TikTok Meets Auto: Ahmed Iqbal's Inspiring Leadership Journey

[TRANSCRIPT]

[00:00:00] Jan Griffiths: Welcome to the Automotive Leaders Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from leading voices in the automotive world with a mission to transform this industry together. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves. Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

This episode is brought to you by Lockton. Lockton redefines business insurance and people's solutions with a personal touch. Their global team of 11,000 is driven by independence, not quarters, to tailor success for your business. Discover the Lockton difference, where your goals become their mission. Independence is not just how you think, but how you act.

Can you imagine starting life as a Sales Analyst at Audi and then becoming head of industry automotive for TikTok. Imagine that. Well, how about we find out the answer? Today, I am thrilled to bring on the show Ahmed Iqbal. He is Head of Industry for Automotive for TikTok. Ahmed, welcome.

[00:01:52] Ahmed Iqbal: Thank you so much, Jan. So excited to be here. As a listener of the podcast, I'm very honored and excited to be with you here.

[00:01:58] Jan Griffiths: Not as honored as I am that you reached out to me because you listen to the podcast and you love the content that warms my heart.

[00:02:06] Ahmed Iqbal: Oh, absolutely. I'm a fan. I think you're driving some really provocative, inspiring conversations about our industry and ones, quite frankly, we really need to be having.

[00:02:15] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. Well, thank you. Now, let's hear your story. You started off as a Sales Analyst in Audi, but then you worked your way up to Chief of Staff. Tell us about that experience and tell me about it through the lens of leadership and culture.

[00:02:32] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, it's a great point. And honestly, I'll throw you a little mini curveball here right off the bat. My journey in automotive actually started in college. I sold new cars, uh, to pay my way through, uh, the first couple years of college at a Honda dealership. And so, that was really my first foray into auto. And I'll tell you just real quick how I even got that job, and it'll kind of be a through line in my career.

My beloved dad is such a salesman at heart. He was shopping around for a new car for my mom and visited every Honda dealer within an hour of a drive and spent a ton of time trying to get the best price. And when he landed his best price, the closer was, "My son is a freshman in college, and I'll buy this Honda Accord from you at the least special if you also let him get a job here in the summer." And he got one of the sales managers to close that deal, and that's how I got my first job. I was actually selling new cars at a Honda dealership because my dad negotiated me into the deal, so this is kind of predestined.

[00:03:27] Jan Griffiths: I love that. I love that.

