Aaron Kull, Stealth Health Tech CEO, Shares His Leadership Playbook

Aaron Kull is proud to be a disrupter. In a varied career that’s landed him in the CEO seat of startup Stealth Health Tech, Kull knows a thing or two about steering the ship — and he’s willing to share tips and tactics that make a successful leader.

“Transparency, truth, and consistency to the degree possible is really important from a leader,” he advises. “I think that leading with being able to make decisions that are congruent with the destiny that you hope to achieve for the business and the mission that you’ve explained to the people that are along the ride with you is really, really important. Being able to make prudent decisions that help the organization achieve those goals and to look far enough out into the future to be able to understand what unforeseen circumstances might arise that help you get there.” 

Best in KLAS

One of Kull’s proudest moments was leading a small organization’s pivot from staff augmentation to strategic services and achieving a No. 1 Best in KLAS award within a year of starting it — and he says he earned that honor by putting in soul and sweat equity.

“KLAS is a great organization within the health care field to highlight companies and what they do and they rank them,” Kull recalls. “And to be No. 1 so quickly was phenomenal. That goes along with that entire experience, just pouring my heart into that personally to get that whole thing started and then ultimately for it to be acquired by a large prestigious organization … was fantastic and a really notable accomplishment.” 

Aaron Kull: “The Baseball Coach Dad’

But Kull’s leadership style isn’t just about achieving big wins. He believes in creating an environment that enables people to do their best work, with high standards and expectations balanced by support, assistance, and celebration.

“I’ve been described as kind of the baseball coach dad that will push you extremely hard, but then nobody will cheer harder for you when you get across the finish line. I have definitely high standards in terms of what I like to produce and how I like to present it and how I like it to be perceived. I hold my team to a high standard, but I also set a good example in terms of my willingness and ability to roll up my sleeves and get right next to them in the work that they’re doing.” 

Kull adds that he strives to be responsive to help reduce barriers and eliminate any problems that would keep his team from succeeding. For Aaron Kull, leadership is about producing results through others, and his main job as a leader is “high expectations and pushing them, but then also reward and celebration after the fact.”

A Leadership Evolution

Like other excellent managers, Kull’s style has evolved throughout his career, shaped by his experiences at different organizations. He says his leadership style at the electronic health record consulting practice Sagacious Consultants was completely different from his methods at health care automation startup Olive. At Sagacious, he was focused on managing the hierarchy, while at Olive, he was presented with something new that he had to learn or solve every day, which humbled him at the helm.

With experience, says Kull, comes wisdom — and humility.

He shares, “I think that humility replacing arrogance was the biggest change in my leadership career because I think for a lot of young leaders, they become overinflated, they become arrogant and life continues to operate that way if they don’t experience extreme challenge. For me, I think that was the shifting point.” 

Kull’s leadership style has proven successful throughout his career, and his achievements are a testament to his ability to produce results through others. His focus on enabling his team to do their best work has enabled him to achieve significant success. As a leader, Kull has shown that by setting high standards, leading by example, and celebrating achievements, he can motivate his team to achieve great things.

Kull believes in “making decisions that are well thought through in terms of their impact on people versus how they look on a piece of paper, on a whiteboard. I think that’s been a huge part of what has guided me. I’ve led teams of 30, I’ve led teams of 300, and I don’t think the team size really matters. I think it’s really just important to ensure for them to have a safe environment, for them to feel like they can show up to work every day and do what you need them to do to be successful, that you’ve got to create an environment where the same is true for them.”