EPISODE 21: MARY BARRA

On December 10, 2013, at 8.46 AM, Bloomberg News, in a thousand-word first draft, informed the world of the biggest business scoop of the year. Mary Barra, whose career began on the factory floor as an intern, would succeed Dan Akerson as Chief Executive Officer of General Motors Co., the first women CEO in the global automotive industry. The extent to which Bloomberg owned the story was revealed in the ensuing edition of Bloomberg Business Week, featuring Barra posed with arms crossed in a black-and-white portrait taken the same day, according to an editor's note, and with the new general plastered in blue block letters on its cover. While the world was surprised to learn a 51-year-old woman engineer was the winner over three men, President of GM North America, Chief Financial Officer, and Vice Chairman, each of whom seemed probable successors to Akerson, Bloomberg was prepared to anoint Barra because its reporters and editors were three years into the 23-year-old news organization's women initiative, attempting to narrow gender imbalance in coverage, and especially its own newsroom. That excerpt was taken from the book prologue of Charging Ahead, which was the main book profiling Mary Barra and General Motors here, and she will be the subject of this episode 21 of Leaders Podcast, so welcome back to Leaders, a podcast dedicated to exploring the best leaders this world has ever seen. We've profiled a few women CEOs here in the first 20 episodes, and another great one to highlight here being the first one, Women CEO in the Global Automotive Industry. Before we get further, it is important to reflect on Leaders Podcast, and this being the 21st episode, and so some stats here, and 90% of podcasts don't get past episode 3, that's 1.8 million who quit, of the 200,000 left, 90% will quit after 20 episodes, that's another 180,000 gone. So to be in the top 1% of podcasts in the world, you will only need to publish 21 episodes, and so that is what this episode will be, and we will be part of the top 1% of podcasts just based on getting this episode out here, so definitely just a start here for the Leaders Podcast, no end in sight with studying the great leaders of the world. And so let's dive in here to Mary Barra and start with her career path, which is an interesting one as she is almost a GM lifer in terms of her career, and so she started as a co-op student at age 18, inspecting fender panels and hoods, and used the money she earned to cover her college tuition. She then went on to earn a Bachelor's of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the General Motors Institute, now Kettering University, in 1985, followed by a Master's of Business Administration degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990. She has held a variety of engineering and administrative positions during her rise to the ranks of GM, this included managing the Detroit Amtrak assembly plant, overseeing global manufacturing engineering, and leading the company's human resources department. In 2013, she was named Executive Vice President of Global Product Development, Purchasing, and Supply Chain. In that role, she was responsible for the design, engineering, and quality of GM vehicles worldwide. In 2014 is when she was appointed CEO of GM, again becoming the first woman to lead a major global automaker. She has since overseen that period of significant transformation for the company, including its focus on EVs and autonomous driving. Under her leadership, they've become more profitable, and shareholder returns have increased significantly. She's a very highly respected leader within that industry, recognized for her accomplishments over the years, which we will go into, with numerous awards and honors. She's a member of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of America's leading companies. Also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Also an advocate for STEM education, co-founder of the STEM Forward Initiative, aiming to inspire and prepare more students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Strong supporter of women's leadership, named one of the most powerful women in the business world. Undergrad, so yeah, she had the undergrad in engineering, working at the plants, she says, really allowed her to understand the business. She did have that background of becoming the head of human resources, which is an interesting one that we haven't really seen within other leaders. She was an engineer being shoehorned into a soft discipline, far from her expertise. Lots of generalists, and let's go into now her leadership style, and some of the mantras, philosophies that she has instilled through her 40-year career at GM. One thing that she says over the time at GM, is that you learn from everyone, great leaders and not. So both from the good and the bad, and she's certainly seen a good and a bad as we developed through her leadership style successes, as well as failures and challenges, which are many throughout her career. And so she does talk a lot around having to win the hearts and minds of the team, truly showing that you care for them, and wanting to invest in them. Really talking, and so not only through the book, Charging Ahead, but she was interviewed a few times, Duke and Michigan Business Schools had interviews, and she does touch upon her leadership style and what she feels are the key components of that, and she really does hone in on building a relationship with team and supervisors, communicating the why and the what needs to be done, and then the respect of each other, ensuring that everyone is heard. She certainly exhibits visionary leadership as well, so managing the business today, but also looking over the horizon to what's next. A lot of what she instills within that is, are the eight behaviors of GM. And so just going through those quickly, being customer obsessed, putting the customer at the center of everything you do, sounds very familiar to Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Be inclusive, create an environment where all voices can be heard, Satya Nadella, Microsoft definitely had one