Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

Skip the Sexy Stuff: Why Leadership Development Needs to Start with the Boring Bits with Dr. Barrett Keene

Aug 27, 2025

Dr. Barrett Keene, Senior Director of Talent Development at Stanford Health Care, shares his journey from academia to leadership consulting, highlighting his experience with Fortune 500 companies. He emphasizes the importance of foundational leadership skills like goal setting and active listening, while addressing the impact of generative AI on effective leadership. Barrett discusses bridging the gap between leadership theory and practice, advocating for a customer-centric approach to leadership development that aligns organizational goals with individual identities.

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ANECDOTE

From Cornell To Consulting For Life Choices

Barrett left an academic path for consulting to follow a personal relationship and ended up at Accenture Strategy.
That path led to working with dozens of Fortune companies and later roles at Tesla and Intuit.

ADVICE

Make Generative AI A Weekly Skill

Dive into generative AI and practice it weekly to stay relevant at work.
Train leaders and employees to use generative AI or risk being left behind.

INSIGHT

Foundational Management Enables Leadership

Transactional leadership skills are the foundation that make transformational leadership possible.
Skipping management basics weakens the whole leadership

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Dr. Barrett Keene is the Senior Director of Talent Development at Stanford Health Care. He previously served as Director of Talent Development at Intuit, where he led teams that develop leaders in Silicon Valley and across the world. Before Intuit, Barrett worked at Tesla as an executive coach and the Head of Leadership and Talent Development for Tesla’s Engineering organizations. In addition to Barrett’s work as an internal Leadership and Talent Development leader, Barrett spent four years helping nine Fortune 100 companies develop their leaders and employees with Accenture Strategy and the previous eleven years as an independent leadership development consultant within more than 80 organizations.

Before joining Accenture, Barrett completed a PhD at Cornell University focusing on Transformational Leadership and Behavioral Integrity and a Master of Business Management while teaching middle school and high school in Miami and Tampa. Barrett lives with his wife and children in Palo Alto, California.

A Quote From This Episode

“We’ve skipped over transactional leadership for too long, but without those foundations, the staircase of leadership falls apart.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

📗 Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't by Pfeffer
📗 The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations by Kouzes and Posner
📗 Leadership Processes and Follower Self-Identity by Lord & Brown

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!

About Scott J. Allen

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