Women’s History Month: Kristie Kemner-Schoen

In cel­e­bra­tion of Women’s His­to­ry Month, we spoke to one of our female lead­ers, Kristie Kem­n­er-Schoen. Kristie serves as our Direc­tor of Inte­gra­tive Health Ser­vices here at QMG. She shares more about lead­ers who have inspired her, what lead­er­ship means to her, and her advice for future generations.

Who inspired you to be a leader and why?

Over the years I have become increas­ing­ly influ­enced by lead­ers who pio­neer. I like study­ing peo­ple who think dif­fer­ent­ly when con­front­ed with a chal­lenge or prob­lem. Of all the peo­ple I have read about, speak­ers I have lis­tened to, or heard on a pod­cast they seem to have one com­mon denom­i­na­tor that has always seemed to hook my inter­est. They did not let the chal­lenge or the prob­lem be the bar­ri­er to their suc­cess. They used it as their start­ing block to push off of for momen­tum. Prob­lems were their muse for their inno­va­tion. I, too, feel this way. I actu­al­ly enjoy engag­ing in chal­leng­ing tasks and projects.

As I took some time to fur­ther reflect on what inspired me to become a leader, I real­ized that it wasn’t so much who inspired me but rather some­thing I was always kind of drawn to. I believe I was always kind of hard-wired for lead­er­ship. I was always a com­pet­i­tive kid who liked to go first, take charge, or speak up. I was often described by oth­ers over the years as being ​“pas­sion­ate, ener­getic, self-moti­vat­ed, and deter­mined.” But if you asked my broth­er and close fam­i­ly mem­bers they would tell you that I could be more accu­rate­ly described as being ​“intense, loud, bossy, com­pet­i­tive and per­sis­tent.” All jokes aside, there is prob­a­bly truth in the lat­ter. Addi­tion­al­ly, I equal­ly love the syn­er­gy that can be man­i­fest­ed when indi­vid­u­als come togeth­er with vary­ing tal­ents and work togeth­er as a team. I have had the unique priv­i­lege to play on sev­er­al suc­cess­ful teams over the years that have received many acco­lades. I think the com­bi­na­tion of my hard-wired per­son­al­i­ty quirks along with my team­work men­tal­i­ty and pos­i­tive atti­tude organ­i­cal­ly put me where I am today.

What does being a leader mean to you?
I would like to ref­er­ence some­thing that I came across in a book that I read that real­ly stuck with me. In the book, they talked about leg­endary foot­ball coach and change agent, Lou Holtz. It stat­ed, ​“Lou Holtz is a leader who under­stands how to cre­ate pos­i­tive change. He is what I would like to call a U‑turn leader, a per­son who is able to take a foot­ball orga­ni­za­tion that is head­ing down­ward, stop the neg­a­tive momen­tum, change the direc­tion it is head­ing, and turn it upward, cre­at­ing pos­i­tive momentum.”

When I read this I remem­bered think­ing that this is exact­ly the kind of leader I want to be. To me being a leader is some­one who is able to rec­og­nize pos­si­bil­i­ties where oth­ers see prob­lems. They are pos­i­tive vision­ar­ies despite the land­scape. They are not eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed by prob­lems, set­backs, or neg­a­tive atti­tudes but rather fueled by them. They see them as oppor­tu­ni­ties that hold poten­tial ben­e­fits to learn more and gain fur­ther per­spec­tive which trans­lates to rapid growth.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I believe lead­ers should spend inten­tion­al time invest­ing and devel­op­ing the peo­ple and tal­ent that sur­round them. I know we have all heard and read that peo­ple are our most valu­able asset. They are. By choos­ing to spend ded­i­cat­ed time with a few indi­vid­u­als rather than being every­thing to every­one I have had the unique priv­i­lege of see­ing incred­i­ble growth for future lead­ers with­in our orga­ni­za­tion. I feel lead­ers should ded­i­cate time to help­ing their peo­ple become bet­ter prob­lem solvers, empow­er­ing them to make deci­sions, and help­ing them reach their poten­tial. Encour­age them to take risks and sup­port them when the out­comes were both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive. Learn to ask more ques­tions and do less telling. Help your peo­ple devel­op the skills need­ed so they can oper­ate inde­pen­dent­ly. Dual­ly, see­ing your peo­ple flour­ish and own­ing their roles can be a real­ly amaz­ing experience.

What lead­er­ship advice do you have for kids and young adults for the future?
My advice for the future lead­ers out there would be this. Be unapolo­get­i­cal­ly tena­cious. Be qui­et­ly instru­men­tal. Be pas­sion­ate and full of grit. Be a pos­i­tive dis­rup­tor. Demand excel­lence. Embrace your flaws and own them. Seek and devel­op per­spec­tive. Think dif­fer­ent­ly. Chal­lenge your­self and oth­ers. Be a pos­i­tive vision­ary. Ask a lot of ques­tions. Self-reflect. Be a change agent. Be an advo­cate. Own your mis­takes and apol­o­gize for them. Demon­strate a great atti­tude. View prob­lems as oppor­tu­ni­ties. Col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers. Have empa­thy. Show com­pas­sion. Nev­er stop learn­ing. Step into courage, not fear. Focus on your strengths and out­source your weak­ness­es. Cre­ate mar­gins for new tal­ent to emerge. Have con­fi­dence, not an ego, and be wise enough to know the dif­fer­ence as it will be the deter­min­ing fac­tor of your success.