The Practice of Purposeful Leadership, with Michele Pilibosian | On Connection

Transcript

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Emma Rose Connolly: [gentle music] Hello, and welcome back to On Connection. As those of you who have joined us in the past know, a great deal of the work that we do at Conversant has to do with leadership development and leadership’s influence on organizational performance. Our perspective is grounded in the idea of connected leadership, the belief that influence, trust, and the quality of conversation matter more than authority alone. Research increasingly supports this. Empathy, collaboration, and influence without authority are now seen as critical capabilities for leaders at every level, especially in complex matrixed organizations. Leadership doesn’t happen through hierarchy or titles alone. How leaders listen, speak, and engage with others is often what determines whether people simply comply with their leadership or truly commit. We believe leadership is less about having the right answers and more about how you engage others, especially when authority isn’t clear and the path forward isn’t linear. As organizations become more complex and less hierarchical, those skills aren’t optional, they’re essential. We’re looking to feature more and more of the leaders out in the world who are practicing this approach so that all you listeners have an opportunity to hear what their leadership journey has looked like, the challenges they’re facing or have overcome, and the reality of what it takes to develop these skills. As it turns out, it’s far less common for leaders to intentionally and consistently invest in their own development than you might expect. Time pressure and a sense of role overload often mean that leaders feel like development is a nice to have when compared to day-to-day demands of their job. Most organizations still promote based on technical or individual performance, even though that’s been found to be a poor predictor of leadership effectiveness, and often these people have little to no developmental experiences prior to taking on those positions. Many leaders assume they’ve made it to the title, so they must already have what they need. And development is also often perceived as remedial or about fixing deficits rather than an opportunity to maximize growth that’s meaningful to the individual and to the business. The leaders who do intentionally focus on their development generally end up being more trusted, and their teams report higher engagement and psychological safety, which are key predictors of performance. Those who develop relational, conversational, and influence skills are significantly more effective in matrixed and cross-functional environments. Focused development is also strongly associated with better decision-making under pressure and uncertainty, and translates to greater adaptability and resilience, which will only be increasingly important in the future. Now, not all development is created equal. It isn’t just about access to development opportunities or which ones you take on. It’s about the personal intention and commitment of the leader looking to develop. Research shows that leaders who are reflective and deliberate about their development see significantly greater improvement than those who passively engage in learning. Even for those that show up fully to a learning experience, those learnings have to then be integrated into how they show up on a day-to-day basis and how they think about themselves as a leader. It requires a certain mindset. We say the best leaders are perpetually unfinished, and those who see themselves as constantly evolving know they won’t always get it right and expect discomfort and growth are far more likely to eventually embody the skills that make for effective leaders. It’s not common to commit long-term to that journey, but those who do have the opportunity to set themselves apart and enjoy greater personal and professional vitality as a result. Our guest, Michele Pilibosian, is one of those leaders taking on the challenge and living her way through a development commitment, even with an impressive and successful career already under her belt. Michele is a seasoned lawyer with deep private practice and in-house experience leading legal, operations, regulatory, and compliance teams, and more importantly, a demonstrated history of leading highly engaged teams. After graduating from the University of Texas and the University of Houston Law Center, Michele worked in private practice as a litigation partner at a national law firm before becoming general counsel to several energy industry businesses. For the last six years, Michele has run the business operations of Texas law firm Allen Boone Humphries Robinson, or ABHR. ABHR is a law practice that serves clients who build, finance, and maintain public infrastructure in local Texas communities. As you’ll hear, many of the challenges Michele describes, leading without authority, balancing empathy and kindness with honesty, and navigating increasingly complex organizational circumstances, are exactly the kinds of challenges that require leaders to invest in how they show up in their interactions with others. We hope you enjoy this conversation with our featured leader, Michele, and take away some ideas for your own development. [upbeat music]

Hello, and welcome back to On Connection. This is Emma Rose, and today I’m joined by my colleague, Roger Henderson, who if you’ve been a listener of the podcast for a while, you’ve heard a handful of times before. And then we are joined by a guest today, Michele Pilibosian, who is joining us from ABHR. She’s the chief operating officer there. And as some of you know, we like to have people on the show every once in a while that we can feature in… that as an example of practicing some of our leadership principles out in the world and get a little bit of their take on leadership and all the challenges that come with it. So Michele, welcome, and thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

Michele Pilibosian: Thank you for having me.

Emma Rose Connolly: Of course. Well, given that you are the feature of our time, I’m sure that we’d like to start with a little bit of background on how you got to where you are today. So would you mind sharing a little bit about your current role today and then the leadership journey that got you there?

