234: Dean Hallett | Starting Hallett Leadership After Impacting Organization And Culture At Fox And Disney

Episode 234 gets into the swing of things with guest Dean Hallett, Founder & CEO of Hallett Leadership. During his 17-year tenure at Fox Studios, where he served as CFO, Dean developed a unique and highly effective 9-month leadership training program for early and mid-career managers. The program’s success at breaking down silos across Fox, and fostering a culture of collaboration, led to Dean’s promotion to Senior Executive VP of Operations & Management. Today, the program Dean pioneered at Fox is called the Accelerated Leadership Program (ALP), which “develops tomorrow’s leaders today.”

Decades of experience in a space is something that gives refinement we highly desire when we are looking for a person of quality. Dean has some baseline rules for leadership, as well as understanding of how to facilitate levels of leadership underneath him.

I spoke with Dean about a variety of topics related to leadership, his experience at Fox and Disney, personality traits that matter in organizational leadership, and more.

Show notes:

how Dean deviated from his earlier public accounting track to his positions as CFO of large corporations
why being somewhat introverted can bring value to an organization, and how introverts sometimes have the most to offer
what some examples of Dean providing leadership consisted of
how the reward structure of a corporation affects what people target their efforts toward, and how shifting this reward structure is important for improved culture
what some of the qualities are that Dean looks for in people working around and under him, to have a highly-effective organization
why letting people work their own way and be creative leads to positive and potentially surprisingly positive results
how Dean feels about feeling comfort in life, versus expanding one’s zone
what books have been read by Dean for understanding, including Collaboration Begins With You by Ken Blanchard, and The Tao to High-Performance Leadership by Jack Zwissig
why storytelling has a compelling force to it
how being fearful of training and developing your people sends them away, as opposed to the alternative

It was a pleasure to speak with Dean during this episode, and hear some other stories about his life experiences. He is a full person, as I would describe it, and is on the way in his new path. I always connect more with individuals building their own name and entities. You can check out his coaching material at Hallett Leadership.