[00:03:28] Ahmed Iqbal: So, yeah, so we started there. I went to school in finance, worked in investment banking for a couple of years, and decided that wasn't the journey for me. It wasn't as inspiring and as exciting. And I got a really good piece of advice from one of my mentors which is: find a passion and think about how you can make money out of it. And for me, cars has always been the passion, right? And so, the first thing I did was I really just thought about what car companies would I want to work at. Who inspires me from a design and product perspective? And I landed at Audi, and that was the first job I got in the automotive industry. And that was interesting because it was the first time I was exposed to the inner workings of a manufacturer and really a big corporate company and a big brand, I would say because banking wasn't very much like that. And when I got there, you know, at first, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to try this out. If all things fail, I'll try to see if I can find my way to grad school somehow. I'll give it a shot." And I think within three months, I was just enamored by the awesomeness of the industry. Meaning like the passion people had for the product, how much community there was within the brand, and the way where they engaged with consumers, the dealership community, and what that was like. And the relationship between the dealership and the manufacturers was all just overwhelming in that sense. So, anyway, I enjoyed it. I loved it. I started off as a Sales Analyst in the Eastern region, doing sales incentive planning and marketing rollout for different model launches. From there, I jumped into the field and that was my first experience to kind of be on my own, right? I didn't have a boss sitting with me right next to me, checking my work. They gave me a company car; like many people know, when you work in the automotive field, you get a company car, and they tell you to go drive four or five hours out into New England and go visit a dealer and see if you can help them with their business. So, I did that for a couple of years and that was a fascinating experience. That was my first real experience, I think, understanding the relationship between brands and the dealership and really understanding how to manage a customer, not just from like, you know, taking a sales lead in a dealership, but really managing a business partnership and really trying to find ways to add value, knowing that I'm not going to be the expert in everything. Most things I'm not going to be the expert in. I'm only a couple of years out of my career here. So, that really was a fascinating experience where it taught me to listen. And I think that was the first moment where I was super overwhelmed; I drove three hours to a dealership out in Syracuse, New York, and I sat down with a sales manager to try to tell him about his business. And I was like, I don't even know what to tell you. And so, what I realized is listening is a key thing to success at any point in your career, whether you're junior, whether you're senior, whether you're a CEO, you're either listening to your superiors, you're listening to your consumers, you're listening to your teammates, you got to listen well. And I think that was a key moment for me to understand the power of that, and that helped me really do well while I was out in the field, and learn to take best practices from some dealers and bring them to others and help them help each other. And I think that is how I found value in that role. So, I did that for a couple of years, and then through that process, I got nominated by my Regional Vice President to go apply for this Chief of Staff position that was opening up for the President of Audi at the time; it was Scott Keogh, he was an amazing leader, and I learned a magnitude of things from him about leadership and about running a company, and about building a brand; all these awesome things. And it was funny in that interview. I sat down with Scott, and he walked into the room and said, "Okay, here are the five things I need: Tell me why you're the right person to do this." And there was barely a, you know, it was a hello, sit down, here's what I need, I don't have much time. And that immediately taught me the value of being concise and brevity. And so, I gave him my answers, and then he said, "All right. Well, this role spends a lot of time with me, personally. What are you into? What are you interested in?" And we spent the next 30, 40 minutes just talking about foreign policy because I'm a history nerd and as we'll see. And so, we spent a ton of time talking there, and then I started to understand, which I didn't really realize, that later in my career, the breadth of, let's say, passions and interests of a leader play a big role in how you can impact or make impact with people, not just for business results, but how you connect with your team, how you inspire your team, how you show your team sides of you that are important to create that connection outside of just a manager-employee relationship. So, that was a through line to how I got that job.

[00:07:48] Jan Griffiths: It's great that you learned early on that listening was important, and you learned to show the human side you speak of leadership because you saw that coming from Scott to you, and you saw the impact that had. And so many leaders today are afraid to show that level of vulnerability, to show the human side, because something you will not know, having not been born at the time, I'm guessing, but years ago, decades ago, we were told that at work you were supposed to act a certain way, look a certain way, be a certain way, and you were not supposed to show a personal side to your people. And I was taught that I was told very clearly because, you know, this is not who you are, and you don't want to show any weakness. It was perceived as a weakness, so you don't want to show your personal side as a leader and because you might have to fire everybody someday, so whatever you do, you keep a line, and now I think leadership has evolved not only in auto, but in other industries that it's actually okay to show your personal side, but I think it's great that you've seen the benefit and the impact of that.

[00:09:02] Ahmed Iqbal: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that I'm old enough to see that the evolution happening where it's starting in an industry like banking, which can be quite sterile too. And, manufacturer, which we all know, let's say, the hierarchy of that and the engineering mindset that's put into the entire structure of the company, and it's top-down very much. And for good reason, right? That's how you build a car through a proper process and engineering process. And so, when you see that scale to the rest of the organization, sometimes it doesn't always leave room for what we just talked about, right? The personality, the getting to know people, the listening, and having a collective voice.

[00:09:40] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. And you work for Audi. German OEMs are notorious for being the hallmark of command and control leadership. So, yes, structure, hierarchy, bureaucracy, and I don't know what Audi is like in the US. I only know the German OEMs coming through from my experience in the supply chain, but certainly very rigid in nature and leading more by compliance than conviction. Did you feel some of that?

[00:10:07] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, I think that's a very astute observation, and I think you'll see that in most OEMs, but what I'll say is because it's such a top-down type of industry, the type of leader you have dictates how much you're going to feel. And I would say that Scott really did a great job of being a good buffer that understood what was needed to manage up to Germany to make sure that they understood we had really strong process and rigor and compliance while managing down that this is an American subsidiary of a German company, but we have to sell to American consumers, and we have to operate as an American company. And he did a great job of creating a culture for that, which was rooted in some, I would say, similar values but dialed up others more than ones that may have been dialed up in Germany. But I think that all starts with the leader, and that's the beautiful side of being at a hierarchical place is if you're a leader and you have a strong point of view, you have the ability to really make change.