Michele Pilibosian: Absolutely. So, I think of myself as a recovering lawyer…

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Because I’ve been a lawyer for the better part of 30 years, but the last five of which I’ve been in an operational role, which I did not see coming, and it would not have predicted, but just simply kind of fell in love with the people, the leadership and the people at ABHR. And so when we started having kind of an extended conversation about their desire to bring in a lawyer who kind of understood lawyers and law firms, and put them in more of an operational role, I was willing to have that conversation in a way I probably would not have with any other group of people. So, you know, I find myself today worrying about everything from our insurance and our leases and our offices, our people our finance, you know, all of that good stuff, our marketing, our business development, really all of the non-direct client-facing services. So it’s been an adventure, and I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s been fantastic. We’re a three-office firms. We’ve got offices in Houston, Austin, and Dallas, which keeps things busy and interesting as well. And prior to coming to ABHR, I had started my career in private practice at a law firm and gone kinda through the traditional associate years and then partner years at that firm before being presented an opportunity to go in-house and manage litigation for an energy company in North America, which I did and which was a great challenge, a wonderful role not only based in Houston, but also the ability to travel throughout North America and across the pond a little bit to corporate headquarters. So I’ve done, I feel like, just a little bit of everything, litigation, compliance, employment law, and then now here to an operational role, and then in between doing, you know, general kind of commercial litigation in between.

Emma Rose Connolly: So just the easy stuff. All the easy stuff. [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Just the easy stuff. Easy and boring.

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs] Right. Well, Roger, I wanna get to you in just a second, but I’m curious what attracted you to law in the first place.

Michele Pilibosian: I think I always kind of knew I wanted to be a lawyer. My passion is writing, and people talk about when are you in your flow. For me, that’s when I’m writing. So I think it was always on my mind, and I just kinda whittled it down. I knew I probably did not wanna be a criminal lawyer. I knew I did not wanna be certain types of lawyers. And so my parents would probably have said I was argumentative growing up, and so I think-

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … litigation just seemed [laughs] like a natural-

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … a natural fit. So that’s kind of the route that I went, you know, in and following law school.

Emma Rose Connolly: Great. Well, thank you. And Roger is here in part because he has had a recent time that he spent with Michele. So Roger runs our Purposeful Leader program, and Michele was a participant, and that was only two months ago? A little less than two months ago?

Roger Henderson: Yeah. Just under two months ago. It was earlier this year.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Roger Henderson: Yeah. Michele, thanks again for saying yes to this. That was when I got to meet you. I know you’ve met other colleagues and other things that you’ve done with us, but we actually got to spend a few days together. And I was happy when you said yes because of a lot of the background you just said, which actually I didn’t know all of that, so that was kinda cool. There’s different aspects there, and I wanna follow up at some point about the flow state, ’cause I think that’s very interesting. But Emma Rose, we did have a program almost two months ago, and Michele really leaned into it, is what I would say, in a lot of different ways, both contributing her point of view, but also just creating a space for others to give theirs. And it happened over and over and over and over and over again throughout those few days. So that’s why I said yes to coming to this podcast, ’cause I know it’ll be great.

Emma Rose Connolly: Wonderful. Well, thanks, and I’m happy to have you here. Do you mind sharing a little bit, Roger, about the program, just so there’s a bit of context about what Michele was in with you during that time?

Roger Henderson: Yeah. I will do. It’s called The Purposeful Leader. We have three different open enrollment programs. One’s called The Emerging Leader, another’s called The Connected Leader, and this one’s called The Purposeful Leader, and it’s really targeted for experienced leaders who want to invest in their development for the sake of letting purpose be the job, letting purp- uh, excuse me, letting purpose be the leader. And so, and what that kinda means is you may not always have direct authority over people, so I think that’s a lot of what Michele’s dealing with. And so, if you’re in a matrix organization or if you’re doing some cross-functional collaborations or something like that, how do you actually allow purpose to be the leader versus having to have some authority? And so that’s kind of the purpose of that, The Purposeful Leader. The format of it is it has a bit of virtual, to get everybody connected. It’s a small cohort. And then we have a week-long retreat where everybody comes together, and we give lots of feedback to each other, we connect with each other at a pretty deep level, and then really focus on, okay, given what we just learned, how are you gonna go apply that right after this? And so then that happens, and then we have a couple of coaching calls afterwards and another virtual call. So it’s, out of all the things we do, kind of a middle-of-the-road entry point with a pretty big impact from what we can see.

Emma Rose Connolly: Right. Well, that means that Michele, we’re catching you in the thick of your application period, right? Just coming off-

Roger Henderson: Right

Emma Rose Connolly: … the tail of that experience, which is good timing, ’cause you might be thinking about a lot or seeing how it’s actually working out in the real world or what resonated with you. But, you know, one thing that I like to start with with a lot of people is just defining what we mean by leadership or by great leadership, because I think that means very different things to different people. So Michele, I’m curious for you today, what does it mean to be a great leader and sort of what are features of great leaders that you admire or that you aspire to hold for yourself?

Michele Pilibosian: Yeah, it’s a great question, and I think people may answer that differently at different points, you know, along the way of their career-

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm

Michele Pilibosian: … as they, they see and observe and work with other leaders who they find inspirational. I think where I sit right now, it means authenticity.

