July 7, 2025 • 13 mins
Are you a hub-like leader OR an origin & destination (O&D) leader?
Do people view interactions with you as a disruptive layover OR do they actually want to start and/or end a journey with you?
Are you over-reliant on outside resources to fuel your leadership actions OR do you lead like a self-sufficient, reliable, energy independent microgrid that is always ready to deliver?
To help answer these questions, check out Episode 115 of The Energy Detox, which is inspired by Pittsburgh International Airport's transformation from hub to O&D, its soon-to-arrive new terminal, the development of the Marcellus #NaturalGas resources under PIT by CNX, the differentiated #leadership of Christina Cassotis, and the microgrid operated by Liberty Power Innovations, a Liberty Energy company.
Visit PITleadership.com to learn more.
#ConsciousLeadership
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to The EnergyDetox coming to you today from
(00:03):
Pittsburgh InternationalAirport, which has been
connected to two majortransformations in the last two
decades. One of thosetransformations has to do with
energy, that being thetransition, the transformation
from the airport being relianton the grid to the energy
independence, if you will, thatthe airport now has, thanks to a
(00:24):
microgrid fueled by natural gasand solar energy that is
allowing the airport to be offgrid, to supply all of its own
electricity needs and then some,in fact, sending electricity
away from the airport to themain grid. The second main
transformation that is stillunderway and will be culminating
at the end of this year in theform of a new terminal, is the
(00:47):
transformation of the airportfrom a hub airport in the early
90s into the early 2000s to whatis now an origin and destination
airport, O and D. And thattransformation we'll talk about
here in a couple minutes stemsfrom what used to be a US
Airways hub to what is now againan airport that serves the
(01:08):
people of Pittsburgh who areleaving Pittsburgh and serves
people coming to Pittsburgh.
And both of thosetransformations have a lot of
parallels to what I see as anexecutive coach in the energy
industry, from leaders who youcan argue, identify as either
grid reliant leaders or almostmicro grid energy independent
leaders, off grid leaders andsimilarly, leaders who are
(01:31):
either a hub like leader,serving as a layover, if you
will, and connecting people andbeing a pass through, versus
leaders who are, what You mightargue, an O and D leader, an
origin and destination leader,leaders who people want to go
to, or leaders who they want tostart with to inspire them to
move forward.
(01:52):
And so with those two airportrelated parallels in mind, over
the next couple of minutes,we'll step through a series of
questions and observations thatI get to make as an executive
coach to help you determinewhether you are a hub like
leader or an O and D, an originand destination leader, or,
again, whether you are more of amicrogrid energy independent
(02:13):
leader, or someone who's relianton the grid, reliant on a larger
network. So that being said,we're going to start with the
energy focused transformation,with this being the energy
detox, of course, in partbecause just a couple days ago
in the news, there was a followup report from a fire near
Heathrow Airport a couple monthsago that led to worldwide
(02:33):
disruption in air travel.
So Heathrow Airport power wasdisrupted, and at that time, as
that was going on, peopleimmediately said, hey, well,
that's not the type of thingthat's going to happen in
Pittsburgh, because, well,Pittsburgh has this microgrid.
And what is the microgrid? Well,basically it is the airport
using natural gas fromunderneath the airport, natural
(02:54):
gas that is drilled and producedby CNX resources, and it uses
that natural gas to generateelectricity on site. In addition
to that, it uses solar energy,and all of that is managed
currently by Liberty powerinnovations, a subset of liberty
energy.
And again, what that allows theairport to be is not just energy
(03:15):
independent, but also, again,have a source of revenue be able
to send electricity off thegrid, and most significantly,
have that reliability thatairports like Heathrow do not
have. And there's all kinds ofother benefits that we can talk
about. But the important thinghere today is to ask yourself,
all right, well, let's, let'slook at that from a leadership
standpoint. Do you representsomebody that is reliant on this
(03:39):
larger network, on a grid tomake decisions, to ingest
information, to come up with newideas, or are you self
dependent? Are you self reliant?
And don't get me wrong,obviously, from leadership
standpoint, from a humanstandpoint, our connections are
key, right? We are all part of agrid in some way, shape or form.
