When Beth DeLaForest, president and owner of Aspire Insurance Group in Hudson, Wisconsin, launched the agency in 2014, she knew she had the chance to set an intentional culture—one that was different from those she'd previously experienced.

DeLaForest's insurance journey started when she moved out at 18 and needed to pay rent while in college full-time. She took a receptionist job at a State Farm agency. “Once insurance gets you, it keeps you," she says. After 10 years, she took a leap of faith and moved to an independent agency to start her own book of business from scratch.

She eventually purchased her book, which became the foundation for Aspire. Today, the agency has two locations after two successful acquisitions and a team of 11, including DeLaForest's husband, Adam, who serves as the almost-full-time chief financial officer while working as a chiropractor on the side.

Before founding Aspire, “one thing that became apparent to me was the big cultural issues in many agencies, including the two I had worked in," DeLaForest says. “We have an amazing industry, and I had a different vision for the agency I wanted to create."

At the first agency, a top-down leadership approach emphasized hierarchy and titles at the expense of equipping team members. The second agency suffered from a lack of proactive leadership that led to competition and infighting between producers and customer service representatives (CSRs).

To DeLaForest, a rigid hierarchy and lack of teamwork are dead-end approaches to agency culture that will only grow less relevant as the insurance industry evolves.

“What is required of leadership is evolving, and the top-down type of leadership is fading," she says. “As our world becomes more and more digitized, people are going have even more of a void for human connection. Serving others and leading in a connected way is going to be key in the future."

“Leading from the heart will be the way to lead," she adds.

Aspire's four core values reflect that cultural drive: “We win as a team. We create raving fans, including going the extra mile. We innovate, staying on the front end of the industry. And we grow—that doesn't mean revenue, that means as a team professionally and personally," DeLaForest explains. “We find that when we each grow, agency growth is the natural byproduct of that."

Intentional leadership is key to crafting an agency culture that allows the agency to reach its true potential. Yet, many agencies—especially small ones—aren't proactively developing leadership skills as an essential tool to success.

“We just don't think about it," says Carey Wallace, founder and consultant at Agency Focus. “We train for lots of different things, but we don't train this area nearly as much."

In her role providing consultation services for independent agencies, one common mistake Wallace sees is “not going to the core and thinking about what leadership is—which is trust—and not creating a standard inside the agency to support that trust," she says.

Leadership competency has a significant impact on the success of employees because “bad managers cause disengagement," says Sara Bradshaw Ray, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Big I Oklahoma. Bradshaw Ray points to Gallup's “State of the American Manager" report, which found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across businesses.

The inverse, however, is good: Well-trained, high-quality leaders are a huge factor in creating an engaged workplace.

Cream of the Crop

Whether identifying a potential successor in a perpetuation plan, looking to promote to the C-suite, or searching for a new team manager, agencies on the hunt for a leader must first ask: What makes a leader?

It's all too easy to get dazzled by the long tenure of an experienced employee and assume their years of individual contributions make them qualified for a leadership role. However, that's the mistake that creates the Peter Principle: the theory that employees in most organizations will be promoted up to the point where they are no longer qualified.

In those organizations, it's not “the cream rises to the top," pointed out Laurence J. Peter, coiner of the term, in his 1968 book, “The Peter Principle." It's “the cream rises until it sours."

“What happens is we promote people either based on their tenure, success, or knowledge, but those have nothing to do with the skills to be a good manager," Bradshaw Ray says. “Then we promote or even hire people into management, but we haven't developed them into that role."

In the independent agency channel, “a lot of agencies are aging and having to recruit younger talent," says Nolan Duda, client experience manager at IdealTraits, a Big “I" Hires partner. “And with a tight labor market, agencies have even had to shift to recruiting talent that doesn't have prior insurance experience."

“But how long you've been in insurance or at an agency doesn't necessarily make you more qualified," he says. “Don't discredit the folks that haven't been there as long—just because you can sell or service insurance well doesn't mean you're qualified to manage other people."

To identify leadership talent, agencies should look for key characteristics that exhibit an individual has the skills to take on the role.

Paul Glatzhofer, vice president at Talogy, a Big “I" Hires partner, identifies six competencies or qualifies of a leader: inspiring purpose; empowering people; making authentic connections; having a steady presence; focusing on results and forward momentum; and having an agile mind, which is simply the ability to apply lessons learned to new and different situations.

However, many of those competencies are impossible to utilize without the presence of emotional intelligence. “A manager or senior leader needs to understand themselves, understand other people, and be able to adapt their style to be successful regardless of the situation they're in," Glatzhofer says.

