Why purpose-driven leadership builds stronger teams

Garreth Hanley:
This is INTHEBLACK, a leadership, strategy and business podcast brought to you by CPA Australia.

Tahn Sharpe:
Hello and welcome. I'm Tahn Sharpe, editor of INTHEBLACK magazine. In this episode of the INTHEBLACK podcast, we speak to experienced senior executive Pip Marlow about purpose, an underrated aspect of leadership that really should be at its foundation.

Through her roles at Salesforce, Suncorp, and Microsoft, Pip says she's learned that purpose changes everything. And she has a fascinating and quite grounded perspective on the value of authenticity, the tension between ambition and humility, and how to know when you're the chef and when you're an ingredient.

Pip Marlow will be speaking at CPA Congress in person at the Gold Coast in October. To find out more, follow the links in the show notes. I think it'll be a fascinating session, especially for those in leadership roles or those who have ambitions to lead others, because Pip is someone who really believes that helping others to do their best work is the ultimate measure of leadership success. Pip, thanks for joining us.

Pip Marlow:
Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for including me in this.

Tahn Sharpe:
So, let's set the table. You've led across tech, finance, and customer-focused industries. What do you believe defines great leadership today, regardless of sector?

Pip Marlow:
It's always hard to put things into a box because I think there's a lot of different types of leaders. But for me, in my experience, there's probably three things that have really stood out. One, the ability for a leader to create great clarity. And you talked about purpose already. To do that, you need to create that clarity, and not just the clarity for the immediate, but the clarity into the future and to help signpost that to your organisation.

And as part of that, you've got to make the complex simple. People are so busy, so great leaders who can do that, do that really well. I think the other element in here is adaptability. If you think about it from a sailing analogy, you can't just be a sailor who can sail in fair weather. You've got to be able to sail in a storm. And great leaders are adaptable. They can sail in all conditions. They're prepared to pivot quickly and admit their mistakes.

And I think for me, the last attribute that I see in great leaders is moral compass, being that moral courage. And that means you can make those difficult decisions, you stand up for what's right, and you take responsibility when things go wrong.

Tahn Sharpe:
Can ambition and humility coexist? And maybe if you could just elaborate on why that balance is so important for emerging leaders.

Pip Marlow:
I really like this question because it's something I personally connect to. So, I think for a long time in my career, I struggled to hold humility and ambition at the same time. And what I mean by that is, I remember one of my old bosses asking me if I wanted to run Microsoft Australia one day. And in my head, the answer is yes, which is a really simple answer. But when I opened my mouth, I sort of went like this, "I don't know. It's a big job.

There's so many other people who could do it." And so, I didn't have the courage to share my ambition, and I felt it was more important maybe to be humble and not assume I should get the job. And he really called me on it on that moment. He said, "Well, you didn't really answer the question." He said, "Let me help you. The answer is yes, no, or I don't know. Because we can extrapolate after that, but give me one of those three answers."

And I said the word yes, but I felt really uncomfortable doing it because it didn't feel humble. And when he asked me about why I was struggling to say yes, I said, "Well, it seems so arrogant to say I would want that job." He said, "It's not arrogant. It's not arrogant to have an ambition. It's arrogant if you assume you should have it over anybody else." And that was a really good moment for me to learn to say, "I can share my ambitions, but I can do so in a way that is humble and without expectations that I deserve it more than anybody else."

And so, I really try and hold those two things in a lot of places now.

Tahn Sharpe:
What a really good piece of advice. It's an interesting question, that tension that arises there between ambition and humility. It's like the tension that you have when you're wondering whether you should have the courage of your own convictions or be open to new ideas.

Pip Marlow:
Yeah. I so agree with you. And it's hard because sometimes the answer to those things can be mixed, because you hold multiple values in your life. And so, when you're faced with a challenge, sometimes your own values are in conflict. And so, that goes to the fact that two things can be true at the same time.

And so, then you've really got to ask yourself, "In this situation," back to adaptability, "what is most important with the information I have right now to help me make this decision?" Because it can be really difficult when you're holding multiple things at the same time to work through that tension.

Tahn Sharpe:
You've previously described your role as creating the best possible environment for others to do their best work. What does that look like in practice, especially during times of change?

Pip Marlow:
Yeah. And you started this conversation when you used the word purpose. So, for me, when I ran Microsoft, I used to say, I didn't know any employee who got out of bed excited that morning to sell a copy of Windows. Selling Windows was not purpose. The employees who I really admired got up that day excited to help a small business grow their business, excited to help teachers drive better learning outcomes for their students, excited to help those in the medical practice collaborate, help drive better patient outcomes.

