"KM, Leadership, Coaching and Yoga: Focusing on the Inner Work of a Knowledge Professional", January 2026
KM, Leadership, Coaching and Yoga:
Focusing on the the Inner Work of a Knowledge Professional
January 2026
When I retired from my former role as Chief of the Knowledge Management Section, I thought I was “leaving KM.” Instead, I found myself still wondering about it. I missed the investigative work, the connections with colleagues, the questions about how to do things better and solve recurring problems. But now, as a happy and free retiree, with relaxed days practicing yoga and meditation, and fully focused on being a Leadership and Life Coach, I knew I wasn’t done with knowledge work. I simply didn’t want to keep doing KM through frameworks, technological platforms, or, most of all, internal politics.
After exploring my thoughts, by myself and through peer coaching, I've come to see yoga, leadership, coaching, and knowledge management as complementary areas. I have to be honest, though. Maybe this could just be the story I tell myself to make sense of a life with four different hats in it. In particular, when I look at what each of these areas teach me, they feel like four entry points into the same underlying question which is, “How do we, as humans, stay clear, grounded, and useful in a world of constant change, uncertainty, and sometimes a lot of mess?”
Why is this important?
The interconnection of these four disciplines matters to me because it’s about who I am now at this stage of my life and how all the parts fit together. Today, I’m not just “ex‑Chief of KM and Champion,” yoga teacher, or ICF coach. I’m all of those at once. Asking how yoga, leadership, coaching, and KM weave together is my way of refusing to slice myself into separate boxes just because it looks neater on LinkedIn. It’s also my way of finding out how to serve the KM community more honestly. If I can show that inner practice, reflective practice, and professional practice are one continuous line, maybe this will give other practitioners permission to bring their whole selves, and not just their tools and frameworks, into their (KM) work.
More importantly, I share this because we spend a lot of time and energy on the hows and whats of tools, frameworks, and AI. And most of the time, we take for granted that the most immediate and on-hand KM tool is the human being. If the practitioner is foggy, triggered, or burned out, no platform or method can compensate. But if the practitioner is clear, grounded, and reflective, even simple practices become powerful.
So how do these 4 weave together?
Yoga: where the human gets prepared
From my experience, yoga, done seriously, was never primarily about postures or a fitter body. It eventually became for me a continuous practice of regulating the inner state that shows up in how you handle everything else. It became a practice of noticing the 'fog' or noise in my mind, trying to choose a thoughtful response over a quick reaction when things especially discussions and conversations get messy, and using the information I gather through all my senses in the here and now.
During sessions with my peer coaches, I kept returning to the idea that in KM, we talk a lot about complexity, change, decision-making, and sense-making. But rarely do we talk about the inner state of the person expected to do all of that. Yoga, especially meditation, as science has proven, can train the mind for exactly what we need towards sustainable, focused and effective KM work, i. e. clarity, focus, steadiness, and regulation.
So, in short, yoga, particularly on the mat or in what we yogis call “easy pose,” has been my training ground. I guess that’s why they call it a practice. What we do on the mat is just that, i.e. practice. The real test is in life and work, or in our case, KM work. Practicing yoga is where I prepare the instrument, which is me.
Coaching: where awareness becomes choice
Coaching, in my world, is not just a profession or toolkit. It’s a way of empowering yourself and making your own choices instead of letting life or work, especially difficult situations, choose for you. Coaching asks questions like, “What am I/are we choosing here? What assumptions might I/we be making? Is this really where I/we want to go?” In my reflections, I noticed that coaching sits naturally under leadership because it’s one of the ways to lead our lives consciously, with authenticity and integrity. Coaching questions pull us out of “autopilot”. They invite us to pause, reflect, and move with intention.
So, if yoga is about inner housekeeping, coaching is about inner navigation. It’s how I turn awareness into choice.
