Outcome Conference 24 Highlight: Dr. Rob McKenna

Dr. Rob McKenna Brings a WiLD Conversation to the Outcomes Mainstage

Dr. Rob McKenna, the founder of WiLD Leaders, graces the Mainstage at the Outcomes Conference 2024. He will inspire conversation and community by bringing his infamous WiLD Conversations to life for over 1,000 leaders. Typically hosting these conversations on Fridays with an online community, we will experience their power and impact in a live setting. Then, Dr. McKenna will guide the CEOs through a WiLD leader experience during the full-day Annual CEO Forum.

Meet Dr. McKenna

Named among the top 30 most influential I-O Psychologists and featured in Forbes, Dr. Rob McKenna is the founder of WiLD Leaders, Inc. and The WiLD Foundation and creator of the Whole and Intentional Leader Development Toolkit.

His TEDx Becoming a Whole Leader in a Broken World is a manifesto on the critical role that developing whole and intentional leaders will play in our future. Dr. McKenna has devoted his life to developing leaders and transforming how we see the people in our organizations – seeing and developing them as a whole. As he will tell you, from nearly four decades of research on how leaders learn and grow on the job, we have what it takes to invest significantly in the current and next generation of leaders. All we have to do is begin to act on what we know.   

Dr. McKenna’s clients have included the Boeing Company, Microsoft, Heineken, Blue Origin, Alaska Airlines, Foster Farms, the U.S. government, and Children’s Hospital.

He previously served as chair and professor of a master’s and Ph.D. Industrial-Organizational Psychology program. He authorizes numerous articles and chapters on leadership character, calling effectiveness and leadership under pressure.

Rob and his wife, Jackie, have two sons and live in Kirkland, Washington.

The W.i.L.D. Leaders Story

By 2010, Dr. Rob McKenna had spent nearly twenty years as a senior leadership consultant with corporations, churches, universities, and other not-for-profits. In each case, these organizations struggled to find a better way to develop their leaders. The pre-packaged, generic content designed for the lowest common denominator or based on pie-in-the-sky platitudes about managing and decision-making had failed them.

Their leaders were learning through intentional content and conversations that supported the raw personal challenges they faced in real-time and in specific ways. They wanted to grow going forward. Whether it was entrepreneurs, executives, first-time managers, engineers, nurses, professors, or students, their leadership development required a more holistic set of supporting tools to cross the boundaries of identity and results, business and service, and work and life.

In that same year, these self-assessments, created by Dr. Rob McKenna, were launched as a web-based leadership development tool built on three decades of research on how leaders in business, ministry, health care, government, and university campuses grow and develop on the job. Most importantly, it was a set of tools designed to create a whole leader. 

Thousands of leaders worldwide have reached nearly 4.5 million people in their organizations.

Today, the mission of WiLD Leaders is to Intentionally prepare a generation of courageous and sacrificial leaders who will lead the way in reflecting light into a world where darkness is the default  — a generation of leaders who will bring thoughtfulness, conviction, hope, resourcing, strategic thinking, and deeply rooted care to the institutions and people they serve.  

Dr. McKenna – The Author

Dying to Lead

Dr. McKenna’s first book, Dying to Lead: Sacrificial Leadership in a Self-Centered World (Xulon Press 2008), highlights the realities of leading other people and offers meaningful questions and advice for not only becoming the leader you would like to be but also becoming the kind of leader you would follow.

Whether you are a manager, a president, or the parent of your kids, this book will help you reframe your thinking about leadership and what it means to be responsible for other people’s growth, direction, and work. Unlike many books about leadership, Dying to Lead is approachable, practical, and built for people with limited time to read hundreds of pages.

Composed

Dr. Mckenna’s most recent book, Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure (DustJacket Media 2017), is a rigorous and practical guide to maintaining our composure and presence when it matters most. It is a roadmap for standing firmly in who we are while staying connected to those who most matter to us – especially when high-pressure moments come.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a CEO, parent, manager, or student; none of us are immune to the possibility of losing it when the pressure is on. For some people, public speaking is a fear. Maybe conflict makes you uncomfortable. For others, simply being responsible for the experience or learning of others causes you anxiety.

Even for seasoned leaders who face daily pressure, showing up at their best can be challenging. Whether pressure makes us feel incompetent and unworthy or mean and reactive, the impact of losing our composure is significant.

And, of course, you can learn more by visiting the WiLD Leaders Website!

Now, watch this special invitation from Dr. McKenna to join us at the Outcomes Conference 2024!

REGISTER HERE!