of that as a key pillar. Think innovatively, bring new ideas to the table, and be bold in your thinking. Four, look ahead, anticipate change, and be prepared to adapt. Adaptability, change, change management, definitely have been a common theme as well as we studied these leaders. Act with integrity, so she wants to achieve results with integrity, do the right thing even when it is difficult. Six, be accountable, take responsibility for your actions and results, and she really took a brave stance and really spoke her mind after some of these challenges that GM ran into and admitted and owned up to those mistakes, even if they weren't under her realm. Drive performance, deliver on your commitments and achieve your goals, and eight, collaborate effectively, work together to achieve common goals. These behaviors are the foundation of GM's culture and what drives the company's success. Employees are expected to embody those in everything they do. More into her qualities and style of leadership here, so she's been praised for not only visionary leadership style, but transformational. She's known for being decisive, transparent, customer-focused. That focus on transparency, she's been open and honest with employees and public about the challenges facing GM and taken responsibility for the company's mistakes. Transparency has helped to build trust with employees and customers and created a culture of accountability at GM. Another aspect is the focus on the customer, so making it clear that their top priority is to meet the needs of the customer, and this focus has led to a number of customer-centric initiatives. The development of new EVs, creation of more streamlined customer service process are a few to name there. She's also known for being a decisive leader, so not afraid to make tough decisions even if they are unpopular. The decisiveness has helped them move forward quickly, avoid getting bogged down in bureaucracy. She does say, we're here to win, we aren't going to win by being all things to all people everywhere, it's not the right strategy. GM's future hinged not only on her courage to make a move, but also on her being wise enough to get the timing right. She also does say the most important thing is to never stop learning and growing, so learning through these successes and challenges is key, and a few other examples of her leadership style in action was when GM was facing a recall crisis, which we will go through a little bit more in the challenges section, but Bara was quick to take action. She apologized to customers, recalled all affected vehicles, and implemented new safety procedures. Her decisive leadership helped to then restore some of the public trust in GM. She's been a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion at GM, set ambitious goals for increasing the number of women and minorities in leadership positions, also created programs to support and develop employees from all. Also committed to sustainability, so setting a goal for GM to be carbon neutral by 2040, investing billions of dollars in developing electric vehicles and other sustainable technologies. Definitely a highly respected leader, known for her transparency, customer focus, decisiveness, focused on sustainability, vocal, and her ability to listen and involve others in a discussion makes her both authoritative and likable. She also, as we compare her to other leaders that we've studied, and we look at Jack Welch and a few other members that have come in and led turnarounds into companies, is such that she had to strip out some cost and some waste within the company when she came in, so she would press hard to take out layers of management and then really streamline the decision-making process as a result of that. So the book does touch upon when she comes in to be the CEO, she did take initiative and really was forced into taking cost-cutting measures to streamline that without losing a bunch of revenue as well as production from that standpoint. Not an easy thing to do, but pressing hard within that is definitely a leadership quality to keep in mind. Going into a little bit more of those challenges, as I think a lot of her leadership journey has become through these challenges that she's had while being CEO of GM, the auto industry just as a whole has always evolved and always had different components and layers of challenges throughout the decades. She says, success is not final, failure is not fatal, it's the courage to keep going that counts. Very early into her CEO realm, she has the ignition switch recall in 2014 and it's not even three months into her tenure as CEO in April of 2014, where she has arguably one of the worst weeks of her career. She's in Washington to sit before a congressional panel where a subcommittee is set to grill her about the faulty ignition switch. That recall ends up affecting millions of vehicles linked to at least 124 deaths. She was really tasked with leading them through the crisis and restoring that trust. She took a number of steps to address that crisis, including recalling all the affected vehicles, hiring an independent investigator, and implementing new safety measures. She apologized to customers and took responsibility for the company's mistakes. Her handling of that recall was widely praised and emerged from the crisis with a stronger reputation than ever before. She does say that through those tragic consequences, she did learn to be transparent after it happened and the lesson learned was when you know you have a problem, you have to solve it. And really the value of customer excellence relationships to differentiate at that time. Another challenge GM faced fairly recently, and it still to some extent still does, is the chip shortage. So the global chip shortage has had a significant impact on a lot of the automotive industry. GM has been forced to reduce production and delay deliveries of some of its vehicles due to that shortage. Their role is that they are a major consumer of the semiconductors used in a lot of different components including engine control units, infotainment systems, safety systems, so highly dependent upon that reliable supply of semiconductors. It's been caused by a number of factors, the chip shortage, including the pandemic, trade tensions, a fire at a major plant in Japan. So that's disrupted the supply, led to higher prices. GM has taken a number of steps to mitigate that impact. So working with suppliers to secure alternative sources of semiconductors, designing new vehicles that use fewer chips, prioritizing the production of high margin vehicles. Also been working with the U.S. government to address that shortage. There was the Chips and Science Act passed in 2022, providing $52 billion in funding to boost domestic semiconductor production. GM has said it will benefit from this funding by having access to a more reliable supply from U.S.