Nicolle Pangis of Ampersand
Who Are You?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 220: Nicolle Pangis
Here’s a question. Who are you?
I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I’m asked to coach their leaders and their leadership teams to help them succeed where leadership has its greatest impact. The intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is Nicolle Pangis. She’s the CEO of Ampersand. They describe themselves as a data-driven TV advertising sales and technology company.
In a world increasingly dependent on zeros and ones, a world in which AI is moving so fast that some tech leaders are calling for its development to be suspended, it’s all too easy to forget the human side of leadership. To forget that, in fact, leaders are human, too.
“I was making decisions because there was expectations of me from others, and I noticed more and more that those decisions didn't feel right to me, in my being.
And I think over time, those things build up, and they, you start becoming somebody who you are not. And I think a lot of people, by the way, live like this, which is, they're living for this perception of others.”
There are so many influences over the decisions that a leader must make. Profit. Loss. Risk. Reward. Future. Past. Hope. Fear. So many, that our understanding of self often gets lost along the way.
Finding yourself in the middle of that rapidly spinning vortex is not for the unprepared. You need a map. One that shows you the true north of who you are and who you want to be.
If you haven’t prepared this map before you step into the role, it becomes harder and harder to create. Instead, you find yourself drawing a path forward that is based on the expectations, the hopes, and the dreams of others.
Life is short. Your career is shorter. Live them both on your terms and you’ll be able to measure yourself against the most important set of data in the world.
Your own.
Here’s Nicolle Pangis.
Charles (02:20):
Nicolle, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Nicolle Pangis (02:23):
Thank you so much for having me.
Charles (02:25):
When did creativity first show up in your life? When are you first conscious of creativity playing a role in your life?
Nicolle Pangis (02:32):
I don't think I was conscious of it, but in looking back, I wrote very early on in my life. So, I always loved, in elementary school, writing whatever short stories we wrote, and I remember just kind of on my own writing a lot. And then it really took off in earnest in middle school for me, where I had a creative writing teacher actually, who I ironically am still in touch with now, many, many years later. She's long retired in Florida, but she's kind of been a mother figure to me since that time, where she really encouraged my writing and poetry, actually. I wrote a lot of poetry.
And so she used to encourage me to submit to writing contests and poetry contests. And I really credit her also to sort of helping me build confidence, because I grew up in a very traditional Greek household and women weren't necessarily encouraged to kind of put themselves out there. There was a very specific role for me, sort of in my birthright, in my family, and I really credit her for pushing me out of that comfort zone and putting me more forward than I probably would've been otherwise.
Charles (03:40):
That must've been a real struggle, coming from that background. Other than her, what else gave you the confidence and the courage to become your own person?
Nicolle Pangis (03:49):
My mother is a Greek immigrant, so she was born in Greece, came over when she was eight, and they were very, very poor. She didn't have a bedroom until she was 16 years old, kind of slept on couches and that sort of stuff. And my dad was born in the United States, grew up in the projects in the Bronx, and then moved to Greece, and then came back. So, I really, you know, didn't come from much, from a financial perspective. But hard work was very encouraged.
So, I remember keenly being very split from a very young age, because there was a lot of discussion about working hard and it was very much part of even at home, lots and lots of chores very early in my childhood. You know, an expectation of really good grades. But also the flip side was, there was also a narrative to me of, that I should look a certain way, and I would make a very good wife someday, from a very early age. I was very involved in church, up and through high school, and I was for, you know, a purpose, which is I was supposed to marry a Greek boy and have Greek children and raise them in a Greek church.
But there was always this sort of hard work behind. It was very confusing, frankly, growing up that way. But I think eventually, you know, the push of some external factors also just kind of really pushed me out into the career world. And I used that narrative, and I'm more public about it in the last five years. Because I think people need to be a lot more transparent about the complexity of humanity. And that a lot of people that sit in leadership positions actually have some pretty complicated stuff in the background that they still work through, even as leaders.
So that's part of the reason I talk about this stuff, is I think we need to just be honest about the fact that sometimes we're not as one-dimensional as people think we are, and that that is part of humanity and it's part of what…. You know, I always tell my kids, "Everybody's unique, but nobody's special."
Charles (05:55):
Mm. Yeah. I'm always reminding people that leaders are human, too. It seems to be a surprise to some of us.