[00:11:09] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. Yeah, and that's probably why he's the perfect choice for Scout Motors, right? Because he knows.

[00:11:16] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:17] Jan Griffiths: I love that. Well, then, after Audi, you went to Twitter, now known as X. I have to say that, right? I was chuckling early. I was looking at your LinkedIn profile, and I must have missed this because I obviously I saw the auto bit, right? For Head of Twitter for auto, but there was a point in time where you were Head of Auto and Alcohol. What's that?

[00:11:40] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah. So, when I was in the Chief of Staff role, one of the things that I wanted to understand is what discipline do I want to be a part of, right? Because you get an opportunity, a very fortunate opportunity, to see the organization from every facet. I can see how finance works; I can see how the product works, and marketing, and communications, and so forth. And I realized my true love is storytelling, and I love to inspire and, I guess, communicate through stories. I have a very basic human skill that I really enjoy, and for me, that lives in the world of marketing, communication, and honestly, I should live in the world of product just as much, but because of that, I was like, "Okay, I want to take my career into this marketing lens." And because automotive was very structured and you kind of have to have some kind of marketing experience before you jump in there. So, I was really interested in validating myself as a storyteller and as a marketer through the Chief of Staff role. So, I worked actually with our creative agency at the time, MUH-TAY-ZIK / HOF-FER. And there was an awesome, awesome agency person named Henry Fernandez who was there, and he was like, "Hey, you want to become a marketer? There's a few things I can help you do without taking an actual marketing job." And he helped guide me a ton. And he pointed me in the direction of the Young Cannes Lion Academy, and for those in the marketing industry, they know that's kind of like, you can say the Oscars of advertising. Anyhow, he helped me with this application; I got into the Young Cannes Lion Academy. I flew out to France for the summer for like a week and a half to do this workshop to validate myself as a marketer and to get a crash course in marketing. While I was there, I didn't fully understand the world of media yet, and Twitter had gotten wind that one of their clients was there. And so, they had reached out and said, "Hey, we would love to have lunch with the Chief of Staff at Audi who's here in Cannes because it's a good client meeting to have." And so, I met at the time with the Head of Global Brands for Twitter, and so they were in charge of all the global partnerships across all the verticals: automotive, alcohol, dining, all that kind of stuff. Okay. And I sat down with her and she kind of talked me through some challenges they were having in the automotive vertical. And she was like, "What do you think we could be doing better?" And I just told her, I said, "Honestly, automotive is a very data-centric place. They require a ton of consumer data, or let's say a ton of data points, to make decisions on how they reach consumers. And you guys have some real fluffy marketing stats in this narrative here. Here's how I would approach it: I think I would reshape the narrative to what our OEM priorities are." And that was about a two-hour lunch. I didn't realize, but I was kind of restructuring her whole go-to-market pitch on how to talk to auto companies. And at the end of it, she was like, "I want to hire you." And I was like, "Listen, I'm not going to lie to you. I obviously use Twitter, but I'm not a Twitter savant and nor am I a media savant. So, I don't know how much help I can be to you." And she was like, "You know what? Let's talk about this. If you're clearly someone who's curious enough, then maybe we can teach you media, and you can teach us automotive." So, that was kind of the beginning of the change. And I spoke to Scott, I spoke to a few other people that, you know, I leaned on as mentors, and they said, "You know what? Go do it, go get smart, go out there, and learn some stuff. And you always have a home back in the autumn, the brand side of things."

So, I took the chance, I went out there, and then this is where the alcohol piece comes in. I told him, I said, "Okay, I'm joining the global brands team. I know automotive, and I'm going to learn media but to be fair, I would love to see an industry that does media really, really well because I'm a very visual learner, and I want to see a good case study in action. So, can I get one of the clients that covers another sector?" And they said, "You know, Anheuser-Busch is a really strong marketer, and you can learn a lot from them, and we're just warming up a relationship with them, so maybe you can tag along and work there." And because the global brand's portfolio was so small and Anheuser-Busch was the only one Twitter was working with at the time at a global scale, I took on that account, and there I was the leading Global Strategy for Automotive brands and then leading strategy for Global Alcohol.