“While leadership is many things, what leadership is not is the loudest voice or most boisterous personality in the room," says Kristin Nease, chief people officer at Vertafore. “It's about being willing to invest time in learning how to be a leader because it doesn't come naturally to most people," she says. “It's about a desire to grow and develop. And it's about accepting feedback about how to do better in a leadership role."

Not only must the individual exhibit leadership skills and aptitude, they must also contribute to the agency's leadership culture.

“We prefer to talk about culture add versus culture fit," Nease says. “Look at the people already in leadership roles within your organization and focus on adding diverse perspectives to the team rather than simply replicating what's already there."

“If you don't have diversity in thought, approach and personality at your managerial level, you're missing out on tapping into a big part of your organization," she warns.

Aspire's current agency manager started at the agency as a personal lines processor. When DeLaForest promoted her, she used the AcuMax Index to determine her strengths. By comparing test results, DeLaForest could tell “she's a good counterbalance for me and a real stabilizer for the team," DeLaForest says. “She's also a good reflection of our core values."

At Aspire, all employees, not just leaders, must put the core values at the heart of the organization. “In fact, when a new hire signs the paperwork, they also sign an acknowledgement of the core values," DeLaForest says. “I let them know I hire and fire on our core values."

And she means it. She has fired an employee who was unwilling to follow the agency's core value of team. “A lot of trust is built when my team sees that I am willing to protect those core values, that I'll protect the team and the culture," DeLaForest says. “You can be phenomenally skilled, but if you're going to be awful to other people, you do not have a seat on this bus."

Test Drive

How can agencies determine whether their leadership candidate meets these criteria? Admittedly, vetting leadership potential is easier to do with candidates who already work at the agency.

“For an external selection process, your two avenues are leadership assessments and behavior-based interviewing," Glatzhofer says.

Assessments are available for agencies to use during the selection process. Talogy's InView leadership assessment framework combines four assessment tools on key leadership qualities, IdealTraits provides a suite of personality, cognitive and video assessments, and the Kolbe Index, DISC assessment and Myers-Briggs are also used.

Whichever assessment an agency uses “it's important to experiment and find one that you're able to understand what you're looking at," Duda says.

“A lot of identifying leadership skills comes in the interview itself," says Barbara Walker, vice president of Hartland Insurance Agency in Hartland, Michigan, and Big I Michigan president. While the agency incorporates assessments into the hiring and leadership process, decisions are not based on the test results alone.

“Not everyone does well on tests," Walker says. “All the questions we ask in our interviews allow us to get a feel for what they can add to our organization. We want our leaders to be able to take ownership of what they do, we ask what motivates or inspires them."

“We use action-based questions, where we ask them to demonstrate how they have responded or would respond in certain situations," DeLaForest says. “Many of them tie into our core values."

For an internal leadership identification process, not only does an agency still have assessments and interviews at its disposal, it also has “performance data and the ability to get survey data from peers and other leaders," Glatzhofer says. “This provides some rich data to see if they have what it takes to move to the next level of leadership."

Actions speak louder than words. For example, a great way to tell if a leadership candidate exhibits the crucial quality of emotional intelligence is to observe them overcoming a challenge, Duda says. “How they handle themselves when there's some sort of issue or problem, how they communicate with their colleagues, is a telltale sign," he says. “When you're in management, you're under pressure more often, with more responsibilities that often involve other people and their emotions and issues."

“How are they able to handle unpredictability? Are they able to react with poise and clear mind when the pressure's on?" he asks.

Room to Grow

Individuals who exhibit leadership aptitude still need to train and develop their skills. And even those already in leadership roles have plenty to learn. To nurture leadership in her agency, “it has to start with me," DeLaForest says. “I have to be the one always growing and expanding my skills."

DeLaForest attended a Mastermind program in October on leadership that focused on the book “Debrief to Win" by Robert “Cujo" Teschner and she is working through the book with her agency's leadership team as part of monthly leadership training meetings to improve leadership tactics.

Additionally, DeLaForest gathers the entire agency team monthly to train. “We're currently working through soft skills as the theme of 2025," she says. The training is conducted virtually—because Aspire is a completely remote work environment—and includes the agency's four virtual assistants based in the Philippines.

Similarly, Hartland Insurance hired a consultant to provide leadership training. “Most recently, he focused on DISC assessment training and how our employees can more effectively work with people who aren't like them," Walker says, adding that the agency has found the investment in time and resources to be “very beneficial."

“Since COVID, many classes have become webinars, so now there are a lot of wonderful webinars that our employees can participate in," she adds.

