MasterStroke with Monica Enand & Sejal Pietrzak

Mold of A Leader

• Season 2 • Episode 14

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Mold of A Leader

What are your guiding principles, rally cry, north star?

How do you show up as a leader?

Are your leadership values authentic to who you are as a person?

Join us as Monica and Sejal share their leadership values and principles and what they  admire in a leader. They will break down the importance of having clear objectives in a Rally Cry as outlined in Patrick Lencioni’s book The Advantage.

How Fluid should Leadership be? Listen to find out 








Georgianna Moreland - Executive Producer | Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor


Sejal C. Pietrzak:

You can be very different. There's not one set mold that that makes a leader right, or that makes someone you know become a CEO, or anything like that. You can be very different.

Georgianna Moreland:

Welcome to Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejal Pietrzak Conversations with founders and visionary leaders in tech and beyond.

Monica Enand:

I used to think, oh, these people who are so even-keeled, I'm not even-keeled, I'm not. I've become more even-keeled over time, but I'm not. What I love about the startup, the entrepreneurial journey the highs are really high, the lows are really low, and I frankly enjoy the roller coaster of the highs and lows. And I do think you're right there is no one kind of leader. I wanted to start out by asking you, sejal, what do you think makes a good?

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

leader. You know that's a really good question. I think there's not one specific thing that makes a good leader, or a great leader. It really matters to me if the leader is very authentic and genuine to who they are as a person.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, and I actually think this authenticity comment is exactly right, because I think we can all smell we have some second, third sense or whatever sixth sense. I guess it's sixth sense about when we can tell when someone's not being true to themselves, and it definitely erodes trust. I think I read Frances Fry she actually did. She's a Harvard professor who did a TED Talk on how do you gain trust and one of the core she has a triangle and one of her core points in the triangle was about being authentically you and I think on the surface people think, well, that's easy, just be you.

Monica Enand:

Why is that hard? But it actually is harder than people think, and I think it's actually even harder for women, because I think women have been told for a long time that leadership looks like X, where X is more male traits commanding, authoritative, confident, all of those things that are sort of typically more likable in men. Yet it's very hard for women to kind of come into their own and realize, no, no, I am me and that is enough and that is good enough and I can be a different kind of leader. So I absolutely agree with you completely.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

So tell us a little bit about a leader that you admire, or leadership qualities that you admire.

Monica Enand:

Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say authenticity is number one. You know, I read everything that Brene Brown puts out and she talks about being vulnerable and authentic and you know a lot of her research, even if you think about the vast years of studying business books or all of the academic research. You know, I don't know that she has like new breakthroughs, but her research around being able to be vulnerable and show your vulnerability and that that is courageous and that that leads to authenticity. I think that's where I take a lot of inspiration. I also take a lot of inspiration from people who are able to very clearly tell it straight. And you asked me who do I admire as a specific person? I guess I'm going to turn the question around is you know, I've worked for companies and leaders who were not very transparent, and I don't.

Monica Enand:

I think their being not transparent was out of fear. It was out of fear of if I tell everyone this, that this is not going well or that this is not happening as I thought it would, they will not want to follow me. And actually it had the exact opposite. It had the exact opposite effect that when someone wasn't transparent. You know, I worked for a company where there wasn't transparency, for a company where there wasn't transparency, and what happened was everybody on the team was trying to. You know, all the uncertainty was very, it's very, nerve wracking. It's chaotic, right.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Yeah, it is. It causes chaos because everyone's wondering what's going on.

Monica Enand:

Exactly Like humans aren't meant to be in that instable of a place, right? So humans naturally look for stability, and so what they do is try to seek information to get that stability back. And when they do that, they're kind of all talking to each other and there's misinformation going on and there's, you know, some people are in the know and some people are not, and there's not good team collaboration because some people have one view of things and another group develops another group and you lose that kind of all rowing in one boat in the same direction.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

So what you don't like is the lack of transparency. Is that what sort of helped you as you became a CEO and you became a founder and CEO? Is that sort of what defined the way you wanted to lead?

Monica Enand:

I don't think. For most of my life, the first half of my life, I don't think I saw myself as a leader. I never. I'm the youngest of four kids and I'm younger by far. So my oldest brother and I are 11 years apart and they are all kind of clumped in a group. And then there's me, the little baby of the family, and so I don't think that when I was a kid anybody ever looked to me for leadership. I think I was really a follower. I think I even picked my choice of college and my choice of major based on what my brothers said, my two older brothers, and they had a big say in our lives and our family and so we kind of followed them and I had an older sister. So when they were gone to college, you know, she became more the leader, you know, of the kids in the family and I just don't think I was actually really—like. If you met me when I was a kid, you would have described me as shy, timid, scared, and I don't think anyone describes me as that now.

