Robert B. McKenna, MBA, Ph.D.
Dr. McKenna is an Organizational Psychologist and Chair of Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. Over the last several years, he has worked as an organizational development consultant to a variety of large and small organizations in the areas of leadership development, executive coaching and organizational change. While his clients have included both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations such as the Boeing Company, Microsoft, Foster Farms, the United Way, and a variety of church denominations and universities. His primary focus has been on helping leaders in times of adversity and significant personal challenge. Dr. McKenna’s most recent publications include a chapter on E-executive effectiveness that highlights the priorities for executive leaders in the high tech economy in a book titled The 21st Century Executive: Innovative Practices for Building Leaders at the Top, and a publication in Organizational Dynamics titled “The Differentiated Leader: Specific Strategies for Handing Today’s Adverse Situations”.


Dr. McKenna is also a founding partner of Project Aduro, a research and consulting firm dedicated to building research, resources and tools that leaders can use to fully leverage experience to maximize their own development and build organizational systems to strategically leverage on-the-job experience for all leaders in their organization. Since 1999, he has served as a senior consultant and team member to the Waypoint Project, a 10 year longitudinal study of 120 leaders and over 8,000 engineers at the Boeing Company. This revolutionary project has generated a wealth of tools and publications that are helping the Boeing Company and other organizations gain greater understanding of the way leaders develop throughout their careers, the realities of leadership in today’s economy, and the strategies that leaders can draw upon that will allow them to take themselves and their businesses into new and uncharted territories. Through this work, Dr. McKenna has also developed insight into the dimensions that allow leaders and engineers in adverse situations to maintain themselves and their convictions, while at the same moment maintaining their ability to connect and understand the needs of their key stakeholders.


In 2004 and 2005, Dr. McKenna received a grant to study senior pastoral leaders to identify the key events in their development as leaders and the lessons they learned in those events, the current leadership challenges they are facing, and advice they have for other pastoral leaders. The ultimate goal is to discover the actions that pastoral leaders and their church organizations can take to ensure maximum on-the-job learning and development. The study has already uncovered many unique characteristics of the pastoral leadership journey that set them apart from their leadership counterparts who have been studied using a similar methodology.


Dr. McKenna has had the opportunity to present his experience and research in these areas to managers and executives at all levels of responsibility. He believes that whether you are a new employee, a first line manager, a pastor, or CEO of the company, you and your organization will be best served if you are fully engaged in your job and all aspects of your life, challenged on a daily basis, and finding meaning in your work. He is an effective and energetic communicator who is especially energized by the idea that the most dynamic and critical thing we bring to our jobs as leaders is our willingness to be an authentic and genuine presence to all those who follow us. He lives in Seattle with his wife Jackie and sons Aidan and Ryan.

McKenna & Associates is a group of fully qualified organizational development consultants whose primary goal is to provide you with the highest quality, customized support for your organizational change efforts. Most of our consultants have PH.D.s within their respective fields, but also have the practical experience and intuition necessary to use theoretical models in real world business settings. All our services are offered with the understanding that our relationship to you, our customer, is the most important part of what we do. Therefore, we seek to build working relationships based on character as well as competence. We believe that the primary commodity in the future will be our willingness to be a genuine presence with those who work with us. We know you want to work with people who are willing to be real, to be honest when things need to change, and to be open when new models and plans should be considered. With this in mind, our consultants are selected because of their ability and willingness to be this kind of presence with our clients.