Tracey Matura, GM for the Smart Car unit of Mercedes-Benz USA, shares the key qualities of leadership.
What were some important leadership lessons for you?
I had a great mentor early on, so I asked a lot of questions. I watched the right type of managers and recognised the wrong type of managers. You can make a fatal mistake if you watch the person who you perceive as being the most successful, but you’re not necessarily watching the right leadership skills.
Can you elaborate?
In one of my jobs, the people who seemed to be the most successful, in hindsight, were successful at the expense of other people. If you just looked from the outside, you would say that the person must be a fantastic manager, because they’ve built a great team, been successful, and have a winning record.
If you didn’t look closely, you would think, “That’s who I should follow.” And I would have learned some inappropriate lessons. I watched a lot of people, and then I started to realise that some people had their team behind them. Those who took the most time with their team might not have had the greatest people, but they had the most passionate and thought-provoking people.
If I hadn’t been an observer, I probably would have followed the wrong path and developed into a not-so-nice leader with more of an authoritative, do-it-my-way style. Instead, I use a mix of a collaborative approach and letting people just fly on their own.
Have you always been an observer?
I’m the youngest of four. I never wanted to be the little sister who nobody wants to bring around, so I think it started there. I would watch my siblings to figure out: “OK what do they do? How can I be a little bit more grown up so that I fit into their world?” So I’m naturally one who listens more and talks less.
What other lessons?
I’ve learned the importance of building the right team, opening up about who I am, and understanding how people on my team like to work. Some people need you to talk to them for the first five minutes of their day about what they did over the weekend, and you can’t undervalue how important that is.
I make it a point now to know what everybody’s about. Mary needs to have the fiveminute conversation, and Joe needs me to just let him run because he’s more like me – he’s been up since 6 am and cleared out his emails so that he can hit the ground running when he gets to the office. Knowing your team and letting your team get to know you is really important.
For me, I’ve had to explain that if I’m running at 1 000 miles an hour, it doesn’t mean everybody has to do the same. It’s just who I am, and people need to feel free to say:
“Hey, can you slow down because I go at 100 miles an hour and you’re driving me crazy?” I’ve had those conversations. People have said: “Remember when you told me I could tell you things? I’m telling you now you need to slow down.”
And you’ve said this to everybody?
At Smart, I built the team from the beginning, and I had that conversation with each new person on the team, and I reiterate it so that everybody understands me. Sometimes leaders don’t explain themselves, and we don’t necessarily know that we should.
What else do you tell them about yourself?
I tell them I have to stop and remember that some people want to have that five-minute conversation, and if I forget to do it, it’s not because I don’t care, and it’s not because I don’t want you to ask me what I did.
I’m not being impersonal or secretive; it’s just that we all go back to the way we are. And if I’m a quiet observer, and I tell them that, they’ll say, “Oh, I know a little bit more about her.”
I tell people to remind me if they need something from me. I want them to understand where it comes from. I am naturally shy, which everybody laughs at, but I want you to respect who I am, and I will respect who you are and you can call me out on it because I’m your leader.
I’m also a team member, which is why I tell people to remind me if I’m not giving them what they need, and people have done that. I like to be part of the team, and I think you can be a team member and a leader at the same time.
I think I’ve evolved to know where to find that balance. I can still make the decision and say, “Unfortunately. no, we’re not going that way.” But I think my team would tell you that their point of view is at least always heard, and if it’s not, they remind me, because they have the freedom to do that.
What else should people know about you?
I don’t like surprises. So if something went wrong, just tell me it went wrong. The other thing is, we’re in it together. I like risk-takers, but if somebody takes a risk and it was the wrong one, at the end of the day, I’m the leader of the team. I’m not hanging them out there or saying, “See, you shouldn’t have taken that risk.” Because guess what happens then? Nobody takes a risk again.
What questions do you ask when you’re hiring?
“Tell me who your favourite boss was, and why, and who your least-favourite boss was and why.” You quickly get a sense of what leadership styles work best for them. I also ask about a time they took a risk and failed. I have not hired people who have told me they’ve never failed.
You don’t learn if you don’t fail.
People really say they’ve never failed?
People might say, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a complete failure.” Really? I don’t ask the question in terms of just business. Everybody’s had some failure in their life.
So they’re just trying to figure out the right answer?
Here’s what I want: My leadership style is to be transparent and authentic, so if you’re going to tell me you’ve never failed, it makesme wonder if you always hide your failures. I can’t fix or try to fix something I don’t know about. Some people say to themselves, “If I say I failed, she’s going to think I’m a loser and not hire me.” Quite the opposite. We’re human. We all fail.
When you mentor people, are there lessons you find yourself repeating?
You’re going to learn more from my failures than my successes. For the people I’ve actually been most successful with, I tell them, “You’re not going to get it right every time.” Yes, I’ve had successes, but I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. If anybody asks me what I think the No. 1 key to leadership is, I think it’s being authentic.
Just tell people the truth. And you’ve got to build a team, and work as a team. If it’s too much about you, you won’t be successful.
What about culture? What’s important to you?
To me, integrity and trust go hand-in-hand, so that’s No. 1. And I don’t like surprises, so let’s be honest with each other. The other thing is teamwork and collaboration. I knew from Day 1, since we were launching a brand, that we were a relatively small team.
So we needed to be nimble. So from Day 1, I made us interdependent, because one person’s success is the success for all of us.
If there’s an issue, it’s an issue for all of us. Passion and fun are also important. You have to have fun at what you do. If it’s just a job, then when somebody else calls you and says, “I have a job and it pays $5 000 more,” you might leave. But if you’ve invested and you feel you’ve built something, I think you stay.
Here’s another thing I always say to people: “I’d rather pull you out of the wall than have to push you through it.” The wall hurts everyone, but if you stop short every time you see the wall, we don’t really evolve.