Obviously you've done a lot of reflecting on your journey and, as you've said, you've spoken a lot about it. As you look back at those sort of early formative years, an impossible question to answer, I'm sure, but I'll ask it anyway, how much do you put down to nature and how much do you put down to nurture?
Nicolle Pangis (06:18):
Hmm. I think for me, a lot of my decisions in life were very much the nurture part. Again, just going back to my upbringing, I ended up marrying the man who I dated from my early 20s. 12 years later, had two kids, ended up divorced. And I think a lot of my journey was sort of expectations of me from the outside world. I was expected to do certain things in a certain timeframe. And believe it or not, in my 20s, it was like, "Well, why aren't you married yet? And why, and why, and why, and why?"
Which again, is part of why I'm public about it. Because I think we need to change the narrative of what we expect of people, and empower people to create their own paths and journeys. But I definitely think there was part of me who, you know, I just was who I was. And I think, how I ended up where I am today, there was part of me that sort of broke through the mold that I was supposed to be to become who I am, which is definitely not, in many ways, the mold that I was raised to become.
I think in the end, my parents are proud of where I ended up. I'm certainly not where they thought I would be when I was born and when they were raising me, I don't think, if you'd ask them today.
Charles (07:37):
Are they surprised?
Nicolle Pangis (07:39):
I think probably over time, it became less surprising. Probably early on, it was just little things that I was doing through high school and just kind of taking leadership roles early, and I actually went to high school in a business suit, because instead of—
Charles (07:56):
(laughs)
Nicolle Pangis (07:57):
You know, I worked at a restaurant, too. But my job, because very early on, I wanted to be the first female President of the United States, because in my head it was the way to break through the way I was born. Which is, “Oh, I don't have to worry about paying the electric bill if you're President of the United States.” Like, this was when I was early on, how I thought, "Oh, how do I make sure that I'm, you know, feel safer?" Because it was hard for my parents to pay the bills. And so there was a feeling of, you know, there wasn't a total feeling of safety at home for me growing up.
So, that literally carried me through, where in high school, I got a job at a bank, because in my head, I'm like, "Oh, I need, I need to have professional experience." And to me, putting on a business suit was getting the experience to create this breakthrough career for myself. So I think as I started doing those sorts of things, like I sat on the Board of Education in my town - I grew up in suburban New Jersey - and so it was the Board of Education and then me, and I literally had a name tag that said Nicolle Pangis.
And I used to have breakfast with the superintendent at 15 years old. He ended up writing my undergrad and grad school recommendations, if I remember correctly. So I just started this path, not because anybody thought that's what I would do, but I just kind of started making these decisions for myself early on. But again, I was making lots of decisions for other people. So I was trying to sort of balance, I think, the nature versus nurture, and in the end, I think what I’ve realized is like, you kind of are who you are.
And so a lot of what I try to talk to people about is like, just make sure that what you're doing is true to yourself as opposed to true to others. Because I think eventually, when you're true to others and not to yourself, that's when things in your life start breaking.
Charles (09:43):
I think that's so true. And I think the idea of being true to ourselves is such a profoundly important one, and as you know, most people have, I think most of us, have a very hard time with trying to strip away all the noise and all the expectation, to get to that place of figuring out who actually are we? Who do we want to be at our core and how do we show up that way? The thing that most often gets in the way, obviously, is fear. What's your relationship with fear?
Nicolle Pangis (10:07):
I think fear and vulnerability, and in many cases, shame, are dimensions of all of us. And, this is something since my divorce, I've just spent a lot of time reading and self-reflecting on, which is, you know, I think fear holds us back in many ways. But I think we become the strongest when we break through our fears. I was very scared to, for example, file for my divorce.
I was very scared when, I worked at one of the big advertising agencies for a lot of my career, and just literally five months before I filed for divorce at 39 years old, I turned down a CEO job, global CEO job, and I resigned in the same email. Knowing that I was going to likely file for divorce not very much later. And I was really scared to do that. But looking back, you know, I think when you face your fears, and you just acknowledge them for what they are, which is, I'm making a change, and a lot of the time, it's less about you being scared and reflecting. I was worried about what people would think of me for the decisions.
