Start With A Win - Resilient Leadership: Promoting Wellness in the C-Suite with Caren Kenney

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Why are up to 70% of the world’s CEOs considering quitting their jobs? According to Caren Kenney, CEO and Founder of Evolve Leadership  and co-author of the book Leading with Character: 10 Minutes a Day to a Brilliant Legacy, most of the world’s C-Suite executives are not trained in sustainable practices for overall wellness. Observing this need, Caren combined her passion for leadership and mental health to create developmental programs that support all aspects of the individual’s needs. Her holistic approach addresses physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, and asks leaders to get clear on their purpose. By prioritizing character development within a company’s culture, leaders build a strong foundation for purpose-driven lives.Main TopicsThe “why” behind Caren’s personal and professional journey developing wellness in executive leadership (02:38)Trends emerging as a result of recent global events that have impacted mental health in the executive realm (05:14)Holistic approaches to creating sustainable work environments (06:10)Predominant challenges for executives in the evolving world (09:57)How to train the next generation of CEOs and what it will take for them to thrive (13:21)Leadership qualities that build thriving workplace cultures (15:52)Action points for creating resilient leaders who invest in human relationships and overall well-being (18:30)   Episode LinksLeading with Character: 10 Minutes a Day to a Brilliant LegacyThe C-Suite's Role in Well-Being  Connect with Caren:https://evolveleadership.comhttps://www.instagram.com/carenkenneyhttps://twitter.com/carenkenneyhttps://www.facebook.com/caren.kenneyConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from Brand Viva Studios in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start With The Win. Producer Mark, it is black shirt day today. It is. Yeah, I did the no collar buttons and you did the collar with the snaps. The snaps. Yes. It looks nice. Thank you. Thank you. It's a fun day. It is.

Happy to be here. I flew in at 1 a.m. this morning. I know. I can't believe that. I texted you last night. I think it was like 9.30, and you're like, I'm in D.C. I'm like, oh, my gosh. You know we have a recording at like 8.30 in the morning, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we made it. All good. And I made it to the gym, too, so I started the day with a win. That's right. Yeah, me, too. I got to the gym this morning, got my voice all worked out, you know, ready to be on the mic. So were you in the gym doing your voice exercises? May me mama, may me mama move. It's awesome. Yeah. Well, hey, I'm excited for our guest today. I think this is right up our alley. Karen Kenney is the founder and CEO of Evolve Leadership, a global executive coaching and development organization that offers the

world's only holistic C-suite development programs that prepare leaders to thrive in highly visible and demanding roles. Before starting her company, Karen spent 12 years at Johnson & Johnson, where she was part of the Human Performance Institute leadership team and executive director of its premier executive leadership program. Karen is also a co-author of the book Leading with Character, 10 Minutes a Day to a Brilliant Legacy. Karen, welcome to Start with a Win. Welcome, Karen. Thank you, Mark. Thanks, Adam. Excited to be here with you.

And nobody told me about Black Shirt Day. Oh, yeah, we need to put that out with our recording notes to everybody. That's right. Hey, wear a black shirt. Tends to be my go-to color, so surprised I didn't. But anyway, great to be here with you. Well, thank you. And it's great to have a coach on. As a CEO and a coach myself, it's awesome to really get to kind of bang our heads together and help these people that are listening to us figure out how do they do a little bit better. But I want to take a step back, Karen, and start with your professional journey and how it led you to starting a coaching company. So take us back to

Johnson & Johnson. And you've been developing leaders a long time. And how did we get to where we're at? Yeah, it's a good question. I didn't take a typical career trajectory. So I started out working in communication space. And actually, I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, starting companies, co-founding or founding companies. But I also have always had a great passion around mental health and mental well-being. I had a husband who struggled with mental health issues. He was an executive, ultimately passed away because back then there wasn't a lot of support, a lot of stigma, et cetera.

So I kind of married my passion over time for mental health and well-being and co-founded a business that developed the world's first digital health coaching programs. We were acquired ultimately into J&J. They were a customer. And then we were the start of the J&J Health and Wellness business as it was launched in 2008. J&J also acquired the Human Performance Institute as part of that. So I first served on the leadership team of the health and wellness business and then directly in the institute where I created that premier executive leadership program, but ultimately got to marry my passions for mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing, just recognizing that this health and performance are inextricably linked.