Monica Enand:

But I think the pivotal moments came from being so frustrated with how other people were leading and realizing that, hey, I don't know why, I didn't think I could do this, but I actually think I can and yes, so I think it's out of that. Okay, the frustration and I think the core when you say like, is that how you went into starting your company and creating culture? I think for me, the core of it was I love team collaboration, I love working with other people on hard problems. To me, that's where my joy comes from, comes from. When you have that kind of lack of transparency, lack of understanding, lack of everybody rowing in the same boat, I think what happens is it's very hard for teams to collaborate and it's very hard for people to trust one another, to understand that we're all going in the same direction.

Monica Enand:

A lot of leadership teams and I think I've worked with them. You've probably worked with them with Patrick Lencioni's company, the Table Group. Have you ever? Yeah, yes, and one of the things they you know that he advocates for is this rallying cry like that. You kind of have this rallying cry and everybody aligns towards that rallying cry and decides that that's like the highest priority mission. And I never knew until I went to one of these table group seminars. I never knew. Until I went to one of these table group seminars. I never understood the power of like having a, you know, a clear, achievable, shorter term joint mission and prioritization ruthless prioritization that, how much it can galvanize and how much more productive a team can be. I don't know. Have you had good experiences with that?

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

kind of work. Oh, absolutely, I mean the book. You know there's a book called the Advantage that Patrick Lencioni wrote and in there it talks about having a rally cry and then defining objectives. So a lot of companies will say RCDOs, rally cry, defining objectives and having that one rally cry that everyone can say you know, if you're sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table and you know your family says what are you focused on at work, you can say this is what we're focused on, this is what our priority is, this is where we're going.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

At any level in the organization, everyone's saying the same thing. And then there's specifically objectives behind that and it's really key four or five priorities that everybody there's lots of other things you do in the company and there's lots of other areas that you have to focus on, but these are the ones that everyone is thinking about and at your company town hall meetings, these are the things that the CEO will put up in front of everyone and say these are the things that the CEO will put up in front of everyone and say these are the things that we're focused on. If we do these things, we will achieve.

Monica Enand:

You know, our rally cry and if we achieve our rally cry then we've gotten to where we wanted to get to for that six months or for that year, and it takes a lot of transparency and honesty of reporting out to those objectives and how we're doing, and I think that also motivates people and you know, knowing exactly where you are, and I think that was a poor principle. At ZipRoot. We tried very hard to talk about what were the objectives and then we tried maybe to a fault, maybe too often to talk about where we were relative to those objectives, especially, you know, when we weren't meeting them and making and what changes we needed to make. And you know, I really believe that everyone in the room could help figure that out and that everyone in the room could handle knowing the truth and that they would actually be inspired by knowing the truth and not. You know that we would not be advantaged by sugarcoating anything or not telling the truth about where things were going.

Monica Enand:

As you were preparing for, you know, leadership roles and taking CEO jobs, can you talk to me about how you? I know you have a. You have a little North Star mantra that you. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Yeah. So this is. You know I think everyone should have or should think about. You know, what is it that you talk about? Rally cry for a company, what is the sort of rally cry or the North Star, as you call it for yourself as a person, as a leader? So for me and you know, this is something you go back to oftentimes and say am I, am I really continuing to follow this? Or when you're going through any kind of a challenge or a crisis, you know you go back to making sure that you're focused on those key principles, and and mine are integrity, presence and purpose.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Integrity, presence and purpose. And so it just so happens you know that that they matter to me both in my life and they've always mattered to me in work, and and so whenever we would have, you know, a company, new hire orientation, or when I was first joining um as CEO of the company, or when I was taking over a team, you know there was always the question around. You know, tell me about who you are and what are your leadership principles, what are your leadership qualities, what's your leadership style? And my answer would be you know, this is not just my leadership style, this is who I am as a person. This is what I live, with my family and with my friends, and every day I wake up thinking about, you know, integrity, presence and purpose. And what does that mean? So integrity is, you know, the way I define it is, you know, having transparency in every case that you can, communicating, it's your say-do. You know, if you say you're going to do something, then you actually do it and you're accountable to it. You know being honest. You know, and then presence is about being present. I think you meet, so you make so much more of a connection when you are face to face.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

I know, in this post-COVID world, so much happens over Zoom, but there is that different connection when you get to, you know, really interact with someone, live, um, and and in any way that it is, whether it's over a dinner or whether it's at an offsite or whether it's in an office, um, I, I really do believe that there's that presence. That makes a difference. But then there's another element to presence as well for me, which is being highly present wherever I am. So if I'm sitting at my daughter's track meet, I'm not on my phone checking email or anything. I'm present, I'm enjoying the moment, I'm living in the moment or a meeting at work. I'm also not on my phone checking, you know, news or checking, you know, my texts or anything else.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