So the decisions felt very right to me. The fear came actually, the fear of others. I got a lot of, like, "Are you crazy for turning down a CEO job at 39 years old?" I don't know, maybe. But it's what felt right to me. Filing for divorce, coming from a Greek family, was definitely not an easy decision. But if I didn't do that, it didn't feel right to stay in my marriage. And so, I think fear is something that we should take on as something to really reflect inward and understand, is the fear really coming from inside? Because in my experience, as I'm spending more time really kind of working on myself, the fear often is the fear of others' expectations of you, as opposed to what feels good.
So a lot of what I'm working on is, what feels right to me? As opposed to what people tell me should feel right to me.
Charles (12:07):
What did you hold onto in those moments? I mean, sending that email and making that choice to get divorced together. Most people I think would not be able to hold onto that. What did you hold onto to get you through that?
Nicolle Pangis (12:20):
I mean, it took a long time to get to those two decisions. Obviously I didn't make that.… You know, I'm not saying to make these really big decisions overnight, and I'm certainly not implying that I did. I think at the end of the day, what I realized is I was making decisions because there was expectations of me from others, and I noticed more and more that those decisions didn't feel right to me, in my being.
And I think over time, those things build up, and you start becoming somebody who you are not. And I think a lot of people, by the way, live like this, which is, they're living for this perception of others. Social media is unfortunately, I think, exacerbating this human feeling of being wanted or liked by the outside as more important as liking who you are from the inside. And so I think I just came to this realization over time that, you know what? Forget this. This is not.… Yeah, I just kind of made a decision like, I'm going to live my life for myself and my kids from now on, and not for the approval of others.
And I was very public when I came here to.… It was NCC when I joined, but to Ampersand. And I think it was like a few weeks in, I literally just pulled the company together and I just said, "Here's my story." And I explained a lot of what I just explained to you. And that was scary. Talk about fear. I was brand new. I moved from the digital side of advertising into TV. Nobody knew who I was here at that time. And I just kind of said, "You know what? I'm going to show up for who I am and hopefully it works out."
And you know what happened, is I had kind of a rotating door of people coming into my office. I have a very public open door policy. I have my whole career. But all of a sudden I went from somebody who was an unknown entity to like, people talked about their divorce to me, that they were thinking of filing for divorce. And so all of a sudden, this humanity opens up in a business setting, which I think we should just have so much more of, in order for us to.… You know, we talk about work-life balance or integration or whatever word you want to call it, but how do you do that if you sort of.…
You know, there's so much of us that is not business, I hope, and if you don't see that in people.… Not everything. You don't have to expose everything, certainly. But I just think it's so important to build relationships and to create a safe space in the business world, which, frankly, there wasn't a lot of not that long ago. I think there's more now, but we have a lot of work to do as leaders to really create safety in business. I think we talk about it a lot. I don't know that a lot of people necessarily feel it all the time.
Charles (14:58):
I think there's a growing realization that the point you've just made is exactly where leadership needs to evolve to, that it has to become, for want of a better description, more human, more caring, more empathetic, more open, more vulnerable. One of the issues that I see, working with senior leaders, is that their calendars are out of control. In many cases, they've handed over responsibility to their personal assistant or their EA.
How do you reconcile, how do you balance what you just described, which is being much more engaged with the people around you than typically leaders have been, with the overwhelming time pressure that somebody in your position is under every day to show up at endless meetings, be part of endless conversations? How do you balance those two things?
Nicolle Pangis (15:41):
I don't think they're different things, I guess is my answer to you. I think they're the same. I think the relationships that I've built, not just internally at the company that I work in today, but just over the course of my career, are what help me be a better leader, a better partner, a better a lot of things in business. And so I just think of them as the same. If you support people in their time of need, that is also, in my opinion, helping business.
If you do not, you're actually hurting your business. And this is a shift for me, coming here, where I was a C-level executive a fairly long period of time before coming here, but not a CEO. I was the number two for quite a bit of time in my career.
But as a CEO, you really set the stage for what leadership could look like, and I'm very intentional about that. I spend a lot of time thinking about the wellbeing of our team. If anything happens in this company and I hear about a parent, a child, a grandchild, we rush to, "What do you need? And we got this here at work. You go take care of your family, and then you let us know when you're able and ready to come back."
