Jeff McHenry is a very experienced Leadership and Organization Development professional with a strong track record at helping business leaders and organizations achieve better results. Jeff has deep expertise in coaching and developing senior leaders, high-potential development, and business-driven transformational change. He frequently speaks and delivers workshops on leadership and organizational development at professional conferences, including the Conference Board and the Human Resource Planning Society. His clients have included 3M, Amazon, Blue Origin, Booking.com, Cambia Health Solutions, Cigna, Deloitte, Facebook, the Gates Foundation, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Statoil, Weyerhaeuser, and World Vision. Jeff is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California, where he teaches in the universities’ executive education and human resource programs.
Previously, Jeff spent 18 years at Microsoft Corporation. His last role at Microsoft was General Manager, Leadership Development & Recruiting, where he was responsible for executive recruiting and talent management, leadership and high potential development, and organizational development for the entire Corporation. During his time in this role, Microsoft won several prestigious awards for leadership development, including a 2011 Top 20 Companies for Leadership award in from the Hay Group, a 2011 Best Practice Award from the European Foundation for Management Development, and a 2010 Action Learning Organization Award from the World Institute for Action Learning.
Jeff’s areas of coaching expertise include:
- Job and Career Transitions: Leaders who are facing significant increases in job scope (e.g., revenue/budget, number of employees, number of product lines) or job responsibility (e.g., leading new functions or new geographies) and desire assistance on how to approach their new responsibilities.
- Adaptive Leadership: Leaders who are confronted with a major organizational or business challenge that has no clear answer and requires the engagement of the entire organization and employees’ collective expertise; and they are seeking guidance on how to demonstrate conviction, connection, composure, and courage.
- Organizational Influence, Presence, and Power: Leaders who are struggling with how to influence effectively (e.g., how to influence when they have no direct authority, weak influence and presence with peers and senior leaders, uncertain how to lead when their authority is challenged or resisted, uncomfortable using position power to lead).
- Managing through Processes and Mechanisms: Leaders who spend virtually much of their time inspecting results and fighting fires – and therefore often find it difficult to gain traction on strategic priorities – because they lack processes or mechanisms for monitoring and managing their business.
- Employee Engagement and Connection: Leaders who are struggling to engage and connect with their employees (e.g., struggling to delegate, struggling to inspire, failing to take the time to get to know their employees and make a personal connection, wrestling with how to be open and even demonstrate vulnerability).
- High Potentials: Leaders who have been identified as high potentials and who are interested in both a better understanding of their strengths and development needs as a leader and seeking to develop the 2-3 critical capabilities that they will need to advance to their next career stage.
Jeff received a BA with Honors from Bethel College in St Paul, Minnesota, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Minnesota. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology. He served as the Society’s President from 2006-2007. He is also a member of the Executive Advisory Board for Seattle Pacific University’s School of Business, Government and Economics. Outside of work, Jeff enjoys classical music, running and other sports, and socializing with friends and family, including his three daughters. By far his most stressful activity has been coaching his daughters’ sports teams, including basketball and softball. He is still awaiting that elusive first championship.