Wallace recommends the IA-MBA program, which many Big “I" state associations partner to provide with GoalMakers, a professional development training company. “It's meant for current or future leaders inside independent insurance agents and touches on how to lead people, set goals, set your vision, think about financials and how to set up rewards in your agency—it's super accessible," she says.

Further, Big “I" state associations offer a multitude of leadership training resources for members. To name a few examples, Big I Oklahoma offers MyNetwork, a facilitated Mastermind group for female insurance leaders open to agents across the U.S., as well as the Manager's Bootcamp, a seven-week course also available through several other Big “I" state associations and even approved for continuing education (CE) in some states. Big I Michigan offers Total Quality Agency, a six-session training course for agency principals and management, available to any agency in any state.

All Together Now

It's not enough to find and train good leaders. Agency culture is lived out in the nitty-gritty of how leaders empower their team.

“It's important that your team knows what success looks like, and structured goals are a great way to make that clear," Nease says. “You should also have touchpoints to see if anything's changed, if tasks are being accomplished as they should, or if the goals need an adjustment."

At Aspire, team members set their own goals. “I don't like the top-down approach to leadership," DeLaForest says. “We roll things up."

“The first Wednesday of October every year, the entire agency gets together for our fall planning kickoff," she explains. “I set the stage and provide some forms to fill out, but everyone sets their own goals. They submit their goals to me at the beginning of November. They're also encouraged to send me their personal goals if they want, and while they're not forced to, I love it when they do."

Throughout November, DeLaForest meets with each employee individually to discuss their goals. “I will challenge them on something if I know there's more potential, but I don't change much," she says. After the goals are finalized, she incorporates them all, plus her own, into one giant plan.

“We do a vision meeting the first week of December, and then for the rest of the year we meet on a quarterly basis," she says. “Everyone reviews their goals together and everyone knows where they're at."

Goals should be broken down into measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). “The challenge we see sometimes with KPIs is that they're not well-defined in advance or well-tracked throughout the year," Glatzhofer says. “And your managers should be equipped to be able to access KPI data and where they can see exactly how their team is doing."

“As a leader, structure and clarity provide a mechanism to have conversations and help the team member if there's an area where they're not succeeding," Nease says.

Out of the Echo Chamber

But what happens when course correction is needed? Great things happen, actually. In research with clients, Talogy found that “effective leaders give feedback more often and ask for feedback more often," Glatzhofer says. A huge factor for effectiveness is whether “the agency empowers their leaders to set up a culture of feedback," he adds.

Viewing mistakes as learning opportunities is a crucial element of agency culture. Duda recommends framing it as: “you have the opportunity to make mistakes and the ability to correct them," he says. “This facilitates healthy communication and gets everyone on the same page."

Mistakes are inevitable from managers and team members alike. “If you have an environment where a manager can say to the team, 'Hey, tell me how I'm doing,' and the team can give them constructive feedback on how they can do better, that's the healthiest environment that you can be in," Nease agrees.

At Aspire, DeLaForest is implementing lessons from “Debrief to Win" to create a culture of accountability. The book creates a system for “asking questions and creating psychological safety so we can learn from mistakes rather than weaponizing mistakes," she says. In the book, Teschner emphasizes that engraining the practice of debriefing into an organization's processes and culture can increase team performance, ritualizing positive, forward-focused accountability.

One of the ways DeLaForest implements debriefing at her agency is holding one-on-one meetings with each employee in which they review client phone calls. “We have a scorecard for the calls. I have them self-score and then we apply the 'Debrief to Win' concepts," she says.

DeLaForest also sends an annual leadership survey to her team. “I get a ton of truthful, anonymous feedback," she says. “I use this information to create training for our leadership team and work to improve myself based on this."

Aspire's agency manager condenses agency metrics into a dashboard presented monthly, so all employees can see the agency's overall retention and sales success. “We all know what we're responsible for, so people know their results are going to be in front of the team for everyone to see," she says.

At Hartland Insurance, the coronavirus pandemic prompted a refocus on the power of regular feedback. “Before COVID, we would meet monthly as an entire agency," Walker says. “Once COVID started, we began meeting weekly on Zoom and it was such a good thing for us. At these meetings, we discuss what is and isn't working well and make changes."

A key aspect of Hartland Insurance's leadership culture is “an open-door policy," Walker says. “Employees make suggestions and express when they don't agree with something or think we should make changes to our procedures. A lot of good ideas come out of this."

 While it's easy for an agency to claim they have an open-door policy, it's not a real part of the agency's culture unless “you act upon those things," Walker says. “As a leader, someone can come into your office and talk to you all day long, but if you don't make a change or you fail to show you trust your employee's experience, it's not going to work."

AnneMarie McPherson Spears is IA news editor.