Being an effective leader starts with company culture

Chief commercial officer and president of global biopharmaceuticals business at Pfizer, Angela Hwang, said it took Pfizer 248 days to develop its COVID-19 vaccine—a project that typically takes five years.

“The moment we were in was if we don’t do it in nine months, 10 months, then we won’t need it because it will just be a moot point,” she said. “So we had no option, but to rethink everything that we were doing to be able to do it in this timeframe. But when I think about what made the difference for us vis-à-vis the many, many companies who tried, and I have to say that of all my reflection, it was the culture of Pfizer, a culture that through the years was always patient focused, values based, and purpose driven.” 

During a panel at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif. on Tuesday, Hwang said that every day they knew what they were doing was to benefit a patient, and that put everything into focus. But the culture was so powerful because of years of conditioning, she noted. 

“We learned how to work well in teams, we learned how to respect one another—to be able to have debates, we learned how to trust one another,” Hwang said. “So in a time when we had no time, all of those attributes became critical to our ability to work fast and to be able to create solutions.”

Not every situation will require the urgency Hwang discussed. But leaders still need to bring their teams together by being the best they can be, which means leading with courage, transparency, and authenticity. 

“One of the things we really recognize and encourage at Amazon is to acknowledge your failures, acknowledge your mistakes, and share them very openly,” said Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people, experience, and technology. 

Sometimes in recognizing your own mistakes, you realize that not everything has to be set in stone. Deloitte’s executive chair of its board, Janet Foutty said that sometimes she thinks of her leadership principles as commandments, when instead they should be evolving. 

“The ability to really continue to flex and rethink and reframe how we lead, and even the principles with which we lead, are so important,” she said. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have sort of led a more recent change in the corporate world—in that more companies, and their leaders, are trying to push these initiatives to the forefront of their brands. 

But Edelman’s U.S. CEO Lisa Osborne Ross said she’s tired of having the same conversations about DEI and has a problem with parts of the phrase itself.

“We are naturally diverse, and for us to be still having this conversation, I almost find offensive to be honest with you,” she said. “So one, the ‘D’ bothers me…when I have clients who say I want to diversify my board, and I’m like, ‘So what are you thinking about?’ And they’re like, ‘I want to add women, I want to add people of color.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, women are over 50% of the population, so how are you diversifying by adding women? And people of color are 43% and growing of the population.’ So it actually is the reverse.” 

Ross said she also doesn’t like having to ask to be included—she’d rather be recognized. And instead of using the word “diversity,” she looks at it as representation. 

“I actually think that us lumping it together, DEI, does us a disservice,” said Anne Chow, FranklinCovey’s lead director, echoing Ross that the U.S. is a diverse country, so diversity is already there. 

“If you decide that you want an environment and a culture that embraces the reality of diversity…you’ve got to have that level of consciousness at every facet of your leadership team,” she said. “And you’ve got to place this equity lens on every policy and practice you have across the entire company.”