Paige Leland

I think so many things contribute to my success. I've had a really great group of mentors throughout my life, whether it's been family, role models outside of family, professors, or bosses. I've had great ones, so I think a lot of it is being able to learn from them and absorb from them, and being able to take different things that I appreciate about each of them and kind of adapt that into my own style. I'm also just a really resilient person who's been through a lot, and I trust myself to know that because I've gotten through challenges before, I can handle what comes my way.

The best career advice I've received comes from my bosses. I've always had women leaders and I've never worked for a male boss, and one thing I really love about working for women is their ability to mentor you on the soft skills that are really important to succeed, especially in automotive where it's mostly men. One thing that my current manager always reminds me, and I really love it, is that you can do so much more with the power of positivity than you can with anything else. So, approaching every situation open-minded, giving people the benefit of the doubt, and really, especially when you're in comms and you work with so many different personalities and people with perhaps competing goals depending on what department they're in, just approaching things with positivity and warmth has really gotten me pretty far.

I would say have the confidence to know that if you're at the table, you belong at the table, and your opinion matters, and you should be sharing it. I think a lot of times we can get nervous, like, what if I say the wrong thing, or what if I say the right thing but I say it the wrong way? But if you have the seat at the table, it's for a reason, and you need to use that seat to do what you need to do too. This is especially important in automotive because it is a lot of men, so having that confidence is crucial.

Right now, there's a lot going on in the automotive industry. I think particularly, trades are facing a challenge because there's been a push for so long where you go to high school, then you go to college, you get an advanced degree, that's what you're supposed to do, and because of that, we're seeing a shortage of skilled trade workers. The past few years, it's been cool to work on different initiatives to remind people about how much money you can make in automotive technology and being a mechanic. That's really been our biggest challenge, making sure that the industry is sustainable. Our training team is doing a lot to really focus on apprenticeship programs and doing more to equip people with skills, because cars aren't going away, we will always rely on them, and we need people to work on them.

My value for my whole life, whether it's work or personal, is to give from love and not for love. That means being positive, being kind, and just being a warm and welcoming person. It really helps get things done, helps relationships build, and helps create a sense of community with people. I think a lot of jobs are all about how you can connect with people, whether you're doing accounting, whether you're doing comms. I'm really passionate about just being kind and giving from a place of love and not doing it to get anything in return.