I just think that piece of humanity is so important. And I really push the safe space to do that here. That's one thing I've been very, very intentional about.
And I think that humanity carries over into good business. One of the things I'm most proud of is that, which is, I really believe that people can step away from business and do what they need to do and know that the rest of the team has their back.
And if I leave one legacy at any company that I ever go to, I'm happy for it to be that, frankly. Because I think that was not a common thing not that long ago. At least in my career, I never felt comfortable doing that. I worked through every vacation. I worked through my maternity leaves. I worked when my kids were sick. All the things. And so it's something that I think is really important.
Charles (17:50):
One of the biggest factors in having us all, I think, re-evaluate what's important to us, obviously, is the pandemic that we've all just lived through. How has your leadership been changed by the pandemic?
Nicolle Pangis (18:03):
(laughs) The pandemic was… like, everybody has their pandemic stories. I was in this role for about a year and a half, so still fairly new CEO, just feeling like I got my feet under me. We rebranded the company in September of 2019, and we moved into where I'm sitting right now, our new headquarters. We built out this beautiful space, and we were here for four and a half months and the pandemic hit, and we sent everybody home.
I am very proud of how we managed through the pandemic as a team. I'm very proud of how our team showed up. One of the things that I accidentally did (laughs) when I got here, because there was a lot of culture changing that I wanted to do when I first arrived in the middle of 2018, is I allowed for everybody to work from home one day a week.
And I remember the CFO at the time, who just retired, who's a bud now, but early on was like, "What are you doing, Nicolle? Why do we need to send everybody home?" And I had him buy everybody laptops, which a CFO never wants to do. Anyway, fast-forward a week into the pandemic. His name is Bob. He called me one day, is like, "Nicolle, I’ve got to tell you something. Thank God—"
Charles (19:20):
(laughs)
Nicolle Pangis (19:21):
"...you made me buy everybody laptops, and thank God you made everybody work from home for the last year and a half," because we actually were able to send everybody home, and we didn't miss a beat, which obviously a lot of companies had difficulty managing that transition. So the transition to home was actually simple, and we actually closed early. One of my best friends is a nurse, and so I was checking in with her as I started reading more headlines, like, "Is it really like the flu?"
And she was like, "Nic, it is not like the flu." And so I was checking in with her, and we actually made a plan the weekend before we closed. And we ended up closing four days before most companies did, to allow everybody to get home. So everybody got home, did their food shopping, kind of buckled in, and then the world closed.
There was no playbook for what happened, but I think most leaders that I've heard, at least, tried to give permission for space during that time, because there was just so much, you know, going on. And frankly, leaders needed the space, too. Like, I needed to go take a walk every day.
But I just think we all did the best we could. One of the things I also did is, you know, I have two daughters, and my daughters used to just pop in on Zoom. And I never apologized to the team for it. In fact, I had my kids wave when they did that. Again, just leadership, sometimes it's just about showing the fact that, yes, I also have the same disruptions as everybody else.
And I literally sent weekly notes talking about my Cheeto habits and sleeping on a unicorn sleeping bag on an AeroBed in my living room with my daughters, and lots of other sort of non-CEO stuff just to, again, give permission that, you know, we're all doing the best we can in these circumstances where nobody had a playbook either, as a leader, as an employee, as a parent, as a daughter, a son, you know, whatever. We all play 7,000 roles in life and it was hard to navigate all of them.
Charles (21:18):
The characteristics and traits that you're describing — more compassionate, more human, more empathetic, more willing to make the time to understand people's individual needs. As I said earlier, these are traits that I'm seeing people talking about more, and more, and more. They are also typically, at the moment anyway, traits that female leaders tend to demonstrate more naturally, more easily, more comfortably. Do you think that's a fair comment, first of all?
Nicolle Pangis (21:45):
Look, it's always tricky asking a female leader about female leadership qualities. But I understand the question. What I hope is that we talk about leadership qualities that impact teams and businesses, as opposed to gender, at some point. I know that we're not there yet, but I do hope we get there at some point.
I am intentional about leading differently. And I happen to.… I was very lucky in my career. I worked for amazing male leaders. And what I've done in my career is take from them what feels right to me. Again, I'm going with the feeling thing. What feels right to me, and then sort of leave behind the things that didn't feel right to me, and created my own path on those pieces.
