She stopped being the good student. | Clémentine Al Elimat | Sandra Colhando

You cannot sprint for forty years. Clémentine Al-Elimat on redefining ambition, owning your agenda, managing your energy, and finding a way of leading that feels like your own.

What is Power Shift?

Welcome to Power Shift. A podcast hosted by Sandra Colhando — executive coach and co-founder of TransforMe Learning & Leadership Solutions. She has spent decades working with women navigating the most complex and least-talked-about phase of professional life. Season 1 is built around a single theme: The Inflection Point. Women who faced a moment that changed everything, and how they pivoted.

This show exists because there's almost no content built specifically for women in their 40s who are still building. Not winding down. Not ascending. Standing tall in the middle of a career that has 20 more years in it — grappling with fears and identity questions that most leadership content, still largely built around men, doesn't know how to address.

The 43-year-old CHRO wondering if the rules she played by still apply. The senior leader who was passed over and is figuring out what comes next. The founder who left corporate in her 40s and is still making sense of what that cost and what it gave her. The one who chose motherhood in her 40s while navigating a leadership role. This show is built for them.

Sandra isn't an outsider to this conversation. She's walked this road herself, and alongside hundreds of women she's coached. She doesn't interview — she becomes a confidante.

Subscribe to catch every conversation.

Hello and welcome to PowerShift. I'm your host, Sandra Kulhando. Today I want to talk about the kind of exhaustion that comes from believing that the only way forward is faster, answer quicker, work longer, say yes before you've had the time to think, and otherwise so.

A lot of women carry that belief for years before they reach an inflexion point, which is also the theme of this session, Ambition Without the Rush. Every guest you meet here has lived through a moment that cracks something open and rebuilt who she was on the other side. Joining us today is Clementine Elemat.

She leads HR for Schneider Electric's 9 billion euro power systems business with a global organisation of 13,000 people. Clementine's built a successful career inside one of the world's largest energy companies with a powerful approach which, in her own words, is a lot like a game of chess than a sprint. She's someone who believes that the strongest position is often the one you build patiently rather than one you reach first.

What that choice has taught her about timing, about trust, about her own definition of readiness, is exactly the conversation we're here to have. Clementine, welcome to PowerShift. Thanks a lot.

Hi Sandra. I'm so excited to have you here, but before we dive in with a beautiful theme we've got listed down, what should our listeners expect from our conversation today? I will try to be as authentic as possible because this is something which is very important, so I will show up as I am, as a person and as a professional. Beautiful, so we can absolutely expect an authentic you in this session, which from what we have met in the past, I do hear there's a lot of areas that I want to dig deeper in, especially in the role that you're playing in building HR in one of the world's largest organisations.

But before that, let's dig a little bit in into your story. Has there been an inflexion point in your life and what were some of those signs and how did you go about doing something about that? The first inflexion point, so first I need to share a little bit of context. So I've built my career in HR, in different parts of HR.

And I think the first inflexion point in my career was, it was many years ago. I was a HR leader in a context where I felt a little bit, I would say different, because the colleagues around me were all a little bit, you know, the same background, the same, used to work together during many years, culturally very, very similar. And I was in the middle and I felt that I was not completely listened.

And why it was an inflexion point for me in my career, because from this experience, I really built this strong belief that a diverse workforce, but in all the dimensions, are really important. And when I say all the dimensions, I speak about a diverse background, diverse generation, diverse culture, diverse gender, is very important to be attractive as a company, but also to be a company where people want to stay. And when you experiment but by yourself being a little bit the different one, yeah, that's not the best feeling, I would say.

So I really built this strong belief that we need to build a very diverse workforce. It's really very important in terms of attraction and retention of talent. And then maybe a second inflexion point was that during many years in my career, I think I was doing what I think what was expected from me.

So I was the typical, the very good student, you know, doing the things right. You know, I mean, in terms of performance, in terms of... So exactly what you would expect from a good student. There was a point where I said, okay, I want, and I can be much more than just a good student.

I want to be my own self. I want to, not to do the things right, I want to do the right things. And I need to own my own agenda, not just what I'm asked to do.

I need to have my lighthouses that I will define by myself, because I strongly believe in it. And it was really a defining moment for me, moving from being a good student to, I think, later, I hope I am today. And it was so, it felt so good, because I was like, feeling much lighter, you know, much happier at work.

