Voice of Experience: Grace Leiblein, President and Managing Director, GM de Mexico

by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Grace Leiblein has been working for GM since she was 18 years old. While attending college at General Motors Institute (now called Kettering University), she worked with GM as a co-op student in a manufacturing plant. She worked her way up through assignments and ranks, with her last position before her recent promotion being the global chief engineer responsible for overseeing the engineering of all several hundred engineers (internal and supplier engineers) working on crossover vehicles like the Acadia and Chevy Traverse.

Says Leiblein, “I remember when I got that assignment. It was a huge challenge—much larger than I had ever experienced—but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I grew a tremendous amount both personally and professionally. To be on a project like that and able to start from scratch basically and have your fingerprints all over some products – I’m very proud of the way they turned out, and when I see one of my vehicles on the road I feel personally responsible for them.”

She was appointed President of GM de Mexico at the end of 2008. Although Leiblein has a personal connection with Latin America—her father is Cuban and her mother is Nicaraguan—she has never worked in Latin America in her professional career and is thrilled about the new opportunity. “I’ve always loved Mexico…it is one of my favorite places to be. And it is a great opportunity to lead an entire business unit for a country. To have that kind of responsibility and authority and challenge is wonderful. And the team there is a proven, experienced team of professionals—nationals as well as expats from different countries—so it will be fun to learn from them as well.”

Leiblein advises women not to be afraid to take that stretch assignment, something she has done quite often over the course of her career. “Women in particular have a tendency to shy away from opportunities out of their comfort zone, whether that be moving into an area that they haven’t worked in before or moving to a different city or moving to a different country. If you really want to progress in an organization you have to take on those opportunities because that is (1) how you grow personally and professionally and (2) it is how leadership really looks at your adaptability for progression (watching how you do in situations where what you are doing is different from what you know).”

But she also warns not to try to jump too quickly out of a certain position, as it will limit your ability to learn from both your successes and your failures. “My philosophy is that the first year you are in your assignment you are learning, the second year you start to contribute, and the third year is when you really find out whether the decisions you made in your first and second years are good or not. I really encourage young people who are navigating their way through their careers and the organization to get a 3-year time frame. When they tell me they want to go here for 2 years, they want to go there for 2 years, I tell them that there are several assignments that I’ve had that if I wouldn’t have learned enough from if I had moved after just 2 years.”

Leiblein believes that a variety of experience is the key to advancement of women in any industry but in the automotive industry in particular. “Every organization has a different set of core experiences [that are necessary to gain before advancement is possible]. It is essential to understand what the core assignments/experiences that the company values are and make sure that [the young women] are getting those opportunities and experiences and performing well so that they are prepared for the kind of opportunities that come up for key assignments. One of the things I’ve worked on with some young women I’ve identified in the organization that have great potential is making sure that they’re getting experience [in the four key areas necessary to become a be director of functional group] so that when opportunities come up, these young women are on the list. They [will be] there because they’ve done the job and shown that they can do it and are there with all the credibility you want them to have.”

She attributes her success at GM to the vision of the management at the company and the mentoring they provided to her. “Their role was really helping me to identify the next assignment in areas I never even would have thought of. I started off working in a plant and then moved to manufacturing, developing tools and equipment for the plant. Midway through my career, they moved me to the product side of the business. I thought of myself as a manufacturing gal – I never even would have thought that products was where my career path would be. But an opportunity came up and it turned out to be a great assignment; I’ve worked in that area since.”

Leiblein, who has benefited from a variety of mostly male mentors over the years, believes strongly in building a network of mentors rather than sticking with just one or two. “I tell the people I mentor not to tie themselves to one person because stuff happens – people retire or move to other companies – and then they’re left empty-handed or like an orphan.”

She also advocates having mentors at a variety of levels in the company. “People think of mentoring as somebody who’s going to pull them up through the organization. I’ve used mentors to help me learn different areas of the business. As I went into the vehicle chief position, there were several areas of the vehicle that I didn’t have experience in. And so I’ve had lots of mentors who were young engineers who were showing me the ropes. So you shouldn’t only have one mentor and you shouldn’t only look upwards. There are lots of different ways to grow. Look for people across the organization. That philosophy has worked very well for me.”

Leiblein credits one of her many mentors—her only female mentor—with showing her the way, not only at work, but also in terms of work-life balance. “She was marvelous. She took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. I had a young daughter at the time and she had children as well. She walked me through how she did childcare.” Leiblein added, “There is no universal definition of work-life balance because everyone has a different perspective on what is important to them.”

She takes full advantage of her time off now, cooking, running, and working out with a personal trainer. But what she enjoys most is spending time with her family. “I have a great relationship with my husband, who is a wonderful partner. And my daughter is 17 so she is on the verge of leaving the nest. I’m trying to savor every minute with her.”

Leiblein was clear: “Work-life balance changes throughout your career. When you are young and without a family, you have one set of work-life balance expectations. For example, when my daughter was born, my focus was on her so my job took a bit of a back seat. And each time I started a new assignment, I tended to dive in a really put all kinds of hours in until I got it under control. So it is important to remember that the work-life balance will change based on what’s going on in your career and what’s going on in your personal life.”