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Let authenticity be your guide

Our NA General Counsel Guled Adam on always being your true self.

We talk a lot about reasons at Sobi. The reason we’re so singularly focused on rare, debilitating diseases. The reason we’re committed to transforming patients’ lives. The reason we’re always looking for new team members who share our passion and priorities. 

These reasons capture our truth—to ensure that authenticity is a quality we collectively embrace.

As the General Counsel for Sobi North America, authenticity means a lot to me. I often find myself leading our legal team through an array of diverse and complex issues that require our organization to uphold ethical standards that require balancing legal and business interests. Solving complex issues requires mutual trust from everyone involved, and being authentic is critical to all of this. Without it, I wouldn’t have the True North I need to keep everyone moving in the right direction for Sobi, and for the patient communities we humbly serve.

Authenticity is not always simple. It’s taken me years to build the confidence to be my true self professionally, to trust my instincts, and to be able to foster the trust needed so that colleagues feel they can be their authentic selves, too.

Learning to be true to yourself

Early in my career, I mistakenly thought authenticity was always synonymous with professionalism. And while the two are not mutually exclusive, over time I found that authenticity goes beyond professionalism—it was something I have to work hard at to be the type of lawyer that felt true to me and my organization. 

If you’re someone who strives to show up every day and excel in your role (as I’m sure you are), professionalism is table stakes. I’m most productive when I’m just myself—not how others expect me to be. When I articulate things the way I see them and take action in ways that align with my experience, people realize that I bring an honest and unique perspective to bear.

Working this way isn’t easy. In your career, you’re going to encounter people who get credibility because they know how to say the right things to the right people—and a disproportionate number of these individuals tend to gain quick success.

Sometimes, when you don’t fit a certain mold, it can take more to prove yourself. I certainly found that to be true. Advancing in my career has helped me grow confident in the way I communicate and act. I let my work establish my credibility, even if that takes more time. Trusting in that has ultimately led me to where I am today.

Why I lead with authenticity

Building your confidence is a foundation you can turn to again and again. It creates a cycle of reinforcement that only gets stronger. When you find yourself in the thick of a particularly sticky challenge, it can be critical. When your stock in trade is legality, ethics, and compliance, you find yourself here often. 

Before I joined Sobi, I was in private practice and served as defense counsel on a lot of major litigation that required me to fly around the country deposing plaintiffs and other witnesses in intense and emotionally draining lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry. Most depositions had hard deadlines to meet so the trials could begin on time. During this phase, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs notified me that their client’s son has passed and couldn’t be deposed by the deadline and requested an extension to accommodate the situation.

Although some thought was given to leveraging this request as an opportunity to win additional concessions from the opposing team, I was vocal about not being okay with this.  I was not going to use a witness’s misfortune to gain an advantage, especially when the perceived advantage was fairly trivial. And look, we’re trained to do whatever we can within the law to help our clients. There’s an incredible amount of pressure to win. It can be challenging to stay true to yourself. 

What did I do? I leaned hard into what I felt was right. I pushed back and butted heads with more than one person. Ultimately, we followed my True North. Not sure many young attorneys would have had the wherewithal to stand up for my values in this manner. I’m grateful that I did. Now, I often draw from this experience when I feel pressure to act in a way that doesn’t feel true to me. 

Authenticity in action

Experiences like that reinforce the importance of always being my authentic self, and I work to instill it in my team. I want to develop them to be better lawyers, regardless of whether or not they work at Sobi.

At the end of the day, I’m invested in the futures of all the members of my team. I share all the information I have available and input my professional opinion. At the same time, I’m also one of those leaders who loves to be questioned. Authenticity can also mean creating a safe environment to have those tough conversations, with no fear of retribution for being candid and genuine about a different line of thinking. 

I’m very passionate about engaging teams this way, in part because I’ve seen what can happen in the absence of this type of environment. I once worked with a colleague who was one of the most competent lawyers I've ever known. However, she suffered from feeling the need to perform in an inauthentic way, and it impacted how she advanced at the organization. 

Many things could have contributed to how she chose to present herself: her past experiences or the organization’s culture. My point is, I’ve worked with individuals who could have been more successful if they’d felt comfortable in the right environment. I carry that with me because I don’t want it to be the reason anyone on my team doesn’t succeed.

Authenticity breeds understanding

I’ve been focusing a lot on how I lead my team, but this isn’t exclusive to my department at Sobi. Everyone plays a part in our mission to find new ways to make life better for people with rare and debilitating diseases. The unique and diverse perspectives of our team help us progress—for our patients, and also for each other.  

Authenticity leads to a better understanding of how to collaborate, how to be empathetic, or how to set each other up for great success. At Sobi, our greatest successes are when we’re making a lasting impact on our patients—patients from all backgrounds and all walks of life. When we create authentic spaces to better understand each other, it brings us that much closer to the patients that we’re serving. And that’s an approach I share with my boss, Duane Barnes, and broadly with the US and global leadership at Sobi.