Yeah, and obviously, good student syndrome comes from many years ago. It's not something that, you know, that's something which comes with education, with how you've been grown up. But when you get rid of that, it truly feels super good.

Thank you for sharing those two stories. I completely resonated. One is, of course, diversity stands close to you, because you felt not heard at a point, and that moment may not have been comfortable for you.

But that was an inflexion point for you to let's champion this, because there's so many people out there who could be in the same position as you. But I love the good student syndrome. And I was smiling when you went through because I was good student for many years.

I was brought up saying that you have to be a good student, you have to be a good girl, you have to do everything that's supposed to be right. And of course, that carries over at work as well. Because then you have to listen to your managers and be the good student.

Until what you said, there's an inflexion point where you start questioning what good means. And for me, there was this beautiful advice that my manager said, because I was just doing everything to the T. And when I had applied for a promotion, which was like a kind of like a global role, and I didn't get that promotion. And I was really, really disheartened because I worked really hard.

I was a good student, I did everything my manager leader had asked me to do, then what went wrong. And I think that one piece of advice really shook me. And that was, you're like a light in a bush.

You're burning, but nobody can see the light you're spreading. So you need to come out, get out of your comfort zone, take risks, and show that light out. And you have to find what that light is, which nobody's going to tell you.

And so you have to get out of that student mode. And then you follow that leader mode. And which is there's there's no path that people have created, everyone creates their own leadership path.

Now, I want to dig a little bit now in your, you know, you spent some incredible long stretch of your career, mostly around human resources and everything around that, which is human resources is actually very hold strong, especially in the human side of work. You've learned to hold that beautifully. And you've also now understood and learn how to handle the pressure to deliver business outcomes as well.

How do you balance both one is the human side and the other is metrics and numbers and driving results? How do you balance them? I'm very lucky because I'm working in a company where I'm completely aligned with the values of the company. So for me, it's there was never any tension between, you know, the human part and delivering business results, because I'm deeply aligned with the values of the company. What for? So I think I've always been true to myself in this area.

The company I'm working for Schneider Electric is really a people company, which think that great people make a great company and really put people at the centre of everything we do and really consider HR function as very strategic business. So I think I'm lucky because I never had this inner tension because of that. Beautiful.

So you've got an environment also supports that. And for you, you're not stars, the values of the company that helps you kind of balance and find what those answers are. Now, what happens in rooms where you're sitting in a leadership room or when we're talking about numbers and we may have, say, for example, new leaders come in.

How does influencing or that is genuine influencing? What kind of approaches you take or you learned in your career where you're able to earn trust with business leaders really quickly, especially in rooms where you don't know them too well, but you don't have the luxury of time for building relationships, but you want to create a space where they start trusting you really quickly. So I think first, business understanding, understanding the business you're working, supporting, working for. What are the challenges? What are the bigger trends? How the external market looks like? So business understanding is very important.

I think as HR business partner, I'm a business leader first who understands HR, but I'm a business leader first. So I think this business understanding is something which is absolutely critical to be credible as a nature of network. Second, I would say to gain trust and particularly at the beginning of any working relationship is to find the right balance between supporting and challenging.

If you only support and don't challenge, this is not how you build credibility or trust. If you only challenge and don't really support, then you can be considered a bit as a bottleneck. So I think, and particularly at the beginning of a working relationship with other business leaders, I would say this balance is very important.

A very practical thing of walking the talk, don't over committing on anything. And then I would say that in our job as HR team, we also need to be somewhere the voice of truth and not being all the time aligned with your business leader. You also need to defend the interest of the company.

And sometimes it can be a bit conflicting. So I would say, really defending the interest of the company, the interest of people, being the voice of truth, being a kind of compass of how the organisation is going. So a bit of the barometer of what's happening and staying grounded.

Because obviously, the more you grow your career, the more you can be completely disconnected from what's happening in the ground. So you need to also have, I mean, I try to have people who are at a very operational level, will tell me or so, they are my voice of truth. So they tell me what's really happening.

So I think it's a combination of, at least for myself, that's a combination of all of that. Now beautifully said, Clementine, what I loved, and for me, I underlined over here is, sometimes we come across as role holders, and not business leaders. And just switching that, because in my note, because I take care of a couple of departments, and if I'm just only focused on, say, a department leader, if I'm just the HR leader, I may miss the bigger picture when I'm getting into those discussions, I'm operating at a smaller plane.