Michele Pilibosian: … it means being direct, meaning what you say and saying what you mean. It means being introspective, so willing to hear feedback, you’re thinking more intentionally about kind of how you’re occurring to people, and I think it means being generous with your time. When I think so many of us, myself included, can be caught up in execution and doing, and, you know, really do I have time to talk to people? And accepting that some days that the talking is the most important thing you did that day. So it’s a change in mindset.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm. Mm-hmm. Roger, what about you? What would you say to that?

Roger Henderson: Well, I just wanted to double down, and I’d not heard what you just said before, Michele, but sometimes the talking or the conversations are the most important part of our work in a day, which just kind of elevated for me in my mind, like, well, how many conversations did I have today so far, and which ones are to come? And if those are actually the most important parts of my job, how might I show up? What might I do? How might I listen? What might I say? So, I love that. Emma Rose, to your question of what is leadership, the purposeful leader, all of our programs actually really lean on the notion of connected leadership versus superior. So even when Michele said direct, I don’t think that means just running around telling everybody what to do. It has a lot to do with, “I need to say the thing that’s on my mind. I need to reveal this thing that’s happening,” because that’s part of the value of a connected leader is they’re actually saying what’s going on. So it’s not to say superior leadership is a bad thing where it’s applied, there’s a place to apply it that’s really valuable. So we’ll often say if we’re in a building that’s burning, I want a superior leader to come in and open the door to the room I’m in and say, “Follow me now. I know the way out.” That’s perfect application of somebody being kind of in the command and control version of leadership. But as we move down the spectrum towards connected, it’s a lot of the things that, Michele, you’re talking about. And really looking to get something greater than the sum of the total of the contributions, which I really don’t think the superior version can do that very well.

Emma Rose Connolly: Michele, did you always know that you wanted to lead people? I know you said that you fell in love with the people and everything, but was that something that you saw in your future, or did you kind of just end up there?

Michele Pilibosian: I think I never really thought about it necessarily, and kind of along the traditional law firm path, if you’re the lawyer, sure, you have legal assistance, and in theory, you know, it’s your law license, it’s you who’s signing off on the pleading, so are you leading them? Indirectly probably. It was more when I was in a corporate setting and then now, in an operational role that had kind of a more defined team. And I would say by the time I got the first taste of leading, you realize, oh, this is hard. This is actually [laughs] really hard to do. It’s going to require me to give more than I, quote unquote, “get” if I do this well, and it’s gonna require me… The analogy that comes to mind, it’s almost like parenting. It’s just not about me anymore, and that’s sort of how leadership feels. Whereas I feel like when I was growing up, I just thought, oh, I can’t wait to be a grownup, and I can’t wait to be somebody’s boss, and I can’t wait to be somebody’s parent, ’cause I’m gonna do everything I want, and then kind of realizing, like, actually, it’s a little bit of the opposite of that. It’s kind of like doing what’s needed for the people around you and for the organization on a given day, and a lot less to do with what you kind of feel like doing or had anticipated doing. So I’ve certainly enjoyed it, and I think I’m better for it. I don’t know that it was something I aspired to, or knew I was signing up for in advance.

Emma Rose Connolly: Right. I think that that’s the case for so many leaders, right? You just sort of, like, work your way through your experience and then discover the path that gets you there, and sometimes people get into it because they love the people, or they have that kind of mindset that they wanna serve something other than themselves, and sometimes it’s for very different reasons that can lead to its own challenges, right? And so it’s really nice hearing your take. And Roger, I’m hearing things in what Michele is sharing that I think-Add more color to our distinctions about connected versus superior leadership too. Like, you know, is it where am I in the equation and-

Roger Henderson: Mm-hmm

Emma Rose Connolly: … and what am I serving, right? Because I think superior leaves a lot more room for I’m sort of the center of it, right? Or I’m-

Roger Henderson: Yeah

Emma Rose Connolly: … I’m directing everything, and it sort of revolves around my contribution versus coordinating and unlocking everybody else’s talent. So.

Roger Henderson: Yeah.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Roger Henderson: Yeah, I love that. That’s great, Emma Rose. Yeah, the notion of, we all have something to contribute, and the notion of a purposeful leader is it really is leaning into that. Like, what is it that each person is here to contribute? What are the things that we can appreciate that we want more of? And how do we leverage that? The thing I’m real curious about is once we start getting these concepts, well, how does our attention start shifting on the team that we’re working with or the people we’re trying to lead, so to speak? And ’cause if I just went without any of the things that we’ve been talking about, it might be looking for deficiencies and who’s the person that can get this done the fastest. Well, that’s one way to approach something, but maybe it’s, well, what’s the best opportunity right now for somebody, or what is it that would develop their, their contribution in a particular way or their abilities in a particular way. So it, it starts expanding. The connected leadership starts expanding those things that we’re looking for-

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm. Mm

Roger Henderson: … A lot.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Roger Henderson: Yeah.

