachers Association — Golden, CO 

• Teacher and district leadership 

• International Leadership Association — Chicago, IL 

• Leaders from diverse organizations 

• Sexual Violence Research International — Cape Town, South Africa 

• International population of violence researchers 

• Society for Military Psychology — Virtual 

• Military connected audience 

• Monarch: From Cocoon to Crown — Virtual 

• Military mothers