They were excited about the role that technology could do to help their customers, because that was the purpose. The organisational purpose of Microsoft at that time was to enable every organisation and person on the planet to realise their potential. That's what our purpose was. And so, I think when you give that clarity of purpose and you hire people who're excited about that purpose, you get discretionary effort, because the people are really committed to achieving those outcomes.

So, to help in creating that discretionary effort and driving that sense of purpose, I think you've got to create psychological safety. Because I, as a leader, I'm not going to get it right all the time. So, creating space where people can say, "Actually, we think there's a better way of solving this problem or achieving this purpose," or saying, "Actually, things aren't going well," and being encouraged to bring that truth and speak truth to power, which happens when you create psych safety, is just an incredible gift to the organisation to help drive that sense of alignment and purpose.

Now, it's easy to create psych safety, I'd say, when things are going well. In times of change, that can be quite disruptive. People feel insecure, people feel worried, and that's the time where maybe psychological safety is less present. So you really have to have... especially as a leader, you have to be able to stand back, not be the first to speak, to listen and learn from others, to continue to bring out that sort of sense of challenge and creating a better outcome.

Tahn Sharpe:
Right. So, it sounds like to get that discretionary effort that you mentioned there, it's really a question of framing. But when you're framing motivation up, it must be done within a psychological safety barrier, so to speak.

Pip Marlow:
Yeah. And I think that means that people are going to be able to comfortably disagree with you. And sometimes, when you're the boss, it's harder sometimes for people to do. They're going, "Okay, well, I'm disagreeing with Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer or Marc Benioff." But actually, those leaders are all people I know who just encouraged active debate and different ways of looking and seeing things to help better outcomes for the company and the customer.

Tahn Sharpe:
How do you lead with empathy while staying decisive and maintaining conviction?

Pip Marlow:
Yeah. So, an old boss of mine gave me good advice once, and he said, "If you want people to think you care, you only have to do one thing, and that's care. You don't have a checklist. There's no course you can do. You just have to actually care. And when you care, you will stop, you will listen, you will learn, you'll be open, you'll support people." And genuine care, I believe, should be at the heart of how you take care of people, even if you are making a tough decision.

As leaders, sometimes you do have to either do a reduction force and downsize an organisation or deal with performance issues. And even when it comes to performance issues, I think you've got to support people to improve and help them get better at what they're doing. And sometimes that means you have to exit people from an organisation. And I never, ever want those decisions to feel easy.

I don't want that. I want that decision to feel uncomfortable because I want to know that I still care about the people whose lives I'm impacting. So, when people say, "Oh, you shouldn't take that stuff personally," well, I do. It's somebody's livelihood. It's their career. I care deeply about it. So I do do that. But it also still requires me, at times, to make those decisions and make those tough decisions.

You can't steer away from that. That is your role. But I ask myself, "Have I done everything to help this person improve? Have I given them really good feedback? Have I given them the resources to do their job? Have I listened and tested my assumptions around how I think they're doing, I've got different perspectives? And now am I treating them with respect and kindness as I make that tough decision?" And those are important things for me.

Tahn Sharpe:
Yeah, it's fascinating. There are a lot of business benefits that are associated with caring, and I think we're just sort of coming to realise that more and more. Can I ask you, Pip, what advice would you give to finance and accounting professionals who want to move from, say, technical roles into more so strategic leadership positions?

Pip Marlow:
And I think this advice goes beyond finance and accounting professionals. I think for most of us, and certainly for me, as I went through my career, I came up as a technical expert. You're an individual contributor often, and you're doing a great job in your field. And in this case, it'd be finance and accounting. As you transition to that, it is about, I think, doing a couple of things. One is it's learning to be on the balcony, not the dance floor.

So, if you are going to be helping your organisation think more strategically, if you are down in the weeds or on the dance floor with your team all the time, it's difficult to coach them because you can't see the forest for the trees or you can't see how the whole team is dancing together. If you can elevate your perspective onto the balcony, you can look at your organisation and actually see how they're dancing.

And then you can start to coach people on working more in time with each other or partnering better or going in the right direction. So, there is an art to elevating your thinking to do that. And I think you have to give yourself time and space to do that. And if you can't create the time and space, it's very difficult to get the distance needed to see that. The second thing is you've actually got to change some of your own behaviours.

And I remember when I became managing director at Microsoft in Australia, I'd done public sector and enterprise before that, and the two fantastic team members who'd replaced me in that role basically called a meeting with me, and they said to me, "Hey, do you want to do your job or ours?" Because I'm still trying to do their job. I wasn't giving them the space to be them. I was trying to do my job and their job.