Emma Rose Connolly: Well, Michele, what does it mean to you, now that you’ve been through this experience with Roger, what does it mean to have purpose be leading? Like, what significance has that held for you, if any, and what have you taken away from that?

Michele Pilibosian: I’ve taken away so much. As, as you guys were talking, what was striking me was like in so many scenarios, and Roger can keep me honest, but as I recall, he’s got a technical background.

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: And so you’re a good lawyer, you’re a good technical practitioner, you’re rising to the top, and then the reward is you’re promoted, and now congratulations, you’re a leader.

Emma Rose Connolly: Right.

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Well, we trained for so many years to be whatever, engineers, lawyers, doctors, consultants, whatever, whatever our field, and then you’re handed a team because you were good at doing something probably not necessarily related to leadership, and there’s, it’s a different set of skills. And so it makes me grateful that I had the time and opportunity and that there was somebody like Roger, and Krista, and Conversant available so that you can carve out the space to actually think about these things. And so for me, I think it’s intention and attention. So even starting with, before I meet with somebody, thinking, where am I right now? Where am I physically? Where am I emotionally? Where are my thoughts? Paying attention to literally my presence, and that can be through breathwork. You know, and I think like many people at first are thinking, “Well, is that, is that woo-woo?” Until you see it actually making a difference that you’re not going into a meeting, you’re typing on an email and glancing up at them every now and then unknowingly making somebody feel less than heard, you know, less than engaged when they’re with you. And so it’s being very intentional now to say going into, for example, a meeting, what do I imagine they want to get out of this? Or do I want to ask them what they’d like to get out of this? What would I like to get out of this? Where am I? Am I showing up here present? One of the nuggets I took away was, and I love this phrase, that people catch their leader’s mood faster than a cold. And so thinking about before I bring my kind of hectic, crazed, running-from-one-meeting-to-the-other energy into the wrong place and the wrong time, let me stop and reset a minute and think about what I’m bringing in, knowing that it is catchable. But I had never even really thought about those things before. And so for me, the beginning of Purposeful Leader, that opened so many other doors, was just starting to think about how I’m showing up to people.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Roger Henderson: Yep.

Emma Rose Connolly: Well, and-

Roger Henderson: Michele

Emma Rose Connolly: … yeah, go ahead, Roger.

Roger Henderson: You’re, you’re right. You said recovering lawyer, I think it was.

Michele Pilibosian: Yes. Yes.

Roger Henderson: I’m a recovering engineer, software engineer. And it is a different world, world, isn’t it, to actually wonder how we’re all interconnected and, and how I’m showing up in that versus just coming in with my smarts about whatever the, the engineering project is. So thanks for reminding me of that-

Michele Pilibosian: [laughs]

Roger Henderson: … ’cause it actually is a thing to show up-

Emma Rose Connolly: Yep

Roger Henderson: … and, and consider what is it like for the others that are here.

Michele Pilibosian: That’s right.

Roger Henderson: And am I actually present? Am I actually present?

Emma Rose Connolly: Right. Mm-hmm.

Roger Henderson: Yeah.

Michele Pilibosian: Absolutely.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Michele Pilibosian: We all, I think, have a bias that we can fake being present-

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … for some reason, but we know when everybody else in the universe is not being present with us. And so it’s just sort of disabusing yourself of the fiction that I could be fooling somebody by pretending to be present and not actually being. It’s obvious.

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Emma Rose Connolly: Right. Yeah. Well, Roger, I know you’re really passionate about that topic. I mean, what would you say to the people that, like Michele said, it can be taken as woo-woo or sort of this extra thing that some people might meditate a couple times a day, or do a breathing exercise or whatnot, but there’s so much more available if you open yourself to the, like, toolbox of your human skills in that way. Like, what is human about me, and how does that impact how I show up for others or the impact of my leadership? So Roger, what else would you offer about presence and, and caring for that as an active leadership?

Roger Henderson: Hmm. What I’d say is that the quality of our presence is going to have a dramatic impact on everything that happens from that quality of presence. And so to work on developing the ability to catch where I’m at, the ability to actually shift where I’m at so I can show up in a best possible way to lead something is huge. And it’s not just in talking with people. So, you know, our context is a conversation that’s gonna change the trajectory of something after this conversation as an active leadership, but it gets all the way to self-leadership. And it may not even be at work. It could be in any endeavor in your life. So I do a lot in the ski industry, and if somebody wants to have a day with their best performance and avoid injury, your quality of presence has a lot to do with that. So performance improves with presence. And I have run into, and I think I was probably one of the same people that would’ve called all of the, “Let’s sit and notice our breath for a moment before we start a meeting” as woo-woo. I would’ve followed that. I would’ve had that same kinda thought many years ago. And since practicing it for many, many years and seeing the actual change in my own performance, whether that be in a conversation or athletics or whatever it might be, and then leading people, and then having other people figure that out as well… To really slow down long enough to say, “Why are we here? What’s the intent of this? How am I showing up in the matter?” It’s huge. So I think what I’m learning, Emma Rose, was, as you asked that question, is when it hasn’t, when it’s occurred as more woo-woo to people, it’s when I have doubts that it’s true.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Roger Henderson: And, and so I’m now 100% convinced that it is a thing, not something we just need to believe in. Presence improves performance, for sure.

