Leadership Questionnaire

Name:  Jessisca Salyers

Title:  Chief Learning Officer

Organisation:  Veterans Health Administration

About:

Dr. Jessica Salyers is the Chief Learning Officer for the Veterans Health Administration, Institute for Learning, Education and Development (ILEAD). In her role overseeing 435 employees and $125M, she is responsible for providing the right learning, anytime, anywhere, to all VHA employees in the areas of clinical care, health care operations and administration, as well as leadership development, talent management, and succession planning. Dr. Salyers serves as the principal advisor to the Under Secretary for Health for the analysis, development, delivery, implementation, and evaluation of education, learning, development, and training programs, products, and services that support workforce development and continuing education for the Administration’s more than 377,000 health care professionals and staff, as well as 120,000 residents and trainees at over 1,255 sites, caring for 8.92 million Veterans. As an advocate and champion for transforming VHA into a learning organization, Dr. Salyers works with VA and VHA leaders to identify requirements and leverage collaborative and innovative education, training, leadership, and succession planning opportunities in support of Department and Administration goals and objectives.

Prior to her appointment, she served as the Executive Director for the Healthcare Leadership Talent Institute in VHA. Her previous positions in the Air Force include Chief Talent Management Officer for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center; Deputy Executive Director, Chief of Staff, and Chief Learning Officer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, and others. She has ~20 years of experience in industrial/organizational psychology, organizational consulting, change management, leadership development, organizational development and strategic planning.

Dr. Salyers’ major awards include the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, Exemplary Civilian Service Award, Special Act or Service Award (multiple), Dayton Business Journal 40 Under 40 Award, and Leadership Dayton graduate.

She holds a doctorate in business/consulting psychology; a master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology; and a bachelor’s degree in general psychology, criminal justice studies and sociology. Her specific areas of research interest and experience include survey assessment and design, information overload and future of work.

1. What have you found most challenging (and exciting) as a CEO or senior leader? 

People! It is incredibly rewarding to work to support others in their careers, and to mentor future leaders into fulfilling careers on their journeys–the mentees of today will lead us all into the future and I believe in pouring into others, and that leadership is a full contact, team sport.

The most challenging piece of leading people is managing the whole human aspect–everyone comes to work with their personal lenses, identities, expectations, past experiences, hopes, and more. It can be difficult to fully understand and meet all of those for every person to their satisfaction. I try to meet people where they’re at, and be as open and direct as possible to manage expectations. As you get into more senior roles, the hard decisions required of you to keep serving your mission can create disappointment with some of the people under your care. My goal is for everyone to feel heard, acknowledged, and understood–to know that I care as a leader, even if we don’t agree on an issue or I can’t give them the answer they were hoping for.

People are why we do what we do, and how we do what we do. We can’t forget that in our interactions and decision making.

2. What was your journey to becoming a CEO executive or entrepreneur especially in the last decade? Please briefly tell your story?

I “grew up” working in Defense and STEM. Especially as a “young” leader and executive, I had some experiences with others who questioned my status as a mother, my age, if my degree was “STEM-enough”…the list goes on. It used to unnerve me, but it doesn’t anymore.

I started as an entry level employee doing administrative work as a civilian for the Air Force, and through good fortune, hard work, amazing mentors, and some luck, find myself as an executive in a C Suite position for the largest healthcare organization in the United States. I still have pinch-me moments, feeling incredibly fortunate to shape the direction of how we train and develop our employees for leadership positions in Medical Centers and as providers who directly serve ~9 million Veterans.

I worked in organizational development (OD), leadership development, change management, and organizational culture for most of my career, as an internal consultant for the US Department of Defense as a civilian for the Air Force, with a STEM research mission. I learned quickly how different people work, think, are motivated, and how different groups value things. I began as an organizational development consultant and eventually became a Deputy Corporate Development Officer. At that mid career point, and right after returning from maternity leave with my second child, our entire function was eliminated–plot twist! I applied for other jobs and decided to do a career broadening assignment that ended up transforming my career in many ways, including by introducing me to a mentor that would change the trajectory of my career.

I then spent some time as an Executive Officer to a rotation of senior leaders, after which I decided to pursue senior leadership sometime in my future. I returned to OD work shortly thereafter, only to be asked to take on creating a new leadership role for my organization—and in 2014 I stood up the first Chief Learning Officer role—figuring out what that looked like, industry benchmarks, funding, projects, and priorities. After that, I was asked to stand up another brand new role—Chief of Staff for an office focused on rapid capability development—an area new to me. From there, my next 2 roles were also brand new—Deputy Executive Director of our organization, and then Chief Talent Management officer for different organizations in the AF.