-based suppliers. Despite the challenges, they remain optimistic about the long-term future. Company is investing in EVs, believes the technologies will be key in the future. They were forced to reduce production by 200,000 vehicles in 2022, delayed delivery of some of its most popular vehicles, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, led to higher prices for vehicles as well. The auto workers strike, which is a relevant topic now. So the United Auto Workers engaged in a series of strikes against GM and other automakers seeking better wages, benefits, and job security for its members. The strikes were the first labor action in over a decade. They began on September 15th of this year after the UAW's contracts with GM, Ford, and Stellantis expired. Union initially targeted plants, including GM's factory in Arlington, Texas, which produces high-profit SUVs. As negotiations stalled, the strikes then expanded to other GM plants, so they were dealing with a widespread strike. Their main demands included higher wages, better health care benefits, and increased job security for temporary workers. They sought to protect jobs as automakers transitioned to EVs as well. After weeks of negotiations, they reached tentative agreements with all three. In late October, a deal included significant wage increases, improved benefits, and commitments to invest in U.S. manufacturing. It was ratified by UAW members, ending the strike after six weeks. Definitely a victory for organized labor within the U.S. auto industry, but as that comes to a fold, Mary and GM and executives are then faced with higher costs, higher input costs to a lot of the vehicles that they're producing, so that will definitely present a challenge from a leadership standpoint as well. Labor unions in an era of economic uncertainty and technological change, growing importance of those. In that regard, 25 years into her career at GM, they also went through bankruptcy and restructuring time, so through 2008 and the recession there. Another challenge they faced was also, within that time, really restructuring GM and the cost measures and cuts and everything to do there. In addition to that, the transition to EVs is a challenge for sure. Criticized for being too slow to adopt it, the company has faced challenges in meeting production targets. She's acknowledged that they need to do more to accelerate it. I know they've stood up a Maven car sharing program, but that was shut down in 2020, so definitely lots of stops and starts within the EV industry. Finally here, mentors and heroes. Mary has said that she has several mentors throughout her career, said they've helped her develop her leadership skills, learn how to navigate the corporate world, build her confidence. In a 2018 interview with the Wharton School of Business, said that one of her mentors was a seasoned professional who helped her learn how to deal with difficult people and situations. She also said that another mentor was a supervisor, one desk over, who helped her to develop her technical skills, so definitely people within the GM atmosphere that helped her. She's now paying it forward, mentoring others, so she's mentoring people at GM, also mentors young people through the Girls Incorporated organization. She believes mentoring is important for everyone, says it can help people achieve their goals and make a positive impact on the world. She also did mention in a recent interview, too, one of her heroes, which is that of former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. So she cited his leadership and ability to make tough decisions during his time at security of defense, appreciates his willingness to speak his mind even when it's unpopular. She says he's not afraid to take on tough challenges and make tough decisions, and he's always been willing to speak his mind even when it's not popular. That's something I really admire. She also mentioned that she admires his commitment to public service. He's dedicated his life to serving our country. That's something that I really respect. He's widely respected for his public service. He was awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she's not only the only one who admires him for sure, and Barra is a successful businesswoman and powerful leader that looks upon him as well as others. She's definitely a role model for women and men alike. Her admiration for Gates shows that she values leadership, public service, and speaking one's mind. And so with that, we come to the end of episode 21 on Mary Barra, CEO of GM, and an interesting path similar to Senegal in episode 1 in that she has the unique background to be at the same place of employment for a long-time GM, which is more and more rare this year when it comes to executives as well as just the workforce in general to be at one place of employment for pretty much their entire career. So she has worked in a variety of roles within GM, and I think that probably allows her to be positioned to understand the business better than outsiders or other people that have only been there for a short period of time. So it's allowed her to be a great female leader and CEO at GM. We will see how the next few years will be interesting to see how her leadership evolves as GM and the car industry evolves with it too. So with that, again, episode 21, Mary Barra. Hope to be back soon for episode 22. Thanks.