Emma Rose Connolly: Hmm. Well, and what role, this is for both of you, but what role do you think that practice has in your ability to let purpose be the boss or focus on purpose?

Roger Henderson: Hmm. Michele, you wanna take that?

Michele Pilibosian: Gosh. Well, I think if you don’t… It forces intentionality is my experience with it.

Roger Henderson: Okay.

Michele Pilibosian: It forces me to get out of the mindset of I’ve got six meetings and a million things to do in between them, and then I have to go straight from this meeting to the next meeting. It forces you out of that survival mode of your workday, survival and execution mode, into it forces me to stop and to think carefully and thoughtfully about the time I’m gonna spend with somebody, more than did I return that email or, you know, I’ve got this presentation due, et cetera. And so I think that that’s the big takeaway for me is if I stop and I’m present, it kinda forces my thoughts into what’s the purpose? What is this person’s purpose? What is my purpose in this interaction we’re about to have? Which can m- multiply and amplify the results we’re gonna get from every interaction. And so it’s an investment of time, but it’s an investment of time that will pay dividends-

Emma Rose Connolly: Hmm. Mm-hmm

Michele Pilibosian: … once made is how I look at it.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Roger Henderson: Yeah, what I might add to that is, and we did a version of this in the program with you, Michele, where we asked everybody in the room, we said, “What are you intentional about in your leadership?” And even just that question, we didn’t have answers right away. People actually had time to reflect, and they, I think they needed it to actually say, “Well, what am I intentional about?” And then I think to a person, good answers came out, like, “Well, I’m intentional about making sure I’m clear about deadlines. I’m intentional about listening to people,” whatever it might be, and cataloging those things. And then I think some people actually arrived at places where, “Well, here’s something I’m intentional about, but I wonder if that’s even worthwhile or not.” Like, is that so… You know? So the, the awareness that you get from working on being present gives you choice. And I’d say at the end of our week, Michele, after we experienced a lot of these different things, people updated their list of what they want to be intentional about to things that they found to be powerful during the week. As an example, like Michele just said is, “Well, what is that other person’s purpose?” Or, “How am I arriving?” These are questions if we’re intentional about we have a choice in the matter versus, “Well, I’m coming in a hot mess because I was in an argument somewhere else, and here we go.” Like, can I catch all that and actually slow down enough and go, “Okay, I can set that aside for right now and actually give my attention to the purpose of this meeting.”

Emma Rose Connolly: Hmm.

Roger Henderson: Yeah.

Emma Rose Connolly: Well-

Roger Henderson: So we’ve definitely, presence is the foundation of it all.

Emma Rose Connolly: Hmm.

Michele Pilibosian: Exactly. And I would just say, one of the thoughts I had during the program was about what am I intentional about? If I’m honest, I’m often intentional about not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings.

Emma Rose Connolly: Hmm.

Michele Pilibosian: And while that’s generally a good quality over our time together, it became clear to me that there’s a time and a place for that, but there’s also a time for honest feedback. And avoiding that, the kind of the phrase that stuck out to me was avoiding that is more of a self-convenience than a kindness to the other person. And so I’m intentional about not hurting people’s feelings. Yes, that can be positive in certain situations, but it also can be a negative in other situations, and it can be a matter of self-convenience and avoidance. And so how do we, how do we just even being intentional about it is the first [laughs] step to sort of recognizing your patterns and being able to pull away from your pattern and try something new where it’s appropriate.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm, mm-hmm.

Roger Henderson: I really love you named that. That made it very real very quickly, so thank you for that-

Michele Pilibosian: Oh

Roger Henderson: … ’cause it’s, to be willing to look at yourself enough to say, “Well, here’s what I have been intending,” and then to evaluate whether it’s useful or not, or did it- it probably served in some way, but has it run its life course and is there another thing now? And it, and it’s not to say, I wanna run around hurting people’s feelings or anything like that. But to know that it’s actually counterproductive to you and them to, at, at least in some of the examples you’re talking about-

Michele Pilibosian: Exactly

Roger Henderson: … to withhold all that. So yeah.

Michele Pilibosian: Mm.

Roger Henderson: Sounds very-

Michele Pilibosian: Exactly

Roger Henderson: … purposeful. [laughs]

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah.

Michele Pilibosian: Exactly.

Emma Rose Connolly: Yeah. Well, you mentioned Roger, the piece about leading without authority, and that that’s something that we hear from people all the time all over the place, and I think people might assume that with a C-suite title, what do you mean? You have authority. What are you talking about? But Michele, what challenges do you find yourself confronting in that vein?