But I do think women lead differently. And to your point about nature versus nurture, I think there's a little of both in those things. But I do hope that leadership qualities become a non-gender discussion. I really do.
Because I do still think that... you know, I notice even the CEO title, the way I articulate sometimes because I... there's that emotional part of me, is received differently. Meaning negatively, right? The emotional woman.
And the truth is emotions are a good thing. I think—
Charles (23:12):
Mm-hmm.
Nicolle Pangis (23:13):
—I think we talk about them as bad things. I think emotion is good. It means you care. It means you're passionate about something. And so, I think we need to flip the script. Because I will never sound like.… You know, I'm a five foot two woman. My voice sounds the way it does. I speak the way I do. I'm not trying to speak like a male. My voice will never sound like a male. My feelings are different.
It's really about business results and about the ability to lead. Leadership can look like a lot of different things, and it's about, does your team feel empowered to do their jobs? Are you supporting them where you can? You know, you always... as a leader, you always work for your team, as opposed to they work for you.
So, yeah. I mean, I think probably today, you're right. Those are more female leadership qualities. I do see more males becoming more vulnerable, including some people who I've worked up the chain with, who were a bit... you know, a little tougher exterior for most of our careers, and sort of showing themselves more. Which I think is fantastic.
Because again, we have to blend gender descriptions in with the fact that, you know, hopefully over time leadership starts looking a lot different than it has over the past. There's going to—
Charles (24:33):
Yeah.
Nicolle Pangis (24:34):
—be more different people. and I hope that those descriptions aren't described by their physical appearance or their gender.
Charles (24:42):
One of the most distinctive descriptions I've heard anybody give me, over the last year or so, was Devika Bulchandani, who's the Global CEO at Ogilvy.
Nicolle Pangis (24:51):
Yeah.
Charles (24:52):
And she was on the podcast a few weeks ago, and she talked about how she loves the people she works with, and she tells them she loves them.
Nicolle Pangis (25:00):
Mm.
Charles (25:01):
How does that resonate with you?
Nicolle Pangis (25:04):
I understand the feeling. This is where it gets tricky, right? Because some people actually feel uncomfortable with the word you just said, right? Like, if you say, "I love so-and-so," in a business setting, it wouldn't offend me, but it would actually offend other people, right?
Charles (25:24):
There are heads of HR, right, around the world—
Nicolle Pangis (25:26):
Oh, yeah.
Charles (25:26):
...cringing (laughs) at the idea.
Nicolle Pangis (25:28):
That's right. Yeah. But what I would say is, I would much prefer to hear somebody say, "I love you," or, "I love what you do," or, "I love who you are," in a business setting, as opposed to what I hear often, which is, "Hey, sweetie. Hey, honey."
So this is where I think the difference lies. I know people who work for her, and that is authentic to her.
Charles (25:53):
Yeah.
Nicolle Pangis (25:54):
And I think authenticity.… I know it's an overused term nowadays, but I think leaders have to be authentic to who they are. And so I appreciate that. But I bet you that there's some people who feel uncomfortable. And that's part of this dynamic, which is, some people here feel uncomfortable with how transparent I was about some of the stories I just told you. Where it's like, too much, or like, "Just be a CEO."
And this is where we have to flip the script of what a CEO looks like. Because CEOs look different, communicate differently. And I do think our worlds are more and more emerged, especially in this hybrid world, where the humanity part is going to come out much stronger than it has historically.
Charles (26:39):
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that we're living through what is probably going to be the most important time in the evolution of leadership in history. Because there are so many more possibilities, so many more opportunities, so much more acceptance of what you're describing.
And I think, even what Devika says, right, we're starting to see boundaries being pushed into places that even three years ago would've been unimaginable to have that conversation.
Nicolle Pangis (27:03):
Yeah.
Charles (27:04):
And so I think your description of yourself and finding out who you are, clearing away the rest of it and actually being true to that, is fundamentally going to be at the center of every leader's journey who wants to be a really effective leader. I think you're right, authenticity is an overused word, but the best leaders are going to do that work to figure out, who am I, how do I show up as my best self in the way that I'm most confident, and what does that actually require? And let's forget everything that has been true until now, in terms of the expectations about what leadership is or isn't.