I'm trying to be very, very present and that's really important. And then purpose you know, living with purpose in everything I do, as I explain that to people, you know, and it goes back to trying to be as authentic as possible as a leader is that if you have these principles whatever your principles happen to be minor integrity, presence and purpose are you living with those every single day as a person, in your life, with your family, with your friends, as well as at work as a leader? Um, you know, and as well as at work as a leader, you know, and as long as you can say yes, I continue to check in on that and make sure that those are the things I do, you know, then at least for me, that helps guide me and is kind of a North Star.

Monica Enand:

I think that's brilliant Integrity, presence and purpose. I think sometimes I've heard you say like IPP, and it's just this little shorthand that reminds you, and I love that you've kind of crisped it into three things that resonate for you right, and that what I think that's really nice about a rallying cry for a company or for a personal, north Star rallying or, you know, set of mission or values is that you can always check your. You can check when you're in difficult times or when you have a hard decision to make. You can kind of go okay, wait a minute. Are these? Is this on the higher priority thing for the rallying cry or the objectives?

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Yeah, and it's hard to sort of put them into words, and you know, I think having more than three is too hard, and and so you know there's lots of other things that you'd love to say. You know, maybe kindness or maybe caring, and you know all these things about how you live your life that you know. Again, it's same with the rally cry or anything else there may be there. Of course, there are other things that you care about, but how do you pick three in this case for me? Some people have one, some people might have two that really matters to you and that you can go in and, like you said, check in on. So, Monica, do you have any kind of a rally cry for yourself? Or let's call it a North Star? I don't.

Monica Enand:

I don't. But now that you've inspired me, I am going to sit down and really try to think that through, Because I know there are things that I operate to as kind of values, but I've never really put them into a rallying cry. But I'm going to do that now. So thank you so much for that.

Georgianna Moreland:

We're going to turn together all the time.

Monica Enand:

I think having an executive coach. I just felt like my calendar was busy and why would I add more to my calendar? Because that doesn't sound like it's going to make me be any better, and that was absolutely the wrong. To be honest, I was working, I had partnered with Vista Equity Partners for the most recent phase of my business and they insisted. They actually said it's kind of a part of our belief that every CEO and they said, like we've worked with CEOs, this is going to be a hard journey and we worked with CEOs that have gotten divorced. We've worked with CEOs that have had, you know, health problems and we are not willing to kind of go through this stressful journey with you unless you commit to having support for yourself so that you can be your healthiest. And I was just, you know, this was Rachel Arnold, who was my, the partner that I worked with at Vista, and she, she was like I don't, I want to see you be successful and I know that this is something that can help you be successful.

Monica Enand:

So I was actually not voluntarily working with an executive coach, but almost by force. But as soon as I started doing it I realized how brilliant it was and how much easier you know. I thought, gosh, I have a lot of smart people who work for me. I talk to my husband at night. He's also an executive somewhere. So it's like I have lots of resources. I read, I listen to podcasts why would I need an executive coach? But then I realized it's just that dedicated time with someone who's seen the movie a million times before and is sitting with perspective. So I'm glad that you say you used it kind of to hone your leadership principle, because I absolutely believe that leadership it's like yoga, it's a practice and like so. You have to kind of like there's no destination, like you are now a leader.

Georgianna Moreland:

There really isn't.

Monica Enand:

Like it's like it's like yoga For me. I also used a coach to help me communicate and get better at communication, and I think that you know underlying that is my strong desire to be as transparent as possible, Because the hard thing about transparency is you have to know everything, how much to tell people what they need from you, because a leader has to show up in the ways that people need them to. So your board might have a way they need you to show up. Your employees might have a way they need you to show up. Your executives might have a way.

Monica Enand:

Partners Everybody has different things they need from you and I think, figuring out what does this person need, how can I be as transparent and authentic and honest as possible while giving them what they need, and how do I do it in a way that they can meet them where they are and where they can understand and give them the right level of detail?

Monica Enand:

And so I used my executive coach to actually practice communications. So when I had hard conversations to have bad news to break, or if I had wanted to look for advice from somebody, I would practice those with her and actually she would role play. She would pretend to be that person and I would me more effective and I think it just made me better and it reduced the stress of all of those situations, difficult situations that CEOs and that executives are. I mean honestly, everybody goes through hard conversations, I think. I think conflict is a part of good relationships, like handling conflict and handling it well. And handling, you know, honest, hard conversations well is a big part of everyone's life, as a parent, as a friend, as a family member, as you know, as a person at work.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

No, absolutely. And you know, something you said earlier was really interesting to me. It said how you show up as a leader. What do you mean by that? And I think I know, but I was curious to get what your take was.

