Niq D. Johnson, PhD
executive coach | consultant | culture worker
life design for liberation
get to know me and How We Get By To Get Free
I help individuals and organizations integrate frameworks for anti-oppression, public & interpersonal communication, and community-centered organizing into everyday practices of living and working.
What To Know About Me
I'm Niq (they/she | sounds like nick), a full-time caregiver, multi-hyphenate elder Millennial, banshee of social justice, and ex-overachiever with an unshakable resolve to actually read through my (always growing) TBR stack. I've worked in my fair share of industries across public and private sectors and I've managed to achieve a few sparkly social/cultural markers of success. But that's all stuff you can generally find in my C.V. or summarized on LinkedIn.What you won't see in my professional profile is how I got to this era of my work, why I chose this path, or how all of my adulting adventures are connected. Over the last 20yrs I've become an expert at cutting through the noise of grind culture institutions and the micro-systems that structure our participation. I dug deep into community organizing and political advocacy. I cultivated my personal ethics and values through ongoing study of and participation in social justice activism. I (co-)founded fiscally-sponsored projects to create art, educate, and move resources while organizing community-centered professional networks. I even launched a small business that allowed me to pilot and evaluate experimental programs for supporting (and directly funding) senior leaders - from nonprofit EDs to social impact investing fund executives. The thread tying it all together is my commitment to leaving things better than I found them by using ALL the tools available to me.In 2013, while in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, I began to develop the theoretical foundation for what I call life design for liberation, lovingly dubbed "How We Get By to Get Free." This is my framework for integrating anti-oppression values/intentions into everyday practices in a world irrevocably shaped by systemic oppression. It is the culmination of 12yrs of dogged persistence dedicated to translating inaccessible academic theories into useful, actionable practice.Follow along to learn more about me, and how we get by to get free.
Coaching & Leadership Development
You may have struggled to find values-alignment between your work and your non-work experiences, and now you want to find a better way forward. Maybe you had an unexpected life event (or world view!) completely upended in a way that threw off your well-laid plans for success. Or perhaps you're a recovering overachiever, burnt out on all the rewards that never quite lived up to the hype.If any of that struck a cord, I might be the coach for you.
Who Might Benefit from Working w/Me
- Director-level & higher (or aspiring!) leaders in public and private institutions- Post-grad, mid-career or later- Transitioning leaders: first 90 days, succession planning, last 90 days (see also: "I quit without a plan but I'm ready to explore")- Emerging leaders: new to people managing or supervising at scale, first solo or independent project, early-stage founders- People pivoting or considering career shifts- Multi-hyphenate solo entrepreneurs and creatives needing a combination of strategic & coaching support- Social impact & mission-driven leaders ready to integrate their values into how they show up at work (or looking to shift how work interacts with their personal lives)- Retirees, full-time volunteers, and philanthropists looking to level up their social & political education with an investment in developing values-aligned practices
Who I've Supported
- Emerging independent project & startup founders- Director-level+ managers and supervising professionals- Department/Team leaders- C-suite executives and Executive Directors (or aspiring)- Early-stage entrepreneurs- Career nomads- Ambitious folks who've been denied mentors, sponsors, and advisors- Ex-academics and public scholars- Creatives- Good folks looking to do good things, and maybe not burnout in the process
Ready to get started? Book a free discovery call with me!
Contact Me
Fill out the contact form to submit a general inquiry about my coaching or consulting services. Otherwise, feel free to reach out through the links below!
Meet Hex! He'll be joining our calls, probably :)
life design for liberation
A brief intro
Life design for liberation proposes an adaptive, actionable framework that extends beyond aspirational intention setting and moves us toward implementable values-alignment. It assumes that how we show up in the world – at home and at work – reflects that. This approach uses a design thinking model informed by experiential learning and evaluation, a combination of interrelated social theory across the humanities and social sciences, iterative practice, and principles of community organizing. The overarching commitment that grounds this framework is the dedication to materially disrupting patterns of thinking and behaving that collectively, at scale, sustain systems of oppression.Life design for liberation is an iterative work-in-progress that has been, and will continue to be, distilled into knowledge systems designed for creative experimentation. There are (currently) five core principles that create the container for practical engagement.
I. The foundation comes first, and no one can skip this step. The infrastructure that supports how we live and work must create the conditions for values-aligned action. It is our responsibility to tool, resource, maintain, and nurture ourselves to best meet the demands of practicing change in sustainable ways.II. Worldbuilding is the everyday practice of everyday people. We each hold power in how we shape our world, and the ways we interact with those whose lives we touch.III. Wherever there is choice, there is power. Who we are as leaders is an evidenced reflection of what we do with power in practice, especially decision-making power.IV. Getting free is the work of a lineage, not a lifetime. We carry our work forward, as far as our unique capacities allow; we offer back the resources we gain to sustain those who will keep going long after our work is done.V. Liberation is a process and practice. It is not defined by a destination, achievement, or a singular goal to be “accomplished.” It is an ontological and epistemological pursuit – how we explore the being in and knowing of our lives in the context of a social, cultural, and political landscape structured by systemic oppression.