Leadership isn't all kumbaya. The truth is, real leadership, the kind that moves the needle on something as daunting as closing the health gap, is risky. It requires disrupting the status quo, disappointing your own people, and absorbing the discomfort that comes with change. But as this episode makes clear, the cost of avoiding that risk is even higher.

In this episode, hosts Ed O'Malley and Susan Kang are joined by returning guest Kenny Wilk to unpack why exercising leadership is inherently risky, what it looks like in practice and why the reward on the other side is worth it.

Highlights

• While many individuals placed in leadership roles believe they’re exercising leadership, it’s actually exceedingly rare.
• Leadership is risky because it’s about disruption, and how it requires disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.
• The risk-reward mismatch in health equity: the 30,000 Kansans with the most influence must take risk to benefit the people with the least, such as the ALICE population (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).
• The remarkable turnaround of the University of Kansas Health System, from one of the worst-rated hospitals in the nation (below the 5th percentile in patient satisfaction) to consistently above the 90th percentile.
• Kenny's personal framework for staying motivated to lead on issues that don't directly benefit him: gratitude, paying it forward and finding deep satisfaction in others' success.
• The "Salad Week" story from the 2002 Kansas legislative budget crisis. A vivid example of leaders forcing uncomfortable conversations their own caucus didn't want to have.
• The Kansas Capitol restoration decision: why Kenny and Senate counterpart Steve Morris refused to defund it even in a financial crisis and why it paid off.
• Examples of risk in what Kansans experience every day, but could deliver a great payoff.
• How embracing the opportunity to challenge one another with different ideas can introduce new ways of thinking.

Chapters

1:19 – Review, Preview and Big Picture

2:57 – Introducing Chapter 10: [Leadership] is Risky

5:33 – How Leadership Involves Disruption and Loss

7:50 – Leadership Requires Disappointing Your Own People

9:33 – KHF Strategy as an Example

12:21 – Risk vs. Reward in Health Equity

14:31 – Kenny on the risks and transformation of the Kansas Health System

16:14 – From Worst to Best: Culture Shift

19:05 – Metrics and Momentum Wins

21:07 – The Risky Turnaround Story

23:08 – Pay It Forward Mindset

26:19 – Hallmark Promotion Risk

27:58 – Post-9/11 Budget Crisis

30:14 – Salad Week Disruption

32:55 – Capitol Restoration Resolve

34:50 – Everyday Risk Examples

37:10 – Acceptance and Pushback

39:01 – Make Leadership Ubiquitous

40:10 – Resources and Final Challenge

42:45 – Closing and Next Chapter

Resources

• Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) — kansasleadershipcenter.org
• Proud but Never Satisfied — book about the transformation of the University of Kansas Health System - https://www.kansashealthsystem.com/proud-but-never-satisfied
• University of Kansas Health System — kansashealthsystem.com

Leading Health is an invitation to move the needle on Health in Kansas, and we invite you to join us in leading the way.

Don’t have a copy of Leading Health? Claim your copy and learn more about the movement at kansashealth.org/leadinghealth

And be sure to subscribe, and drop a comment to let us know what you think.

It’s no secret that to solve the Health Gap in Kansas, we need those in authority to stop thinking of this as a health challenge and start thinking of it as a leadership challenge that requires a lot of change.

We know that what people often fear most about change is losing something that matters to them. Understanding that distinction is the key that unlocks real progress.

In this chapter of Leading Health, Ed O'Malley and Susan Kang dig into one of the most important and most overlooked concepts in leadership: the relationship between change and loss. Joined again by Johnathan Sublet, founder of SENT, Inc. in Topeka, they explore what it truly takes to help communities let go of what is to make room for what could be. Kansas has climbed to #27 in the health rankings — three consecutive years of improvement for the first time in 35 years. Getting to #1 will require leaders who can name the losses, speak to them honestly and create space for others to do the same.

Highlights

• People don't fear change — they fear loss. Reframing resistance as data, not opposition, shifts the locus of responsibility back to the leader.
• When someone pushes back on your idea, that's information. It means they perceive a loss you haven't yet addressed.
• Speaking to loss is powerful. So is letting loss speak — inviting others to voice what's hard creates trust and energizes people toward change.
• Johnathan Sublet shares five universal fears (death, being an outsider, the future, chaos and insignificance) and the five corresponding needs leaders must address to reduce anxiety and improve performance.
• The story of Topeka's first net-zero home and a significant tree to a grieving family. Illustrating what it looks like to speak to loss in a deeply human way.
• Technical experts (engineers, health professionals, administrators) face a particular challenge: their expertise can lead them to double down on logic when empathy is what's needed.
• The Moses framework: leadership requires both systems-thinking and shepherding, and most leaders are naturally strong in only one.
• Closing the urban-rural divide in Kansas health requires people to lose their attachment to the idea that their challenge is uniquely theirs.
• Prioritizing health means deprioritizing something else, and that's a real loss for the people who care about those other things.
• Think 401k, not day trading: small, consistent, compounding investments in a shared strategy, not swinging for the miracle, is how Kansas gets to #1.

