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Melissa Greenwell (00:02)
I understood that if these leaders could be successful, our business was going to be successful. It was really a rewarding responsibility to help people grow in their roles and get them ready for the next ones.

Susan White (00:20)
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting me is my co-host and dear friend JoDee Curtis, who’s the owner of Purple Ink, a large-scale HR firm that I am an executive collaborator with.

If you’ve been a long-time listener, you might remember that we’ve talked about coaching before, but believe it or not, it’s been almost five years since our last episode.

JoDee Curtis (00:49)
Wow.

Susan White (00:49)
I know, isn’t that crazy? Time flies since we’ve talked about coaching. So we decided it’s officially time to revisit this important conversation. And this time we’re gonna focus specifically on coaching senior leaders. And the timing really could not be better.

McLean and Company’s HR Trends 2026 Report, based on feedback from more than 1,600 respondents across multiple industries, shows that the number one HR priority for organizations, just like in 2025, is developing leaders.

What really caught our attention, though, is that the number two priority in the 2026 HR trends that McLean put out is now enabling innovation, which jumped all the way up from number 10 on the 2025 list. The message is really clear. Developing leaders today is not about performance. It’s about helping them create environments where innovation can actually thrive.

That same report tells us that 35% of HR organizations believe they’re doing well at developing organizational leaders. Only 35%, JoDee.

JoDee Curtis (02:01)
Yeah, not enough, not enough.

Susan White (02:03)
Not enough, right?

When leaders were evaluated on key people leadership capabilities like change management, talent development, talent management, and employee engagement, effectiveness ratings ranged from just 19% to 36%. I know, I know, we’ve got a lot of work to be done here. I think executive coaching could be the answer.

Organizations with a strong culture of continuous learning has been seeing numbers increase exponentially. But as many of us know, most companies hope that development happens organically, or they talk about it a lot without putting real tools, expectations, or accountability behind it. And that’s where I think executive coaching really comes in.

Whether internal coaching or external, coaching is one of the most effective ways to formalize continuous learning and professional growth at the top of the organization. Because leadership can be lonely at the top, we hear that expression a lot, and having a trusted thought partner to broaden perspectives, strengthening people leadership skills, and supporting innovation really benefits not just the leader, but also the entire organization.

So today we’re gonna dive into executive coaching with a successful coach who will share her approach, why it matters and how it can help senior leaders grow with intention.

JoDee Curtis (03:30)
Excellent.

Susan White (03:31)
Melissa Greenwell is an accomplished leadership coach and consultant with over 30 years of experience building high performance organizations and executing growth strategies in industries including retail, financial services, hospitality, and technology. Melissa’s coaching methodology enables C-suite and aspiring C-suite leaders to develop sustainable leadership skills to build their own high performing teams.

Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today.

Melissa Greenwell (04:01)
Well, thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Susan White (04:04)
Melissa, would you tell us a little bit about where you’ve worked and the positions that you’ve held?

Melissa Greenwell (04:09)
Sure, sure. This is where I date myself a little. I started my career working for a big manufacturer, Alcoa. I’m sure lots of people know that name. And I spent my first 10 years there. That’s where I learned a lot about leadership and a lot about myself. I moved on to I had the opportunity to work in many different industries ranging from financial services, distribution, retail, technology, and then I spent my last five years or so in the hospitality industry and was fortunate enough to be part of seven different executive teams over the course of my career.

Leadership positions included operations leadership. I was COO for a national retailer. But most of my career has been spent leading human resources functions as the CHRO.

Susan White (05:12)
Terrific.

JoDee Curtis (05:12)
Yeah, nice. And Melissa, let’s start first by talking about executive coaching that you did when you were inside these organizations. What were some of your goals, the outcomes, and maybe some challenges along the way?

Melissa Greenwell (05:31)
I always had a leaning to help people be successful, because I understood that if these leaders could be successful, our business was going to be successful. It was really a rewarding responsibility to help people grow in their roles and get them ready for the next ones. There were a lot of success stories. I look back now and I see people that I hired as interns leading HR functions for entire organizations or have risen up through some other executive role in a company. And so really rewarding.

I think coaching inside an organization was very different and in many ways less formal because when you’re part of the organization and part of the executive it’s difficult to be seen as truly an objective sort of third party. And so I hired many executive coaches for people in our organizations over the years and was sometimes frustrated that a more disciplined process didn’t come with their coaching methodologies.

