Change is the spirit of the moment—globally, internally, economically, ad infinitum—and those who’ve learned how to quickly and masterfully adapt are best positioned to succeed. Happily for Stacey Ryan-Cornelius, change is the name of the game.
While Ryan-Cornelius has worked for the advertising agency WPP for 26 years, within those nearly three decades she has moved between different subsidiaries of the company: She served as Ogilvy’s worldwide controller, then as global chief financial officer of WPP Health & Wellness, where she spent 15 months restructuring the portfolio. She took on two C-Suite titles as global CFO and COO of Geometry Global, launching a restructuring and transformation plan to drive growth and strengthen the financial health of the company, leading to Geometry’s successful relaunch as VMLY&R Commerce in 2020. Then she returned to Ogilvy as global CFO to shape Ogilvy’s financial strategy and operations, again during a period of transformation and growth.
“I kind of got this reputation of getting in there when it’s really, really tough and changing the organization and helping the culture thrive and driving success,” she says. Now, she’s transitioned once more to take on the global CFO role at subsidiary Burson, a global public relations and communications firm headquartered in New York City.
Even for a veteran leader like Ryan-Cornelius, there’s a whole new learning curve with every transition, and often it is intangible things like culture and personality that can be make or break the experience. She spoke at the most recent Women Leaders Connect webinar on Mastering Influence, (the next session, “Setting Goals That Stick,” is on December 10; join us!) and shared key tips for creating champions and leading with presence, especially during times of transformation. Here are some of her core lessons that every leader can put into practice:
Clear communication is a powerful tool.
The root of so many issues with change comes down to a break in communication. Ryan-Cornelius remembers when she returned to Ogilvy, feeling familiar with the culture, “I went in there a little bit command and control,” she says. “And the feedback I got back was, ‘You’re acting like a schoolteacher. You’re not in it with us. We don’t feel that you are giving solutions as much as telling us what to do.’”
That took her aback. Even though she thought she knew what needed to be done, there was clearly a disconnect. “What that meant was I had to change my communication style. I had to spend more time with people… I had to spend more time cultivating relationships.” Once she spent some time building that trust and clarity, she started to see the changes she had wanted to make start to click into place.
Lead with empathy.
AI is certainly top of mind for most leaders as perhaps the most imminent transformational power. “Clearly, we’re always looking about how we do things more efficiently, more productively, more profitably,” says Ryan-Cornelius. But she urges leaders to also remember, “You’re dealing with the soft side of people feeling vulnerable and scared about what that change means for them on a day-to-day basis… you always have to couple the opportunities with understanding the core truth of what that type of change really is, and be empathetic about how you drive that in your organization.”
Even at the top, you aren’t in it alone.
There is a time and place for muscling through tough times, but it’s also a powerful thing to ask for help, and watch your team step up to the plate. “I think you have the most satisfaction when you feel like you’re doing something as a team,” says Ryan-Cornelius. “If I look back at the things that have been the most successful, and actually the people that I’m still closest to to this day, it’s when we’ve all gone through something that was pretty darn hard and we came out the other side. We did it together.”
Find your own board of directors rather than a mentor.
Having been asked time and time again about who she views as her mentor, Ryan-Cornelius struggled to find an answer, as there was not one singular person who helped steer her career. Instead, she’s reframed it has her own personal board of directors. “Over time and depending upon my need, I’ve tapped into different people about different facets of my life so that I know who to go to,” she says. Find those four or five people that can together cover your variety of needs, rather than trying to find one end-all-be-all mentor.
Step into your authentic self.
Ultimately, leadership for Ryan-Cornelius comes down to committing to show up as yourself. “I’ve always been in spaces where I’ve been the only person looking like me in a lot of different instances, either being a female or an African American female. So standing out was never a problem from that perspective, but it was how I was going to show up. And the way I like to show up, there’s empathy, there’s concern, there is directness, there’s transparency, there is humor.”
If there are moments when an inner voice shouting about potential failure pipes up, visualize your success. “I remember the first time that I presented to our parent company board, I could barely breathe,” says Ryan-Cornelius. “I just went in the bathroom and I visualized the end of the presentation instead of sitting there with the anticipation of everything… I visualized the end, I visualized me being happy, I visualized them actually understanding.
“And that visualization calmed me down enough so that I was already thinking about the moment of completion in a successful way that I wasn’t so hyped up on screwing it up. It also helped me to perform.”