[00:15:19] Jan Griffiths: Oh, so that's how it went together. I was thinking it was because of people in automotive was so stressed they drink a lot. No, that wasn't it.

[00:15:25] Ahmed Iqbal: Oh, that's the behind-the-scenes.

[00:15:31] Jan Griffiths: Wow, that's really fascinating. And so, after Twitter,

so I got to ask you this question. I mean, come on, Ahmed, automotive and TikTok in the same sentence. What is TikTok doing in automotive, and how did you get there? And what are you doing?

[00:15:49] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah. No, it's a great question. Whenever I tell someone that I lead an automotive team at TikTok, they're like, "Oh, are you guys going to integrate TikTok in everyone's car?" And I was like, "Well, who knows? That's not on the roadmap right now." So, what is it? I think there's a couple of ways to look at it. First, we should probably think about the connection of automotive to the platform, and I see it in two ways. There's fandom happening on the platform, and that's everything from people consuming tons of content. We have over 1.3 trillion automotive-relevant hashtags or videos tagged with them. So, there's tons of content out there, and it's being consumed very passionately by automotive fans. And there's amazing creators on the platform who are creating phenomenal content, some of which are dealers, you know, shout out to Mohawk Chevrolet and Central Houston Nissan, who figured out how to use the platform and tell stories, but also drive some business. So, there's this natural place of entertainment happening within the automotive world; that's part one. And then, part two is the consumerism piece, and that's the big connection, right? The audience is there. We have a massive audience of over 170 million users. It's like more than half of, you know, the US and one-third of those users have said they're in the market for a car, right? And so, we have the audience and that's, whenever you fear that you got a big chunk of the in-market audience as a car brand or as an OEM or dealer, you got to pay attention to that. And so therein lies building out a team that focuses on figuring out how to help. So, what our team does, right, is we figure out, we pretty much build out the partnerships with the OEMs, with the retail marketplace companies, and as well as the dealer groups. And our job is to do a couple of things; I think number one is we want to make sure that we build partnerships and manage them and provide great service on how they can reach their priorities, right? And when I'm talking priorities, I'm talking about how we help them, number one, connect with their consumer in the most authentic and real way. Number two is helping them with the more business stuff. How do I launch a car on TikTok? How do I connect with cool cultural moments and maximize my sponsorship dollars? And even more tactical stuff like, how do I find those in-market consumers and drive them to generate a lead, and how do I get them to convert? So, we're doing our job is to provide a lot of guidance and build partnerships around that. The second thing I would say that we're doing is we're listening. TikTok is a very young platform in comparison to the marketplace we're in, and what we know for sure is that consumer behavior is here very strongly. The consumer journey is here very strongly. What do I mean by that? People are coming here not just to be entertained by videos but they're coming here to find out information. They're coming here with the intention to search, they're coming here for discovery, and they're also coming here to engage with content that leads them to a path of sales conversion. They want to be consuming content to help get informed. And I think that's a big, big thing to keep in mind. So, back to the initial point, we're listening because we have a lot of things we still have to develop. We've had great success on building some awesome partnerships with OEMs and dealers. And we've started to create really with that connection is from the beginning stage of a consumer's life of, you know, I think I might be in the market. I think I know a brand, all the way down to, I need to search for a deal. I want to get a car in the next 90 days. Where do I go? Who do I learn from? And so, our job is to build products that make sense for that consumer journey, and that's exactly what we're doing. And it's at the core of it is just to connect those consumers with brands.

