Ellen Ryan Mardiks
Ellen Ryan Mardiks

Ellen Ryan Mardiks, Chairman of Golin, reflects on the leadership insights she gained from the iconic Al Golin, her approach to leading leaders, her commitment to DEI initiatives, and her intentional decision to stay with Golin for 40+ years.

Here are excerpts from the full video interview:

What's your philosophy on leading true leaders?

There's so much to dig into as it relates to leadership and leadership styles. My philosophy is to remember that individual leaders need to lead their way, not mine. We all know that there are all different styles of leadership. We’ve read the books, haven’t we? We’ve taken the tests, and we know where we might fit across the spectrum of different styles of leadership.

I believe that the idea of letting people lead their own way is one that the very best leaders follow. I try to live by that principle. I encourage individuals to look into their hearts and souls and find the brand of leadership that is truly theirs, and then you'll find me next to them.

What were the most important things you learned about leadership from Al Golin?

I was fortunate enough to sit next to Al every day for many years of my career, so that was a gift. There are way too many lessons from Al to try to impart. Al actually left us with what we now call “Al-legories,” and these were his lessons on how to be successful in business and life.

“To stay curious is to stay relevant” was one of his favorites. The most important thing to Al was ongoing curiosity. He felt that was essential. He imparted that to us nearly every single day. Perhaps my favorite lesson I learned from him was to fix it before it breaks, which is a wonderful turn on its head of the rather silly idea that “if it ain't broke, don’t fix it.” He hated that phrase, turned it upside down, and said, “Tackle these problems head-on. Fix the situation with the client, repair a relationship with a colleague, before it breaks. These are lessons for anyone in our business, and I think they’re particularly important leadership lessons.

Perhaps the greatest thing I learned from Al would be one that he wouldn't have realized he had imparted, and that is that great leadership is equal parts ambition and humility. He had that balance so beautifully in himself. That balance is one that I have really taken from him and tried my best to embrace and impart.

If you have all ambition, you won’t have anybody following you. On the other hand, if you are too humble, it can communicate a lack of confidence, even if it isn’t true. You have to have this balance of ambition and humility.

What were a few of your biggest leadership challenges, and how did you recover?

Yeah, I've got a lot of those. The first thing that came to mind when you shared these questions with me are a couple of situations that I remember very vividly. One was when I was a newish leader. While it was my job to lead, I didn't have quite the years of experience that I have now.

I realized too late that I thought it would be a failure of leadership if I said I needed help. That seems so obvious now that leaders do ask for help, and they don't pretend to have all the answers.

I didn't know it then, and it resulted in a pretty significant failure for me. It taught me how important failure is in leadership. I really do believe that you learn so much more from failures than successes. If you keep building on those failures and truly learn from them, you are going to be a much better leader as a result.

The second one is how important it is to trust your gut as a leader. It’s really true that if you try hard, are invested, and pay attention, your gut is probably pretty accurate. If you're trusting your gut, then you've got to do something about it. It means something isn’t right, and you have to go in and fix it. That may involve risk, but leaders embrace risk.

Why have you stayed at Golin for 40+ years?

I almost want to turn it around and say, “Why wouldn’t I have stayed at an agency like mine?” With the kind of leaders that I've had a chance to work with, one of whom we just talked about, Golin has terrific clients, brilliant people, with a culture that has all kinds of confidence around it, but not very much ego.

That's a real perfect fit for me. I have been so excited and fortunate to be part of the constant evolution from what it was when I started, which was a great agency.

At the time of our interview I was working from my home, but I'd have been at our office if we hadn’t been moving that very week to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. We're so excited to be in a terrific, iconic Chicago building. We were once one office in one great town, working for a few great clients. Now, look where we are.

Helping to build and shape something that I love as much as I do Golin has been a tremendous privilege. Staying here has been an ongoing decision over the decades. It's not a default. It is a decision, and one I've been very happy and proud to make.

I would like to acknowledge that it can be a choice for others too. I know it's rare, but it's not impossible, and it can work out very nicely. It has been so rewarding and reinforcing to have the kind of years Golin has had. As you know, we had a very proud moment at Cannes this year, with two grand prizes, which is tremendous, not just for us but for our industry.

What should the PR industry do to ensure that it continues to support DE&I?

It seems to me that the PR agency is doing exactly that. The reasons why appear to be obvious, not just to you, but to me, and to many others. We need a diverse and thriving workforce to do the kind of work that we need to do for diverse clients who are reaching all kinds of different people all around the world.

Perhaps our industry in the past hasn't been good enough at that, at reaching or making progress toward that rather obvious goal. We will continue down the path as it relates to what we're doing. We want our talented, committed people to thrive, and we have programs in place to do that. We are excited about getting better, and that's something very true for the industry as a whole. It's absolutely a true goal, and we never feel as if we've arrived.

We're in a constant state of becoming. I want us to continue to strive and to be in a constant state of becoming as it relates to building the kind of team and workforce that our clients need us to have.

***

Ken Jacobs is the principal of Jacobs Consulting & Executive Coaching, which empowers PR and communications leaders and executives to breakthrough results via executive coaching, and helps communications agencies achieve their business development, profitability, and client service goals, via consulting and training. You can find him at www.jacobscomm.com, [email protected] @KensViews, or on LinkedIn. You can also subscribe to the Jacobs Consulting and Executive Coaching YouTube channel.