If I knew then what I know now: Louise Phelan on how to be memorable

A highly experienced strategic advisor, Rathdowney native Louise Phelan has built a career working with leading companies around the world – from Phelan Energy Group to PayPal and most recently, Michael O’Leary’s Ryanair. 

The first woman to receive the Sir Michael Smurfit Business Achievement Award, her expertise spans everything from commercial planning to operational excellence, though it’s her leadership skills that are arguably most impressive. Once voted Most Trusted Leader by her employees, it’s an accomplishment Louise holds very close to her heart, telling me “that will be my legacy”. 

Here she reflects on her impressive career journey to date and whether she would change anything given what she knows now.

Describe your career in three words… Eventful, learning and fun.

What’s one lesson you have learned in your career that you wish every woman knew?
Believe in yourself. Have that spoonful of confidence every morning, believe in yourself and just be confident and hold your own. Also, you have to laugh, you have to have fun – even in a crisis. Every cloud has a silver lining. If you don’t have fun, you’ll go off the deep end.

As a woman in senior leadership in traditionally male-dominated industries, what were some of the key challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
I’m one of 17 – nine girls and eight boys – so diversity was at our table from a very, very young age. We didn’t know what it was called back then, but you have to hold your ground and be the subject matter expert in your field. You should be confident enough that you know more than everybody else around the table. So hold your ground.

Do you think the gender gap in leadership roles is narrowing in Ireland, and what more can be done to accelerate progress?
I definitely think it’s narrowing. There are requirements within boards that they have to have a percentage of women. I think that needs to sunset at some point because it should be just normal. More can be done and should be done but women have to do more too. I had to put myself out there during my career. I put myself into rooms where there were men and only men. You have to be memorable. If I’m not showing up to a load of networking events, I’m not memorable so people aren’t going to think of me for job opportunities. When I say be memorable, I don’t mean talk to ten people and give your business card out like confetti. I mean, make a connection with one or two people who you want something from and then follow up with a LinkedIn invite after. You should always know why you’re going to an event and you should always have your own agenda – whether you’re looking for a new role, you’re looking to network, you’re looking to hire people. You have to put yourself out there and know what you’re looking for. I had to sell the brand PayPal to people when it first came to Ireland. I was out day and night, networking outside of my day job. But it paid off.

Do you feel your early training and career set you up for leadership and if so, how?
As I said, I’m one of 17 – all of us were very fortunate that our parents sent us to private boarding school. But we always sat down for dinner together, and we went around the table and talked about what we did for the day. If you didn’t want to talk, there was an etiquette book on the table and you had to read a page. So, we learned to talk fairly fast because none of us wanted to read the book! My father was a CEO and my mother was a COO. She minded the money and he took all the risks. Later in life, I learned more about entrepreneurship, but even as a child, I could see that my parents were entrepreneurs. They were risk-takers, always looking for the next opportunity and that helped shape me. The skills and competencies that we learned from my parents absolutely enhanced our education, but our education was critical too.

What is the most underrated quality essential for leadership in your opinion?
Active listening – listen to understand, not to respond. I see that so much in interviews; people don’t hear the question, they hear the first word, and then they blather on off-topic.  It’s hard because you want to move on yourself but that’s been my biggest lesson in leadership. Active listening is just so important.

What defines a resilient leader?
You can bend, but you can’t break. The wind can blow you right and left but when the tree breaks, you have a problem. When you’re in the middle of a crisis, six o’clock is still going to come. Standing back to think about what the best course of action is can help. You’ll wobble but resilience means you’ll bend but you shouldn’t break.

What is your advice for anyone building a team?
A CEO is only one person – I call them Chief Emotional Officers because there’s always emotion when you’re dealing with people. But you can’t do it all. You have to surround yourself with people better than you, with different skills and competencies. That’s absolutely critical. I’ve always hired the best people with the best knowledge. Then once you’ve hired someone, you have to onboard them properly to set them up for success. If you spend the time onboarding them properly, you’ll get much more out of them than if you half do the job. I’ve seen that so many times. You’re setting everybody up for success. You have to give people time to learn, get in the culture, understand what’s going on and give them time to make themselves successful. It doesn’t need to be a big, sophisticated thing, but there have to be 100-day goals and you have to check in with your team to see what roadblocks you can remove for them. It’s also really important to have good, trusted advisors you can go and rant to. Being a leader can be very lonely – when something goes wrong, the only person who gets the call is you. I’ve worked for American companies all my career, and I’ve had many ‘awesome failures’ as they call them. But they’re the ones you learn from.

Is there any life, business or career advice that you ignored?

I’ve coached a number of companies and the CEO at one of the companies I’m working with, said, ‘It’s very interesting to watch you, Louise. You always make notes as you go. When someone says something irrelevant or that isn’t adding value, you stop writing.’ I didn’t notice that myself. I’m always respectful, but you can’t make everyone happy. You have to listen actively and then try to move the conversation along. Deflect so that person doesn’t feel like they didn’t add value. Some people just like the sound of their own voice but I navigate bullsh*t very quickly!

How do you manage work-life balance?
There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s just life. I have a life and work is part of that life. Sleep is part of that life, eating is part of that life, getting my hair done is part of that life. I have to balance all of those things, and I just make sure I do the best for myself. Sometimes, things are off-balance but that’s my responsibility to manage that. I’ve never asked a boss to help me manage my work-life balance.

What has been your most proud moment in business so far?
When I was voted Most Trusted Leader by my employees. That will be my legacy because it tells me that I was doing a good job for my people and for the organisation. It was very affirming mentally and emotionally. That will stay with me forever. Everybody stresses, but I think as you mature, you learn to deal with it better.

Having a five-year plan – yes or no?
Having a five-year plan is an outdated idea. You should definitely have a detailed one-year plan. You should have a two-year plan. If you’re growing your business from 20 million to 28 million, you need to know where that 8 million is coming from. You need to have a plan with your sales team and a plan with your back office, a plan with your warehouse. It should be high-level and detailed. But a five-year plan? Waste of time. You have to know where your North Star is – it’s a bit like Google Maps. If you’re going to Cork and you end up in Kerry, well, that’s a bad idea. You have to know where you’re going and be clear about that. But I think definitely a detailed one-year plan and an outlook for year two is enough. 

What has been the most defining moment of your career so far, and what lessons did it teach you?
My awesome failures. I could be cheerleading every day because we did lots of great things but they were few and far between and were rarely recognised. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way or facetious way, but with awesome failures, we’d all sit down and do our postmortem. We made decisions at a point in time with a certain amount of information. Would it have made a difference if I had more information? Yeah, but I made a decision. The important thing is that I had a fix. I’d always be the first to pick up the phone and say ‘we, my team or whoever it was, made a mess and we have trouble on our hands but we’re working through it and here’s what we’re going to do.’ 

If you knew then what you know now, would you do anything differently?
I probably would have believed in myself a bit more. I shouldn’t have been questioning myself as much as I was. I should have been confident in myself. I’d have done my research, I’d have prepared for the 80-20 rule. I knew more than they knew in the room. And if I didn’t know, I always knew who to go to. We all beat ourselves up for not being bigger, taller, smaller, thinner, darker, blonder but at the end of the day, you are who you are. You have to stay true to yourself and remember where you came from.