Anne Hancock Toomey on Leadership, Change and Finding Your Path

What does it take to become the kind of leader others want to follow? For Anne Hancock Toomey, Co-Founder and CEO of Jarrard, the answer is not found in a single title, career milestone, or leadership philosophy. It is built over time, through the experiences that challenge us, the people who see potential in us before we see it ourselves and the relationships that continue to shape how we lead.

At a recent Executive Briefing, NextGen leaders gathered with Toomey and moderator Dustin Koctar, Vice President, Finance, Lifepoint Health, for a candid conversation about her unconventional path into healthcare, the lessons that shaped her leadership and the challenges facing healthcare leaders today.

Finding Your Path Through Experience

Toomey’s career did not begin with a clear vision of where she would end up. After graduating from Wake Forest University, she explored a wide range of opportunities, from working on Capitol Hill and in marketing to an internship with Brentford Football Club in London and service through AmeriCorps. Each experience helped her better understand what she wanted—and what she did not.

Her path eventually brought her back to Nashville and into healthcare through Surgical Alliance, a specialty hospital company founded by her father. With little prior knowledge of the industry, she quickly became fascinated by its complexity and the intersection of business, politics, relationships and human experience. The experience introduced her to the power of storytelling and stakeholder engagement, two disciplines that would become central to her career.

That winding path shaped one of Toomey’s earliest lessons: figuring out what you don't want to do can be just as valuable as knowing what you do. Her willingness to try different things ultimately helped her identify the work that energized her and led her deeper into Nashville’s healthcare community.

From Communications to Change Leadership

Toomey’s career eventually led to the creation of Jarrard, a strategic communications, change management and political strategy firm focused exclusively on healthcare. Founded in 2006, the firm initially worked primarily on M&A, crisis and regulatory matters. But as clients began navigating what happened after a transaction, Jarrard’s work evolved.

The firm began helping organizations bring employees, physicians, leaders, patients and other stakeholders along through major organizational changes. Today, change management represents roughly half of Jarrard’s work—a reflection of how dramatically the leadership challenge has evolved in healthcare.

For Toomey, the common thread is relationships. Whether an organization is navigating a merger, implementing new technology or changing its operating model, the strategy only works if people are brought along in the process.

Learning Healthcare by Listening

Toomey also offered a practical perspective for leaders who are still developing their understanding of healthcare: stay curious, even when you become an expert.

She described learning the industry by asking questions, building relationships and listening to people across different sectors of healthcare. Even after more than two decades in the industry and 130 M&A transactions, she emphasized that no two situations are the same. Each organization has its own dynamics, stakeholders and challenges.

For emerging leaders, her advice was straightforward: seek out people who know something you do not. Ask about their work, learn how different parts of the industry operate and listen closely—not simply to formulate your next response, but to understand what is being said and what may be left unsaid.

In an industry that changes as quickly as healthcare, expertise cannot mean having all the answers. It also requires the willingness to keep learning.

The Curse of Knowledge in Healthcare

One of Toomey’s most pointed observations centered on a challenge leaders can face precisely because they know their organizations so well: the curse of knowledge.

Healthcare leaders may spend months or years developing a strategy or making a decision. By the time that decision reaches an employee, nurse, physician or other stakeholder, the leader has a depth of context that the person receiving the message simply does not have.

That gap can make even a well-considered strategy difficult to understand or embrace.

Toomey argued that effective communication requires leaders to meet people where they are—not communicate only what matters to the leadership team, but explain change in terms of what matters to the people experiencing it. Especially as healthcare organizations navigate increasingly complex transformations, bringing people along requires leaders to understand the perspective of the audience, not assume everyone has the same context.

Knowing What Matters Most

Toomey also spoke about the importance of knowing where to focus as a leader. She described the “curve of concern” as a framework that has shaped how she approaches competing priorities.

For leaders managing constant change, not every issue can become a five-alarm fire. The ability to distinguish between what is truly critical and what is simply a preference allows leaders to focus their attention where it can have the greatest impact.

For Toomey, that means continually asking what matters most to the organization’s mission, culture, clients and people—and being willing to compromise on the things that matter less.

In an environment where healthcare leaders are managing competing demands across operations, technology, workforce and strategy, knowing what deserves urgency can be just as important as knowing what needs to get done.

The Relationships That Sustain Leadership

As leaders advance, the need for trusted relationships does not disappear. If anything, Toomey said, it becomes more important.

She reflected on the Nashville Health Care Council as one place where many of her most meaningful professional relationships began. Those relationships have grown into trusted connections that have supported one another through difficult decisions and leadership challenges.

She also emphasized the importance of creating safe spaces where leaders can be honest about the challenges they face. For CEOs in particular, there are decisions and pressures that cannot always be discussed with a board or leadership team. Having trusted peers, mentors and personal confidants provides an outlet for perspective, accountability and support.

Keep Your Tank Full

When asked what leadership lesson emerging leaders tend to learn too late, Toomey offered one that was deeply personal: keep your tank full.

She shared that after her first year as CEO, she was exhausted from a difficult year professionally and personally. Her mentor recognized how depleted she was and drew a simple diagram of a tank with multiple spouts representing the different roles a person carries—CEO, parent, spouse, board member, friend and more. The lesson was simple: while those responsibilities cannot simply be turned off, leaders can control what they put into the tank that allows them to continue showing up for each one.

For Toomey, that means being intentional about what she needs physically, mentally and spiritually. She acknowledged that the answer looks different for everyone, but the responsibility is the same: leaders have to invest in themselves before they reach the point of burnout. She described making different choices as a result of that realization and finding that she became a better leader, mother and wife by prioritizing her own well-being.

The lesson offered a particularly candid perspective on leadership: sustaining yourself is not selfish. It is part of the responsibility of leading others. For emerging leaders navigating increasingly demanding careers, knowing how to protect and replenish their own capacity may be just as important as learning how to lead a team.

What Makes an Exceptional Leader?

Toomey closed the conversation by sharing three qualities she believes define effective leadership: professional ambition, personal humility and authenticity. Her perspective centered on the balance between pursuing a mission with conviction while remaining grounded in the people and team responsible for carrying it forward. She emphasized leaders who are willing to put their teams first, take responsibility when things go wrong, give others credit when things go right and create an environment where people can be themselves, admit mistakes and grow.

About the Nashville Health Care Council
The Nashville Health Care Council strengthens and elevates Nashville as The Healthcare City. With a $68 billion economic impact and 333,000 jobs locally, Nashville’s healthcare ecosystem is a world-class healthcare hub. Founded in 1995, the Council serves as the common ground for the city’s vibrant healthcare cluster. The Council offers engagement opportunities where the industry’s most influential executives come together to exchange ideas, share solutions, build businesses and grow leaders.