So I love the fact that you said, I come as a business leader, I happen to be an HR head, it just shifts that perspective, because then now you're solving collective problems, versus looking at just a functional problem. And just that perception shift, I think, makes a huge difference. And then kind of balancing being the voice of truth, being the compass that you're talking about, because as a business leader, you're looking at your vision and values that you're trying to drive.

And I like very much what you're saying, not being just a domain leader, because if you are a domain leader, you become a little bit like a teacher. And sometimes when you have any type of issues, multi-dimensional, so any issues, it's rarely just a finance issue, or just an HR issue, you need to understand a bit, any type of problem you need to solve is multi-dimensional. And if you come with just only the HR approach, then you miss a little bit the full dimension of the topic itself.

Yeah, I think it's funny. By the way, interestingly, I come from a business school, so I really truly believe that I'm a business leader first. It started many years ago, where in fact, I was in a business school, and just at the end of the last year, I specialised in HR.

So it's come out organically for you. But that's a good message for people who've been in HR throughout and started HR as well. At the end of the day, you have a seat on the table.

And everyone's seat is directed towards the business goals, and the growth of business and solving the problem that the business is built for. So if you all wear that hat, and have our own domain expertise, but still going towards the North Star, I think changes that sometimes we get into this siloed approach where leaders are just focussing on the function, this kind of just shifts the whole period, just changing your lens, and seeing the world in a different colour. I love that.

Yeah, sure. So a moment where being your fully genuine self was difficult, where you had to choose between being an honest version of you and being a version that would have been easier. For example, there is a decision that needs to take place or the environment in the place, which is right now, you may want to go in a certain path, but people around you are not ready.

How do you navigate that and receive that news or accept that news, which you're absolutely not okay with? So I think in my, in an HR job, you need to very intentionally sometimes put some emotional distance between yourself and what you need to, because sometimes you have to make tough decisions, announce bad news, those kind of things. And it's important to be, to put a bit of, not to put all your guts, you know, into those topics, otherwise it's going to really burn you from the inside. So putting this emotional distance is important, but it should be done in a very intentional way, because if you always disconnect your emotion, then you start to act a little bit like a robot or like, yeah, and that's not how you also build authentic environment.

But yeah, and to your question, sometimes I had to very much intentionally say, okay, let's put a bit of emotional distance between Clementine and her emotion and the tasks and what in my role as an HR, what I have to do, if that's the right thing to do for the company or whatever. I think we're particularly exposed to that in HR. That's something what you mentioned is much easier said than done, because when you are emotionally hijacked, it's very difficult for you to logically tell yourself, put an emotional distance in this space.

Can you walk us through what that looks like? What are you doing? What are some rituals? What anchors have helped you when you are emotionally hijacked, where you're being emotional? How do you kind of create that distance in that moment? So maybe a bit funnier, I'm going to share a very practical way. When I see that I feel that I'm starting to be a bit emotional, I start to look at myself as if I was in the, I'm looking at myself in fact, and see how, as if I was another person. So I'm trying to look at myself, taking a kind of, you know, I'm in an helicopter and I'm seeing how I'm behaving or how I look like.

It helps me to take a bit of distance, but that's one way. So the second way is trying to say, okay, here is what Clementine feels and how does she feel from an emotional standpoint? And here is what HR of power systems needs to do and try to distinguish the person. So, but I would say the first one is my ex, my former leader, try to jump into the helicopter and watch yourself.

It's really helpful. There is also very, science tells you that an emotion, usually when you have a very strong emotion, it doesn't stay more than it's minutes. So you also need to be conscious that the emotion you have, the pitch is not going to last during one hour.

So you have a pitch, you need to, to break a little bit and this peak is gonna, is, is gonna, is not gonna stay very long. So, so yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I love the helicopter example. I had a client who had done something similar and he says, you know, that would always make me smile because I look so funny from the helicopter up town.

So no matter how I am, it just brings me a smile and it just breaks that, that, that, that space that you are in, which could be anger, frustration or whatever. And that's what my mindfulness is, right? You're being mindful of how you experiencing and how do you become mindful is when you create a space, the space between the reaction and response, which in your case is you're visualising being a helicopter. So you're creating that space, which also kind of gives your body, gives your emotional space of going through that process.

