Kimberly Kleiman-Lee is tasked with getting high-powered executive at a Fortune 10 firm comfortable with asking for help, looking foolish and being willing to fail.

"I'm a camp counselor for big people," said Kleiman-Lee, who's been responsible since 2011 for mentoring and developing 6,000 top executives at General Electric and making the 123-year-old heavy industry giant faster and more agile.

The single most important thing for corporate leaders is to get out of a risk-adverse mindset, focusing on untapped potential instead of how bad things could get.

"Give yourself permission to get fired," Kleiman-Lee said. 

The culture clash was apparent when Kleiman-Lee started in Crotonville, N.Y. four years ago. GE leadership sessions at the time took place every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for two to four weeks in a windowless, 90-person lecture hall called "The Pit," which has held that name for 56 years and can't be changed without the approval of GE's chairman.

Kleiman-Lee was told all she had to do was sit in the back of "The Pit" and make sure the faculty consultants arrive on time. But she decided to mix things up and make the next generation of GE leaders more curious and courageous, unafraid of altering the company's long legacy.

GE's existing cadre of executives tend to naturally be wicked smart, rule-oriented, linear thinkers and perfectionists. But Kleiman-Lee wanted to develop some other attributes in the leaders such as visible passion, imagination and the ability to thrive in chaos. 

Kleiman-Lee hired a "director of vibe" to ensure each of the classes had the right feel and began by taking 15 GE vice presidents through a "speed in the city" program intended to make leaders more agile, flexible, okay with failing and willing to ask for help.

"We're finding we need to flex those muscles a lot more," Kleiman-Lee said.  

The executives were given a hat and told they had two hours to find nine other people in Manhattan with the same color hat; then, Kleiman-Lee set up a stage in Times Square and directed the vice presidents to perform 30 minutes of improvisational comedy in front of hundreds of passersby.