Haleigh Tebben, chief commercial officer at national fertility clinic and family-building benefits provider Kindbody, knows the best way to
Early on in her professional career, Tebben knew her passion was working with people. Following roles in product development and sales for different companies, she transitioned to a
"It was about unlocking what's best in people, and talking about how employees are the most valuable asset of an organization," Tebben says. "A lot of my leadership style came from my time at Gallup and working with clients to help them understand that, first of all, you're not going to be a successful company unless you have engaged employees. You're not going to have engaged employees unless you put them in roles that fit their talents and strengths, and unless they've got great managers who know how to unlock those talents and strengths each and every day."
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After eight years at Gallup, Tebben took on a role managing a team of health and benefits consultants at Mercer before moving into the world of health and wellness startups, including benefits administration software company Collective Health and family mental health platform Brightline. It's extremely rewarding to build companies that help people, and put together teams who were good at this, she says.
Tebben joined Kindbody last January, where she oversees sales, enterprise operations, and client management teams, and continues to create synergy among team members.
"If I understand what each is good at, they can create partnerships," she says. "They also work together and get more engaged. They create best friends at work, which is important, and it creates connection and retention. They're liking their job better, and they're getting it done better and faster."
Tebben spoke with EBN about stepping into an unfamiliar role, why it's okay to say, 'I don't know' and how this promotes growth within a team.
You were hesitant to take on the management role at Mercer because of lack of subject matter experience; what made you accept, and how did you prove yourself as an effective leader to your team?
[I thought the team was] going to look at me and go, 'You know nothing about what we do.' [But the company said] 'What you do know is you want to solve client problems, and you know how to help people be successful. We have a lot of really smart consultants here, but we don't have anybody that's bringing them together to help them understand how they can be the best they can be. And so I took the job on, and it was actually one of my favorite jobs I've ever had.
It took me a while to win everybody over, but what I did, that I don't think typical consultant leaders do, is got to know each and every one of them, understand what was important to them, and tried to help them be successful. I really dove into really getting to know each and every one of them, and I created friends and colleagues for life.
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What is your philosophy on putting together and leading a good team?
As a leader, you want to hire people that are better than you and have more expertise than you in the topic, and then you want to help get things out of their way and move barriers and support them so they can be successful. From a leadership perspective, it is critical to make sure that you are a servant leader and that you help your teams understand that you respect them for their knowledge and your expertise.
Why is it healthy for leaders to say they don't have all the answers, and how does this build a culture of collaboration among a team as well?
I'm never going to know [everything] at the level I would need to make [a] team completely successful. I think they respect that I'm really honest about it, and not trying to pretend that I know everything, but just to say, 'I don't know what you know.'
It's important as the leader to model behavior. I say, I'm not good at XYZ. I need your help. As a business, you get sub par performance if you try to get people to be great at everything, versus, 'What are you best at? I'm going to maximize that out of you, and I'm going to partner you with this person who's better at this thing, and together, you're both going to be phenomenally strong, and you're going to support each other in the areas where [we] have the greater need. And so the business has more efficiencies and less redundancies of people trying to do each other's thing and not do it well.
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How does this team approach also set your team members up for continuous growth?
It's really about balancing. I use myself as an example a lot. There are areas that people are not going to be strong, and it's important to acknowledge and give feedback, but also let them know, 'Hey, I don't expect you to be great at that. I expect you to instead, use this person or use this way to handle that issue. It helps people be more efficient, because they know where to focus.