Nicolle Pangis (27:34):
I think that's right. You know, this notion also of, show up as your best self, I think that's right. I think we all try to do our best every day. The truth is, we don't always show up as our best selves. And I think it's important, also, to talk about that. You know, we talked about it earlier. Leaders are human, too.
And, you know, there are meetings that I walk out of, and I just say like, "Ugh, like I didn't.… That was not my best self." You get frustrated. You're tired. My daughter was late getting out the door to take her to school today, so I started on the wrong foot.
And I think even in those moments as leaders, you know, there's many times that I say out loud, “I should not have articulated that the way I did. This is what I meant. And I apologize. Bad day." Because again, we are imperfect, you know, humans are by nature imperfect. And that means we're going to say the wrong thing. We're gonna make the wrong face. We're going to be frustrated sometimes. We're going to write the snarky email, even when you know that probably it's best to not do that.
And I think just the importance of grace. And we should call each other out, but nicely, right? Which is like, "Hey, that didn't feel very good." Or, "Didn't love that email." Or…. But I think, accepting imperfections of ourselves, and of each other, is really important, as well. I mean, nothing egregious, of course. You can't curse somebody out. I'm not saying that.
But we're all moving faster than we ever have, in our personal lives, and also in business. And I just think generally speaking, we're moving too fast than we were meant to move right now. There's too much in our heads. There's too much data flow. And so by nature, we're going to misstep more, just based on the speed within which we're moving.
And so I think that, just giving people grace when they do have a bad... they say the wrong word, or they don't show up as well as you would've wished them to in a meeting. And just kind of turning that page, and starting the next day over, knowing that their intentions were in the right place, I think is also really important, as well.
Charles (29:46):
Clearly your career is a long way from being over, but as you look back at the progress so far, do you have any regrets?
Nicolle Pangis (29:54):
I do. It's interesting. I do have regrets, but I wonder if the movie played differently, if I'd be sitting here, right? Because I think… the regrets that I have, to answer your question very specifically, is, I think, I poured myself into work, like I said, from a very early, very, very early age, even before college. I had three jobs in high school and then I worked through college and I graduated college a year early and then I went straight into the workforce. And I just had my head down from the time I was, like, 14 years old (laughs), and I don't think I picked it back up until 39, when I made this really big life shift, sort of all at one time.
So I think my regret is, just in the way I'm taking it forward, is to teach my daughters differently, which is, you know, to enjoy life as it comes, and you don't know if tomorrow is coming. And so I do wish that I stopped and smelled the roses more through my career.
All that being said, there's a lot that I was able to see in the world that I wouldn't have. Like, I've traveled the world, mostly because of work, frankly, because I've had global jobs for a lot of my career. And again, just based on where I came from, that wouldn't have probably happened but for the fact that I was a workhorse, and I worked with people that I learned a lot from, as well. So yes, I have regrets, but I try to say, "You know what? I have, you know, whatever time I have left, and so, there's no use focusing on what I could have, should have."
And so now what I'm doing, much more intentional about how I spend my time, and making time for the things that matter to me much more intentionally. And that's sort of the promise that I made to myself a handful of years ago now, is just spend time with people and do things that bring me joy much more than I did for the first, let's say, 40 years of my life. So that's... hopefully the back 40 is going to be—
Charles (32:02):
(laughs)
Nicolle Pangis (32:03):
—different than the front 40. And living with regret is, you know, you can't go back in time. So it's all part of the journey.
Charles (32:10):
Yeah, it absolutely is. Last two questions for you. How do you lead?
Nicolle Pangis (32:21):
It's funny. It's such a simple and complicated question. I think I lead in the way that I wanted to be led in my career. And so like I said, I took with me what I learned and then I sort of left behind some things. And so you culminate, a leadership style that you feel will empower people, but also teach people, right?
I know that there's a lot of notion about empowering your teams, and that's absolutely true. But part of leadership is, you're supposed to, when you get to a certain part of your career, you do in some cases, in a lot of cases, have to make a decision different than your team necessarily wants to make. And so what I try to do is balance the empowerment part with the fact that sometimes I do need to say, "Nope, actually, we're going to do it this way. Here's why. I heard what everybody said, but here's why we need to do it this way." Because you're... you know, part of leadership, unfortunately, is also disappointing people sometimes, and I think it's the how you do that, that's important.