[00:19:19] Jan Griffiths: Well, it's great. I love it. I love what you're doing. I love the storytelling aspect of it, and that's how you build a relationship with a brand, typically through social media and understanding the stories, not the ads, not the polished, beautiful, pretty ads, right? It's more of the raw content. I always thought that TikTok was purely for entertainment. And so, I have a TikTok account that I must've launched a couple of years ago and forgot about it, right? And so, I knew this interview was coming up. And so, one night, I thought, "I'll just see if my TikTok account is still active." so I opened it up. An hour later, I'm like, oh my god. An hour? I spent an hour of my life, and, of course, I don't know what I'm doing, so I'm not necessarily looking for things that are really meaningful to me. I'm just scrolling through stuff, right? I couldn't believe it that it had sucked me in so quickly, and it was so powerful, much more powerful than Instagram or Facebook. And I can get distracted with those two platforms. I mean, I already spent half my life on LinkedIn; that's a given. Facebook and Instagram can get me sucked in, but for usually for short periods of time, and then I catch myself, and I jump out. But TikTok, oh my Lord, I was down a rabbit hole, and I looked up, and it was an hour later.

So, you know, people have told me, Ahmed, they keep telling me, "You should be on TikTok." And I'm like, "Yeah, no, no. I'm not going to be doing any stupid dances," but that's the wrong mindset to have, isn't it?

[00:20:56] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, we're far beyond those years. You know, it's funny, I still come across those thoughts every now and then, and you know? It kind of truly represents how big of a moment it was in 2019 and 2020 when TikTok really started to blow up in America. That was a very strong part of the brand at the time. But when you take a look at the last few years, it's all changed. I mean, like you said, the average person comes on and spends a movie's worth of time every day on the platform, right? And the content they're consuming is very different. One of the things that when I first joined over a year ago, that surprised me, the number one demographic on the platform is actually not even Gen Z anymore; it's the millennial generation. And the average TikTok user is above the age of 30. So, it's really shifted a ton. And when I take a look at, okay, where's the platform going? And we take a look at how the audience is changing. And we're starting to see that millennials and Gen X and boomers are jumping on the platform because, well, their kids or grandkids are on it. They want to understand, and they're finding their own value. They're saying, "Oh, wait a minute. This is entertaining. This is informative. This is a search engine. This is a place of commerce. There's many things going on here." And so, the platform has evolved a ton since those days.

[00:22:02] Jan Griffiths: Well, I love it. And so, as we have talked, next year is my year to launch on TikTok.

[00:22:09] Ahmed Iqbal: I'll be personally responsible for your success. I'm in this with you. We're going to make it happen.

[00:22:13] Jan Griffiths: Okay. Okay. All right. Let's talk a little bit about culture through your eyes. I mean, you've been in automotive for how many years now? From where you are today through where you started in Audi, how many years is that?

[00:22:27] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah. So, Audi, it was 2012, so, uh, 13 years?

[00:22:30] Jan Griffiths: Okay, so that's enough time to see changes in automotive, to feel what it's like to work for a large OEM, and then to see it from a totally different viewpoint from Twitter and now from TikTok. How do you see the younger generation, whether it's the tail end of millennials, Gen Z, and Gen A, coming up? How do you see them viewing culture? What do they want in the workforce? Cause it's not command and control and it's not a boss telling them what to do. Talk to us about that.

[00:23:01] Ahmed Iqbal: It's a great question, and something honestly, I think about often, and I think everyone's thinking about, and we touched on it a little bit before I think we started recording is just a change in what leadership is now, right? There was a time when top-down leadership was the standard. Top-down leadership was effective. It was what we taught. It was what we learned, and it was really the core of our culture. And I think that has all started to change quite rapidly over the years. And one of the big things I attribute that to is the generations that are coming into work now are the information age, right? They've grown up with phones, iPhones, and they've grown up with the internet, and they've grown up with mass amounts of information at their fingertips, which means they're coming into the workforce with a very different development from their point of view perspective. And so, what I think important is a couple of things. Number one is empathy, right? And if you talked about it in a previous episode with Daniel and I think empathy is a huge thing that is now an expectation, not just of the younger generations, but I think of all generations, as we start to reevaluate what true leadership and true corporate culture looks like, it's understanding that, you know, I think Daniel had a bucketed in three ways. There was a cognitive, um, empathy, there was an emotional empathy, and there was a more technical or tactical empathy. And I think all three of those things are really important, not just for this younger generation, but for everybody. So, what does that mean, right? That means taking the time to listen, to understand that they have a point of view on things, and to understand that their point of view is sometimes informed by fact, sometimes informed by emotion, and making a place for that. And understanding how to inspire and motivate such a person. And then, three is really making sure that they see it that it comes to life. It's not just you kind of taking in this understanding of where they're coming from in their point of view, but actioning on it, right? Showing them that you care and you're building a company in an organization where they have a voice, where they have an ability to participate at every level, where they can be proud and be a part of a bigger vision. So, I think to answer that more broadly, I don't think it's just a new generation what they expect. I think it's everyone and what they expect from leadership as we start to evolve as just a society.