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, and that's such a great point as somebody who's been a CEO of a public company and a board director, I can tell you that the whole mental health challenge is real. And that's not the beginning of it for me. I'll tell you, when you're doing quarterly reports to Wall Street and board of directors and things like that, it is heavy on your heart and on your mind to try and make these things because it is, it's grind, grind, grind, report, report, report. If you miss something, then, oh my gosh, the world's coming to an end. But, uh, I mean, before that I was in law enforcement, I was a SWAT team commander and mental health is completely real in law enforcement. In fact, now we have wellness

groups and therapists and therapy dogs running around the department and things like that. You know, it's a really high suicide rate, high alcoholism, high divorce, lots of heart issues, things like that. But that's also happening at the executive level a lot. And even, you know, like you look at the pandemic, what did you see happen during the pandemic to this mental health situation? Because I mean, from a business perspective, people were afraid to talk about it before that. And now it's like, oh my gosh, let's get this front and center. What changed in that period with mental health? Did you see an influx? Yeah. I mean, I think that was a good thing in COVID kind of brought light though.

I think we've seen mental health issues skyrocket across the board at every level of an organization. We hear about people wanting to be working completely remotely right now and enjoying that. There was a lot of good things that came out of the pandemic for sure, but it also created a lot more isolation and loneliness. And I think this lack of human connection, people don't necessarily recognize the link. I think the good thing is you say we've come a long way. The stigma is less around it. People are talking about it more. Companies are addressing it, but we're seeing higher levels of loneliness and burnout than ever before, even though we did create, for some people, some

work-life balance. For others, definitely a challenge working at home, but the numbers are not going in the right direction for sure. True, true. So you built a holistic approach around all of this. And explain to us what is a holistic approach to executive leadership development and how is that key to creating a sustainable leader? How does all this come together? Yeah, it's really about looking at the whole person and the whole life. At the end of the day, you were saying leaders are human beings, right? We're complex human beings with interdependent dimensions of who we are. So there's the physical aspect of us.

You talked about how you worked out today and you feel better, even though you have more energy from you. You can hear it and see it, but there's the physical dimension of who we are. There's the emotional dimension. There's the mental focus, being present and spiritual, which is pure purpose. So you need to train humans in all dimensions to drive optimal human performance. And traditional leadership development really focuses on business competencies and skills. How can I be a better leader? You can go to the best schools and do all the training in the world, but if you don't look at someone holistically, look at what makes

them tick, what matters to them, what are their values? Purpose is a huge thing. And a lot of people are talking about company purpose, but it's also about personal purpose. Is someone aligned to something bigger than themselves, but are they also not so focused on their job and their work that they're sacrificing their wellbeing for others? So we look at the whole person. We look at them, you know, we put them through a physical health exam. We look at what's happening. We also look at them. We do a lot of assessments, emotional and mental assessments on there. We do, we have character strength testing. So what are their values? Where's their vulnerability? So a lot of times we see leaders failing and it surprises us. We say

that's so out of character for that person. We don't know how it happened, but there were probably things leading up to that that weren't addressed or contributing to it. So we look at the whole person in that sense, the physical and the mind, brain, body connection. It's all linked, but we also look at the whole life. And so that is, you may be killing it at work, right? But then you come home and maybe your relationships are failing, you're not a present parent, or your friendships are failing, whatever it is. So we look at them in terms of this whole ecosystem.

How are they showing up? How are they, who's getting their, who and what's getting their best energy? And then we also talk to people, like a lot of people in work, they'll do what you'll do. I don't know if you've gone through any assessments as a leader, but stakeholder interviews or assessments. We will actually talk to people in every area of their life and find out how they're doing to get those stories.

But we'll also train people. So we'll train an executive, but also their administrative assistant, a spouse or significant others. We'll train peer at work. So anyone who eats with, sleeps with, prepares meals for, schedules meetings for that person, we create this team. So I think in today's world, we're leaders. The expectations are huge, right? As a CEO, you have to take a stance on all these issues, environmental, social, and we're facing some of the most challenging issues ever in history. So how do you prepare that person? It's not just through skills training, it's through really looking at them inside and out and their whole world. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So I have a question for you about that. When you look at, and I know there's no average CEO out there, there's no average executive out there. And we try to average things in our mind and for data purposes, what have you. But when you look at truly what are you seeing as the predominant challenge, take, you know, everybody has business challenges. They got to meet their KPIs. They got to meet their numbers, their projections, their goals, whatever it might be for their board of directors or for their shareholders, however their company's laid out. But ultimately, what are you seeing is the biggest drag that can be fixed that creates the greatest tailwind on executives when you're looking at this? Is there something that you can quantify where you go, here's the first thing that we attack right