Michele Pilibosian: Yeah. Great, great question. I think, on a daily basis, it comes in a couple of contexts. One is you know, there are partners who own this law firm. It’s a relatively small and intimate group. It’s not kind of nameless, faceless partners spread all around the globe, right? These are people that have long relationships, care tremendously about each other and the organization. And so, you know, they’re all technically my boss. To their great credit, I mean, they don’t kind of lord that, right? They treat me as an equal. They want advice and counsel and input the same way I do in turn then from my team. I would start by saying the title’s always interesting. I always have felt like if you’re having to remind someone of your title, like, you’re done, you know?

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: I mean, when, if you’ve ever been a witness to one of those conversations where someone’s like reminding you their title, you’re like, eh, uh-

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … you’ve lost the whole point, you know, at this, at this stage. But-

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … it’s interesting and humbling in some ways because I have 13 bosses, who may have 13 different viewpoints on who all have kind of fundamentally shared values, but 13 different viewpoints on any given operational issue, any of which are, you know, legal, ethical, safe. They meet all the criteria. They’re just different. And so trying to bring consensus, where consensus is appropriate, trying to be a constructive forum to tee up the right questions so that the right conversations can be had versus me just making a decision. Although, you know, then candidly, times it being feeling free to say, “I’m asking that I make this decision and that you support it,” where appropriate. And then being mindful as well of the people that are kind of within my operations organization, where is it time and space for them to make the decision, and for me to support it? It comes in different flavors depending on the day. But yeah, there is an aspect of, at the end of the day, there are owners of this, you know, this organization. I’m not one of them, but I certainly care deeply and want to help lead it in the best way possible.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm, mm-hmm. Well, and what did you notice that you… I know that one of the things with the program is that you have people from all these different industries that come together, and so they might seemingly not understand or relate to certain challenges. But did you find that there were a lot of things that were shared across that group? And what resonated most with you? Were you, what were surprised? Like, “Oh, wow, you get it.”

Michele Pilibosian: I mean, almost comically, we share the same set of, you know, I won’t call them problems ’cause I think we generally, we were a very con- bunch contented with our, you know, employers and happy and… But just the, the, the neat challenges, they may be slightly factually different, but you know, it left us at one point in our small group saying like, “Do we all actually work for the [laughs] same organization?”

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Because it, you know, to an organization, it’s like what the challenges seem to always involve communication.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: In one way, shape, or form, it is always communication, whether it’s an absence of communication or miscommunication or misunderstood communication, too much communication from too many people. It’s really was at the heart of just about, everything that we talked about in our various kind, when our breakout sessions on various topics. I think we felt very, I felt very connected to the group. We understood each other. I think I was… No, there was one other lawyer, but this crossed all those, you know, well, you’re a lawyer, and you’re an engineer, and you’re in sales. Well, you’re in HR. You know, we crossed all those borders. We all shared a very similar set of challenges wrapped in different wrapping paper, but almost all to do around, you know, communication. And so I think for each of us, practicing, again, learning these new skills, practicing these new skills, thinking about and talking about it and writing about how will we take these back to our respective organizations and use them to make the organization better was I think, you know, a, a super use of time in my opinion. I felt like I was, I was happy that I made that investment and time.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Roger Henderson: Michele, you said something before I wanted to ask you about, ’cause I kind of just nodded in agreement, and then I thought, no, it’d actually be worth following up on. You said before this last bit, if you actually have to use your title to get something done-

Michele Pilibosian: [laughs]

Roger Henderson: … or like, and, and like what I heard there is, “Hey, I’m kind of a big deal here. I’m the boss. Y- see the boss card?” Then you’re done. I don’t know if that’s exactly how you said it, but-

Michele Pilibosian: Mm

Roger Henderson: … like, what had you say that?

Michele Pilibosian: Yeah. I think I’m always, it always reminds me of, I think it’s in a movie quote or a meme or something, but it’s like you kind of respect my authority, right?

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: … like commanding someone to respect you, it just has never worked ever, right? That- that’s earned. And so I think it-

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm

Michele Pilibosian: … it comes from kind of that mindset of being cognizant that you have to earn somebody’s respect, and often I think over and over again, not just once and you have it forever, but-

Roger Henderson: Yeah

Michele Pilibosian: … but over, right?

Roger Henderson: Yeah.

Michele Pilibosian: Go ahead, Roger.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Roger Henderson: Well, no, that’s great. That’s kind of what was in my mind ’cause I think, when I talk about connected or superior leadership, sometimes I think I end up discounting superior leadership, and by, ’cause I’m promoting this other thing called connected leadership. I think a healthier way to look at is more of what you just said is when you need to use your title, when you need to use your authority, [laughs] whatever it might be, to already have a foundation that I’ve got your back with people, I actually am a caring leader, and I’m gonna make a decision right now. It goes so much better. So I guess what I’m saying here is to just illustrate the point is we actually think purposeful leadership is not just for if you don’t have authority. It’s enhances it when you do have authority, which by the way, the way you just discussed it is you went and got some authority from people that have it by asking and suggesting, “I think maybe I’m the best person to be making this decision here.”

