Episode 8: Featuring Tammy Green, Executive Coach & Consultant
When Tammy Green walked into her first day as CEO of Alaska’s largest community health center, she felt it immediately; 160 employees were in survival mode. As the third CEO in three years, she faced skeptical physicians, exhausted staff, and a board telling her, “everything’s broken.”
Most leaders would have arrived with a 90-day turnaround plan. Tammy made a harder choice: she stopped talking and started listening.
In this episode, Tammy shares how radical listening, strategic observation, and people-first leadership transformed an organization from fight-or-flight to high performance and how she sustained that trust through the ultimate test of COVID-19.
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What You’ll Discover
- Why observation beats action when rebuilding broken trust
- The specific FTE model change that saved provider retention during COVID
- How to listen in three ways: to fix, to give your opinion, or to learn (and which one actually builds trust)
- The two gutsy decisions that defined Tammy’s turnaround
- Why direct manager trust is stronger than organizational trust, yet more fragile during a crisis
- How to create “trust reserves” before disruption hits
- The three leadership superpowers: presence, listening, and curiosity
- Why the leaders you expect to be strong during a crisis often aren’t and vice versa
Episode Highlights
[00:00] Introduction: Walking Into Survival Mode: Kim introduces Tammy Green and sets the scene, a new CEO facing her third leadership transition in three years at a struggling community health center.
[01:45] Understanding Community Health Centers: Tammy explains what federally qualified health centers are, who they serve, and why this mission-driven work became her calling.
[04:23] Day One: Reading the Room: The immediate sense of purpose mixed with fear, trepidation, and fight-or-flight energy that Tammy encountered on her first day.
[06:26] Choosing Observation Over Action: Why Tammy rejected the traditional CEO playbook and started a listening tour instead of immediately “fixing” what was broken.
[15:48] The Two Gutsy Decisions: Changing the HR leader and redesigning the provider FTE model, two moves that defined the turnaround and proved essential during COVID.
[22:37] The Three Leadership Superpowers: Presence, listening to learn (not to fix or give opinions), and authentic curiosity—Tammy’s framework for building trust.
[30:52] Leading Through COVID: How four years of trust-building created the foundation that allowed the organization to not only survive the pandemic but retain every single provider.
[35:00] Advice for Mid-Level Leaders: Tammy’s guidance for those who feel discouraged or wonder if they have what it takes to lead differently, starting with leading yourself first.
Key Takeaways for HR Leaders
1. Trust in managers is critical but fragile.
SparkEffect’s Trust Study shows that while employees trust direct managers more than organizational leadership, manager trust takes the biggest hit during a crisis. Invest in your middle managers’ capacity to maintain trust under pressure.
2. Listening is a learnable superpower.
Most leaders listen to fix or to give their opinion. The transformation happens when you listen to learn, lean back, get curious, and create space for unexpected insights.
3. Build trust reserves before a crisis hits.
Tammy had four years of culture work and trust-building before COVID. That foundation made the difference between surviving and thriving. Don’t wait for disruption to start investing in relationships.
4. People aren’t broken; systems are.
When Tammy heard “everything’s broken,” she saw tired, capable people trapped in broken systems. That reframe changed everything about her approach.
5. Avoid the commiseration trap.
If you’re a mid-level leader feeling discouraged, the worst thing you can do is fall into negativity with others. Change yourself or change where you are, but don’t stay stuck in toxic patterns.
About Our Guest
Tammy Green is an executive coach and consultant who partners with leaders navigating growth, transition, and purpose with authenticity and impact. A former CEO of Alaska’s largest Community Health Center, Tammy brings over 25 years of healthcare leadership experience to her coaching practice, where she works with physician leaders, healthcare executives, and women expanding their leadership influence.
Known for her grounded warmth and strategic insight, Tammy creates spaces of trust where leaders can explore both aspirations and challenges. She holds a Master of Public Health from Loma Linda University and is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), credentialed in the Leadership Circle Profile, iEQ9 Integrative Enneagram, and ECHO Listening Intelligence.
Connect with Tammy Green
- Website: www.tammygreenconsulting.com
- Phone: 907.382.1979
Notable Quotes
Tammy Green:
“Everyone said it would fail. Our board threatened to fire me. Employees were terrified. But I knew we couldn’t keep pretending the old way worked.”
“If you focus on and pay attention to your people, the patient will always be served at a better and higher level. Because if people show up and they are at their best, they’re going to be so much more able to deliver patient care at a different level.”
Kim Bohr:
“We know through our experiences and the research we did around trust that influence and trust are built not just by title. Having an understanding of how to develop a strong team is really important in times of crisis.”
“So many organizations have it backwards, and they are so focused on the financial bottom line that it completely undermines whether it’s a mission-based organization or not. It undermines the whole purpose of what they’re trying to serve.”
Related Resources
- SparkEffect Trust Study – Research showing that 71% of organizations faced disruption in the last 24 months, but only 36% emerged stronger (https://info.sparkeffect.com/trust-study-2025-download)
- The Patient Comes Second by Britt Berrett – The book Tammy gave her leadership team in week two (https://patientscomesecond.com/)
About Courage to Advance
Courage to Advance explores how visionary leaders are building the organizations they wish existed, companies that prove business doesn’t have to be dehumanizing. Hosted by Kim Bohr, President and COO of SparkEffect, each episode features executives who refuse to accept that traditional corporate practices are inevitable, sharing the experiments, resistance, and breakthrough results of choosing human flourishing alongside business success.
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