[00:25:17] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, I would agree. As Stephen Covey said in his book Trust and Inspire, using command and control in today's workplace is like taking a golf club to a tennis match. It's the wrong tool. And that's not an automotive-specific comment; that is the world of work in general. It is just perhaps a little more pronounced in automotive because we've loved our command and control so much over the years.

[00:25:39] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, I think that's the interesting thing, right? It's like we're an industry that's led by engineers and led by that structure. That's honestly the way it should have been for a long time because the biggest challenge back then was quality and safety. And in order to create great quality and safety standards, you need a process you can repeat. And a lot of that is not up for debate. You got to kind of keep it very seamless and top down type of decision making. But we've solved those problems by and large. We've made huge strides as an industry on safety and quality. And so, now it's the challenges have started to change. So, we have to think about, do we want to use the same tools to solve new challenges or do we want to start to rethink how we approach these things?

[00:26:21] Jan Griffiths: Legacy Automotive, as you said, you know, we've got over a hundred years of experience, and that experience and those processes are good, and they're trusted and true, and that's great, but it also holds us back when you look at the EV startups, they start, they design a vehicle from a clean sheet of paper, and they design it for what it is, an EV. We still have all of our standards and specifications for ICE vehicles as we're designing and trying to evolve them into an EV. Now, when I think about that from your perspective and your team. You've got the exact opposite. So, you've got a new team of people, right? And they need a little bit of that understanding of legacy automotive. So, how do you do that? How do you get a team of people excited about automotive at TikTok, but yet make sure that they're kind of grounded in some of the legacy practices as well?

[00:27:14] Ahmed Iqbal: This kind of goes back to, I guess you can say, somewhat of a leadership approach, right? It's understanding what the team and what these people are interested in, what do they value, what inspires them, what excites them, and listening is, I go back to this all the time because I think that has been the key to my success in life, and it's honestly been the key to a lot of my happiness as well, right? It is just listening to other people and learning from others, so going back to your question, I think the key is listening to them, understanding what about their job they like, what about the automotive industry they like or dislike, and I guess building a strategy against that, right?

So, if I have a team that is really interested in, I get the sentiment that they're more interested in innovation and technology versus traditional manufacturing, that's the lens I have to bring the message to them. And it's like, Guys, this is what's happening; you may not understand this specific piece of how dealership relationships are changing, but this is an innovative thing, right? The direct-to-consumer model is coming online with these EV companies, and OEMs are starting to look at it and dabble with it and see how they can loop dealers in. It may seem uninteresting from that point, but it's a massive innovation in the way that we do business today. So, that's just one example, but I think the key for me is to listen to understand what exactly is their baseline. And then, I think the other part of it is there's a hundred years of history, and it's a pretty freaking cool history. There are so many cool stats that have come out, anecdotes that come out of Detroit on who built the nine-to-five work week, who built the standards for how to build a factory and the assembly line, all these things that we still feel and see today. There's awesome stories. And then, you go back to the cousins of Volkswagen and Porsche, and you go back to some of those stories, and you see some of them, the Ferrari-Lamborghini rivalry, were all also interesting, fascinating stories that have hit the big screen, but there's just so many cool stories that I think bring you back to, oh my God, this is a very old industry with some really cool stories that I can connect with. But also, there's a lot of innovation happening here, and it's not just an auto thing. No, this is a bigger technology thing that's happening. So, not to ramble, but just to go back to the question, I think it's important to listen to them and understand what about the industry or the job excites them and bring information and objectives to them through those lenses.[00:29:23] Jan Griffiths: I love that. I love that. Now, you've taken a look at the 21 traits of authentic leadership. Give me a few of those traits that resonate with you, and tell me why.

