Linda Kingston has spent her career helping others discover their potential. As president of Lake Superior College, she oversees one of northeastern Minnesota’s largest educational institutions, serving thousands of students preparing for careers in health care, aviation, manufacturing, the skilled trades, business and dozens of other fields.
Before coming to Duluth in 2020, Kingston served in teaching and leadership roles at Alexandria Technical College, Southeast Technical College, St. Paul College and Winona State University. Those experiences, along with lessons learned growing up in her family’s bakery, shaped a leadership style centered on trust, service and people.
Linda Kingston doesn’t see leadership as standing at the top of an organization. She sees it as standing behind the people who make it work.
“Every organizational chart is shaped like a triangle,” Kingston says. “Somebody has to make the final decision. But how a leader should act is the opposite. My job is to support everyone else.”
She began as a math and computer science teacher in a Minnesota high school before moving into higher education. She taught at Alexandria Technical College, held leadership positions at Southeast Technical College, St. Paul College and Winona State University, and became vice president for academic and student affairs of Lake Superior College in 2020. She has been LSC‘s president since July 1, 2025. At every stop, she paid attention to the people she worked for as much as the work itself.
“The leaders who influenced me the most took care of people,” she says. “They cared about the college, but they also cared about the employees.”
She traces that lesson back even further. Growing up, her parents owned a bakery, and she watched how they treated the people who worked beside them. Long before she thought about leading a college, she learned that an organization succeeds when people know they matter. That belief carries through every part of Lake Superior College. No one person can know every detail. Kingston doesn’t think that’s the job.
Instead, she hires good people, trusts them to do their work and expects them to speak up when they need help.
“If I tried to do everything myself, I couldn’t,” she says with a laugh. “Trust is a big part of leadership.”
New ideas rarely come easily inside a large institution, and Kingston knows change takes patience. Rather than announcing a new direction and expecting everyone to fall in line, she starts by asking questions, gathering people with different backgrounds and inviting them to help build the answer.
Her own career followed much the same pattern. She entered college intending to study computer science before discovering that teaching was where she belonged. Each opportunity that followed came because she was willing to say yes.
“I never set out to be a president,” she says. “The opportunities came along, and I took them.”
If she could give advice to her younger self, it would be simple. Take the opportunity.
For Kingston, leadership is also about remembering that titles don’t define who leads.
“There are leaders at every level of every organization,” she says. “You might be a leader, but you’re not the leader.”
She believes the best organizations are filled with people willing to step up, solve problems and help one another succeed. A president may set the direction, but the people around them determine whether the organization reaches its goals.
When asked what gives her purpose, Kingston doesn’t hesitate.
“My purpose is to inspire others to reach their fullest potential.”
Whether she’s working with students, faculty, staff or community members, that goal stays the same.
It’s a philosophy that doesn’t depend on one big decision. Instead, it grows from the small daily choices.
As Kingston puts it, the little decisions are the ones that shape everything else.