And so when I decided to coach full-time on my own after of finishing my full-time corporate career, I was really dedicated to creating and having and utilizing a process for my coaching. And I think between that and being seen as a objective third party and true partner to whoever I’m coaching really made the difference. And so I think that that’s how it looks different.

Susan White (07:22)
That makes sense, right. So I absolutely see the positive of being that external coach. They always say that, you know, if a consultant tells you, then it must be true. And think about all the times when you’re inside and you’re like, I’ve been telling them the same piece of information for years. Yeah, we pay somebody else to tell them the same thing.

Melissa Greenwell (07:39)
I know. We become a little too familiar when we live inside an organization for a long time.

Susan White (07:44)
It is so true.

JoDee Curtis (07:46)
Yeah.

Susan White (07:46)
So tell us something that is more challenging. Now that you’re an external executive coach, what is harder?

Melissa Greenwell (07:52)
Yeah. Well, what’s harder is as an executive coach, you have a short period of time to learn about the client, learn about the business, understand their culture, and help your client define some real objectives that they want to achieve out of this engagement. So it’s both fun and challenging.

It’s a lot of fun for me to learn about new businesses, but it’s, I think as an effective coach, you do have to focus on doing that because without that understanding, it’s hard to help someone within their own organization if you don’t have some understanding of it. So both challenging, but also really interesting.

Susan White (08:38)
Makes sense.

JoDee Curtis (08:39)
Yeah, nice. So for our HR professionals or business leaders who are listening today, how can they continuously identify leadership strengths in their senior leaders or even in themselves to leverage and find opportunities to be better leaders?

Melissa Greenwell (09:02)
I really believe that the easiest way for us to identify our leadership strengths and then the things that we need to work on is simply by asking other people. Ask your boss, ask the people who report to you, ask your peers. First of all, you gain a lot of credibility as a leader by doing that. You earn people’s trust. It takes a lot of courage and humility to do that, but the more you do it, the easier it gets.

So I think, you know, asking that question, asking those questions continuously, how can I be more effective as a leader? How can I be more effective in my role? What suggestions do you have for me and what I could do differently and to help you be more successful? So I think just going and asking the question is the best way to understand, you know, both our strengths and sort of the things that we need to work on.

JoDee Curtis (10:02)
Yeah, great advice.

Susan White (10:04)
That takes a lot of humility and vulnerability, you know? But I can see how that builds credibility because really listening and then acting on it, wow, that’s huge.

Melissa Greenwell (10:08)
It does. Yeah, that activity or action is a key part of the process that I use. And getting people to be comfortable with that really just takes a little practice and it really doesn’t take long.

Susan White (10:28)
Beautiful. So Melissa, how can executives surround themselves with the right and the best talent? What advice do you have on that front? Because that’s probably the key to most executive success.

Melissa Greenwell (10:40)
Well, for sure, having the right teams is key to being successful in any business. I think being very focused on bringing in skills and perspectives that we don’t have is really important. If we’re a leader who’s always in a hurry, has a high sense of urgency, is impatient, doesn’t like to really pay attention to the details, then we better be finding some people to surround ourselves with who bring those.

It doesn’t do us a great deal of good to hire people who think just like us, who we have the most in common with. We really need to think hard about the business needs and not just the subject matter expertise, but the mindset and the way of thinking and the traits that other people can bring to the team that we don’t possess as the leader.

Susan White (11:38)
Again, that takes a lot of humility, right, and vulnerability to bring in people who aren’t like us, right? So I love that. Yeah.

Melissa Greenwell (11:40)
Well, sure, sure. Yeah, that’s also a little uncomfortable for sure.

Susan White (11:49)
Very good advice though.

JoDee Curtis (11:51)
Melissa, what about when you have an existing team and you’re bringing in new talent to that? How can executives and their HR partners help them best integrate that new talent?

Melissa Greenwell (12:05)
So everybody talks about onboarding and I think sometimes that’s utilized a little too casually. I think the onboarding process needs to be intentional. Of course, we need to meet the people that we’ll be working with and get to know them as people, but we need an opportunity to understand and know the business, understand what challenges are trying to solve.