[00:29:34] Ahmed Iqbal: Yeah, so I won't belabor it anymore. I think it all starts with listening. I think that's the key to everything, but we talked enough about that. I think the others that are really important to me are trust and empathy. I think that's a non-negotiable at this point. And we talked already about empathy, but trust is an important one. And trust goes two ways, right? It's not just earning the team's trust that you have their best interest in mind and what that best interest is. Oh, I've shared enough with my leader. I know that they are aware of what I want out of this job. They're aware of what I care about personally, that they're going to keep that in mind as they make decisions from a business perspective and see how I can add value and help, but trust the other way as well is that I'm sharing enough information and enough transparency and vision and purpose with them that they feel like they can trust my leadership. So, trust, I think, is a really important one that it's important to build in that. You can't rush that; that comes with time, and it's different for every team member, but I think the best thing you can do leans into some of the other traits as well, which is empowerment, which is really important is knowing when to empower versus when to support and step in a little further. And you know what? That brings me to this idea that like once you have trust and empathy, and you've done the listening, I think the other traits you throttle, depending on the team and depending the business challenges. I talked to my team about this all the time, right? The things we did to get us from zero to one or one to five are not going to be the things that get us from five to a hundred. So, we have to change as the business changes; we have to change as the dynamic of the team changes, people leave, and new people come in. And so, I think in some cases, empowerment is really important. When you have a team that's ready, that is confident, that knows the mission, and they want to get out there and go get it, you got to empower them, but sometimes you have folks that are like, "Hey, it's been a tough year. I need your help. I need some direction. I need some guidance." So, you need to step in and say, "You know what? I'm going to empower you but first let me show you how we can get there first." And we'll use some examples, and we'll use some of our more senior team leads to get there. So, I think that's a great example of what you need to throttle. Transparency is another one. It's really important. It's important to me as a leader to have it, and it's also important for me to give it. However, you need to throttle that as well, right? If your team is overwhelmed with information, more transparency may not help. You might need to just give them what they need to know to help them focus and get the job done. And in some cases, they might be like, "Hey, I need to know more. I need more to get bought in. I need more to be innovative. I need more to think outside the box." And so, it's really being able to pay attention to what your team needs at the given time. So, transparency is another important one, empowerment is an important one, and then vision and purpose to me is personally always important because that's why we do what we do, right? There's gotta be a bigger picture, and the bigger picture has to be exciting enough that you want to be a part of it, and I think that's an important one. And when I talk to my team at TikTok, it's an ad revenue company where we're focusing on, we always have quarterly goals, like every manufacturer, but I try to get them to think about the big picture and say, "Hey, we're at a really hot platform, a unique platform that is at the center of conversation everywhere. You're here, and we're building solutions and connecting with people. We're at the forefront right now of the ascendance of this company. So, you're going to be able to tell some really cool stories in a few years once we accomplish the goals that we've set out to do." So, I try to keep that big picture out there all the time so that people realize that this is their work. It’s going into a bigger story for themselves and for the company, not just to hit some sales target.

[00:32:51] Jan Griffiths: You know, listening to you talk, and we've had what, I think, three conversations now, your authentic leadership is so natural. It just comes out of you so naturally, and it is beautiful to see because so many leaders have trouble they want it and they're not sure how to get there, but it's effortless with you. It just comes out of you, and it starts with being comfortable in your own skin and believing in yourself. And clearly, your career trajectory shows that, and it is a thrill; it's wonderful to talk to you today, and I cannot wait to share your message throughout the industry. And Ahmed, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:33:40] Ahmed Iqbal: Jen, thank you so much. It's been an amazing conversation as always. Thank you for doing what you do. Please keep doing it. I am an astute listener, and I hope we can get you on TikTok soon so we can get you an even bigger audience and get your message out there as well. But thank you so much for having me. It was really an honor. Thank you.

[00:33:55] Jan Griffiths: Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice. And don't forget to download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership PDF by clicking on the link below. And remember, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.