Flipping the Script on Leadership

Susan and Flip Flippen have spent much of their decades-long career thinking about what makes leaders effective. It is an extreme understatement to say that corporations, governments, pro and college sports teams, schools, and other institutions are keenly interested in what the Flippens think, particularly about how leaders can dramatically elevate the performance of an organization.

The husband-and-wife team founded the College Station–based Flippen Group in 1990 and have since built their leadership and organizational development firm into one of the most sought-after in the world. Flip, Susan, and their team of 600 people are making an impact around the globe. They dedicate time and efforts toward anti-trafficking, working with orphans and foster care, building schools, and the abolition of poverty and slavery. 

Their company, Teamalytics, works with multinational Fortune 500 corporations to tap the power of leadership to boost revenue, improve corporate culture, and elevate the performance of individual leaders. Thousands of schools have implemented the Capturing Kids’ Hearts behavioral curriculum and processes developed by the Flippens to help teachers and administrators decrease discipline issues, build a positive culture, and transform academic performance. 

Not surprisingly, awards and plaudits have been showered on the Flippens and their eponymous company. Susan, who is Flippen Group’s CEO, and Flip, the company’s founder and chairman, were recognized through Ernst & Young’s  Entrepreneurs of the Year award program. This recognition put the couple in prestigious company. Previous grand prize recipients include former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and founders of companies that have become household names, like eBay’s Pierre Omidyar and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman.

Despite their many achievements, the Flippens do not measure their success by public awards and recognition. Instead, the couple focuses on the impact, big or small, they can have on the lives of everyone they meet. 

“My personal goal is that every person I interact with is impacted by that [interaction],” says Flip, the author of The Flip Side: Break Free of the Behaviors That Hold You Back, a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. “It could just be by being gracious to them, being welcoming, being affirming, or celebrating whatever talents or gifts they have. I don’t care if it’s the bellman or the CEO. It doesn’t make any difference to me. We come from a very strong servant mindset. How can we make a difference and how can we serve? That’s what we think about all the time.”

Those thoughts have translated into a lifetime of service-focused action that extends well beyond the Flippen Group. 

In the 16 years he worked as a psychotherapist before launching the Flippen Group, Flip created an outpatient clinic and a 500-acre residential facility for boys. The couple also founded schools and launched scholarships around the globe to help provide positive opportunities to kids facing adversities, and Flip and Susan even helped raise many children at their College Station ranch. 

“Our job and joy is loving kids and those who serve them,” says Susan. “Our agenda is to love all people and make an impact on this society.”

A New Chapter of Service Through Leadership

The trajectory of the Flippens’ lives and the service-driven mindset they have brought to all their work is important to understanding their support of the Flippen Leadership Institute, which was recently approved by the Board of Regents of the Texas A&M University System and will officially launch this fall. It will be housed in Mays Business School, but as an institute, its research, programs, and instruction will be utilized across all of Texas A&M University. 

While the specific programs and areas of focus of the Flippen Leadership Institute are still being developed, the impact it seeks to make is both clear and a natural extension of the mission of its namesakes: to make the world better through values-based leadership. The fact that Texas A&M will be the institute’s home should be no surprise. 

“Texas A&M is distinct because of its commitment to Core Values,” says Dr. Nate Y. Sharp, dean of Mays Business School. “In many ways, the Flippens are the quintessential Aggies because their lives have been dedicated to serving the greater good and making the world better. They espouse and embody the values that make Texas A&M distinct as an institution.” 

The Flippens are both graduates of Texas A&M and longtime College Station residents. Susan studied computer science and accounting as an undergraduate and Flip earned his graduate degree at Texas A&M. When Sharp first met the couple about a year and a half ago and began learning about their work and commitment to using effective leadership as a tool to serve people, organizations, and communities, he quickly recognized the strong symmetry between the Flippens’ life work and Mays Business School’s mission to develop leaders of character who make a positive difference in the communities where they live, work, and serve. 

He had also been considering the absence of a formal organization within Mays devoted to leadership. There are individual leadership classes and the Center for Executive Development that works with corporate clients, but says Sharp: “I was struck that we did not have a formal structure dedicated to promoting principled leadership throughout Mays and establishing Mays Business School as the place in higher education where business meets leadership.” 

With a great relationship growing with the Flippens, Sharp saw potential partners with unparalleled expertise in leadership and its transformative impact. He knew it would be valuable to Texas A&M to ask the Flippens to associate their name and dedicate some of their time to a leadership institute, but also that he would have to convince the couple that this venture would multiply the impact they were already making with their lives.

An Institute Devoted to Changing the World

Ultimately, making that case came down to the belief that values-based leadership can both be taught and can be transformative. It’s a vision that was persuasive enough to make the institute a reality. 

