Comfortable with being uncomfortable: Shared leadership lessons from year one

It was February 2021, my first month as Chase Auto’s chief marketing and customer experience officer. I was only beginning to relocate my family and acclimate to the new role and now I sat in a dark, chilly hotel room with a dying computer, wondering when the next round of intermittent electricity and water would return. I had an important meeting with our CEO in the morning and going to this hotel was my failed attempt at finding refuge from the outages at my home a few miles away. Just days prior, one of the largest freezes in my recollection had plastered the entire Texas region, breaching multiple pipes and flooding some rooms in our home. It took months for pipes and electricity to be fully repaired and residual restoration completed.

Throughout that time, also nestled in the middle of a global pandemic, I found myself tapping into skills learned in years past to reprioritize decisions and tackle challenges. What started out as a fantastic year quickly became incredibly challenging, yet transformative.

We don’t always get to cherry-pick the pain points or obstacles thrown our way, but the ability to adapt and be resilient is essential, both personally and professionally. As I reflect upon the past year and how I got through, I am reminded of lessons that have resonated with me throughout my career, a testament to the importance of lifelong leadership muscle memory.

Lesson 1: Leadership requires resiliency and adaptability during transformation

Although the start of my year was challenged by the adverse weather, I knew many Texans were affected and I wasn’t alone. I had to take my own advice: Maintain a positive mindset, have gratitude and focus on solutions. In so doing, resilience and adaptability came front and center.

When we take on a new leadership role and the team is undergoing transformation, it requires these same skills. Whether it’s a weather-related crisis or business transformation accelerated by a pandemic, both have a silver lining. If we seek the threads and pull on them, that’s when we unlock the magic and can take the team to higher levels of attainment.

Lesson 2: Leadership requires lifelong learning to grow and maintain relevance

Changing jobs and joining a company that operates at the size and scale of JPMorgan Chase is very exciting. It can also be daunting given the vast amount of data and information that needs to be consumed to effectively lead.

One of the frameworks I often refer to is the product lifecycle – from introduction or development, to growth, maturity and decline. While some products are sunset during the decline phase, others are reinvigorated and repositioned on the growth curve. One’s career journey can look the same way. When nearing or at the peak of our career, it is easy to become complacent and limit growth. However, changing environments can often unlock new opportunities for learning. Take a risk. Be curious, ask questions and be OK with not knowing everything or being the go-to expert. When I moved into this new role, my opportunity for growth and learning was reset on the growth curve. Doing this is how I choose to remain relevant.

Lesson 3: Leadership requires winning with people

If not the most important lesson, this is the one that has sustained me for duration of my career spanning nearly 30 years in various corporate roles. Take care of your team, build relationships and nurture your network of important peers and colleagues. It’s people who get the work done and interact with your customers. Sure, there’s technology and digital enablers, but at the heart of culture is the people. Displaying empathy and effectively empowering and enabling teams to do their best work transcends directly into the customer experience. During the excitement and drive to deliver results, I am reminded to keep people and culture in the forefront. It is the bedrock for sustainable teamwork. When these elements are in place, then the ability to effectively execute on the strategy becomes much more realistic.

Lesson 4: Leadership requires vision and clarity in communications

The final lesson I’d share is that leadership requires vision and clarity. Rarely is there a shortage of ideas and opinions about how to deliver against business challenges. However, as leaders we must articulate the vision, be clear about the priorities, and state the objectives and overall intent of outcomes expected. It’s not about quantity of work, but the quality of the outcome that matters. Being clear about the role of every team member and how they impact clients, customers and the business is essential to maintaining engagement, commitment, and maximizing resources and energy utilization — driving the most meaningful outcomes with the least amount of effort. While it may be easy for some leaders to have vision, we mustn’t forget to communicate, communicate, communicate. Communication is key to gaining adoption and followership of the vision.

In conclusion

These are just a few key areas of leadership muscle memory that have enabled me to tackle challenges and transform this year. When a leader has core skills and capabilities and flexes their hard-earned leadership muscles, not even the fiercest storms can sway them. Those leadership lessons represent the familiar which can help us get comfortable with the unfamiliar. We must recognize and draw upon those skills just as we would have in the familiarity of the past to create comfort in the future.

Renee Horne is the chief marketing and customer experience officer at Chase Auto.

Auto Finance Risk Summit, the premier event for risk and compliance management in auto finance, returns April 25-26 in San Diego. This event is the central resource for education and networking focused on best practices in risk management and will prepare your team for the dynamics of the evolving auto finance market. To learn more about the 2022 event and register, visit www.AutoFinanceRiskSummit.com.