But when it comes to executivepresence, when it comes to being
(04:00):
able to actually demonstrateyour leadership acumen, if you
will. The key is, can you do itin the moment? Can you do it
when it's needed? And that's onelesson that I learned years ago
from an executive coach that Ihad, David Goldman, and he said
one of the definitions ofexecutive presence is the
ability to deploy theseleadership tools, these
(04:21):
leadership tactics, theseleadership approaches in the
moment when you're sitting in aboard meeting, when you're
sitting across from somebodyelse, when you don't have to
fumble in your own brain, or,gosh, God forbid, fumble through
AI to come up with an answer inthe moment. Can you answer that
question? Can you showconfidence? Can you show
awareness to deliver what peopleneed, because that's a micro
(04:44):
grid, right? It's here when youneed it. It's here.
Now the airport doesn't have todepend on the wider grid, but
the wider grid is there ifnecessary. So too with
leadership, you haveconnections, you have resources.
But the question for you is,from a leadership standpoint, I.
You know, are you over relianton leadership books or courses
or speeches and workshops andwhatever else? And I say that as
(05:08):
somebody who delivers keynotesand workshops and content like
this, but the core of what I dohelps leaders act like leaders
in the moment. The coaching thatI do, that I enjoy, that I spend
most of my time on, is helpingpeople build up those muscles so
that they become like that microgrid. It's there. It's reliable.
(05:29):
It's present at all times. Inother words, you know, it's not
subject to the type of, youknow, leadership blackouts, if
you will, that Heathrow Airportsuffered, that had all kinds of
wide ranging consequences, againa couple months ago, because of
that fire nearby, and again, asthe report showed last week,
some issues, if you will, someunderlying issues with the grid
(05:52):
there. So that being said, askyourself, are you a micro grid
leader, or are you griddependent? Are you dependent on
validation and information fromothers, or, when necessary, can
you act with confidence in atimely manner?
That being said, let's shiftgears to that second
(06:13):
transformation that we talkedabout at the beginning, that
being the transformation fromPittsburgh International
Airport, from a US Airways hubto what is now an O and D
airport, origination anddestination, because back in the
early 90s, this airport wasdesigned to meet the needs of US
Airways and something like 80%of travelers who stepped foot
(06:36):
here in Pittsburgh InternationalAirport were simply Traveling
through. They were making aconnection, a layover, whereas
now you fast forward to 2025,and it's something like 98% of
travelers are either leavingPittsburgh with this being their
origin, or they're coming toPittsburgh and certainly the
airport that was designeddecades ago, it's not meant to
(06:57):
serve that O and D purpose. It'snot meant to serve, in many
ways, the people of Pittsburgh.
In fact, Christina Cassotis, acouple months ago, at a talk she
gave that I happened to be at,she talked about many of the
ways that this hub like airportwas, is not serving the
population of Pittsburgh. Andone of the ones that stuck out
to me was parking, the fact thatthis airport, again, US Airways,
(07:18):
didn't design this withPittsburghers in mind. So
there's only a handful ofcovered parking spaces here in
Pittsburgh where, you know, wedo still have a winter.
Obviously, that's one of themany things that they'll be
addressing here as they roll outthis new, modern terminal that,
again, recognizes the purpose ofthis airport now, which is
origin and destination.
(07:42):
So what does that have to dowith you? Well, from a
leadership standpoint, askyourself, are you a hub like
leader? Are you simply passingthrough information? Are you
there, as a some cases,unnecessary layover for people
to get information, to get adecision on something? Are you
in essence, the stereotypicalmiddle manager who, you know,
(08:03):
maybe doesn't add all that muchvalue when people pass through
you and again, don't get mewrong, being a hub has
positives. Being a hub being aconnector, if you will, just
like we talked about with thelast transformation, you know,
being on the grid andrecognizing that you are
connected and you have resourcesthat you can pull in so that
it's not just you having to makea decision. That's not a bad
thing, but it is bad, or atleast ineffective, when all you
(08:27):
are as a leader is again, alayover. And that's one of the
things I hear quite often fromfrustrated people, both you
know, the people higher up andpeople that are you know, maybe
at the front lines, who feellike there's managers in place
who are just that. They're ahub, they're a pass through.
