About
Who Are You?
We are The Tonkin Group, and we help sales leaders, founders, and professionals grow by aligning who they are with how they lead, sell, and serve.
We exist to bring sincerity back into business — helping individuals and organizations perform at their highest level without sacrificing their humanity.
Mission: What’s Your Mission?
Our mission is to help people and organizations grow through sincerity — the alignment of thought, word, and action.
We believe sales leadership and performance are not built on technique alone, but on integrity, intention, and human connection.
Right now, too many professionals are burned out by performative leadership, transactional sales, and surface-level culture change.
We are committed to changing this by teaching leaders how to operationalize sincerity — blending research, real-world experience, and practical tools to create organizations that both perform and care.
Story: How Did This Begin?
The Tonkin Group was founded in 2021 by Dr. Tom Tonkin, a leadership scholar and former corporate executive, after more than two decades leading sales and learning teams at Oracle and Cornerstone OnDemand.
It started when Tom noticed a widening gap between what leaders said and what they did — between company values on the wall and behaviors in the hall. That disconnect inspired his doctoral research on The Progression of Performance and The Three Dimensions of Sincerity.
Since then, The Tonkin Group has evolved into a thought-leadership and advisory platform — shaping conversations around leadership sincerity, organizational culture, and sustainable growth. Tom’s work has been featured in podcasts, academic journals, and leadership forums worldwide.
We are here because:
- We believe sincerity is the missing link between the well-being of others and performance.
- We want to help leaders reconnect with the deeper purpose behind their influence.
- We stand for a future where organizations measure success not just by what they achieve, but by how they achieve it.
This journey is still unfolding, and we are working toward a world where leadership feels both practical and profoundly human.
Method: What Makes You Different?
We don’t believe in leadership fads, “hustle culture,” or quick-fix playbooks.
Instead, we focus on building frameworks that align the inner life of the leader with the outer systems of performance.
Our approach looks like:
- Translating academic insight into practical leadership and communication models.
- Blending consulting, coaching, and speaking to meet leaders where they are.
- Guiding teams through transformation that lasts — not just change that looks good on paper.
This is what we call The Sincere Advantage™ — a way of leading, selling, and growing that feels nurturing and works sustainably.
Team: Who Is Behind the Brand?
We are a small, purpose-driven team that brings together research, advisory experience, and storytelling to amplify human performance.
We care deeply about:
- Sincerity as the foundation of trust
- Leadership that creates genuine connection
- Growth that honors both results and relationships
Meet the people behind the work:
- Dr. Tom Tonkin, Founder & Principal Advisor — Leadership scholar, author, and advisor who helps organizations turn sincerity into strategy.
- Advisory Network — A circle of trusted partners and collaborators supporting organizational design, communication, and performance initiatives.
No corporate jargon. No empty slogans. Just people helping people lead with meaning.
Where Do I Start?
If you’re ready to explore how sincerity can transform your leadership or organization:
Book a Leadership Conversation — a one-to-one discussion with Dr. Tom Tonkin to uncover where alignment, trust, and performance intersect for you or your team.
Evolvability
Tom’s Perspective on
Transformation Management
“Transformation management needs an accurate assessment of the past. A transformational project needs a clear line of sight to the future.”
“A people strategy trumps a digital strategy when it comes to moving through a transformation and it’s rare that organizational leaders have a prescriptive people strategy when undergoing a digital transformation.”