And it all goes back to the humanity part, which is, like, "Here's why we made a decision, for these reasons, and I understand your perspective, but we're going to move in this direction." And I think a lot of effective leaders lead that way, which is, you listen to the team. But listening to the team is different... listening to what the team has to say is different than listening to the team. Meaning, the decision can be different. And again, hopefully leaders are in their jobs because they have certain perspectives or other data points to bring into the fold. There might be macroeconomics stuff going on that team members might not be necessarily aware of.
So, I try to lead by example in explaining why I'm making certain decisions, and, "Here is why we're bringing a meditation person in. Here is why we are working on this new project." And then you leave yourself as open as you can to answer questions from the team. I'm fortunate because we're about 600 people here, so it's actually big enough (laughs), we're a multi-billion dollar company, but we're small enough that actually, we could be very accessible as a leadership team, to be available to literally answer any questions from the team. I'm privileged in that position, because it's hard to do when you get into the thousands, it's easier to do when you're in the hundreds, still.
Charles (34:44):
I think the relationship between leadership and disappointment is something actually worthy of a much longer conversation. I think it's not very well understood and not very much discussed. And, as you said it, it struck me as something that is absolutely worthy of deeper thought and deeper contemplation.
Nicolle Pangis (35:00):
I've thought a lot about exactly that, too.
Charles (35:04):
Yeah. And I haven't heard anybody construct it that way, but there is a relationship and I'm curious to actually start to think more about that.
Last question for you. What are you afraid of?
Nicolle Pangis (35:15):
Well, it's interesting because we just touched on it. I hate disappointing people. My biggest fear is disappointing people. I'm trying to actually unwind that for myself, because part of being human is disappointing people, because if you're… you know, it's harder to disappoint yourself over the long-term than others, right, because that's the stay true to yourself part. So that's actually something that it is my biggest fear, but I'm working on it, because actually, I'm trying to teach myself that it's okay to disappoint people sometimes; it's not a bad thing.
Charles (35:52):
Well, and I—
Nicolle Pangis (35:53):
That’s not what I was taught growing up, right? Disappointing people—
Charles (35:55):
Yeah.
Nicolle Pangis (35:56):
—is the worst thing in the world.
Charles (35:56):
Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of wiring to overcome, isn't it? Especially coming from the background that you came from. It must be perpetually a struggle.
Nicolle Pangis (36:04):
It is. Very much a work in progress that I have not conquered yet.
Charles (36:08):
But you're absolutely right, at least in my experience. The greater we understand ourselves, the less power the idea of disappointing others has over us.
Nicolle Pangis (36:17):
Yes, because it actually could become debilitating when you're making decisions, to not disappoint other people. They might not be the right decisions and that's why I think the leadership component of it is really important, because leadership innately is about disappointing people sometimes, actually. I do think we should talk more about the nature of disappointment and actually how healthy it is sometimes to disappoint others as part of our personal journeys. Not to hurt them, by the way.
Charles (36:44):
No.
Nicolle Pangis (36:45):
Disappointment is different than hurting them.
Charles (36:46):
Well, that's right. And I think, you know, if the goal of life, at least for some of us, is to get as close to self-actualization as possible, then the primary focus needs to be making sure we don't disappoint ourselves.
Well, that's a heady conversation for another day (laughing). Nicolle, I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing. It is a pleasure to meet you. Obviously, we've never met before, but I am so struck by your personal journey and your willingness and your ability to shed a lot of baggage and look at yourself and try and figure out, pretty intensely I think, who you are and who you want to be, and it clearly shows up profoundly in the way that you lead. So I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking to me today.
Nicolle Pangis (37:31):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
—————
Let us know if there are other guests you’d like to hear from, and areas you’d like to know more about or questions you have.
And don’t forget to share Fearless with your friends and colleagues.
If you’d like more, go to fearlesscreativeleadership.com where you’ll find the audio and the transcripts of every episode.
If you’d like to know more about our leadership practice, go to thelookinglass.com.
Fearless is produced by Podfly. Frances Harlow is the show’s Executive Producer. Josh Suhy is our Producer and editor. Sarah Pardoe is the Media Director for Fearless.
Thanks for listening.