So why not ask yourself today,inspired by Pittsburgh
(08:49):
International's transformation,are you a hub like leader, or
are you an O and D like leader?
Are you actually contributingand adding value when people
come to you, or are they justkind of walking through, and,
you know, you just happen to be,you know, a necessary evil, if
you will, for them to gothrough. And, you know, one of
the things I do want to pointout here is, you know, when I
(09:10):
have this type of conversationwith people and share some of
these recognitions, especiallyfor those people who have been
identified as hub like leaders,and who I might be working with
and am sharing some of thisfeedback with to say, hey, look,
you know, this is what peoplesee you as, you know, one of the
counters to that is, well, youknow, we're in a flat
organization. So that's reallynot, you know, not the case.
(09:30):
No, not all organizations areflat, of course, but many times
they'll say, you know, what doyou mean? I'm a pass through
leader, right? What do you mean?
I'm not adding value. You know,we don't have multiple layers of
management. But in thosesituations, so often, what they
don't realize is, yeah, you knowwhat? People can go to you
directly. They don't have to gothrough multiple layers. But
when they do get to you, they'renot offering anything different.
(09:51):
In other words, they're not thetype of person, or you're not
the type of person that peoplewant to start with. They don't
necessarily want to go. Go toyou, because they know when they
do go to you, they're justgetting something that is pulled
off the shelf that you'reregurgitating from somewhere
else.
Again, whether it's a leadershippodcast or book or some speaker
or some course that you went to,or some book that you read,
(10:12):
they're not getting anythingfresh. They're not getting
anything different. So why onearth would they want to start
with you, even if they have,again, very easy access because
of your so called flatorganization. And on the flip
side, do they really want to endwith you? Do they want you to be
the person to go forth andchampion your idea again, even
if it's a flat organization, atthe end of the day, everybody
(10:34):
ultimately reports to some sortof shareholder or stakeholder.
Do they want to have you be thatperson, to be their champion?
Well, that's the question fortoday.
Are you that origin anddestination leader that people
want to come to they'reenthusiastic about coming to or
(10:55):
landing at, if you will, or areyou a hub like leader, where
people see you as just again,another stop on their journey to
something else. So with that,ask yourself today both this
last question, are you a hublike leader or O and D leader?
And as we asked before, are youreminiscent of a micro grid that
is self reliant and able torespond when necessary, or are
(11:19):
you solely reliant on a gridthat can lead to leadership
blackouts, if you will.
And so with that here, withmaybe one or two minutes left,
I'd be remiss not to revisitthis microgrid and revisit this
idea that you know, natural gasis not merely a bridge like fuel
(11:43):
or a hub like fuel, gettingpeople from point A to point B,
but natural gas is what hasfueled this second
transformation of Pittsburgh tothis O and D airport to this new
terminal that's, you know,coming out here in a couple
(12:06):
months, and natural gas becausepeople had the foresight to take
advantage of the resources thatare under the airport's feet.
Well, natural gas, again, isfueling something amazing. It's
not just getting people from Ato B, but it's fueling the next
(12:31):
40 years of this airport that'sbeing constructed without
But again, it's a great reminderof you that you don't want to
just be a bridge leader. Youdon't want to be a layover
taxpayer dollars, in partbecause of the wells that are
leader. You want to be likenatural gas. You want to be that
catalyst. And that's the that'sthe question, or that's the, you
drilled underneath the airport,the revenue from those wells,
know, final analogy for today.
So with that being said, andsigning off here from Pittsburgh
the electricity savings that theairport has, the revenue that
(12:51):
International Airport, before Iboard my plane here, I want to
thank you, as always, for tuningin. I want to remind you to look
can be generated from havingexcess electricity, all of that
for those resources, likenatural gas, that are available
to you, that are alreadyunderneath your feet, that you
is powered by natural gas inconjunction with other resources
can leverage to be thatconfident leader with executive
presence, who can make quickdecisions, who can be
that we have here, albeit maybenot in the same supply, that
deployable, who can beavailable, and who can be that O
(13:11):
and D leader, that microgrid,leader that your stakeholders
being, of course, sunshine andthe solar energy that also makes
are looking for. So with thatsafe travels wherever you're
headed today, and thanks, asalways, for tuning in.
up the microgrid.
