Uncommon Growth Leaders: A Conversation with Beth Wood and Brad Kaufman of Principal Financial Group

In times defined by disruption, from market volatility and AI to geopolitical flux, growth must be designed, not assumed. For this installment of Uncommon Growth Leaders, Chiaki Nishino spoke with Beth Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, and Brad Kaufman, Head of Digital Marketing and Marketing Operations at Principal Financial Group, about what it really takes to lead with purpose, clarity and resilience. 

Beth, let’s start at the top. When everything around you is changing, how do you ground leadership? What’s most important to you in those moments of uncertainty? 

Beth: It starts with clarity of strategy, purpose and values. You need a strategy that recognizes the forces outside your walls and gives people something stable to hold onto. Once you’ve got that, you repeat it, over and over. I often say, communicate, communicate, communicate. 

And you can’t drift from your core values. Those have to stay constant no matter how much the world changes. At Principal, we make our values visible, literally. They’re on walls, desktops and in conversations. We measure ourselves against them. If we’re not living up to them, we act. 

The other piece is followership. You want to build an organization full of people who would follow you anywhere, not because they have to, but because they want to. That’s how you build trust. 

Followership isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about belief. People follow leaders who are consistent, transparent, and authentic, leaders who show them the “why” behind the work, not just the “what.” When your team understands the purpose, when they see that you’ll make the hard calls and stand behind them, that’s when loyalty and engagement take root. 

I tell my leaders all the time: your goal is to earn discretionary effort; the effort people give because they believe in you, not because it’s written in their job description. When you’ve built that kind of followership, alignment becomes effortless, communication becomes more direct, and performance accelerates. It’s not about charisma or being liked, it’s about credibility and care. People will follow you through ambiguity if they trust your intent and your direction. 

Brad, how does that show up in your day-to-day leadership? 

Brad: Consistency is everything. The best leaders don’t just communicate clearly once they keep reinforcing the same message until it sticks. Words matter, and how you use them shapes trust. 

Consistency doesn’t mean being rigid; it means being reliable. When people know what to expect from you, even in uncertain times, they can move faster and make better decisions. It builds confidence. If you’re changing direction every week or framing the story differently every time you speak, people lose track of what matters most. 

I remind my team that clarity compounds. Every time you repeat the same vision with the same intent, you’re reinforcing the signal in a world full of noise. Consistency gives your people something to anchor to, and that’s when influence becomes sustainable. 

And when it comes to driving transformation, we always start with the problem. Teams love to jump into solutions, but I bring them back to the core question: what problem are we trying to solve? Once that’s clear, alignment and creativity happen naturally. 

The past few years have been incredibly disruptive. How do you balance short-term performance with long-term vision? 

Beth: You have to think with both sides of your brain. Short-term results matter, but if you only chase the urgent, you’ll never innovate. Our teams understand their role in both horizons: to solve today’s problems and to imagine tomorrow’s opportunities. 

I tell my teams constantly; you have permission to think big. But people need to hear a long-term idea 10 or 20 times before they start to believe it’s real. Repetition turns aspiration into culture. 

Brad: Exactly. I always say it takes a thousand one-on-ones. You can’t just say the vision once and assume people internalize it. I literally pull out our original project decks months later to remind everyone where we started. 

And psychological safety is huge. If people don’t understand something — or disagree — they have to feel safe to say so. That’s how you keep people aligned and engaged for the long haul. 

Beth, how do you make sure your teams stay customer-centered, especially in a large, complex organization? 

Beth: We keep our finger on the pulse. We run monthly “pulse” surveys, maintain multiple customer panels, and manage the long-standing research called the Well-Being Index that tracks optimism and financial health among small and midsize business owners. 

We also co-create with customers. We ask them directly: how would this work for you? They always bring perspectives we’d never think of on our own. That collaboration builds better solutions and a stronger brand. 

Brad: And for people who don’t directly engage with customers, we build the mindset into the culture. Everyone should think like a student of the business, curious about what the customer is doing, and how it impacts their role. That outside-in perspective needs to be automatic, not occasional. 

When budgets tighten, how do you still foster creativity and innovation? 

Brad: It’s about bending the curve. Every team is asked to do more, with more complexity, at higher quality, in less time. That equation doesn’t add up unless you change how the work gets done. 

“Bending the curve” means finding leverage, through process improvement, smarter workflows, and, increasingly, technology. You can’t outwork exponential complexity, but you can outthink it. That’s where automation, data and AI come in. 

Our job isn’t to work harder; it’s to work smarter. That means auditing what’s manual and finding opportunities to automate, investing in skill development so the basics become second nature, and then deploying new tools to multiply impact.  

