Exclusive Interview with Jan Turner – Bringing Leaders Home to Themselves
After decades of corporate leadership and two experiences with burnout, this executive turned coach discovered that sustainable success begins with whole-person development, inner leadership, and self-awareness. In this interview, she shares how leaders can move beyond performance-driven success, navigate uncertainty, and reconnect with what truly matters in their work and lives.
Jan Turner, Executive Coach and Strategic Advisor
Your career arc spans C-suite roles at major corporations to founding your own coaching and advisory practice. But you've described your path as one of 'achievement, hardcore burnout, and rebirth.' What does that arc look like from the inside?
The operative word for me for years was ‘hardcore.’ I was hardcore in my decades-long pursuit of career achievement. As a financial services executive, I led teams across 11 functional disciplines and in the C-suite, and managed profit and loss in the best and worst of times. I consider myself a recovering overachiever.
I’m also a two-time survivor of burnout. The first landed me in the hospital, and the second led to a deeper reckoning as I worked with an executive coach for the first time. Something in me cracked open and recognized itself. I had a clear calling to become a coach someday and to support others in the holistic ways I was yearning for.
Years later, it all began falling into place: the right training, the right clients, and the outcomes that told me I was onto something significant. Coaching wasn't a pivot so much as a natural evolution of how life was reshaping me and how I already led. It began as a passion play and grew into a vocation, along with my business advisory, facilitation, and speaking engagements. I’m a student of business and the human condition.
You use the phrase 'whole-person development' to describe your approach. In a corporate world that still largely separates the professional from the personal, what does that mean in practice?
I see each person through a human lens and have sat in the seats my clients sit in. I help them explore and act on what’s most important to them in a way that is rooted in their inner self, not just the thinking mind. As a certified Integral Coach, Professional Certified Coach, and business leader, my approach is integrative, practical, and deeply needed in the world, especially now. Clients emphasize this to me. The reality is that we do not learn inner leadership in school or in traditional leadership development programs. When we focus on optimizing performance, we miss the point. What is truly needed is to transform the performer.
It took my own experience to discover that my burnout was not a work problem. Rather, it was a wholeness problem, a consequence of constantly leading from performance. Leaders who do inner work, including developing self-awareness, emotional mastery, and grounded presence, outperform those who only develop skills and focus on strategy. They’re able to create real connection, operate with integrity and compassion, and access a well of resiliency. They embrace that they’ll never have all the answers or full control in work or life.
Give us a sense of the types of clients and organizations who partner with you. Why is this work relevant now?
The leaders and teams I work with are navigating increasing complexity and transitions of all kinds. They need to grow as leaders, bring teams together cohesively, innovate, and drive outcomes. They want to elevate their contribution or pivot. Many also want to improve their well-being, habits, or relationships in a sustainable way.
While the challenges facing those working at the forefront of technology are particularly acute, the existential angst around AI is growing regardless of one’s industry or level. This concern should not be suffered in silence or considered ‘glass half empty’ thinking. Couple this with chronic stress and pressure from increasing business demand, shrinking budgets, and layoff risks, and you loop in most of the economy. I see these dynamics firsthand in my dialogues with professionals across sectors.
Truly strong organizations recognize that people need to be grounded in themselves and feel psychologically safe to do their best work. They are making space for conversations on formerly taboo topics like burnout. They’re re-evaluating leadership models to include a richer set of capacities, not just competencies. They’re providing coaching and team-based support to help employees not only meet the moment but also learn to support themselves and each other more effectively for the long haul. The level of uncertainty facing leaders will not let up. The best organizations know this is not soft work. It is the hardest and most consequential work their leaders can do.
Can you share a success story that deeply moved you?
I coached a highly accomplished SVP who was ready to create his next chapter on his own terms. He engaged fully and developed a rich understanding of the mindset and behavioral patterns that no longer served him. His sense of personal agency deepened in a way that was increasingly visible to and felt by those around him. He soon pivoted into a new leadership role that met every “non-negotiable” criterion that mattered most to him.
What moved me most was watching someone transition from performing a version of success that no longer fit to building something that aligned with who he'd yearned to become. That's the kind of shift I hope for with every client or team.
Your own journey involved reconnecting with your inner wisdom and learning to lead from presence rather than performance. What would you say to a leader reading this who senses something similar but doesn't know where to begin?
Pay attention to what stirs inside of you. Instead of pushing it aside or down, get curious about it. The most successful clients know intuitively that the time has come for them to change or shift something fundamental to get more of what they want out of work and life. Part of this is feeling into and naming the fear that is holding you back, keeping you stuck, or making you play small.
Take ten minutes this week to sit in silence and ask yourself two questions: “What have I been ignoring?” and “What do I long for most?” Listen closely to and reflect on what comes up. Let what surfaces capture your attention. See where it takes you.
If what I’ve shared resonates, reach out.
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