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Three Questions with Director of Global Sales Enablement, Barrett Sellers

Barrett Sellers’ career aspirations began in middle school when she was faced with a very serious problem: How would she earn enough money to buy the latest Mork & Mindy t-shirt.? Okay, that may not sound very serious, but when you’re a teenage girl and a huge Robin Williams fan, it really is.

So Barrett began planning and earning allowance to meet her goal. And when she was able to buy the shirt, she realized there was nothing she couldn’t do as long as she had a plan and worked hard to execute it.

Today Barrett uses that same approach at SailPoint, where she started in 2018. I caught up with her to talk about what motivates her now, why integrity is critical to her daily work life and the very important question: where we can find her on a Saturday morning.

Where will we find you at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and how does that routine/ritual help you be a better leader during the work week?

At 10 a.m. on a Saturday, you are likely to find me either rolling on the floor under a pile of two little dachshunds as they are screaming in excitement to collar up and go for a walk or rolling around on the floor by myself screaming because someone along the way told me that was a good way to burn off the week. But seriously, I do get up early in order to take advantage of the quiet time in my house. It is the time I need to process the filing system in my brain and jot down any loose ends that I need to be reminded of on Monday morning. This exercise is focused and required in order for me to have space for my family and friends for the remainder of the weekend. It is also what I need to do to be a better leader on Monday morning as I go into the week prepared and refreshed. I do my reading before 10 am and the part I mentioned about the doxies is my most favorite time of the morning. They complete me.

What woman inspires you, and how do they influence your own leadership style?

I always appreciate this question because it gives me the opportunity to reflect across my career. The answer is, there has been no one woman who has inspired me. There have, in fact, been many. And they have not all been in leadership positions by title, but they are all leaders in some form.

I thrive on keeping my circle tight and my inner circle even tighter. I value the women I intentionally place myself around. I am my best self as a leader when I am spiritually, mentally, and emotionally grounded. For that purpose, I need inspiration from different places. I need to be able to be messy with these ladies, I need them to be truthful with me when I am being ridiculous, and I need them to lift me up when I deserve to be lifted.

This is what drives and influences my leadership style. All the things I look for in my personal board of directors are the exact things that I want to exude to my teams – humanity, empathy, transparency. I want to give them presence while I listen, awareness of their thoughts being heard, and inspiration to take action on their goals.

How do you keep yourself grounded in times of great stress or change? 

I thrive on solving problems. It doesn’t matter if it is how I am going to buy that Mork & Mindy t-shirt or building a Sales Enablement program from scratch, stress and change fuel me. I take myself back to being grounded in my foundational lessons of having a plan. I am good at looking across the big picture, digging out the desired outcome, breaking the challenge into consumable chunks and then executing. So many times I hear myself in meetings saying “ok, what is the desired outcome and how long do we have to get there?” And then we get moving.


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