Welcome to the Inspirational Leaders Series, a collection of short interviews with sharp, impactful leaders that I know and respect—because the business world needs more refreshing people like them.
"I think the most fun part of being in a leadership position is getting to know the people in my team and trying to figure them out like a puzzle—what's the thing that's blocking them? "
👋Meet Ghazal Badiozamani, founder of Clearhead Advisory. She helps companies define business and product strategies, develop high-performing teams, and build customer-centered products and services in healthcare, life sciences, education, and technology. She also has many years of experience in the corporate strategy and product management spaces. She’s an empathetic and decisive leader who thrives when problems are thorny and complex.
What attracts you to playing a leadership role?
One thing that drives us and gives us reason for waking up is our core values. Growing up, one of the core values instilled in me was that if you are in a position to help someone else, you have the responsibility to do so.
As you develop in your career, because of technical skills or other factors, you may find yourself in a leadership position where you have a team or you're building an organization from scratch. That mentality of “How do I help the people around me achieve their goals and reach their full potential?” is the thing that drives good leadership, at least in my mind.
It's also kind of selfish, in a funny way. I watched this interview with the Dalai Lama, and he talked about “selfish-good”; helping others makes you feel better, yourself. Whereas doing something because of greed or just because you want to fancy cars, well, that’s just plain selfishness. When I help my team members and see them flourish and break through their blockers as a result, that makes me feel “selfish-good”.
I think the most fun part of being in a leadership position is getting to know the people in my team and trying to figure them out like a puzzle—what's the thing that's blocking them? Sometimes it's negative past experiences, so they have assumptions about what I’m going to be like as a manager. Sometimes it's a lack of confidence. Or it could just be a lack of technical skill that's easy to solve. Depending on where people are at, I can help in different ways.
Are you honing this idea of leadership as a service to others?
There's a whole field of conversation around this concept of "servant leader." If you are a leader who is working on how to empower your teams and give them the skills, resources, or space to do what they need to do, they will probably outpace your expectations. And in the same way, if you have that same mindset with your peers, where you know each other's goals and are trying actively to help each other to achieve them, whether they're personal or professional development goals, then you become a better team.
In fact, that's what a team is. And that's how you create the culture of collaboration everyone seeks. It’s not about offsites, conferences, and fun events. It's really paying attention to the people around you and ensuring that you're actively helping them achieve what they are trying to achieve.
What would indicate that you are getting it right?
It might sound contrary, but my favorite thing is when people in my organization leave because they've outgrown how I can help them. I know I’ve done a good job when someone was blocked because they needed to be more confidence or wanted to acquire a new skill, and I helped them achieve that confidence or skill. Sometimes after that I don't have more space in my organization to grow them, not because I don’t want to, but because of budget constraints or just the nature of the business. There are all sorts of things we can’t control.
So, when I’ve done everything I can to help someone meet their potential in my organization, and they are ready to grow somewhere else, it’s the best feeling. My job as a leader is to help people reach their full potential because that's how my team can function at its best and be a high-performing team. That drives incredible loyalty, but it also means sometimes I almost have to push people out. I care about them; leading with empathy means that you care about the person you're trying to develop. And so you know, sometimes I have to tell people I can't give you any more opportunities. I'm limited in my resource. So, now you’re ready to grow even more somewhere else. And, that’s great.
What’s a challenge you faced as a leader that turned you into a better leader?
I’ve found, working at very large global organizations, that the structures and the incentives are not always aligned and sometimes don't facilitate true teamwork. That, for me, has always been a big challenge. When I was in a position where a partner and I had different incentives, we were trying to work together, but it just didn't work. We thought we didn't like each other as humans, and we were moving in different directions.
But that trickles down, creating a sense of discomfort and conflict within the team. In that challenging situation, I learned a lot about what culture really means. And how can you create an environment where people are having fun and can find the light side of things, even when the stressors seem extreme. I explored and experimented with lots of different things, including bringing in an improv coach for my team. And, those efforts really helped the team feel more unified in spite of the stressful context.
