Leading With Purpose and Giving Voice to Possibility
Michelle Clarkson has spent more than 25 years helping people recognize their capabilities, take ownership of their decisions, and grow into leadership. Today, the Executive Leadership Strategist, professional speaker, and founder and CEO of Meaningful Moments of Power is bringing that experience to a mission that is deeply personal, helping people lead themselves with the same commitment they bring to everything and everyone they lead.
Her nomination for the Woman's Impact Leadership Award - Professional Services is a meaningful recognition of that work. As she looks toward LET Global in Hong Kong in March 2027, Michelle is excited about the opportunity to share a philosophy that has shaped her career and continues to guide her contribution.
At the heart of Michelle’s leadership philosophy is Permission Granted™ | Lead Yourself First.
For Michelle, Permission Granted™ means recognizing that you can use your voice, make decisions, and move forward without waiting for someone else to give you permission. How a person communicates, honors commitments, responds to challenges, and makes decisions influences their relationships, their work, and their everyday life. Leadership begins in those choices, often long before anyone gives someone a title. When you lead yourself first, everything you lead changes.
A Foundation Built on People
Michelle’s understanding of leadership developed over a career that included 20 years at Honeywell and responsibilities spanning global operations, customer experience, and continuous improvement. She led people in India, China, Malaysia, Poland, Romania, Mexico, and the United States, working with teams whose cultures, perspectives, and experiences strengthened her own approach.
Her accomplishments include improving customer experiences, strengthening operations, developing managers, and earning Honeywell’s Five-Star Culture Award. Yet when she considers what made that work meaningful, she returns to the people behind it.
She believes leaders have a responsibility to recognize ability, communicate expectations, and give others room to contribute. That means preparing people to make decisions and trusting them to use their judgment. It also means being available when guidance is needed and holding people accountable with consistency and respect.
There is lasting value in helping someone become more confident in what they can do. An employee who begins contributing ideas, a manager who grows comfortable making decisions, or a team member who accepts a new responsibility can carry that growth into every role that follows.
That is the kind of influence Michelle values, leadership that continues working through the people it develops.
The Woman Behind the Work
Long before her corporate career, Michelle’s father gave her a message that would remain with her: “Yes, you can. You’re greater than you think you are.”
His encouragement helped shape her willingness to speak, pursue opportunities, and believe that her contribution mattered. Today, his words remain part of the foundation beneath her work.
An Indianapolis native and Indiana University alumni, Michelle is also a mother and grandmother. Her faith and family have helped shape her perspective on responsibility, perseverance, and purpose. She understands that people bring their whole lives into the roles they hold, including experiences and concerns that may never appear in a professional biography.
That understanding matters in her work. Someone can be accomplished, dependable, and respected while privately struggling to recognize what they want for themselves. They can spend years meeting expectations and still find it difficult to express a need, make a change, or follow through on a personal goal.
Michelle wants to make room for those conversations. She believes people deserve to examine who they are becoming alongside what they are accomplishing.
Living the Philosophy Through Change
Michelle has also faced moments that required her to practice the philosophy she shares.
After founding Meaningful Moments of Power in April 2025, she experienced an unexpected job loss that October. The transition brought uncertainty and important decisions about her future. It also required her to draw on the faith, experience, and belief in herself that had supported her throughout her life.
Her years of leadership still mattered. So did her ability to develop people, solve problems, and contribute. Moving forward meant deciding how she would bring those strengths into the work ahead.
The experience gave added meaning to her message of Permission Granted™. She understood personally what it meant to move without having every answer and to take responsibility for a future that looked different from the one she had anticipated.
That season is part of her story, and it informs the understanding she brings to others navigating change. She knows that a person can feel uncertain about what comes next and still have experience, ability, and something valuable to offer.
Bringing Leadership Into Everyday Life
Through Meaningful Moments of Power, Michelle works with individuals, leaders, and organizations through speaking, leadership development, and coaching. Her work connects personal responsibility with the way people communicate, make decisions, and lead others.
Her work with women carries a clear purpose: helping women build the confidence to use their voice and follow through on what they want for their lives.
She recognizes the woman whose workday is filled with meetings, questions, and requests, only to arrive home to another list of responsibilities. By the end of the week, the conversation she intended to have remains unspoken. The goal she wanted to pursue has been pushed back again. Everyone can count on her, but she is struggling to keep the promises she makes to herself.
Michelle’s message speaks to that everyday experience: “Be the woman you keep saying you want to be.”
It is an invitation to bring intention into action. That might begin with expressing an honest opinion, making time for something personally meaningful, or following through on one decision that has been repeatedly delayed. Those actions help a woman build evidence that she can count on herself.
Michelle brings warmth, directness, and her own experience to this work. She wants people to recognize their ability to act and to understand that their voice deserves a place in the decisions shaping their lives.
Recognition With Purpose
The Woman's Impact Leadership Award - Professional Services nomination gives Michelle an opportunity to reflect on the people, experiences, and commitments that have brought her to this point. She is grateful for the recognition and excited to connect with the global leadership community in Hong Kong in March 2027.
Her focus remains on the contribution she can continue making helping leaders develop others, helping women speak with greater confidence, and encouraging people to follow through on what matters to them.
For Michelle, impact lives in what people carry forward. It is present in the decision someone finally makes, the opportunity they pursue, and the way they begin showing up for themselves and others.
Her father’s words continue to guide her. Through her work, she is helping others discover what those words can mean in their own lives. “Yes, you can. You’re greater than you think you are.