X-Factor Leadership
Many Old Approaches To Leadership Aren’t Resonating Now. We Need To Be More Pioneering.
X-Factor Leadership
Blake Lowry, Global Head of Talent at Amgen, shares his insights on adapting leadership models for a dynamic world in this interview with The ExCo Group‘s CEO, David Reimer, and Senior Managing Director and Partner, Adam Bryant.
Reimer: What are the most significant changes you’ve seen in your role since you moved into the job in 2018?
Lowry: One is the change in the nature of leadership from more of a predict and plan-ahead model—based on the idea you can control the outside environment with enough planning—to a respond-and-react leadership approach. That puts behind us about 30 years’ worth of leadership research, expectations, and competency models that I was steeped in and developed programs around. Now there’s a big premium on resilience and an ability to connect with and inspire employees.
Second is Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), which we refer to as Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DI&B) at Amgen. DI&B used to be part of the talent function but it’s become an integral part of everything we do in HR now.
The third is our choice around flexible work. We adopted a longer-term flexible model, which affords our employees as much flexibility as their work can afford. For most of our employees, this concept results in a lot of flexibility over where and how they need to get their work done. This is unusual in our industry, but our employees love it. We had 91 percent of our staff say in our regular all-staff surveys that it’s part of their engagement and retention.
Bryant: Amgen is a science-based organization, and you grew up in this field using more data-based approaches. But everyone is trying to figure out the best leadership approach for the world we live in now, and the answers are unclear.
Lowry: Figuring out how to develop leadership for the future taps into a different part of the science mind, which is the test-and-learn approach. You try something, get short-term feedback about whether it’s working or not, and then adapt as you go. That is not in complete disharmony with a science-based approach, but it is different. A lot of our old approaches simply aren’t resonating anymore. We have to be a bit more pioneering in the leadership space without the solid anchors of the research that got us here.
Reimer: Your role must be a bit like an infinite Rubik’s cube, in that you are never “done” figuring out the optimal leadership model. That takes a certain kind of wiring to be comfortable in that uncertainty. Where does that come from for you?
Lowry: My parents emphasized a jack-of-all-trades curiosity. It was summers full of model-rocket camp or computer programming camp, and working on the farm with my grandpa every summer. That was the work ethic, and a lot of it was inspired by my mom—she could never stop or sit down, and that led to the idea that you’ve always got to be working on something new. That curiosity helped me in the last couple years because a fixed mindset would have been really jarring, given all the disruption, if I had anchored my thinking to the wrong ideas.
Bryant: Tell us more about working on your grandfather’s farm.
Lowry: I grew up in a middle-class family in Utah, and my mom came from a farming background on her side of the family. My grandpa was the Utah Cattlemen’s chairman of the year for many years and owned a ranch in Tooele, Utah. My mom was allergic to animals, so she got out of the farming business as soon as she could and married my dad who was an early-in brilliant computer guy at HP.
So we had a mix of farming heritage and city life in our family. While at home over the summer, my siblings and I worked for my dad in the basement putting processing boards in new computer frames. And then we’d get to spend some time every summer working with my grandpa. We’d dig the fenceposts and drop salt licks off for the cows. We learned how to work and stay humble. I was also a janitor at 14 and did that for a couple years. I also worked the graveyard shift at Denny’s through high school.
Reimer: What are some other trends in the HR field right now that stand out for you?
Lowry: We’ve been back and forth on the value of performance management. We’ve seen a lot of companies move away from that over the last five years, letting go of a rating system and focusing instead on being empathetic and supportive—more of an engagement management approach versus performance management.
Now I’m seeing more companies shift their thinking back to the idea that ultimately they are running businesses, and leaders have to drive performance, hold people accountable, and move the work forward. So we’re seeing more companies revert to pay-for-performance models because they know they work. That feels a bit traditional at a time when leadership is evolving.
Bryant: How do you hire? What approaches do you like to use when you are interviewing candidates?
Lowry: One is to ask about their track record—not just performance but what did they meaningfully own and drive? And what was the big tangible evidence of leadership, engagement, and interaction during those bend-the-curve moments, rather than when the business was in a steady state. When change hit, what did you do, what was the outcome, and what was the leadership adaptation and learning that took place on that journey or during that moment of change?
The last couple years of change have us leaning in more to that concept of leadership adaptability and readiness for change. Are you running to the problem and addressing it versus sitting on the sidelines to watch others figure it out over time?
We saw this during COVID-19—certain business leaders were shaping the response, knowing the data and the science, and having a point of view. Moments like that will be the regular 18-month-cadence path ahead for us. Without the ability to do that, we’ve got a real risk to our business.
Reimer: What do you think is the hardest part of leadership?
Lowry: Balance, and there are different dimensions to that. One is balancing altitude—the big picture of where the world is going while also focusing on quarterly targets. Another one is balancing time horizons. In our business, we have ten-year development cycles, but leaders also have to focus on near-term issues and the challenges of today. That challenge of balancing uncertainties over multiple time periods separates a lot of leaders. Many are able to manage their businesses effectively today, but very few are able to balance all those factors that I mentioned.
Bryant: What is a core piece of career advice that you will pass along to your children when they enter the workforce?
Lowry: Early in my career, I was in consulting and I focused at first on watching and learning from my mentor during our meetings with clients. One day, as we were heading back to the car, she said, “These clients are not paying for you to watch. They’re paying for your advice.” And as a 22-year-old, I wasn’t sure that my advice was worth sharing.
But she said, “Share your opinion. That’s what they want from you, even if it’s wrong. And you’ll know if it’s wrong, and then you can refine it.” I’ve always kept that in mind—speak out, lean in, and share your advice and perspective. As an introvert, it’s sometimes easy to assume that the most interesting conversation is the one that’s happening inside my mind versus the one that we’re having inside the room. That lesson I learned has always been a good reminder to share your thoughts.