Foot Locker chief executive officer Mary Dillon and Wella Company CEO Annie Young-Scrivner spoke about leadership lessons during the WWD x FN x Beauty Inc Women In Power event, focusing on how to build successful businesses, integrate diversity into their overall companies and how to motivate large workforces.
The CEOs started off their discussion talking about the importance of garnering insights across multiple teams and different levels throughout their companies to help understand the needs of their workforce and best lead their employees.
“I think [employees] really want to ensure that you understand — understand what they’re going through,” Young-Scrivner said. “So, one of the first things that I did is a global listening tour with all levels of the organization. We met customers and sought out counsel from founders of different brands that we purchased and understanding that and then knitting together, what are the opportunities? I think people want to be really clear, what’s the strategy, but then how do we achieve it? Then what’s my role?”
These types of insights are part of both CEOs “leadership toolbox,” they explained. Dillon furthered the sentiment by explaining its equally important to understand customers as much as competitors so that a company can be led successfully.
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Dillon also spoke about the importance of listening to employees’ voices, using an example of a district manager meeting she held while she was the CEO of Ulta Beauty.
“There was a Q&A session with the senior team and people didn’t mean to do this, but what I saw was every time somebody asked a question, we answered it with ‘it can’t be done, or here’s why we don’t do that,’” she said. “What we did is really flip that and say, ‘Let’s understand what’s behind the question,’ because if somebody has the courage, whether it’s a store manager or district manager, to raise your hand and ask the question, they already have a hypothesis and they really have a need that they want to share with us.”
Dillon and Young-Scrivner also said fostering diversity and inclusivity at all levels of a company’s workforce, with both executives stressing the values should be prioritized by leaders.
“At Foot Locker one thing I’m really proud about is that we have 27,000 employees around the world and very diverse teams in our store,” Dillon said. “Ninety-two percent of our store teams in the U.S. are Black or Hispanic and are often young people getting their first job and often careers are built through that. But, our leadership team was not diverse at all when I got there, so in the year I’ve tripled the diversity of the leadership team and we’re 60 percent diverse and our board is 80 percent. It’s not that hard. If you are a great leader, you attract great people. Diversity is all around us, just make it a priority.”
The executives ended the talk discussing other key leadership tips. Young-Scrivner shared an experience she had during a board meeting where she realized how crucial staying authentic to herself was in that type of situation.
“One executive said to me, ‘your biggest derailer is perfectionism,’” she said. “Growing up as a Chinese girl where if you had a B or an A — you had a talking to and you were bred to make sure that you do really well. Before board meetings, I would study all the material to make sure I can answer every single question from the board of directors. I had a board member from Starbucks pull me aside and said, ‘That’s going to be your biggest derailer,’ because if you’re perfect, no one wants to help you, so show some of that authenticity and show that you need help.”
This story was reported by WWD and originally appeared on WWD.com.
