Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury’s Story: Embodying the Mission Through Leadership Excellence

Background

TN Comptroller of the Treasury at a glance:
· 13 divisions with over 600 government employees
· Offices in seven cities across the state of Tennessee
· Serves as a member of over 35 government committees, boards, and commissions

The Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, based in Nashville, is a state government agency responsible for overseeing the financial and administrative operations of Tennessee state and local government entities. Recently, the agency was honored as the #1 Top Workplace in Middle Tennessee for the second year in a row.

The organization’s overall mission is to “make government work better,” while also striving to create an outstanding work environment for its employees.

“At the Comptroller’s Office, we seek individuals who welcome meaningful challenges and take pride in making a difference. We’re committed to investing in our staff members’ growth – providing opportunities that strengthen their skills, expand their knowledge, and make government work better.”

– Jason Mumpower, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury

Challenge

In an effort to deepen alignment with its ambitious mission, the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office established a clear set of strategic commitments designed to shape organizational culture and guide day-to-day operations.

These core principles act as a compass for behavior and decision-making across the agency:

• Communicate: Speak authentically and openly with one another
• Appreciate: Find the good work and praise it
• Innovate: Welcome new ideas and seek challenges
• Cultivate: Continually grow as individuals and as a team
• Initiate: Take personal responsibility to make it happen.

To translate these values into consistent leadership behavior, the Comptroller’s Office set out to launch a comprehensive learning and development initiative. The goal was to embed the agency’s mission and commitments into the mindset and practices of its leaders, ensuring these values cascade throughout the organization.

The initiative has also aimed to empower leaders to be agile and resilient – ready to adapt, drive change, and uphold high standards while continuously enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.

“COT YoU reinforces our commitment to a mindset of continuous learning and service. By launching this program, we’re sending a clear message: we deeply value the unique backgrounds, professional expertise, and tenure each member of our team brings to the Comptroller’s Office”

– Jason Mumpower, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury

With this new program The Comptroller wanted to:

• Integrate and apply all key behaviors and leadership values they had outlined as their core principles
• Develop actionable leadership plans to positively impact the organization and foster a culture of strong values
• Put strategies into practice through mentoring future leaders, coaching staff, and upholding accountability among peers

This strategic approach would ensure that the mission is not just communicated but fully engrained – strengthening the agency’s culture and leadership at every level.

“We have been very intentional about having a consistent message and mission which we want to reinforce and weave into everything we do.”

– Christy Behnke, Leadership & Organizational Development Manager

Solution

To successfully develop this program, the Comptroller’s Office needed a partner that not only possessed the curriculum and expertise for their unique requirements but could also provide guidance and act as a partner throughout the process.

Bluepoint Leadership Development stood out from the beginning because of their local headquarters’ physical proximity to the agency, as well as the personalized boutique-style partnership it offers.

“The collaboration piece that Bluepoint offered was such a big factor in us working with them”

– Christy Behnke, Leadership & Organizational Development Manager

Combining the curriculum COT had developed for their leaders with Bluepoint’s expertise, the Office was able to create the final workshop in their leader development program aimed at developing their leaders, strengthening core principles, and addressing current business challenges.

Bluepoint Facilitated Workshops

The leadership development was established with a workshop the Comptroller’s Office called Next Level Leadership. In 2019, Bluepoint was brought on board as a partner to advise specific workshops that would complement Next Level Leadership and enhance the traits and competencies the Office wanted to instill in its leaders.

“We set out to find ways to provide resources and share best practices that can assist our leaders in building essential skills and help them apply strategies and techniques to engage the staff they lead”.

– Jason Mumpower, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury

The partnership began with Bluepoint facilitating the Leader as Coach workshop in 2019 and the Leader Within was added in 2021.

Leadership Through Coach Workshop

The Comptroller’s Office customized Bluepoint’s Leader as Coach workshop to better align with their internal needs, rebranding it as Leadership Through Coaching.

This workshop was specifically chosen to help participants build essential coaching skills using the Three C Model: Character, Connection, and Conversation.

Through this framework and hands-on coaching conversation exercises, participants learn to coach their teams to high performance and gain the tools to navigate pivotal and challenging conversations effectively.

The Leader Within Workshop

Participants begin by completing a 360 assessment, which provides insight into their interpersonal effectiveness, leadership impact, and areas for growth.

Building on assessment outcomes, the workshop helps participants explore the four dimensions of Leadership Emotional Intelligence in key areas like personal awareness, self-mastery, leadership connections, and influencing others. These concepts equip leaders to strengthen collaboration with individuals, teams, and office wide.

“The structure and prompts of the breakout segments encouraged each of us to speak candidly and at some length about our careers as well as current challenges, and that’s not an experience I’ve had very often at leadership-related trainings I’ve attended over the years.”

– Program Participant

Train-The-Trainer

Early in the process, the Comptroller’s Office identified a goal to deliver Bluepoint workshops internally. Bluepoint partnered with the organization to launch a Train-the-Trainer program, enabling the agency to build in-house facilitation capabilities.

COT selected staff to work with Bluepoint to equip them with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to independently facilitate the workshops to other leaders. The program followed a back-to-back format: participants first experienced the workshop as learners, then immediately underwent training on how to effectively present the content to other COT leaders.