Hello and welcome to The EnergyDetox coming to you today from
(00:03):
Pittsburgh InternationalAirport, which has been
connected to two majortransformations in the last two
decades. One of thosetransformations has to do with
energy, that being thetransition, the transformation
from the airport being relianton the grid to the energy
independence, if you will, thatthe airport now has, thanks to a
(00:24):
microgrid fueled by natural gasand solar energy that is
allowing the airport to be offgrid, to supply all of its own
electricity needs and then some,in fact, sending electricity
away from the airport to themain grid. The second main
transformation that is stillunderway and will be culminating
at the end of this year in theform of a new terminal, is the
(00:47):
transformation of the airportfrom a hub airport in the early
90s into the early 2000s to whatis now an origin and destination
airport, O and D. And thattransformation we'll talk about
here in a couple minutes stemsfrom what used to be a US
Airways hub to what is now againan airport that serves the
(01:08):
people of Pittsburgh who areleaving Pittsburgh and serves
people coming to Pittsburgh.
And both of thosetransformations have a lot of
parallels to what I see as anexecutive coach in the energy
industry, from leaders who youcan argue, identify as either
grid reliant leaders or almostmicro grid energy independent
leaders, off grid leaders andsimilarly, leaders who are
(01:31):
either a hub like leader,serving as a layover, if you
will, and connecting people andbeing a pass through, versus
leaders who are, what You mightargue, an O and D leader, an
origin and destination leader,leaders who people want to go
to, or leaders who they want tostart with to inspire them to
move forward.
(01:52):
And so with those two airportrelated parallels in mind, over
the next couple of minutes,we'll step through a series of
questions and observations thatI get to make as an executive
coach to help you determinewhether you are a hub like
leader or an O and D, an originand destination leader, or,
again, whether you are more of amicrogrid energy independent
(02:13):
leader, or someone who's relianton the grid, reliant on a larger
network. So that being said,we're going to start with the
energy focused transformation,with this being the energy
detox, of course, in partbecause just a couple days ago
in the news, there was a followup report from a fire near
Heathrow Airport a couple monthsago that led to worldwide
(02:33):
disruption in air travel.
So Heathrow Airport power wasdisrupted, and at that time, as
that was going on, peopleimmediately said, hey, well,
that's not the type of thingthat's going to happen in
Pittsburgh, because, well,Pittsburgh has this microgrid.
And what is the microgrid? Well,basically it is the airport
using natural gas fromunderneath the airport, natural
(02:54):
gas that is drilled and producedby CNX resources, and it uses
that natural gas to generateelectricity on site. In addition
to that, it uses solar energy,and all of that is managed
currently by Liberty powerinnovations, a subset of liberty
energy.
And again, what that allows theairport to be is not just energy
(03:15):
independent, but also, again,have a source of revenue be able
to send electricity off thegrid, and most significantly,
have that reliability thatairports like Heathrow do not
have. And there's all kinds ofother benefits that we can talk
about. But the important thinghere today is to ask yourself,
all right, well, let's, let'slook at that from a leadership
standpoint. Do you representsomebody that is reliant on this
(03:39):
larger network, on a grid tomake decisions, to ingest
information, to come up with newideas, or are you self
dependent? Are you self reliant?
And don't get me wrong,obviously, from leadership
standpoint, from a humanstandpoint, our connections are
key, right? We are all part of agrid in some way, shape or form.