Leadership: where the “inner work” shows up in the outside world
In being a leader, this is how my inner state acts when meeting my outer world, or when my yoga practice and coaching skills are “summoned” when life, especially the messy parts, happen. From my past knowledge management work, one cannot avoid leadership issues. The KMer is constantly dealing with change people don’t want, politics and resistance, and the challenge of confronting culture, habits, and assumptions. To do KM well, one has to say things that are sometimes unpopular, learn how to be composed despite discomfort, transition or even confrontation, connect people, invite them into new ways of working, and, more often than I’d like, stand steady when things are messy. Without some kind of inner practice, this work can be exhausting. I can see how one can easily burn out or get triggered. Because when push comes to shove, one either fights everything or withdraws completely.
But with yoga and coaching as foundations, leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, regulation, co-regulation, and empathy become easier and standard practice. One becomes more intentional in responding and not reacting. He/she strives to not just advocate for change, but to accompany people through it. The effective KMer Leader remains focused on the goal while staying compassionate, centered, and less easily knocked down.
Knowledge Management: the environment where it all gets tested
Knowledge management, on the other hand, is the arena where this all plays out. In my reflections and coaching sessions, it was clear to me that at this stage of my life, I was no longer primarily interested in the “organizational frameworks, processes, and tools” side of KM. That part of my career while interesting and worthy, I discovered, was actually energy-consuming for me, though, I didn’t really feel it. In fact, a DISC assessment I had taken (after retirement) even put a name to something I hadn't seen clearly then. It was that I consistently overextended myself to meet organizational needs, even while successfully engaging stakeholders. That assessment didn't teach me anything new. But it made me more conscious of a visible pattern that my yoga practice had probably already been quietly compensating for. I didn’t know it then. But I somehow managed to double my energy, most likely thanks to my “morning practice”, just to get the job done without feeling overwhelmed by it all.
So What Now?
In summary, this is what I make sense of how they all weave together. Yoga strengthened and gave me that extra boost I needed and elevated my inner state. Coaching empowered me to be proactive rather than stay passive. Leadership skills helped me self-regulate, co-regulate, and co-create with others. And KM provided that arena where I could test all that.
What calls me now is nurturing a person doing KM work, and support him/her in navigating a KM career. KM is meant to support better decisions, wiser actions, and more meaningful connections. Especially in this age of AI integration, the interpreting, sense-making, and holding of complexity are still done by the human being behind the post. But if the KM practitioner is overwhelmed, triggered, or exhausted, the best framework in the world won’t help.
So the question that feels most relevant to me now is practical:
“What does a clear, grounded, reflective KM professional look like in action? How do we show up in meetings, conversations, projects, and especially during chaos?”
For the KM community, I think this matters because while we rightly value excellence in implementing our tools, platforms, best practices, and complex diagrams, we tend to take for granted the inner life and state of the practitioner.
In practice, we don’t often think about questions like:
How do KM professionals avoid burnout?
How do they stay curious and open instead of cynical?
How do they remain calm and creative when everything around them is chaotic?
How do they maintain integrity and courage in the face of politics?
And now that AI is a huge player in the workplace, questions like:
How do we stay grounded in our values so that AI amplifies our humanity rather than dismiss it?
As a KM practitioner, how is our own level of clarity, calm, and self-awareness shaping the way AI is introduced and used in our organization?
When we use AI, are we clearer, more ethical, or saying/writing words that don’t mean anything?
What practices help us notice when we let AI do all the thinking instead of using it to deepen our own?
I don't have full answers to these yet. But my working belief based on my own (relatively short) KM career, is that none of these questions get easier by adding more frameworks or more AI. They get easier by strengthening the person asking the questions. And while my belief is rooted in personal practice, it might be worthwhile to look for or advocate for further study into how mindfulness specifically mitigates cognitive load and burnout for KM practitioners.
Weaving yoga, leadership, coaching, and KM together is my way of saying that we should do whatever it takes to amplify the human edge at the center of knowledge work and be intentional about it.
So there you have it. This is my small act of courage, to start writing from this intersection of yoga, leadership, coaching, and KM, not as an expert with a framework, but as a practitioner still learning. I’m not sure who will read this, or how it will land. But I do know that our community needs more conversations about the inner life of the knowledge worker.
If these reflections help even one KM professional feel clearer, calmer, and more grounded, then this effort and this season of my life will have been well spent.
Thank you for your attention.