Michele Pilibosian: Mm-mm.

Roger Henderson: And the credibility it would take and the preparation for those conversations that you had to have to get that to happen is kind of amazing. Like, you can actually increase your authority by following some of the things that you’re doing. So, thanks for saying it that way.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, because part of what we really talked and kind of, you know, explored at Purposeful Leader was around understanding that we each come into a scenario, a situation, a conversation, a decision with things that we’re for and things we’re against, right? And concerns and perspectives, and really kind of pre-thinking about not only yours, but about the other participants so that you can, you know, kind of unify around you’re all gonna have some things in common. You’re all gonna want the best for the organization. You know, you’re all gonna wanna, fill in the blank. There’s often so much commonality, and so how do we build off that? And I think that those are skills thatwe really spend a good bit of time on during our time together that I think do come in handy when you don’t have title authority over someone. You want their consensus. You want their buy-in. You need their buy-in, and you can start from the things that you have in common and help identify what’s important to them. It’s just a richer and much better conversation that I think leads to different and better outcomes.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It reminds me of when you said earlier about things you’ve learned from, about leadership and then the similarities to parenting and, [laughs] and things like that, that how often does it work to tell the kid that’s screaming at the table about not wanting to eat dinner, like, “Well, respect me because I’m your parent and you’re gonna do as I say”? [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Right.

Emma Rose Connolly: It can work-

Michele Pilibosian: That always goes well

Emma Rose Connolly: … but it might be painful on the road to get there.

Michele Pilibosian: [laughs]

Emma Rose Connolly: And then you try to employ the same thing with adults, and they don’t have to respect you as a parent. They, you know, there’s no need there.

Michele Pilibosian: That’s right.

Emma Rose Connolly: So it’s sort of similar human dynamics, just you can’t… You only have so much control over the people outside of you-

Michele Pilibosian: That’s right

Emma Rose Connolly: … regardless of a title. Well, Michele, I know that the value that comes from taking the time and making the investment to go away to some of these learning opportunities and do all that reflection and connection and discover that intentionality in your leadership, it then needs to translate into action, and sometimes that’s the hardest part is going and actually practicing it in your real life and in those challenges. So how has that been going for you, and what, what continues to be challenging for you that you think would help others feel seen in their own development journeys?

Michele Pilibosian: Sure. One, I’d say I think the way the program itself is structured where you meet virtually first, just kind of by coincidence, there were several of us from Houston that ended up kind of discovering, “Oh, you’re coming from Houston.” So we ended up kind of flying together, traveling together, so we were kind of a little bonded, group, but bonded with everyone else, too. Then your time together and then, you know, there’s some virtual time together as a group and then kind of some coaching. So I feel like that’s helpful. You don’t leave and just kind of never, you know, never talk about the principles again. And so for me it’s literally kind of keeping things on my desk. You leave with kind of what is your intention, what is your purposeful leadership look like, as described by adjectives, et cetera. So I keep those range of eyesight, kind of on my, on my computer screen and asking myself, “Am I making decisions? Am I kind of acting in accordance with, with these today? You know, if not, why not? What’s the gap?” I think, you know, so many light bulbs went off for me. A couple around, you know, as I said a little bit earlier, just that avoiding saying something, you know, saying, giving direct feedback is not kindness, it’s where it’s appropriate and it’s needed. It’s actually a convenience to myself, and thinking about it that way really has changed me. A related concept, you know, there’s kind of a visual with this, but that there’s a point easy for a conversation, and then there’s a point really difficult where time is what’s elapsed. And the delta between the behavior that you want and the behavior that you’re getting get bigger and bigger and bigger. And there’s downstream impacts from that. And so thinking about how do I address things more in real time so that they’re at point easy, where it’s a little bit of a tweak or a pivot or an adjustment, whether that’s feedback I’m getting or giving, I want to do it at point easy, versus letting those things build. And then I think the other big one for me has been this concept of we all have stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, but about other people. And so being more intentional when you go into a meeting with, for example, someone who you’ve typically kind of had a difficult or challenging relationship with or been challenged to work with before, and thinking about what are the facts and where am I telling myself a story, either, you know, about myself, ’cause I’m always the heroine, the martyr, right? [laughs] It’s always everybody else.

Emma Rose Connolly: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: Everybody else’s fault. And so where do you stop and, you know, kind of call yourself on that and say, “Well, back up. You know, what are the facts? What might you be bringing to the table? What’s a story you’re telling yourself about somebody that is not based on facts?” And that, for me, has been extremely helpful, and I find when I dig beneath the story, I often find a lot of empathy for everybody around. You know, because I realize at the end of the day, we’re all doing the, pretty much the best we can, right? If we had this nailed, we’d be better across the board. But this whole, the whole career, the whole, you know, lifetime really is, is trying to practice this stuff and put it into put it into play to deepen our relationships, to build, you know, better organizations. But it is, you’re always practicing. You’re never, you’ve never arrived.  

