Being a pacesetter right now can really feel like an limitless balancing act. Many are struggling to seek out the proper steadiness between compassion and accountability, stability and disruption.
However for GoodRx CEO Wendy Barnes, profitable management right now isn’t nearly staying calm by chaos—it’s about reclaiming management.
Talking at Fortune’s Most Highly effective Girls Summit in Washington D.C., Barnes mentioned the Nice Resignation pushed push for empathy and adaptability at work, whereas essential, has given workers an excessive amount of energy whereas undermining bosses.
“I’ve noticed an uncomfortable trend where I feel like the partnership between employer and employee, in some instances, is skewing so heavily toward an employee that the obligation of our colleagues as employees is sometimes being left on the floor,” she informed Fortune’s Diane Brady.
“It’s been an interesting challenge for me, because there is an inclination, I think, just given my background, to say, ‘Are you kidding me?’, and ‘Suck it up buttercup. Let’s go.’ And that’s obviously, that doesn’t work either—that’s not going to be an appropriate response.”
Earlier than becoming a member of the pharmaceutical trade, Barnes spent practically a decade within the U.S. Air Power, the place she realized an early lesson in management: Acknowledge what you don’t know—and lead by others who do.
“I’ve had to continually ground myself and what I can control versus what I can’t,” she mentioned. “And I’ve had to continue reminding my team of the same and to the extent that there are things that are largely uncontrollable.”
Alexis Depree, chief working officer at Nordstrom, echoed whereas enterprise pressures can really feel more and more amplified—that’s simply the norm: “The challenge is different, but there’s always something. There’s always something that challenges us to lead differently.”
{Photograph} by Stuart Isett/Fortune
Serious about management change from the angle of a monkey
For Shideh Bina, founding father of the consultancy Insigniam, change is deeply private. In late 2023, her agency was acquired by Elixirr—turning her from “queen bee” into half of a bigger management workforce at a publicly traded firm.
That transition pressured her to rethink what transformation actually requires. Bina’s reply? Take into consideration monkeys.
“How they capture monkeys is they set up a trap where the monkey puts his hand in to get the goodies, but can’t get its hand out unless it lets go of the goodies,” she mentioned. “I often use that with my clients when they’re going through transformations, both in the organization and in their leadership, you have to be willing to let go of whatever it is you’re holding on to.”
“I always think of the monkey. I ask myself, am I willing to let go of all the goodies for what could be?” Bina mentioned.
And ultimately, being keen to embrace transformation is what Bina mentioned spurs success within the long-term: “You’ve got to let go of the banana.”