now, generally more than anything else? Is there something that stands out or is it across the board typically with all the different variables? I think it's really, I mean, burnout is a big issue. In fact, Deloitte, I don't know if you saw the Deloitte study in June, but they're saying up to 80% of CEOs are considering quitting their jobs or deciding, is it worth it anymore? And so I think burnout is the biggest issue because I'm sacrificing everything for this. And it still might not yield. People might say, well, they make so much money. Come on, get over it. But there's a huge weight of responsibility. And if you're sacrificing your mental health, it's huge. But I think people are just going so hard and fast to deliver, to meet the board expectations,

to meet the company number, that they're losing themselves in the process. They're starting to recognize it. But for us, we start foundationally with purpose. and that's personal purpose. Why are you here? What matters to you? And when they can get connected to that, they can create more balance. They can create more boundaries. They can make better decisions. They can have better relationships with their teams, et cetera. So you start with the purpose, but then how do you build energy around it? Again, just how you kind of started this morning. How do you get the energy? So how do we train them holistically the way you train an athlete, the way you train others? And by the way,

CEOs have a lot more tenure, a lot more years that they have to put in a much longer day. But just circling back to the beginning, I think it's more burnout. And how do I just manage all this complexity? There's no training that has prepared leaders to lead successfully today. There just isn't. Amen to that. I mean, when you look at the whole picture and everybody looks at it and goes, okay, you're a CEO, so you run this company. No, no, no. You got to be able to run yourself, run your relationships, run your finances, run your life, essentially, your attitude and your actions, your behaviors, your enthusiasm, your energy, your focus, all these different things as a CEO. And when you start loading that truck so full of KPIs and other demands, I mean, everybody's like, oh, how much did you work? I said, I worked all of it

as a CEO. And I left the C-suite the end of March this year. So I'm actually just as occupied as I was before, but under my terms and not a board's terms, running, buying, establishing other businesses. But it's my passion. And that's, I figured out ways to, to really structure that through very, very strict time audits, circadian rhythm studies, and things like that on, on where am I most effective. And then we have all these people who want to get promoted. And I just taught at the local business school, taught a bunch of executive MBAs. And this is, it's interesting, Karen, this was like one of the top topics that we talked about is setting those boundaries in your life. Yeah. And it's bizarre. So, I mean, for this next wave of CEOs, when you

talk about these boundaries and all these challenges that you see in your business and in your coaching, what will it take for the next wave of CEOs to thrive in this even more complex, vulnerable, unpredictable environment? We've all heard VUCA. Well, VUCA is real in business, even though the military says VUCA is a thing of the past. It's actually here in business. How do we teach these next CEOs or successors how to be the best they can be? I think it's a good question. I think, first of all, the ones who are going to sustainably be successful are the ones who are connected to strong purpose and values. You just said it, Adam. I'm doing something now that I'm

really passionate about. So if you're not loving what you're doing, it's showing up somehow in the way you treat others. Or if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're doing, it's showing up somehow in the way you treat others. Or if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're doing it for the money or to summit the mountain, you'll get there. But what did you have to do to get there? Were there things that you weren't proud of? Were you enjoying the journey? Were you impacting others? So I think the key is, we know right now employees, there's this whole quiet quitting and everything else. Employees want to work for a company that has strong values and purpose, but they also want to work for a leader who they believe in, who has strong values and purpose. So that's key.

That's important. But leaders have to be able to influence and inspire. You cannot dangle the paycheck anymore. You can't dangle all the benefits. They have to lead and inspire as a leader and the way they run their company. I think they also have to show a lot of vulnerability and compassion and empathy. This human connection I mentioned before, this lack of it is real. Leaders need to say, hey, I've struggled too, right? It builds trust or I don't have all the answers and I'm looking to you. So showing those traits

is really important. Kind of these moral ethical traits, comfort with uncertainty. Like you said, it's a new world. And so you just have to be willing to, you have to be agile and be willing to be flexible and take risks and know that you're going to make mistakes because there's, like I said, no playbook. But then I do think it's this investment in an expanded set of skills like personal well-being. You need to be intentional about it. You have to have your routine, mental and emotional resilience. How do you build capacity to take on more? How do you navigate these storms? And then character, I believe very strongly in that character is a muscle that can be trained. So how do you invest