During this one-day comprehensive training, future facilitators gained an in-depth understanding of the course materials and facilitator guide. They also learned about the assessments and how to effectively debrief the results with learners. To then culminate and reinforce what they learned, the trainers were tasked with teaching their peers their assigned sections of the workshop to get a feel of live facilitation and receive real time feedback.

Bluepoint acted as an advisor throughout the process to ensure that these facilitators were confident and prepared to deliver the workshops to fellow COT leaders. This wasn’t a one-time training experience, but a partnership where the two organizations worked together to ensure the facilitators and workshops were successful.

“When I was asked to teach the Leader as Coach class many years ago, I did not really understand how it would shape me going forward. That opportunity has provided me with more growth and development opportunities than anything else.”

– Program Participant

Building a Cohesive Program

To take the overall program experience even further, the Comptroller’s Office wanted to create a more cohesive and structured leadership development journey. When COT first launched the learning program, workshops were offered every few months as standalone sessions, each providing valuable insights but not yet linked by a cohesive learning progression. The Comptroller’s Office worked to tighten the progression of the workshops, and formally named the program COT YoU, to create a cohesive experience for the learners. Each of the workshops were strategically placed in an order to build upon each session while also supporting COT initiatives and fostering the culture throughout the curriculum. Bluepoint helped create the final capstone course in the four-part program.

The journey begins with “Next Level Leadership” setting the stage for the type of learning and competencies that are important in leadership roles.

Leaders then work through self-reflection and how to personally become a better leader with “The Leader Within”.
Participants carry on identifying and recognizing team needs and how coaching can enhance team effectiveness with “Leadership Through Coaching”.

Lastly, the capstone workshop, “Lasting Leadership”, was added to complete the series and tie together all three workshops.

Lasting Leadership

The one-day comprehensive capstone workshop, facilitated by Bluepoint, assists learners in developing a foundation of how to effectively incorporate what they learned throughout the program into their role.

During this impactful workshop, participants engage in a series of reflective exercises designed to help them revisit and connect the key concepts and lessons learned throughout their leadership journey. They then come together as a group to share how they’ve applied these insights in real-world settings and create their own personalized action plan.

The Comptroller and Chief of Staff also attend this graduation session to provide support and encouragement. Jason Mumpower, the Comptroller of the Treasury, personally speaks to each cohort, advocating for each graduate to incorporate the skills that they learned throughout the experience in their day-to-day activities and to develop their teams.

“I speak to each group that participates in the program to emphasize its importance for not only their own development but also how it benefits their peers and the staff they lead.”

– Jason Mumpower, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury

With this cohesive leadership development program, the Comptroller’s Office was able to streamline the program timeline to now be completed within 12 months, allowing more leaders to participate. To date, nearly 150 leaders across 8 cohorts have successfully completed the program, with two additional cohorts currently underway and more planned for the future.

Results

The Comptroller has been extremely pleased by the impact COT YoU has had on the workplace. It reinforces the organization’s mission and core values and helped break down silos and improve communication among leaders across divisions and office functions. Participants have broadened their internal networks and built meaningful peer connections that cultivate ongoing support and collaboration.

Many COT leaders have expressed gratitude for their COT YoU experience – to come together, exchange insights, and reflect on their roles. The program has created a valuable space for open dialogue, where participants have discovered that, despite varying responsibilities, they often face similar challenges. This shared understanding has made a meaningful impact on the organization’s culture, promoting openness and empowering leaders to model collaborative, transparent behavior for their teams.

This is evident through feedback shared from participants:

“Sitting down and getting much-needed feedback from direct reports, peers, and supervisors provided me with a better understanding of how others see me. It also opened my eyes up to my blind spots and the things that I really need to focus on daily to ensure I’m being the most efficient and effective leader for my teams.”

“COT YoU equips both current and emerging leaders with the necessary skills to succeed in a way that is meaningful, effective, and engaging and has improved organizational culture.”

“The COT YoU program helped me realize how important it is for me to set the tone in establishing and maintaining a healthy culture so that whatever strategies we choose to implement have the best possible chance of success.”

The organization, along with Comptroller Jason Mumpower, have also received additional recognition with Mumpower earning the Top Leader Award in the large organization category.

Overall, the program has cultivated stronger leaders who are actively applying their growth to empower and elevate their teams within the organization.

“One measurable result of our employee engagement is that our Office was named the #1 Large Top Workplace in the Middle Tennessee region by The Tennessean in 2024. This process places a high value on how employees feel about their individual leadership development and their relationships with supervisors.”

– Jason Mumpower, Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury

Future

Looking forward, the Comptroller’s Office plans to continue offering the leadership program and further expand development for additional leaders in the organization. While cohorts have traditionally consisted of established leaders, there is now a growing emphasis on including emerging high-potential leaders to cultivate future leadership.

Bluepoint and the Comptroller’s Office continue to work together on refining program content. The Lasting Leadership workshop, in particular, is continually evolving – shaped by participant feedback and aligned with the organization’s ongoing developments and needs. Looking ahead, both organizations are committed to continuing their collaboration to deliver impactful, future-focused leadership development initiatives.