The CEO Who Lost His Voice—And Found A New Model For Leadership

For decades, Kevin Hancock, the seventh-generation CEO of $700 million family business Hancock Lumber, led like many traditional chiefs: command-and-control, top-down, making decisions and directing from the center. But in 2010, amid the financial chaos of the housing collapse, Hancock developed spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder that severely restricts the voice.

“Suddenly pushing out a few short words had become this athletic task that I tried to avoid,” Hancock told CEOs gathered at the recent Leadership Summit.

With his voice compromised, Hancock could no longer lead in the way he always had. So he did something revolutionary: he started asking questions instead of giving answers. When somebody brought him a problem to solve, “I would take a deep breath and say, ‘Gee, that is a good question. What do you think we should do about it?’ She or he would tell me what she or he thought and then I’d take another deep breath and say, ‘Okay, that sounds good, let’s do that.’ And that was literally how I led the company during through its darkest hours in my lifetime.”

‘People Already Knew What to Do’

But it wasn’t just a coping mechanism. It became a new leadership system—what Hancock now calls “shared leadership.”

After hundreds of these exchanges, Hancock realized something. “People already knew what to do. It turned out they hardly ever actually needed a top-down, CEO-centric directive,” he said. “What they really needed was the encouragement, the trust and the cultural safety to follow their own voice.”

This revelation catalyzed a transformation, a structural overhaul rooted in simple but radical ideas: prioritize employees over customers (“the customer comes a wicked close second,” he joked); make employee engagement the top KPI; and institute systems of listening—not to judge, but to understand.

Hancock Lumber’s performance didn’t just improve—it exploded. “Our company made more money from 2012 to 2020 than we had from 1848 to 2011,” said Hancock, “and we’d been good enough to hang around from 1848 to 2011.”

The internal metrics were just as dramatic: an 11-time Best Place to Work in Maine, with employee engagement scores between 86% and 90%—more than double Gallup’s national average.

But perhaps most powerfully, Hancock said, “people began telling us that coming to work at Hancock Lumber was energy giving.”

That, he emphasized, was no small thing. But this kind of culture doesn’t happen by accident, he added—it has to be engineered. “Companies and their leaders get whatever they consistently prioritize. If humans are not thriving within an organization, it is only an outcome of its prioritized place.”

‘In Nature, Power is Dispersed’

Hancock’s experience with losing his voice sparked a deeper philosophical belief about the future of leadership.

“In nature, power is dispersed,” he said. “The secret sauce of nature is scattered and diffused. It lives in all of nature’s parts and pieces. And we are coming back to the realization that humans are not detached from that—we are a part of it.”

The future belongs to leaders who understand this. “Thriving humans produce thriving human organizations,” said Hancock, who offered these implementation tips for fellow CEOs:

Start with data. Most companies are awash in operational metrics—inventory levels, machine performance, customer churn. But few gather structured data on how employees actually experience work. Hancock recommends beginning there. “Step one to me is about getting the data around the human experience,” he said. From there, create intentional forums—focus groups, listening sessions—where employees can safely share what they think, and leadership can listen.

Redefine who gets to lead. In a human-centered organization, leadership is no longer reserved for the best technical performers. “It can’t always just be the best doer,” Hancock said. “It’s got to be someone who’s willing to lead in this human way.” The minimum requirement? A willingness and ability to hold meaningful conversations with employees—five minutes or more—that are focused on the person, not their performance. That bar may be high, but it’s now the baseline for anyone tasked with managing people at Hancock Lumber.

Lead from a full cup. Perhaps the most counterintuitive takeaway: personal authenticity is a leadership competency. Hancock’s voice condition forced him to slow down and turn inward. The result was transformational. “Once I started living in a way that was authentic and would allow my voice to light up, I became a much better leader,” he said.

“It’s about separating ego from role,” he added. “Light yourself up, give yourself your best voice—and then do what you can to gift it to those around you.”