Caspersen and Miller presented a session titled "Courageous Leadership for Women" as part of Friday afternoon's NACE conference schedule. The session, part of the Women's Professional Development track at the show, focused on leadership skills that women (and men, too) can utilize in the shop environment.
"Within the workplace, we need to have strength in our negotiating skills, whether that's in dealing with vendors or staffers, and in other industry relationships," Caspersen said. "There's a process of analysis where you try things, trust things, and then come to the place where you are wiling to tell things."
Caspersen and Miller provided an overview of how to incorporate an individual's strengths in this trying, trusting and telling process, and then facilitating an action with team members at a collision repair shop.
According to the presenters, courage is an important part of this process, one that is teachable and learnable. "Everyone has the capacity to be courageous," Caspersen said.
That type of courage involves the strength and capacity to say what you know to be right, and affirm it without being offensive or inflammatory. "You have to come at it with certainty, instead of uncertainty," Caspersen said. "You may be confident in what you know, but not necessarily have the courage to communicate it effectively."
In other words, you can be confident in your technical skills or the facts that you might be bringing to the negotiating table, but it requires more than just confidence to make your case to vendors, insurance company representatives, or your own employees or co- workers. That's the difference between confidence and courage, according to Caspersen. "Courage is the emotional strength to say something you are confident about," she said. "You need one for the other to make any difference. You may know something is right, but if you don't have the emotional certainty to speak it out loud, you can't effect any sort of change."
Women in the industry, particularly as they move into traditionally "male" areas of the shop (technicians, managers, estimators, etc.) may have to work harder to have their voices heard, just because the customers, insurers, or technicians they are dealing with aren't used to negotiating with women possessing those particular skill sets.
"That's where courage comes in," Caspersen said. "You have to approach it by saying, 'I know it's unique for a woman to be an estimator, for example, but I have the confidence that I know how to do this job, and sell that job to a customer.'"
Although the session was directed at women, Caspersen said that men can take away important points as well. "Courage is essential regardless of gender," she said. "It's important for relationship building and negotiating."
