Kamini Lane, 42, knows a thing or two about the art of persuasion. A CEO with a Harvard MBA, her charming smile and warm demeanor have made her a master influencer.
I started working with Lane over a year ago, shortly after she became President of National Brokerage for Sotheby’s International Realty. We quickly dove into business strategy and the understanding of human behavior.
Lane managed many different personalities at work, hoping to make an impact in their decision-making. We initiated big picture strategies that could be broken down into every day moves.
Within the year she herself had a big change; she became pregnant with her second child and she was offered the president and CEO position at Coldwell Banker Realty. Things were getting complicated!
Confident from the beginning
I like to get to know my client’s background when I start working with someone. Lane’s parents immigrated from India in 1975 and settled in L.A. where she grew up with her older sister. Her upbringing was influenced by her family’s Indian culture: food, holidays, local Indian friends, dance, etc. However, outside her home, she blended in with her typical Southern California surroundings.
Lane described her younger self as “curious, driven and happy.” Growing up she felt supported by her parents who instilled in her the confidence to do anything she wanted. Her father taught her to expect joy from her work. This made a great impact. Right from the beginning of her adult life, she had courage and took risks, graduating from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
But recognizing it was not for her, she pivoted to consulting for Ernst & Young. After years of working 80-hour weeks and traveling nonstop, she craved creativity and landed a coveted job at eBay.
From there, Lane went to Harvard Business School and spent a decade in brand strategy and marketing, leading top tier agencies in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The confidence she got from an early age helped steer her success.
When strengths go south
After I learned about her background, I had Lane take a DISC behavioral assessment. It’s a psychological tool used to measure how the brain absorbs information and creates the behaviors that define your personality type (strengths, weaknesses, stressors, conflict management style).
Lane’s assessment identified her as the Influencer (I) personality type. On good days, she is approachable, interesting, fun, a connector, and a people person. On bad days she is too easygoing and overly optimistic.
I call this “strengths going south.” All of our strengths work for us until they don’t. Our ability to be positive is good until we are ignoring important negative facts. Our ability to be confident works until it turns to arrogance, accommodating turns to looking like a martyr, detail-driven turns to micro-manager and so on. Like many “I” leaders, Lane’s optimism worked for her in taking risks, ideating solutions to problems, and adopting a positive attitude. Her “I” tendencies veered south when she became unrealistic.
One of the topics we tackled was unconscious bias towards women. Many women don’t want the discomfort of seeing the double standard and at first Lane was no different. As a leader she needed to see its impact.
Being able to see the hard truths allowed her to make a difference. She would support women vocally, change the topic when it came up and question the real facts. This took courage because confrontation on this topic made her uncomfortable, but it aligned with her values and pushed her to grow.
Stay above the waterline
Next, I introduced a model I use with most clients to direct her focus called, “Stay Above the Waterline.”
We want to live our life above the waterline in the “Vision” portion. It’s a big picture view of where we are going and our 1 to 5-year goals.









