Leadership as the Tool for Success

Creating a shop culture through solid leadership is one of the biggest challenges that shop owners and managers face. Helping employees, technicians, and other staff become aware of the importance of creating and maintaining a culture in shops, can only come from consistent leadership practices. Harvard Business Review published in March of 2000 the article, “Leadership That Gets Results”, by Daniel Goleman. In this article he outlined six distinct forms of leadership, and while all six may not be relevant completely in an auto repair shop setting, parts from each style certainly are. The deep understanding of the type of leader that you are, and adopting the leadership capabilities and skills that your circumstance requires, are fundamental to creating a winning shop culture.

Becoming a Leader and Determining Your Role

Understanding the needs of your shop and determining what type of leader you want to be is a question of trial and error. At the same time, knowing and choosing one type of work over another type that may seem like easier money is also a key management decision. As Tim Swiontkowski, owner and president of Stellar Autoworks, states, “You know, if you're the one that has to fix everything, and do the work, you’ve got the wrong management and leadership style. I just had to figure out what I wanted to do.” Brian Moak, CEO of HEART Certified Auto Care, an Illinois shop with three locations in the Chicagoland area, approaches his staff with education and execution, “I think a lot of people have a lot of great ideas, and I think a lot of people have those ideas and do nothing with them. Our belief is to help our people take action on these ideas.”

Part of the leadership process is being able to identify talent and skills within your team. As Moak refers to one of people from his staff: “This guy is probably one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life, let alone in a shop. He’s brilliant. He sees things in such a unique way where he can see past the problem. I love it. So, I visit that location, and I just talk to him for like 35 minutes. Take his time. Then what I'll do is I'll take a guy that we see has potential, and we put him next to this guy. And then the head guy knows that he wants to pay it forward and we incentivize him to do the same.” Creating a system that allows for mentorship within the shop setting helps technicians reach the next level. In the case of HEART Certified Auto Care, the average tenure is 14 years.

Being able to identify personnel with potential is a learned skill, as Keith Perkins, CEO of L1 Automotive Training comments, “I find that a lot of shops that struggle are run by technicians that were good, but they’re not exactly the best leader.” It’s often a challenge for owners to appoint managers when they elect to have a hands-off approach to the business. When Swiontkowski moved back into the business at Stellar Autoworks, he had a newly cleared vision of what his role should be. “I don’t want to take on the big work anymore because I don’t like it. I’m not efficient as a technician, but I’ve got the mind game so what I need to be here for is being a mentor and showing tips and tricks to the younger technicians,” Swiontkowski says. Letting go of the day-to-day hands-on approach is more difficult for some shop owners and managers. In some instances, it’s challenging for them to know how to maximize their time when they aren’t running a bay. In some cases, it’s just the innate desire to continue to be present and involved, as Moak says, “I don't do it as much anymore, but I would say every two to three Thursdays I would go around and I hand out payroll to every person in the company. I shake their hand, and I say thank you. And then we talk. I know about their kids. I know about their spouses. I know I want to be involved, and that’s how I stay connected.” Moak is a partner in a variety of different businesses in which he’s active, as well as a coach for some other phenomenally successful shops across the country.

Efficiency

Being an efficient leader will influence almost every area of the working order of a shop. Sometimes efficiency can be confused with authoritarian traits, “I think my leadership style is kind of stern, but it works pretty well. I'm more interested in making sure the business succeeds.” According to Perkins. Heading a shop isn’t always a natural skill and knowing where time needs to be spent with the customer can sometimes seem inefficient, says Perkins: “Everyone talks about this 300% rule. We're going to make sure that 100% of every car gets an inspection, and gets 100% of the things written up, and 100% is presented to the customer. But it's not a sales thing. We have over $1,000 average repair order.” Perkins emphasizes that taking care of the business is how he can also take care of his family, and his employees. He’s quite candid and open regarding his leadership style, honed over a partial career in IT, and as a fourth-generation technician. Perkins aims to create his shop culture through direct communication and transparency with his employees. Not all shop owners or managers are or can be as clear about topics such as remuneration. Perkins prefers to be candid about this topic as well: “I pay myself, I pay my own insurance, my own phone out of my personal bank account, which is what allows us to hire a W-2 employee.”

Financial and economic efficiency are also applied to the books at L1 Automotive: “That's part of our success, too. All of the real profit from the shop goes back to the shop, and that's how we grow. I want to have more people here, but that's just so I can take care of more people.” as Perkins states. Leadership is a key aspect for addressing one of the biggest problems faced by the industry at-large; qualified technician shortage. Implementing systems that allow shops to attract the correct technicians for their shop is an industry qualm. Perkins has a cause, “I want to employ more technicians and keep them happy by giving them all these perks, because every time I post on one of those groups, if someone asks, we create a way of keeping our people and attracting new ones.”

Vision and Coaching

There’s a common saying across the industry with shop owners—I’ve worked myself out of a job—in reference to the way that they have grown their shops and allowed their systems, coupled with the personnel hired, and they now find themselves with less workload on a day-to-day basis. Moak went through an indepth personal transformation that allowed
the business he had purchased from his father—at age 27—to strive and grow exponentially. Moak emphasizes a much-overlooked aspect of the business, the psychological aspect: “I actually work with all the leaders in the company to figure out what their personal
head trash is and remove it. That’s where I specialize. I’ve grown up in the business, it’s almost like I’ve become a therapist with them.” 

Many shop owners have grown their shop to the point where they face the conundrum of having worked themselves out of a job. A few others have worked this scenario into the business plan from the start. Swiontkowski went through this same issue, “I had a big staff, a big crew. I was supporting everybody in their roles and kind of stepping out of their way. But there just wasn’t enough money to go around, so some ended up leaving. I ended up having to let some go, but I kind of hit the restart button again and now I’m back on site. I have my office on the 2nd floor.” Swiontkowski spent about four years as an off-site owner, and when the business hit the rough times, he valued his options, “I got to the point where I hated this place, and I didn’t really want to come back. I almost thought about giving it away, I don’t like it anymore. But I made myself get back here and I found my passion for it again. I’m really lucky for that.”