Beth: Our CEO made a commitment to train all 20,000 employees on using AI to improve productivity and customer experience. And it’s working. People are realizing it’s not about replacing work; it’s about freeing up time for higher-value thinking. 

The key is embracing it. The tools are here, but you have to be willing to learn, experiment, and use them to do things differently. 

You’ve both talked about performance and development. How do you manage that “vital middle” of performers — those who aren’t low performers but haven’t yet hit their stride? 

Beth: With clarity and courage. The top performers manage themselves. The middle is where leadership happens. I have regular “Why do you stay?” conversations because I want to understand motivation. 

Once expectations and skills are clear, the question becomes: are you filling the role we need? Half the time, people rise to the occasion. The other half, we talk openly about fit. Direct, transparent conversations are how you build trust. 

Brad: There’s nothing more motivating than the truth. You don’t have to be harsh, just real. People appreciate it when they know exactly where they stand. 

Beth, you’ve been described as a sponsor of talent. How do you think about growing leaders? 

Beth: I hire people for the job I think they’ll grow into, not just the one they’re hired for. With Brad, for instance, he came to me after 20 years at Principal and said, “I want to do something different.” That’s gold to me. I just needed to open the door, provide coaching, and get out of his way. 

I ask one question constantly: how can I help? That’s it. If people need me, I’m there. If not, I move aside. 

I also host something called The Orange Room, a casual, no-agenda session every few weeks where anyone in my organization can ask anything. It builds transparency, trust, and connection. 

Leadership isn’t just about skills, it’s about mindset. How do you build resilience in your teams? 

Brad: For me, resilience starts with perspective. I encourage my team to step outside their own viewpoint, especially in moments of tension or frustration. When conflict happens, I’ll ask, “What’s the other person thinking right now?” or “What do they see that you might not?” 

It sounds simple, but that question resets everything. It slows the reaction, diffuses defensiveness, and shifts people from emotion to curiosity. When you practice that regularly, it becomes a leadership muscle. You stop seeing challenges as personal attacks and start seeing them as opportunities to understand context and improve outcomes. 

Resilience isn’t about being unshakable; it’s about being adaptable. It’s the ability to take feedback, reframe setbacks and move forward with perspective. And when leaders model that it cascades through the team, people start mirroring calm instead of chaos. 

Beth: I completely agree. A big part of resilience is choosing how you interpret what’s happening around you. You have to assume positive intent and that can be hard when you’re under pressure. But most people aren’t out to make your life difficult; they’re simply trying to solve their own set of problems. If you can start from that mindset, conversations become more productive and you stay in control of your own energy. 

Another dimension is discernment. I always remind my leaders that not every battle is worth fighting. Every hill isn’t a hill to die on. Part of resilience is knowing when to engage deeply and when to let something go. Leaders who can focus on what truly matters, who can separate the noise from the signal, move faster and inspire confidence in others. 

I also think resilience grows from community. People are more resilient when they feel seen and supported. When leaders create space for honesty, vulnerability and reflection when they normalize saying, “This week was hard” that’s when resilience becomes collective, not just individual. 

Brad: Yes, and it’s contagious. When you model composure and curiosity under pressure, it gives everyone permission to do the same. That’s how you create a culture that bends without breaking. 

Personally, how do you both stay inspired and balanced as leaders? 

Beth: Watching my daughter play hockey grounds me, its joy, pure and simple. I also read constantly, mostly business books and blogs like Seth Godin and Simon Sinek. I pull one or two takeaways from each and apply them. If they work, I keep them; if not, I move on. 

Brad: I’ve tried to make my job about what I love: technology, data, process. When you align your work with what energizes you, you don’t burn out. 

And I protect my time. Nights and weekends are sacred. I tell my team the same; rest isn’t a luxury, it’s a performance strategy. 

Before we wrap, anything we didn’t cover that feels essential to uncommon leadership? 

Brad: We don’t talk enough about leading humans. There’s no playbook for when someone’s parent is sick or their kid’s struggling. You can’t lead effectively if your relationship is purely transactional. 

Beth: Yes, and that care has to be real. People can tell when it’s performative. Be authentic, be vulnerable and let people see who you are. That’s how you build trust. 

And remember: every person on the team has a role. As John Wooden said, everyone must know their role and trust that others will perform theirs. When you have that trust, everything else flows. 

Chiaki: Beautifully said. Thank you both for sharing so openly. What stands out to me from this conversation is how practical and human great leadership really is. It’s not about having all the answers about building trust, showing care and helping people find clarity in complexity. The way you balance both purpose, performance and empathy is exactly the kind of leadership that fuels uncommon growth. 

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