About Leila
Where communication is life or death, you learn to ask.
Airline ramp, zero budget classrooms, 803 living rooms, and a comedy stage in Chicago. Every place Leila Kubesch has worked taught her the same lesson: the people who ask well are the ones who move things forward.
where a missed ask is a safety event, not a communication problem
01 AVIATION
Where communication is life or death.
Before she ever stepped onto a stage, Leila worked for American Airlines, where she received special recognition for customer service. There she witnessed something that would anchor her entire philosophy: when communication breaks down in aviation, people get hurt. Clear, timely asks aren’t optional at 30,000 feet. They’re the difference between safety and catastrophe.
That lesson never left her.
02 ZERO BUDGET
She owned a citrus farm.
When Leila transitioned into education, she was told her ESL and foreign language departments would receive zero funding. No textbooks. No supplies. Her students could not even afford pencils.
A colleague said, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Leila thought: “This isn’t lemons. I own a citrus farm.”
Instead of accepting the limitation, she did what most people never learn to do: she asked. Strategically, boldly, and with purpose. She built partnerships that crossed communities, cultures, and continents, and connected her students with museums, universities, embassies, and organizations that most people in her position would never have approached.
What started as survival became her signature approach to leadership.
budget for two departments. Museums, universities, and embassies said yes anyway.
I used to ask, “Why me?” and I could think of a million reasons why. Now I ask, “What’s another way?”
Leila Kubesch
When there’s a will, there’s a new skill. I ask myself, what do I need to learn to go from here to there? Because I’m not going to sit here and wait for a way to appear when I can act now.
Leila Kubesch
03 803 HOMES
The research that changed everything.
Leila did not stop at professional networking. She visited 803 homes across the communities she served, sitting with families, listening to their stories, understanding what they actually needed rather than assuming she already knew.
Those conversations revealed a pattern she would see repeated in every organization she would later work with: capable people struggling in silence. Leaders carrying weight alone. Good intentions undermined by a failure to ask.
Her work reframes asking as a leadership skill that builds trust, strengthens performance, and distributes ownership across roles and power dynamics. It is practitioner led and field tested, in environments where outcomes matter.
04 THE STAGE
From the field to the keynote stage.
Leila’s work earned her recognition she never sought: Ohio Teacher of the Year, the National Teachers Hall of Fame, the NEA Human and Civil Rights Award, National Toyota Family Teacher of the Year, and a TEDx Audience Choice Award.
Today she brings the same approach to stages across the country and internationally. She has spoken in all 50 states and was hired by the U.S. Department of State to speak in Mexico. She is the author of Tech-No to Tech-Pro, an Amazon number one new release in three categories.
Trained in improv and comedy at Chicago’s The Second City and The Annoyance Theatre, she delivers sessions that are interactive, disarming, and grounded in practical outcomes. Audiences laugh, reflect, and leave with tools they can use the same day.
Watch the moments
Four short videos: the power of words, the induction, the award, and the talk that won the room.
