Shannon Ross
VP of Human Resources, Home Health
Amedisys
Episode 207
Why your best people leave: The critical role of connected leadership.
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleMay 2, 2025 · 12:27
Thesis
“Effective leadership, grounded in clear direction, genuine connection, consistent feedback, and active career development, is fundamental for fostering employee engagement, retention, and organizational success, particularly in specialized and evolving work environments.”
Show notes
Leadership and HR Development with Shannon Ross on the Built by People Podcast
In this episode of the Built by People Podcast, host welcomes Shannon, a 20-year HR veteran, to discuss her career journey and insights on leadership development and employee retention. Shannon shares her transition from a college athlete to an HR professional, with experiences ranging from hospitality and inside sales to key HR roles at GE Healthcare and Biogen.
She highlights a successful leadership development initiative at a surgical robotics organization and emphasizes the importance of communication and understanding in leadership.
Shannon also discusses strategies to improve employee retention and real-life examples where effective leadership significantly elevated team performance.
She concludes with advice for aspiring leaders on essential traits and actions to foster a productive and cohesive team environment.
00:00 Introduction and Career Journey
02:41 Leadership Development Initiatives
05:17 Impact of Effective Leadership on Retention
07:45 Improving Team Performance through Leadership
09:52 Key Advice for Aspiring Leaders
12:21 Conclusion and Farewell
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What you'll take away
- 1Implement leadership development programs that are tailored to organizational needs, cohort-based, and integrate coaching with practical projects.
- 2Practice 'over-communication,' especially by explaining the 'why' behind changes, to build employee buy-in and enhance retention.
- 3Leaders must proactively connect with team members beyond work tasks, understanding that 'you can't lead people you don't know' for effective leadership.
- 4Provide early and frequent feedback, and ensure direct managers own all career discussions including pay, promotions, and performance ratings.
- 5Improve cross-functional team performance by identifying a shared purpose ('the why') and fostering partnerships at every level between specialized groups.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Many leaders are stepping away from having career discussions with their employees, but direct managers should own everything related to an employee's career discussion, including pay, promotions, and performance.
In Shannon's words
“I always joke that I moved 4 times in 4 years with GE. I had various roles, specialists, generalists, all part of the healthcare business, but really got some broad exposure to HR and then moved from GE to Biogen...”
Highlights a career journey focused on gaining diverse HR experience through varied roles and company transitions.
“Wicked technical with almost no leadership experience. And so when I joined the organization, quickly identified we had this kind of middle manager group, like many organizations do, that just didn't have a ton of training in what good leadership looked like.”
Describes a common challenge in tech-heavy startups where technical experts are promoted without adequate leadership training.
“I can't say that enough. It sounds so simple, but communicating with people about what good looks like, that behavior was just as important as the outputs.”
Emphasizes the often-underestimated power of clear communication regarding behavioral expectations alongside performance metrics.
“One of my mentors always said, you can't lead people you don't know.”
A concise and profound statement underscoring the necessity of personal connection for effective leadership and team buy-in.
“I have found where leaders were stepping away from having career discussions with their employees and allowing an HR person or a compensation person or insert someone else here to have a career discussion. And as a leader, people should be owning Everything related to a career discussion, pay, promotions, performance rating, a bonus or not, getting a new job or not.”
Advocates for direct managers taking full ownership of employee career development, challenging the trend of delegating these crucial conversations.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Organizations struggle with high turnover and disengagement when technically proficient employees are promoted to leadership without sufficient soft skills training.
- •Acquired companies or satellite sites often face poor employee engagement and high turnover due to inadequate communication, especially regarding the 'why' of changes and behavioral expectations.
- •Highly specialized internal teams (e.g., biostatisticians) may excel technically but fail in cross-functional partnering, leading to inefficiencies and unfulfilled client needs.
- •A growing trend of leaders delegating career, compensation, and promotion discussions to HR, leaving employees feeling disconnected from their growth and development paths within the company.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
Shannon Miller is a 20-year HR veteran at Amedisys
Amedisys VP of HR introduction
Can you share a specific example of a leadership development initiative that you implemented
Initiating a Leadership Development Initiative
Effective leadership can directly impact employee retention, according to Michael Miller
How Effective Leadership Affects Employee Retention
Shannon says leaders' influence significantly improve team performance
Leaders' influence
As a leader, you should be direction, connection, feedback and career
Shannon On The 4 Things Leaders Need to Have
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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