Leaders must be bold thinkers, and they must create an environment where their team is supported to take risks.
Blog Posts
How Risk-Taking is Beneficial, In and Out of the Office
Four years ago, I did something that many people would consider a risky endeavor: I climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Had I ever done anything even remotely like this? No. Was the eight-day climb a challenge? Absolutely. But that’s exactly why I did it. Saying "yes" to this didn’t come out of nowhere. I didn’t wake up one day and suddenly become a risk-taker. While preparing for this climb, I spent [...]
How Innovation is Changing the Hearing Industry
When I started at Starkey nearly 25 years ago, the hearing industry looked very different than it does today. Dozens of hearing manufacturers have dwindled down to just five around the globe, with Starkey being the only one based in the U.S. Starkey looked different too. Bill Austin’s vision has helped grow this company to more than 6,000 employees in 26+ facilities across the globe. It’s an incredible achievement considering, as he told Our American Stories [...]
What I’ve Learned During 25 Years at Starkey — People are the Bottom Line
I was 19 years old when I first walked into Starkey’s All Make Repair and Earmold Lab. My job was to clean up old hearing aids and make them look as new as possible after repair. I also polished earmold pieces. In 1994, as a teenager still trying to figure out my direction in life, I never would have guessed that in that tiny corner of a growing global company I would realize my life’s [...]
Leading From the Front
As the President of Starkey, I’m often asked the question, “How do you define leadership?” From time to time, I remind my own executive team to always be willing to lead from the front. What does that mean? Isn’t someone who is leading a division, a group or even a company automatically a leader? The short answer -- no. ‘Boss’ and ‘Leader’ are Not Synonymous Boss is a title that is given to you. Leader [...]