NEW YORK (Reuters) – Annette Clayton is nicely conscious of how few ladies there are in the power business. She is utilizing her power as one of the most senior females in the discipline to alter it.
“I’m a huge believer in mentoring,” says Clayton, who’s CEO and president of the North America Operations of Schneider Electric, which is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison, France.
Clayton, whose operations are based mostly in Andover, Massachusetts, oversees 30,000 workers. She notes that mentoring has been key to the success of “non-obvious candidates” in her discipline.
“You find yourself mentoring people that need the skills that you have,” Clayton mentioned. “And it’s really democratized the process of open roles and promotions.”
Clayton spoke to Reuters about the power of mentoring. Edited excerpts are under.
Q. Tell us about your first job. How did it form you?
A. I grew up on a small farm. My household all labored on that farm with livestock, gardening and crops.
But my first job was really outdoors our farm. I labored on a neighbor’s farm, and I planted after which subsequently picked strawberries.
I discovered the worth of laborious work, selecting strawberries for 25 cents a quart. I discovered to be early with a view to be on time.
Q. You are a pacesetter in an business that doesn’t have very many ladies in it. You are an engineer and have been one of the few feminine CEOs in the power business. Can you discuss that have?
A. I’m in the third chapter of my profession. I began in the automotive business, then know-how with Dell (the place she was vice chairman in cost of Dell Americas Operations), then power administration.
All technical corporations are full of engineers and all don’t have that many ladies. But there are some wonderful ladies leaders–Patty (Patricia) Poppe at PG&E, Mary Barra at GM.
We are nonetheless the exceptions, however once I take into consideration Patty Poppe and Mary and myself, we had been all colleagues at General Motors throughout an period the place there have been lively applications inside the firm to establish ladies and assist them. We actually benefited from that early in our careers: we had mentoring, we had alternatives, and we had a management group that was actually creating us.
We’re doing the identical at Schneider: creating an inclusive office the place everybody has an opportunity to succeed.
Q. How did the pandemic change issues for girls in the workforce?
A. The pandemic has induced a big quantity of ladies to go away the workforce and to make decisions about educating their kids or taking care of household.
The extra methods we will create new methods of working that permit our ladies and our males to have extra flexibility at work, that is what’s going to preserve them engaged in the workforce.
Flexibility and agility will make us extra productive. We’ve created part-time choices and different kinds of employment, like job-sharing or sabbaticals of various lengths of time, after we thought we had been going to lose ladies.
Q. What defines your management fashion?
A. I imagine in the power of high-performing groups, and I spend a big quantity of time on alignment – actually aligning the group to the operational and transformational targets.
I wish to share management with my group. I function extra like a neural community. It’s extremely aligned and loosely coupled. The cause I like to explain it that approach is that this offers the focus but in addition autonomy and empowerment at the identical time.
I additionally imagine my management fashion is being laborious on the issues and straightforward on the individuals. It’s a specific approach of main via difficult instances whereas nonetheless driving operational excellence.
Many instances the end result of that’s not solely good efficiency, nevertheless it’s additionally nice expertise.
Q. What is the greatest work recommendation you have got acquired?
A. It got here from an African-American girl early in my profession – she mentioned, “Annette, when you get a piece of feedback, you have to assume that you need it. Don’t assume you’re getting it because you’re a woman or because you’re young. And don’t lose the opportunity to onboard it. Don’t carry bias into it.”
That’s served me nicely.
(Editing by Lauren Young and Dan Grebler)