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: And so for me, it’s started to open the doors to much more kind of authentic and deeper relationships at work and really at home as well.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm. That’s all you can really ask for. Well, and you mentioned empathy, and I know that that’s something that you’ve reflected on is sort of one of your strengths. And I’m curious what you’ve been reflecting on or discovering is unique to you and how you show up to leadership that helps you confront some of these challenges or execute on the things that you’re accountable to. Like, what, what’s that for you?

Michele Pilibosian: It’s interesting. I actually have started to observe that I think sometimes my empathy or my worry that I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings is actually bigger than the hurt feelings received on the other side. In other words, I might be feeling worse about something for somebody than they actually feel themselves. And it reminded me, there was somebody earlier in my career who I thought was a Human Resources leader, and I thought so highly of her, and it was the first time I ever had to fire somebody, and I was just tied up in knots. I mean, I really was just feeling like I was just dealing this person kind of a death blow, and how bad that would feel if it were me, and my empathy kind of making me put myself in their shoes. And this person said, “But, you know, if that did happen to you, what would you do?” And I said, “Well, you know, I would cry, and then I would dust myself off, and I’d go get another job, you know, and I would, I hope, thrive.” And she said, “Well then, you know, you have to give this person the gift of resilience, too, right? You know-“

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: “… that you’d be resilient and so give them that gift, too.” And so, you know, that’s come to mind a lot, too, is why am I feeling things for someone that may even be bigger than they’re actually feeling or going to feel, and why not give them the gift of resilience and give them the gift of authenticity?

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: That they’re hearing from the real me and they can speak to the real me, right? And the real them can show up to work. And so I think that’s how it’s probablyshowed up for me since our time together.

Emma Rose Connolly: Mm. Mm-hmm. And any other strengths that you feel like you’ve revealed through taking that time to reflect on your own leadership? I know that it’s very easy to go into developmental experiences focused on your deficiencies or where the gaps are-

Michele Pilibosian: Mm-hmm

Emma Rose Connolly: … but we always like to steer people in a direction of also being really conscious of the things that are strong for them that they can employ in closing that gap or, you know, feature. So what else has showed up for you?

Michele Pilibosian: Yes, and I love that because I think it is easy to walk in and be like, “Well, I’m a total failure. I don’t do any of these things,” right?

Roger Henderson: [laughs]

Michele Pilibosian: And so I think it is… Yeah, no one in that room is a total failure. They wouldn’t be there, right? And so, and they, if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be there.

Roger Henderson: Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: And so yeah, for me, it’s called out. You know, I certainly have, I certainly care. I care deeply about the people that I work with. I care deeply about the people I work for. I care deeply about the organization. It’s, yeah, kind of called out other positives. Like, I think it is a positive to be sensitive to how you’re, might make somebody else feel, but it’s a matter of degree, right? It’s okay to think that way. It’s kind of what you do with that feeling-

Roger Henderson: Mm

Michele Pilibosian: … and whether you let it drive your behavior and having conversations or not having conversations. I think I am a communicator. And I like to communicate. I’ve tried to tweak a little bit. It’s interesting. I mean, I realized it’s easier to send an email. [laughs] Just let me send an email telling you what I want you to do, but I’ll be really nice in the email. And oftentimes, I mean, almost every time, a conversation is better and more constructive.

Roger Henderson: Mm. Mm.

Michele Pilibosian: Small, small tweaks like that. It’s around, as I said earlier, trying to be better about the timing, right? Timing of when you have conversations. And I think the other, you asked me about positives. I think the last I would say is, I have always been kind of an open book, and so I think vulnerability really, this is, I think Brene Brown, right? I mean, courage is vulnerability. And so being vulnerable and letting the people you work with see you, warts and all, and understand where you’re coming from, makes just for a better, richer, deeper team of any kind.

Roger Henderson: Mm. Great. Michele, you alluded to the three adjectives. You don’t have to do this, but would you mind sharing those? ‘Cause I think they actually fit into this question a certain way, ’cause I don’t think you would’ve chosen three adjectives to describe yourself in your leadership that were not already at least part of you, if not a strength. Beause that’s part of what we do at the program is say, “What are you a, a, a commitment to? What is your declaration?”

Michele Pilibosian: Yeah.

Roger Henderson: And you came up with three. So would you mind sharing?

Michele Pilibosian: Of course not. No, and this was a… I mean, this was a real exercise, right? We spent a lot of time on this and narrowing down what is it, you know, stripped away of everything else, that you want to be a commitment to. So my three are conscious, direct, champion. And what that meant to me was, you know, conscious, it goes back to the concept we talked about presence.

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