in that so that you don't throw everything away with one poor decision or comment or anything else? So, I mean, if you think about it, who are some of the leaders you admire? What are some of the traits? Not to put you on the spot, but what are, what are their traits for you? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, the first one is consistency. Okay. I absolutely believe in consistency because you don't see results without consistency. So that's the first trait. The second one I would say would be presence. I always say presence creates trust. And you just talked about the trust and the transparency in the leader. And I was just at an event the last couple of days in DC, and I had been on video just about every single day as a leader for, I don't know what mark,

a few months straight. And then I stopped doing that for a couple of months. And I, in one visit to a bar, I had four different CEO level people come up to me going, start doing that again. I need to see that. Be present for us, please. Because they were following me as a leader and my demonstration of consistency. And when I stopped doing video, they're like, oh, what do I do? Because they were sharing that out. And I truly believe CEOs need to be not just on a memo. I mean, your, your name on a memo does not mean you're a CEO and, or on an email or something like that. And frankly, your, your voice in a quarterly employee meeting doesn't mean a darn thing to your employees. They want to see you regularly caring about them, being them, being a good person. The only way to do that is what we're doing right now. We're on audio and video. The two top intakes of a human being emotionally are audio and sight.

So I would say both of those. And then you mentioned it, the trait of humility, being a humble human being and being willing to make mistakes and fail. People want to know you're real instead of just some pressed suit that stands behind a podium and reads off some numbers. I mean, if you're crying out loud, that's what CEOs are good at and CFOs are good at and COOs are good at. But that means you kind of suck at being a personality and being a human being that connects to people because people don't connect to those numbers. They connect to your story, to the emotion, and to the happiness that you deliver to them and that clarity of the future. So I would put those few items, those few traits up front. And I have a handful of people that I could name

off that I certainly look at. But Karen, I want to ask you something real quick before we start closing the show here. I mean, you're a very well-known person in executive coaching and your business does phenomenal work. Give us two or three walk away to do items for the leaders that listen to this podcast. What can they start doing right now to implement some of these things? I think a couple of key things are to really spend some time if you don't feel like you have a great clarity and alignment on your purpose to spend time on that because if you don't get that right then you're going to go through life just kind of skimming across the surface right so your personal purpose and align that really well with your company purpose and make sure you're doing what you love what you believe believe in. And then get connected to your why.

Why am I doing it? How do I want to influence this organization? What impact do I want to have? And then your how, and that's your character piece. And that is, how do I want to show up? Like you said, people are present. You can say whatever you want, but it's what you do. It's how you make people feel.

Do they feel valued? So if you want to retain your talent, if you want to drive high performance, you need to show that you care about your people, that you understand the people you need to connect with them. And like you said, be present. It's not about the polished memo or the presentation. It's about being real and showing them and building that human connection. I think those are critically important. Awesome. Amazing, amazing tips. Make sure, everybody, you take a look at those.

And Karen, I have a question for you that I ask all of our amazing guests on this show, and that is, how do you start your day with a win? I always start my day. I actually, I wake up in the morning, and one thing I don't do is look at my phone. And I highly recommend that for everyone. The minute you look at your phone, you're starting work or potentially some level of stress with someone reaching out to you on a text or call. But I get up and I kind of reflect. I set an intention for my day. How do I want to show up? What did I do yesterday? Maybe that I could do a better job of.

And then I get up and I get outside and do some form of exercise, usually running, walking, biking, any time of the year. I think it's great to connect with nature as you're starting out. It gives you time to think, you know, you deserve that rare time alone with yourself to think, to plan your day, to be grateful. So I think everybody should have a ritual and not a habit. A habit is something to do for the purpose of doing it

like brushing your teeth, but a ritual is about doing something in service of your purpose and that's going to make you stick with it. Wow, that's awesome. Karen Kenney, thank you so much for being on the show. Everybody make sure you check out Karen at evolveleadership.com.

That's E-V-O-L-V-E, leadership.com. And Karen, thank you for starting your day with a win. Thank you, Adam. Great to be here. And thank you, Mark. Have a great day. Hey, yeah. Thank you. Hey, and thank you for listening. Are you a leader who has grown your business to a certain point and you're wondering how you can kind of take it to the next level? It might be something you're missing and it's not sales and marketing. It's something most people don't even think about. And that's leadership.

Whether you're leading yourself or a team, leadership is the key for next level growth. And you're in luck because Adam has put together three keys and techniques and ideas he used to grow as a leader and develop himself and his teams as he was the CEO of Remax. And so head over to adamcontos.com slash leadership. Thank you so much for being a part of our show today. And until next time, remember, start with a win.