But when it comes to executivepresence, when it comes to being
(04:00):
able to actually demonstrateyour leadership acumen, if you
will. The key is, can you do itin the moment? Can you do it
when it's needed? And that's onelesson that I learned years ago
from an executive coach that Ihad, David Goldman, and he said
one of the definitions ofexecutive presence is the
ability to deploy theseleadership tools, these
(04:21):
leadership tactics, theseleadership approaches in the
moment when you're sitting in aboard meeting, when you're
sitting across from somebodyelse, when you don't have to
fumble in your own brain, or,gosh, God forbid, fumble through
AI to come up with an answer inthe moment. Can you answer that
question? Can you showconfidence? Can you show
awareness to deliver what peopleneed, because that's a micro
(04:44):
grid, right? It's here when youneed it. It's here.
Now the airport doesn't have todepend on the wider grid, but
the wider grid is there ifnecessary. So too with
leadership, you haveconnections, you have resources.
But the question for you is,from a leadership standpoint, I.
You know, are you over relianton leadership books or courses
or speeches and workshops andwhatever else? And I say that as
(05:08):
somebody who delivers keynotesand workshops and content like
this, but the core of what I dohelps leaders act like leaders
in the moment. The coaching thatI do, that I enjoy, that I spend
most of my time on, is helpingpeople build up those muscles so
that they become like that microgrid. It's there. It's reliable.
(05:29):
It's present at all times. Inother words, you know, it's not
subject to the type of, youknow, leadership blackouts, if
you will, that Heathrow Airportsuffered, that had all kinds of
wide ranging consequences, againa couple months ago, because of
that fire nearby, and again, asthe report showed last week,
some issues, if you will, someunderlying issues with the grid
(05:52):
there. So that being said, askyourself, are you a micro grid
leader, or are you griddependent? Are you dependent on
validation and information fromothers, or, when necessary, can
you act with confidence in atimely manner?
That being said, let's shiftgears to that second
(06:13):
transformation that we talkedabout at the beginning, that
being the transformation fromPittsburgh International
Airport, from a US Airways hubto what is now an O and D
airport, origination anddestination, because back in the
early 90s, this airport wasdesigned to meet the needs of US
Airways and something like 80%of travelers who stepped foot
(06:36):
here in Pittsburgh InternationalAirport were simply Traveling
through. They were making aconnection, a layover, whereas
now you fast forward to 2025,and it's something like 98% of
travelers are either leavingPittsburgh with this being their
origin, or they're coming toPittsburgh and certainly the
airport that was designeddecades ago, it's not meant to
(06:57):
serve that O and D purpose. It'snot meant to serve, in many
ways, the people of Pittsburgh.
In fact, Christina Cassotis, acouple months ago, at a talk she
gave that I happened to be at,she talked about many of the
ways that this hub like airportwas, is not serving the
population of Pittsburgh. Andone of the ones that stuck out
to me was parking, the fact thatthis airport, again, US Airways,
(07:18):
didn't design this withPittsburghers in mind. So
there's only a handful ofcovered parking spaces here in
Pittsburgh where, you know, wedo still have a winter.
Obviously, that's one of themany things that they'll be
addressing here as they roll outthis new, modern terminal that,
again, recognizes the purpose ofthis airport now, which is
origin and destination.
(07:42):
So what does that have to dowith you? Well, from a
leadership standpoint, askyourself, are you a hub like
leader? Are you simply passingthrough information? Are you
there, as a some cases,unnecessary layover for people
to get information, to get adecision on something? Are you
in essence, the stereotypicalmiddle manager who, you know,
(08:03):
maybe doesn't add all that muchvalue when people pass through
you and again, don't get mewrong, being a hub has
positives. Being a hub being aconnector, if you will, just
like we talked about with thelast transformation, you know,
being on the grid andrecognizing that you are
connected and you have resourcesthat you can pull in so that
it's not just you having to makea decision. That's not a bad
thing, but it is bad, or atleast ineffective, when all you
(08:27):
are as a leader is again, alayover. And that's one of the
things I hear quite often fromfrustrated people, both you
know, the people higher up andpeople that are you know, maybe
at the front lines, who feellike there's managers in place
who are just that. They're ahub, they're a pass through.
So why not ask yourself today,inspired by Pittsburgh
(08:49):
International's transformation,are you a hub like leader, or
are you an O and D like leader?
