Edited highlights of our full length conversation.

What are you willing to compromise?

Lina Polimeni is the Chief Corporate Brand Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. This is a business whose work is often the difference between life and death, where they are trying to cure cancer, and where the outcome is very personal.

In the middle of that reality, your own leadership journey is fueled by a lot of food for thought.

No one can lead effectively without compromise.

But what we choose to compromise has a huge part to play in whether we're successful.

If what we end up sacrificing is a pathway to discovering that we are already enough… If what we end up sacrificing is a road to realizing that the best version of who we are can help others become the best version of themselves…

If that is what we are compromising, then the cost of that will be the realization that we behaved as others wanted us to. And when they are a part of our past, remembered or forgotten, what we will be left with is a journey that is not the one we started out on. A destination that is not where we wanted to go. And a dream that is always around the corner.

We can be what others want, or we can be who we want to be. We always have that choice.