2024 Men of the Year: Jeff Kennedy

Jeff Kennedy strives to live by the values of servant leadership modeled by his parents.

“I was privileged to grow up in a household where I watched my parents juggling full-time jobs, tending to a farm, managing various chores and shuttling my sister and me to numerous extracurricular activities, from basketball games to baseball practice,” Kennedy says. “Despite their many responsibilities, they consistently made time to volunteer within our church and community, always ready to extend a helping hand to anyone in need, day or night.”

He puts those lessons into practice at Nixon & Lindstrom Insurance, where he is an employee benefits adviser, by supporting and mentoring up-and-comers.

“Recognizing the importance of nurturing talent and investing in the future of our organization, I accepted the challenge to help create a recruitment and internship program from the ground up … [working] with various departments and stakeholders to define objectives, establish program guidelines and design a structured curriculum,” Kennedy says.

Shortly thereafter, he met with the intern involved in the inaugural program and realized it aligned with the firm’s goals more than it did the candidate’s.

“We switched gears, and our first intern and I spent the remaining portion of the summer redeveloping our program,” Kennedy recalls. “He … taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes being a leader means talking less and listening more.”

Because Kennedy once benefited from having a boss who helped him advance even if that meant he would move to other opportunities, Kennedy seeks to do the same, as he did for a promising team member.

“While they were an invaluable asset to my team … rather than holding them back, I took a proactive role in mentoring and guiding them toward exploring leadership opportunities within the organization or elsewhere,” Kennedy says. “This approach may have resulted in the loss of a talented team member from my immediate group, but it was immensely rewarding to see them thrive in their new leadership roles. Moreover, it created a culture of growth and development within the organization.”

Kennedy, who was recognized by Springfield Business Journal in 2019 as a Trusted Adviser in insurance, has made it a priority to share some of what he’s learned in his career. He has been a panelist for the Springfield Area Human Resources Association and is a graduate of Leadership Springfield. He is also the president of the Missouri chapter of the National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals.

He is vice chair of the board for I Pour Life, which helps at-risk youth, and he’s the board secretary for the Ozark Neurological Foundation.

Career and nonprofit involvement are important to Kennedy, but everything comes back to his family.

“My kids are getting to see the same lessons play out every day that I was fortunate enough to witness,” he says. “I can only hope it has the same impact on them as it did for me.”