And also defining how we’re going to communicate. What do the decision rights look like? When do I need to involve someone as opposed to I can just inform them and make the decision on my own? So oftentimes I see relationships go crosswise early in the process inside executive teams, probably the first six months because they don’t take the time to properly, really onboard people in this way. And it is a lot more difficult and time-consuming to fix relationships that have gone off the rails than it does to just start out on the right foot.

I believe that onboarding process should be very intentional, facilitated by someone else if you need make sure that we’re covering all of the bases on understanding the people, the business, and we’re going to work together.

JoDee Curtis (13:31)
Yeah, I remember when you started your coaching business, you told me how important you thought that was to be a part of the onboarding process when, when you could be to help, help make that happen smoothly or more smoothly.

Melissa Greenwell (13:49)
Right, right. Think about how disruptive and expensive it is to an organization when those things don’t happen the way they should and we don’t get the best opportunity to come into a team and hit the ground running. So I think it is first and foremost.

JoDee Curtis (13:57)
Yeah.

Susan White (14:10)
Very smart. Why do you think mentoring is critical to executive success?

Melissa Greenwell (14:15)
I think everyone needs a mentor — in fact, more than one in their career. We’re going to need help with different things through the course of our careers. It’s also beneficial to get different perspectives. So I’m a really a huge fan of sort of a board of mentors as opposed to, you know, we pick one mentor and we kind of stick with that person our entire career. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. That’s great. But guess what I’m saying is it’s really beneficial to get different perspectives with different challenges that we have at different points in our career.

Having an objective kind of third eye or perspective around a certain topic or a certain challenge I think is incredibly helpful. And as leaders, I really believe that it’s everyone’s responsibility to be a mentor, so — and regardless of where you’re at in the organization, you may be a new supervisor or a new manager or a new vice president, any leadership level in the organization be a valuable mentor to somebody else.

JoDee Curtis (15:29)
Yeah, great point about I don’t think anybody would argue the importance of having a mentor, but we don’t always think about are we being a good mentor to others as well too.

Susan White (15:43)
And I think that is such a great development of the mentor. So not only are you developing the mentee, but that mentor, it causes them to look at things differently, trying to impart knowledge and whatnot. So I love that that’s an important component.

Melissa Greenwell (15:55)
Right, right.

JoDee Curtis (15:57)
And Melissa, we always like to ask a JoyPowered® question. So what is one small step that people can do in this coaching or mentoring area to create more joy at work?

Melissa Greenwell (16:10)
I really think it boils down to asking one key question. How can I help you? How can I help you? Even if someone looks like they don’t need help. But I don’t know about you, I get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people. I think most people do. I think that’s a very rewarding experience and it is a practice and a joyful behavior to perpetuate.

JoDee Curtis (16:40)
And so simple, so simple to — not, it’s not always simple to help people, but it’s simple to ask the question and to start the conversation.

Melissa Greenwell (16:44)
Right.

Susan White (16:51)
That’s great. So Melissa, how can our listeners reach you if they’d like to explore this topic more with you?

Melissa Greenwell (16:58)
My website is melissagreenwell.com, anyone can contact me through there. I’m on LinkedIn. those are probably the best options for getting in touch with me directly.

Susan White (17:11)
Beautiful, and we’ll put links to those in our show notes. So if you’re driving right now and listening to this episode and you want to reach out to Melissa, go look at our show notes later. All right, Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today.

JoDee Curtis (17:22)
Yes, thank you.

Melissa Greenwell (17:22)
Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it.

JoDee Curtis (17:25)
Susan, here’s our listener question for today. “Can you ever talk about bad employees or is it best to never bring them up due to defamation?”

Susan White (17:38)
Okay, well, quick reminder, neither JoDee nor I are attorneys, so please consult with your labor law counsel whenever you have a question about defamation or potentially violating anyone else’s rights or the law. But I’m gonna give you our HR perspective and JoDee, hope you’ll pipe in too.

As long as what I say about a former employee or an existing employee is true and I feel like I could defend it, I would not rule out that I might share something. I would temper my desire to say it with what purpose does it serve? So if someone is calling me for a reference on someone and I know there’s something just awful there, something diabolical, something that could harm others, I might share. If I know it’s true, I know I could defend it. I might check with my legal counsel or whoever supporting that organization’s labor law. I might speak up.