And I love that they had the courage to call me on that, because it really helped me shift into my new job and create space for them. So, have people who will let you know how you're doing through that process of shifting and elevating and creating space for others to do their best work. So, don't be afraid to put great people in the job you used to do and celebrate their success.

I mean, my goal now is, every time I recruited someone, is to hire somebody better than me, smarter than me, who could do the job I did better than me. It's fantastic. It allows you the space to go into other places. So, learn to let go of the things that you used to do, learn to create space to elevate your optics, to look at how you might coach and help your team more, and be open to feedback from others as you go through the transition.

Tahn Sharpe:
That second point you mentioned there about letting go of your old roles, I'd imagine trust would be a big part of that, trusting that you've delegated to someone who's worthy of the role and can handle it.

Pip Marlow:
Yeah. I use the term trust but verify. Trust is important. You want to build trust. Trust is two-way. But trust shouldn't be blind. You don't just go, "I trust that my money's in the bank." I check my bank account balance. "Is my saved money there? Have my bills been paid? Have I paid off my credit card?" You verify things. And so, as you trust, you should build in guardrails to help you verify, because that's helping your team.

That's back to coaching your team. That's about helping them do a better job. So, what are your verification models? How do you continue to test feedback from other people, manage your feedback? What are your customer satisfaction indicators? What are your growth indicators? What are the indicators around the performance of the people in your team? So you can make sure that you're definitely trusting them, but you're verifying that and then finding the information through that that helps you coach them and help them improve.

Tahn Sharpe:
You've worked with career coaches, and I imagine you've had different mentors throughout your career, Pip. What's the most transformative piece of advice that you've received, and how has it shaped your leadership?

Pip Marlow:
I've been really lucky to, one, work for great leaders, Tracey Fellows, and Steve Vamos, Marc Benioff. I've had such inspirational leaders who I think have really invested in me. And all of those, in many ways, as someone said, believed in me before I believed in myself. And I think that's just a real gift. A lot of people talk about imposter syndrome. I think every human has insecurities, and sometimes we wonder if we should be doing the job or we're good enough for the job we're doing.

And so, it's nice to have people who can be your cheer squad at times when you're facing that moment of insecurity or doubt. And I think often career coaches can play great roles for that. But I think the other thing I really valued from my career coaches is the ability to hold up a mirror kindly to me. And that's when I'm maybe in a victim mindset or I'm maybe not aware of where I'm going wrong, the ability to question me and help me see myself what I'm missing or not doing well enough, or holding me accountable but in a way that is kind and caring.

And people who can do that well, I think, give you the gift of self-discovery and accountability for that, but they also don't let you off the hook for backing away too early. And I think that's a pretty rare gift, I think. And I think that's helped me a lot in my career.

Tahn Sharpe:
What's one bold decision you've made that required saying no to something else or someone else? And what did that teach you about leadership clarity?

Pip Marlow:
The art of saying no is really important. There's part of me, to be honest, I can be a bit of a maybe people pleaser. I just love to help people. So, often when people come to me and say, "Can you help with this? Can you help with this?" I like to say yes. But actually, what I found over time was, in doing that... Your capacity is always limited, yes? So, am I spending my time on the things that are most important?

And there was a real great episode, Tim Ferriss: Tribe of Mentors. He does one episode which is not with a mentor, it's just him talking about all his rejections, how people said no. And he has a great formula in there about how to say no. So, first thing I would say is, learn how to say no. And I use his method a lot, because actually, you can't say yes to everything and then you are actually trading off. Every single time that you are doing something, there is an opportunity cost. Sometimes you're just not conscious of what that opportunity cost is because these are micro moments.

So, becoming more aware of where you spend your time and your energy and your investments, I think, is something I improved over my career because I found I wasn't spending enough time with my family or with the right things in my job. So, I think that's a big thing.

Tahn Sharpe:
Well, Pip, I've enjoyed the discussion. And I think you've provided some fascinating insights and certainly given myself and, no doubt, our listeners a lot to think about when it comes to leading with purpose.

For our listeners, Pip Marlow will be speaking at CPA Congress in person at the Gold Coast in October. To find out more, follow the links in the show notes. And thanks for joining us today.

Pip Marlow:
Thanks so much for having me, and I'm really looking forward to the conference.

Tahn Sharpe:
And thank you for listening to INTHEBLACK. Make sure to check out the show notes for those links. And if you found this episode insightful, please subscribe to INTHEBLACK and share this episode with your colleagues and friends in the business community.

Your support helps to bring us more valuable discussions like this, and we really appreciate you being with us. Until next time, thanks for listening.

Garreth Hanley:
To find out more about our other podcasts, check out the show notes for this episode. And we hope you can join us again next time for another episode of INTHEBLACK.