Chapters

0:47 — Introduction: Chapter 9 — It's a Leadership Challenge Because It Requires Loss

4:00 — People Don't Fear Change — They Fear Loss

5:03 — Resistance as Data: What Pushback Is Really Telling You

7:25 — Speaking to Loss vs. Letting Loss Speak

10:01 — Guest Introduction: Johnathan Sublet, SENT

12:38 — The Five Universal Fears and Five Universal Needs

15:19 — Real-World Loss: Topeka's First Net Zero Home and the Tree

18:17 — The Moses Framework: Systems Thinking Meets Shepherding

27:27 — Letting Go of Your Preferred Strategy: The K-State Transdisciplinary Housing Team

32:57 — Six Sigma and Prioritizing for Impact: The Sent Network Approach

36:07 — Takeaways: Acknowledging Loss to Make Progress

37:24 — 401k vs. Day Trading: A Mindset for Long-Term Health Leadership

Resources Mentioned

• America's Health Rankings
• SENT — A Topeka-based nonprofit that focuses on Community Health and Wellness, Education and Workforce Development and Housing and Revitalization.

Leading Health is an invitation to move the needle on Health in Kansas, and we invite you to join us in leading the way.

Don’t have a copy of Leading Health? Claim your copy and learn more about the movement at kansashealth.org/leadinghealth

And be sure to subscribe, and drop a comment to let us know what you think.

What if the biggest barrier to better health in your community isn't a lack of resources, but a set of assumptions you didn't even know you were making?

In this conversation, co-hosts Ed O'Malley and Susan Kang are joined by returning guest Kenny Wilk of the University of Kansas Health System. Together, they unpack how hidden assumptions — about who should be involved, what needs to be done, and how fast progress can happen — quietly shape how people in authority think and act. Wilk shares candid stories from his time in the Kansas Legislature and offers a fresh lens on exercising leadership. This conversation will challenge you to surface the assumptions driving your own work before they become "premeditated resentments."

Highlights

• The three most common assumptions the 30,000 make when tackling complex health challenges, and why each one can derail progress.
• The critical difference between adaptive and technical challenges.
• Kenny Wilk's hard-won insight from the Kansas Legislature: don't ask people to change their minds; give them new information so they can make a new decision.
• How sharing information to ‘slow things down’ can help a group go farther, together.
• The "sidewalk story" is a simple metaphor that reframes how we see ‘work’ being done.
• The danger of bringing people together only to present a baked solution, and what to do instead.

Chapters

0:47 —Leading Health Review, Preview and Big Picture.
3:02 — Chapter Eight insight: "Closing the Health Gap Is a Leadership Challenge Because Our Existing Assumptions Fail Us"
4:55 — The three common assumptions the 30,000 make
6:28 — The quick fix trap
8:37 — Technical vs. adaptive: a broken bone example
11:14 — Kenny Wilk joins the conversation
12:18 — The water debate: a lesson from Kenny's first year in the legislature
14:52 — Defining "assumption" — and why we're all starting from different places
15:56 — You have to slow down to go far
16:22 — Getting up on the balcony to examine assumptions
17:52 — New decisions, not mind changes
19:13 — How authority can create space for assumption-surfacing
21:05 — Why leaders jump straight to solutions
22:59 — From kitchen table to campaign trail to governing — three different phases
24:27 — Technical vs. adaptive challenges in practice
27:13 — What authorities must do differently on adaptive challenges
30:46 — The sidewalk story: seeing the invisible work of adaptive leadership
33:50 — Takeaways and preview of the next episode

Resources Mentioned

• Kansas Health Rankings
• University of Kansas Health System
• Kansas Leadership Center (KLC)

Leading Health is an invitation to move the needle on Health in Kansas, and we invite you to join us in leading the way.

Don’t have a copy of Leading Health? Claim your copy and learn more about the movement at kansashealth.org/leadinghealth

And be sure to subscribe, and drop a comment to let us know what you think.