Every step of the way, I had advice, support, and sometimes forceful nudging from mentors to take the harder road—immerse myself in a new area, lead a team when I wasn’t sure I could, be the presenter to very senior leaders, be the face of huge projects for our organization—it was definitely a sink or swim approach—and thankfully, I learned to swim, and these experiences almost always opened new doors for me to my next job, even when I wasn’t searching for it, and I often found myself moving into roles that were more senior, more complex, more challenging, and that offered me more growth than I thought I was capable of.

Finally, I came to the Veterans Health Administration, first as the Executive Director for leadership development, and now as the Chief Learning Officer—serving 375,000 employees that serve 9 million Veterans in the largest healthcare system in the United States. I’m still learning every day, and leveraging all of my prior experiences—and I still have a monthly lunch appointment with my now-retired mentor to keep me in check.

3. What’s a most recent significant leadership lesson you’ve learned which transformed the way you lead/operate?

Listen more than talk. Ask lots of questions. Be curious. Never stop learning. I’ve always believed these things, however, we recently completed an 18+month long effort to re-organize, and I was reminded often of the importance of communication followed by listening and seeking to understand instead of waiting to talk again. It’s so important for people to feel heard.

4. What is your secret to organising/managing your work, your role (or portfolio of roles) and your personal life every single day from waking up moments to bedtime?

The secret is that there is no secret! When we say work-life balance, we imply that it’s work versus everything else in our lives, and that they carry equal weight. They don’t. Work is part of life, the same way leisure, friends, extra curriculars etc are—we find and make time to prioritize and integrate what is important, when. The key for me was figuring that out, and finding what worked for me, and freeing myself from expectations outside of that understanding. I work a lot, and I enjoy what I do. I find time to work throughout the day, sometimes early, sometimes late, and during my work day. It is what works for me, and I appreciate the flexibility of having access to my work on a cycle that allows me to be fully present as a spouse, parent, friend, volunteer, and for all the other roles I have in my life. Someone once said, there is no balance, only choices. I think that is probably true—we will never achieve a 50/50 balance of work and life; some days it’s more, some days it’s less, like all things in life.

5. What are the important topics and trends on your mind these days, that you feel impact business, the leaders and their journey and areas they need to focus on?

The future of work is hybrid; figuring out what that looks like in our organization is on my mind. How do you build trust with broadly distributed teams? How do you build camaraderie? How do you integrate and on board new hires into a fully virtual environment? I don’t think the future is or can be fully face to face or fully virtual for all types of work—so what is the “right” mix, what tools do we need to be successful, and how to we continue to motivate and lead these hybrid teams? What’s the right mix of meeting in person, and staying in the comfort of our homes, skipping the commute?

6. What is one book or film that has had a significant impact on your leadership (both personally and in business) so far?

I love reading so this is hard. Dan Pink’s book Drive was a game changer for me in terms of understanding the knowledge workforce and how to drive change. This was true when I worked in STEM and continues to be true in healthcare. Adam Grant’s work is also phenomenal in terms of understanding why challenging the status quo is important—the world is always changing, and pushing ourselves to learn and change with it is the key to staying relevant and best able to support our mission(s). The work of both of them is rooted in psychology and social science, so as a psychologist, I may be a bit biased!

7. How do you build leadership capacity and embed growth mindset in businesses and people?

Growing leaders is a big part of what we do in our organization. I think it is about seeing and nurturing potential in people. Having validated tools to assess gaps, and then having the tools to help people fill those gaps and continue to grow. Developing and learning in organizations must still be rooted in data, and not just “gut feel.” It is also about defining the end state—what do we want our leaders to know, what behaviors do we want to see? Until we identify what “good” looks like we are just chasing ideas.

8. What is an experience or story you can share that comes to mind from your time as a senior leader/executive that resulted in a highly positive outcome ?

The biggest impacts for me are the individuals who reach out to share what impact our organization or that I as mentor have had on their career trajectories. People are why we do what we do—and we don’t always fully know the role we have played on someone’s else’s journey. Hearing the stories about how our programs readied someone for their dream job, helped them work through a challenge that felt insurmountable, or helped them grow always feel rewarding and remind us why we are here.

9. What is one piece of wisdom you would like to share?

There are no secrets or short cuts. Doubt is normal, push through. Persevere, ask for help, and connect with people.