2024 BEN Talks: Leading by Example

This industry is no walk in the park, but people keep finding a reason to come back and fight the good fight. But, what is that reason? At this year’s BenefitsPRO Broker Expo, four industry leaders shared the various challenges they’ve faced as leaders and innovators, along with their reasons why it’s all worth it.

‘Don’t Lead Like Me’

Eric Silverman, founder of Voluntary Disruption, has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a good leader, and his perspective comes in large from knowing what a bad one looks like.

“I’m not here to motivate you or inspire you,” he told attendees. “ It took me more than a decade to realize that my original style for leadership and management was modeled after a mentor that was more like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada than that of a true leader.”

At the “doe-eyed” age of 19, new to the workforce, Silverman’s goal was simple: make money. He started working for a major carrier — and, simply put, got off on the wrong foot. “What was I taught? We have to win at all costs and nothing else matters. I was taught that money is everything. Second place is just the first-place loser.”

He related, unabashedly, the values and behaviors instilled by his mentor — selfishness, leveraging fear and threats to get ahead, belittling peers. “I did it, I own it, and I’m responsible for it,” he said. “We weren’t leaders. We were managers. Now, I know and internalize that leaders lead from a place of complete and utter abundance: there’s enough for everybody. Managers live from a place of scarcity and fear.”

This past experience is why Silverman has become such a champion of a “people over everything” leadership style. He concluded this talk with “3.5 tributes to honor” that he’s arrived at after years of self-reflection:

1. That original mentor. “If not for him, I wouldn’t be the people-over-everything and abundance-driven leader that I believe I have come to be today.”

2. His team members from his days as a carrier rep. “I’m not asking for them to forget, I’m only hopeful for their forgiveness at some point.”

3. His wife and two children. “Megan always has my back, total 100% unconditional love and support. I never want to let our children down, I never want to let her down.”

3.5. His peers. “You in this room, right now. All of you forward-thinking rockstars who have taken the initiative to better yourself. You’re becoming even better humans by learning from my failures and my successes.”

‘Find Your Village’

At first, Erika Ensign of Leavitt Group could not believe that BenefitsPRO reached out to her and asked her to share her amazing story with attendees at the Broker Expo. She immediately called a good friend, Susan Combs, and asked if this was a mistake. “I’m just a girl doing the best I can in the world, who now is a mother who is still doing the best that I can with what I have. I’m just doing things,” she said

Erika pondered what she had to contribute and why her story was even important. Combs revealed she had a story to share with Erika, which ending up being Erika’s story. Combs shared why her story matters to people and why it would resonate with the audience.

“We are fighting a similar fight for this world, for our families, for this industry… it’s really empowering. Coming here each year reminds us, we are not alone,” Ensign said. After her conversation with Combs, Erika said she continually was checked in on by various peers, friends, and family members. Erika referred to this as her “village”.

She went on to explain that she is a single mother. In 2008, Ensign graduated from her undergrad and in 2010, graduated with her master’s degree. This all happened while she was the mother of a young girl, and she realized she could not do this alone. Her college counselor helped Erika as she finished her degrees, by watching her daughter in between classes and supporting Erika mentally, never letting her give up. “She stood for me when I couldn’t stand on my own,” Ensign said.

“If you don’t have a village, it’s really heavy to carry these emotions,” she said. Finding a village doesn’t have to be people who live close to you, but rather anyone who can help carry your burden, or walk you through something so you can continue to help people in this industry. “That’s all people care about: They want to know someone is there for them.”

Ensign finished her BEN talk by saying, “Just remember, the folks that are on the outside of the arena spectating earn no space in your life for what you are doing. You are in the arena and you are fighting the fight. Keep fighting and find your village along the way so you can keep going.”

‘The Responsibility of Leadership’

Marlin Woods and Jessica Brooks-Woods have two contrasting but complementary leadership styles. Marlin is an ordained minister and leadership coach whose booming voice inspires a crowd. “My responsibility is to make certain you get this information,” Woods said of the couple’s shared BEN Talk. “We’re talking about leadership, the responsibility of leading.”

His wife, on the other hand, leads from a place of “being seen when you don’t know you’re being seen.”

Those aren’t words one would expect to hear of the current CEO of NABIP, but it stems from the years of work she did in her prior role leading the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, where Brooks-Woods developed a reputation as someone who gets things done. “That’s where I earned the reputation of the Velvet Hammer,” she said. “That came with battle wounds. Being willing to be out there and pretty much alone, asking questions that others weren’t willing to ask.”

Because of her reputation, people would reach out to her for help, turning to her to help navigate a medical system that left them lost and overwhelmed. Brooks-Woods would put in a call and get them the help they needed.

“After the third time, I said, ‘Okay, this is happening on your watch; this isn’t the first time, this isn’t the second,’” she said. “People are only coming to me when they feel there is no other option. There was a disconnect between that quick response and the reality of what is happening in that setting.”

And this, Woods said, is the difference between a leader and leadership. “One is reactive, the other is responsive. One is responsible. Leadership rises up out of you. When someone asks who you are, it isn’t your name, where you’re from, who your parents are, and certainly not what you do for a living. It is, ‘I am a solution, given to fill a hole, fill a gap.’”

And this is the message of leadership the couple wanted their audience to carry home with them. Leadership is not just about being that solution, but calling out and empowering others to become leaders, as well.

“Some of you have people that you see right now that you know you need to go and give an opportunity to,” Woods said. “They’re on your minds. Call that person, send them a note. You have a responsibility to them to do that. That’s leadership.”

And as Brooks-Woods said, “Don’t make them come to you and have to ask.”