On Stage with Leadership Expert Kyle McDowell: Corporate America Turns the Page in Its Playbook

Kyle McDowell, who spent 30 years climbing the ladder to the top of UnitedHealth Group, General Dynamics Information Technology, Centene, and CVS Health before throwing away the golden handcuffs, is back in corporate America. Only this time, he isn’t sitting, leading tens of thousands of employees – instead, he’s on stage, helping thousands of executives and team members who are disillusioned about their jobs to understand that the old leadership playbook isn’t just broken – it belongs in a bonfire. 

McDowell is the author of Begin With We: 10 Principles for Building and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence and of The 10 WEs, his guiding principles that provide the framework for how team members treat each other and their clients. His book quickly reached the top of bestseller lists at Amazon, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, he travels around the country to talk to audiences about something revolutionary: “I” is out. “WE” is in. 

The 10 WEs include:

1. WE do the right thing. Always. 

2. WE lead by example. 

3. WE say what WE’re going to do. Then WE do it. 

4. WE take action. 

5. WE own our mistakes. 

6. WE pick each other up. 

7. WE measure ourselves by outcomes. Not activity. 

8. WE challenge each other. 

9. WE embrace challenge. 

10. WE obsess over details.

“The 10 WEs emphasize authentic leadership and challenge leaders to become more approachable, which results in tighter relationships with their teams, more trust, and better outcomes for all,” says McDowell. “They remove any ambiguity about how we operate. On the surface, they are simple in theory. But perhaps not so simple when you consider some of the toxicity that resides in Corporate America.”

On stage, he talks about rising steadily in his career, jetting around the country, and working long hours. There was nothing wrong with any of it, he genuinely believes.

“After all, work is work. We aren’t being paid to sit on a beach, of course. The problem was something many people can relate to: it just wasn’t fulfilling. I was surrounded by amazing people, but we weren’t connected,” McDowell recalls. “I ultimately figured out the reason: as leaders, we were following a playbook that had been written decades ago when corporate America was a very different place.”

He explains that for years, the prevailing wisdom was that in order to keep hundreds, even thousands, of very diverse people moving in the same direction every day, leaders had to distance themselves. The thinking went that this lack of connection empowered leaders to be impartial and make tough decisions.

“Perhaps they were right to some degree,” McDowell concedes. “After all, they did build some incredible companies that are still innovating and providing jobs today. However, they forgot something important: times change. What worked just fine yesterday is the source of a major problem today.”

As a business leader, McDowell began to notice that when he walked past team members, they ducked their heads. At meetings, when he asked for opinions or ideas, they weren’t always offered. In searching for answers, the spotlight fell on him.

“I realized that these issues weren’t happening because I had the wrong team members – I had the wrong leadership style,” he says. “I had bought into this idea that a moat had to separate me from them. Everyone was sitting on the bank 30 feet away from me, and we were trying to have brainstorming sessions or candid discussions about issues. How on Earth was that supposed to work? We needed to be sitting next to each other on the same bank.”

He tells his audiences that the best thing he ever did was simply start over. In creating the 10 WEs, his goals were to invent a new model of leadership for himself and other leaders and to transform corporate America into a place where people feel valued, not disposable, whatever their role may be.

“Most executives look to mission statements or even corporate values as the foundation for creating excellence. However, unlike a mission statement or even corporate values, the 10 WEs are actionable and speak to every member of the team,” McDowell says. “Remember, a principle is defined as a ‘fundamental truth’ or ‘system of beliefs.’ So the biggest benefit of leading with principles, I think, is that they acknowledge the reality that whether we work among 10 people or 1,000, to be our best, we need each other. Innovation at work thrives when we trust each other enough to say what we really think, and that can only happen when leaders adopt a WE-centered approach to teamwork.”