But if it’s, if it’s not the case, if it’s not diabolical or potentially harmful to others, if I’m just angry about it, if I’m just disappointed in the individual, if we as an organization feel, you know, that what the individual did wasn’t right or it wasn’t what we expected or didn’t live up to our values or to our rules, but I don’t think it’s something they can go out and harm other people, I’m not sure there’s any purpose to share that.

There is risk when you are talking about employees. People can sue people for any reason. People can sue organizations for any reason. I don’t like to add fuel to a fire if it’s not necessary. So I would be thoughtful. I’d be very thoughtful.

And I know most organizations, those of our listeners that work in HR or maybe lead businesses, you probably think to yourself, we just don’t share anything. We’ll share the date someone worked with us, maybe their job title, but we’re not doing any more, I think that you have an opportunity to rethink that when there’s a potential of danger at the other end of it. I don’t know, JoDee, I’m sure you get this question a lot about former employees and what can we or should we say.

JoDee Curtis (19:40)
Yeah, well, first off, think the question, you know, was not really — didn’t give us a lot of context, but I too was thinking of it in terms of reference or a recommendation. And I would, you know, follow everything you said as well. No, no need to stir up old wounds or, or stir the pot at all, but I definitely would at a minimum say it wasn’t a good situation or it didn’t work out well for us at the time. People change, people have life experiences, so you never know what’s going on with a person. But I think in a reference, I’d be careful.

Susan White (20:28)
Yeah, I know that when I work with clients on any type of a hiring situation, I really do want to call references. I insist on it, in fact, especially for senior leader positions, because I feel like when I call, I can sometimes hear a gasp. I can hear hesitation, although maybe there’s things they’re not saying to me, but I take those as red flags. And I know a number of hiring decisions it caused us to probe deeper…

JoDee Curtis (20:39)
Yeah, great. Right.

Susan White (20:54)
…to really make sure this is the person we hired. So for those of you who said, I’m not doing references, people are only gonna give you people who like them, I’m telling you that most people out there have integrity and even if someone who liked them, they sometimes send you signals. So.

JoDee Curtis (21:09)
I 100% agree and I also think it’s very important to check references. So what if they give some generic answers, but that even — you mentioned the pause, right? A pause can tell you a lot.

Susan White (21:23)
Yes, I think so. Right. It’s worth it. Don’t let — don’t leave it on the floor. Go ahead and pick it up and do with it what you will.

All right, JoDee, it’s time for in the news. A December 12th, 2025 HRexecutive.com article by Michael Popke caught our attention. It is entitled “When Employees Lack Purpose, Health Risks Skyrocket.” Popke cited a Cigna Group’s “Vitality in America” 2025 report, which found that only one in three American adults say they have a strong sense of purpose. And without that purpose, individuals are more likely to be disengaged at work, report burnout, and look for a new job. Let’s share the three highlights in the report that Popkey noted.

JoDee Curtis (22:12)
Number one, people without purpose are two to three times more likely to feel depressed.

Susan White (22:19)
Number two, lacking purpose is linked to unhealthy behaviors. Less likely to see a doctor, less likely to go to the dentist, they’re not likely to practice good nutrition, maybe they have stress eating going on.

JoDee Curtis (22:34)
And number three, loneliness sets in. We learned a bit during the COVID about loneliness and how that can impact people and their behaviors, their ability to engage. So important to avoid that.

Susan White (22:38)
So important. I totally agree. I am a strong believer that every person in your organization needs to understand why their work matters, what their purpose for coming in every day or night is. And as HR professionals and business leaders, we need to remind them often of the value they bring and reward them for it.

JoDee Curtis (23:14)
Yeah, I agree. I think we all hope that people will find their purpose, but I do think we can help them find it or remind them or have conversations about asking them about their purpose to find that out.

Susan White (23:20)
I totally agree. If you’re SHRM certified, you can get credit for listening to this episode. To get the code, go to getjoypowered.com slash SHRM and fill out a short evaluation. When you finish the evaluation, you’ll get the code and a link to a proof of participation certificate. The code will expire on March 9th, 2027.

Again, that’s getjoypowered.com slash shrm to get the code and it’s going to expire on March 9th, 2027. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to the HR profession.

JoDee Curtis (24:12)
And as always, make it a JoyPowered® day!

Susan White (24:16)
Thank you.