Monica Enand:

Well, in fact when coach is the one, I learned the hard way that what I thought I was doing wasn't how other people perceived that I was shown. So I thought, by being extra transparent, um, and giving everybody as much information as possible, that I was really being authentic and honest. And all of that that, um, and what I realized is what I perceived to be helpful wasn't as helpful as I thought it was going to be to the people that I was communicating with, and it was really not realizing how that shows up for them. I think it's how you show up, takes into the effect the lens that the person who's perceiving you. It's not your own ego, like from your own perspective, it's from their perspective, and it takes a little bit of shifting perspective of like how are they seeing you show?

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

up. It's so true, it's so interesting, both in terms of how you show up and what you say and how people perceive it both in terms of how you show up and what you say and how people perceive it Right. And so it's so important to be able to be very focused on who, who you are and and how you're showing up. You know, I'm I'm a very even keeled person, so I don't get real highs and I don't get real lows. I just kind of even when things are amazing or or when things are really challenging or there's something, I just kind of stay even. And so sometimes people will think, oh, she's not as excited as we are, or you know, and you've told me that you're exactly the opposite. I'm exactly the opposite, so tell us a little bit about that.

Monica Enand:

Oh, I mean, I think one of the things that appeals to me about the startup journey and when people come to me and say, should I leave my job and start a company and I have that conversation almost weekly with someone you know from my network or from my life and I always tell them like, oh, you know, if you do it I don't think you'll regret it Like it's the most rewarding experience. But you need to know if you can handle the highs and the lows. And, to be honest, I'm not a very even keeled person. I actually enjoy the highs of the high and and I don't enjoy the lows of the low. But I know they're necessary in order to feel the highs and I think I really take things, I get really excited and then I take things very hard when they aren't going my way. And it is something I have tempered as I've gotten more even keeled over time, because I think perspective and kind of going through things gives you that resilience to know, okay, the lows are not really that low, but actually probably the highs are not really as high as you think they are, but there are a lot of highs and lows in this sort of journey and they are sort of existential.

Monica Enand:

There are times where you don't know if your company's going to go under and fail at any moment and that's a very real option. That happens to lots of companies. And then you don't know if you're like going to have this great success and you're going to be able to invest more and spend more and grow, and you know all of that is really thrilling. But it really switches very, very quickly when when something's at an early stage and it's once it gets momentum and you have customers and you know that kind of changes. But I think you know it really does. But it's interesting. You know that you say like you're a very even keeled person and I'm kind of a more highs and lows kind of person. It really goes to what you started off by saying, which is there is no one mold of a leader and being authentic.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

That's exactly right? Yep, absolutely. When you look back on your career, on your life. You know I coach a lot of people now and one of the things that I always ask them to do at the beginning of of when we're talking and coaching and talking about their careers is write the toast at your hundredth birthday party. And first you, you, then you sort of put yourself and you, you think about that, right, and you think, okay, okay, now imagine yourself at your hundredth birthday and whatever it is for you, right, and who is that person that's giving the toast, as they describe you, and wishing you a happy birthday. What will they say?

Monica Enand:

Yeah, I like that so much better than writing your own eulogy. You know, sometimes people say write your eulogy or write with one eulogy it's the obituary Right right, right, I'm like whoa.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Yeah, this is much better, and so when people do this, at whatever age they are, I did it, obvious, and I remember I did it in 2010 or 2011, when I was first suggested this to somebody and I thought, oh, it's going to take me forever, I'm going to have to sit there and think about it. I sat and literally my laptop in front of me and I wrote it all in less than an hour. Wow, and I can go back to that now and it's still the case.

Monica Enand:

And you still go back to it. You frequently go back to it and I still go back to that now and it's still the case and you still go back to it.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

You frequently go back to it and I still go back to it because you realize, like what are the most important things to you that you want said about you at your 100th birthday party and then you hopefully guide your life towards that. Okay, friend.

Monica Enand:

I'm going to give the 100th birthday toast at your 100th birthday party. Hopefully it'll match.

Sejal C. Pietrzak:

Thanks, monica Nand, and thanks to our executive producer, georgiana Moreland. We'll talk to you next time.

Georgianna Moreland:

Thank you for listening today. We would love for you to follow and subscribe. Monica and Sejo would love to hear from you. You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode. You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrozak. Until next time.