Are you actually contributingand adding value when people
come to you, or are they justkind of walking through, and,
you know, you just happen to be,you know, a necessary evil, if
you will, for them to gothrough. And, you know, one of
the things I do want to pointout here is, you know, when I
(09:10):
have this type of conversationwith people and share some of
these recognitions, especiallyfor those people who have been
identified as hub like leaders,and who I might be working with
and am sharing some of thisfeedback with to say, hey, look,
you know, this is what peoplesee you as, you know, one of the
counters to that is, well, youknow, we're in a flat
organization. So that's reallynot, you know, not the case.
(09:30):
No, not all organizations areflat, of course, but many times
they'll say, you know, what doyou mean? I'm a pass through
leader, right? What do you mean?
I'm not adding value. You know,we don't have multiple layers of
management. But in thosesituations, so often, what they
don't realize is, yeah, you knowwhat? People can go to you
directly. They don't have to gothrough multiple layers. But
when they do get to you, they'renot offering anything different.
(09:51):
In other words, they're not thetype of person, or you're not
the type of person that peoplewant to start with. They don't
necessarily want to go. Go toyou, because they know when they
do go to you, they're justgetting something that is pulled
off the shelf that you'reregurgitating from somewhere
else.
Again, whether it's a leadershippodcast or book or some speaker
or some course that you went to,or some book that you read,
(10:12):
they're not getting anythingfresh. They're not getting
anything different. So why onearth would they want to start
with you, even if they have,again, very easy access because
of your so called flatorganization. And on the flip
side, do they really want to endwith you? Do they want you to be
the person to go forth andchampion your idea again, even
if it's a flat organization, atthe end of the day, everybody
(10:34):
ultimately reports to some sortof shareholder or stakeholder.
Do they want to have you be thatperson, to be their champion?
Well, that's the question fortoday.
Are you that origin anddestination leader that people
want to come to they'reenthusiastic about coming to or
(10:55):
landing at, if you will, or areyou a hub like leader, where
people see you as just again,another stop on their journey to
something else. So with that,ask yourself today both this
last question, are you a hublike leader or O and D leader?
And as we asked before, are youreminiscent of a micro grid that
is self reliant and able torespond when necessary, or are
(11:19):
you solely reliant on a gridthat can lead to leadership
blackouts, if you will.
And so with that here, withmaybe one or two minutes left,
I'd be remiss not to revisitthis microgrid and revisit this
idea that you know, natural gasis not merely a bridge like fuel
(11:43):
or a hub like fuel, gettingpeople from point A to point B,
but natural gas is what hasfueled this second
transformation of Pittsburgh tothis O and D airport to this new
terminal that's, you know,coming out here in a couple
(12:06):
months, and natural gas becausepeople had the foresight to take
advantage of the resources thatare under the airport's feet.
Well, natural gas, again, isfueling something amazing. It's
not just getting people from Ato B, but it's fueling the next
(12:31):
40 years of this airport that'sbeing constructed without
But again, it's a great reminderof you that you don't want to
just be a bridge leader. Youdon't want to be a layover
taxpayer dollars, in partbecause of the wells that are
leader. You want to be likenatural gas. You want to be that
catalyst. And that's the that'sthe question, or that's the, you
drilled underneath the airport,the revenue from those wells,
know, final analogy for today.
So with that being said, andsigning off here from Pittsburgh
the electricity savings that theairport has, the revenue that
(12:51):
International Airport, before Iboard my plane here, I want to
thank you, as always, for tuningin. I want to remind you to look
can be generated from havingexcess electricity, all of that
for those resources, likenatural gas, that are available
to you, that are alreadyunderneath your feet, that you
is powered by natural gas inconjunction with other resources
can leverage to be thatconfident leader with executive
presence, who can make quickdecisions, who can be
that we have here, albeit maybenot in the same supply, that
deployable, who can beavailable, and who can be that O
(13:11):
and D leader, that microgrid,leader that your stakeholders
being, of course, sunshine andthe solar energy that also makes
are looking for. So with thatsafe travels wherever you're
headed today, and thanks, asalways, for tuning in.
up the microgrid.
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