So anyone who ever feels needs a little bit of emotional distance, just think of a helicopter, fly around and see how you're feeling. I know a lot of high performers build their reputation on working the hardest and responding the fastest. I knew my initial years was all about work hard, work hard, work long, work, work fast.

What's your take on that from where you sit today? What's your relationship to that idea? Yeah. Again, intentionality. So there are topics where it's important to go fast.

And there are topics where it's better to slow down a little bit the pace, the ecosystem and the disciplines. So I think it's important not to go fast on every single topic. So it requires intentionality.

And how I usually try to decide what needs to go fast with what needs to take longer time, it's really based on the reversibility of the decision. There are some decisions, many decisions that are reversible. So you take the wrong decision, it's not a drama, it's a two way door.

So you can always pivot. And I think for those type of decisions, it's important to go fast. And then there are the decisions that are not reversible.

And here, it requires more time. Even sometimes when you are pushed to go faster, I think it's healthy to consciously slow it down a bit. I take the time because I know the cost if it doesn't work.

The cost for the leader himself, the cost for the team, the cost for the business. So this is typically the type of topic where I consciously use the time needed and don't rush. And I explained what if, you know, the cost I was talking about before, I explained that in fact, somewhere we are losing time now to gain time later on, rather than trying to gain time now, but then in the next one year, it's going to be a disaster.

So I know in my, one of the things that I discovered in my own 40s is that ambition hasn't gone away. In fact, I feel I'm more ambitious now. I should tell myself when I was young that I'm very ambitious and competitive.

I feel I'm more now but in a different way, which is it's interesting, the relationship with ambition is a little is changing for me. I'm less interested in proving how fast I can move and more interested in being deliberate, something that we've just talked about, deliberate about what I'm building. Has that, has the ambition relationship changed for you from your younger version to now? This is a very interesting question.

You would have asked me this question when I was 20 years old. I was probably one of the less ambitious persons in my classroom. By the way, recently, and it's a very funny story, I met one of my old friends and he told me we have a very good relationship.

He told me in a funny way, you know what, Clementine, I would never have bet on you. At that time when I was 20, I was really expressing the fact that I don't have particular professional ambition. I have a life ambition, but for me, work is just a small part.

That was 20 years ago. Then I entered the professional world and I loved it. Then I changed.

I said, okay, I am ambitious, but the way my ambition was expressing was a bit, you know, okay, we were talking about being the good girl before, so that was exactly it. I think now I'm very much in peace with my ambition. I am ambitious, but I have a very different relationship, as you said, and it's very similar to you, I think, because I don't feel I need to prove to others.

I just want to make an impact, grow the people around me. I feel I'm not running after something vital or money. It's never been the case, by the way.

It's more really making an impact, bringing people around me. That's my ambition now. It's a different definition of ambition.

I am super aligned with what you said before. I think there is really a question of age, of really going through different phases in your life. This is the phase where I am today, and honestly, it's really nice because you know what are your strengths.

You also know what are your weaknesses, but you are okay with yourself. You know what your value is without pretension. It's just I think you are quite objective on it, and it's okay.

You know your strengths, your weaknesses. You try to work on your weaknesses. You always try to learn, you unlearn, you are curious, but you are at peace with yourself.

I love to do it. I just turned 40, by the way. I really like this phase of my life.

Welcome to the 40s. You've entered the best phase of your life, by the way. Every new decade, that's what I'm telling myself.

Yeah, that's the mantra I carry with me every decade. But I love the way you put, again, going back to ambition without the rush, and I think this is also wisdom that comes over the years. It's not just about running and just achieving one milestone after another milestone.

That is not ambition. Just rephrasing that. I love the way you put the facts on a sprint, and I would have thought not a sprint, a marathon, but you said a sprint by chess.

Yeah. So somebody who wants to redefine ambition is tired of running on the treadmill, but still not wanting to let go of ambition. What are the first few places that you'd advise them to relook and re-engineer what the mission looks like? So yeah, so first, I think this sprint slash marathon thing is something very important.

You cannot sprint during 40 years. It's not possible. So I think managing our own energy as individuals and as leaders is a skill which is extremely important from my point of view, and the more leaders grow in organisation, the more it is important.

So at Schneider, we are an energy company. I think managing our energy is extremely, extremely important. So that's the first thing, because sometimes you also meet with people who want to pivot, change, or fed up, but when you dive a little bit, you understand that, in fact, or are exhausted in terms of