It was also sufficiently compelling to entice Stephen Courtright to leave his job as the executive director of the University of Iowa’s Tippie Leadership Collaborative to lead the new institute, starting this summer. “I firmly believe that leadership shapes the world, and that the future of our world depends on the quality of our future leaders,” says Courtright, who served on the faculty at Mays before his stint at the University of Iowa. “It’s a huge societal imperative to have effective and principled leaders in business, government, and other institutions. And Texas A&M is uniquely poised to fill that need.”

The institute has distinct advantages in pursuing the goal of translating values-based leadership into positive global impact. One is the simple fact that according to a 2024 report by Strategas Research Partners, Texas A&M is the No. 1 public university in America for producing Fortune 500 CEOs, and it has a global network of more than 550,000 living alumni. The institute can provide a way to both connect the university’s unparalleled ecosystem of leaders and tap their experiences and insights to train and motivate the students who will soon step into leadership roles. 

The institute plans to bring Texas A&M’s most successful alumni back to campus to share with students what they have learned about being effective leaders or record podcast interviews that can then be shared with anyone who wants to become a more effective leader. 

“The institute will shine a light on incredible leaders who had their start at Texas A&M University,” says Sharp. “These Aggie legends, including CEOs, military leaders, business founders, and leaders in government, will share the most important leadership principles and ideas that have shaped their lives and their success.”

Experiential Learning

With the Flippen Leadership Institute as a central organizing force — one of the benefits of being an institute rather than simply a program — there are countless ways to scale values-based, servant-focused leadership. An underlying theme of the eventual programming is the Flippens’ belief that leadership is effectively taught through firsthand experience.

“We want students to experience leading and serving. We want them to reflectively think about what works and what doesn’t work,” Susan says.

Providing a forum for effective leaders to share their experiences — including what values-based leadership looks like in challenging circumstances — can reinforce its effectiveness and demonstrate how leadership based on Core Values works in the real world. There are other ways to spread these leadership principles so that they scale to a societally impactful level. Courtright believes the institute could spearhead the development of a new Aggie-based leadership model that can be taught and replicated.

“Texas A&M’s Core Values are the foundation of good, principled, moral leadership. The institute can create a leadership framework that translates those values into practical, everyday skills that empower people to change the world,” says Courtright. “And for Texas A&M students, we can develop programs and curricula that enable them to build those skills and see them in action.”

Sharp echoes that potential for tremendous impact. “The reason I am confident we can change the world is because Aggies have been doing that for 150 years. The size and scope and scale of Texas A&M is so vast, and the Aggie Network is simply unmatched,” he says. “The Flippen Leadership Institute will be a catalyst for developing a new generation of Aggie leaders and celebrating the legions of leaders who have come through this university. Together we will demonstrate to the world what being a leader of character is all about.”

Bringing it Home

The opportunities of the Flippens’ business and philanthropic work have allowed them to travel the world. Susan says it is a “joy and privilege” but that College Station is home. 

“These are amazing young people starting their lives. I love that Texas A&M is a school that wants to make sure we’re equipping them not just for a job, but for great purpose and lives that count in the fullest way,” she says.

Some measures of the success of the institute will be obvious in the general contribution to the education of a growing number of leaders guided by Texas A&M’s Core Values. But in other ways, its success will be determined person by person. 

“Some are going to go on and lead organizations. But they’re also going to be leading their families and their careers. How can we help them do that more purposefully and excellently?” says Flip. 

How will the Flippens be involved in the work of the institute? Steve Courtright wants to involve them as much as they are willing. “They are filled with the desire to do good, and my hope is to draw out every bit of that goodness and pour it into our students,” says Courtright.

The way the Flippens envision their involvement with the institute is utterly unsurprising. “We want to be involved to whatever degree we add value,” says Flip. “We are here to serve.” 

Are You Living Your Values?

A question Flip Flippen asks to get the real answer.

Not long ago, Flip Flippen was giving a talk to the Titans of Investing class at Mays. With a series of questions, Flip sought to crystallize what is really meant by values-based leadership, which can be a tricky concept for people to apply in their day-to-day lives. 

One of the questions Flip posed was seemingly straightforward: “Are you trustworthy?” 

Trustworthiness is a key pillar in Texas A&M’s Core Values, largely defining what it means to live with integrity. “We are trustworthy and honest with ourselves and others,” state the Core Values.

Not surprisingly, the students attending Flip’s talk all eagerly answered yes to the question. And that’s OK. But understanding whether any of us lives up to the values we seek to follow in all roles in our lives — as leaders, employees, friends, or parents — takes more self-reflection and probing. Flip provided the class with a follow-up question to help.

“Will you give me your phone and the names of the last two people you dated and let me call them?” he proposed. 

“I’ve said to billionaires and executives across the globe, ‘Let me have your phone and let me talk to the last two people who left your organization.’ Or ‘Let’s talk to the last business partner you had that you don’t do business with any longer.’ The way you exit speaks as much, if not more, than how you enter a relationship.” And the question then is the same. “Are you trustworthy?”