Key leadership skills for success in fleet management

Companies live and die on their leaders’ abilities, especially when the market is unpredictable. Leaders need to be adaptable, keep up with trends and news in their field, and anticipate change, and I know a lot about adaptability. Before I founded PurCo, I was a college music major who dropped out. After abandoning my college plans, I started working in the rental car industry at Dollar Rent-A-Car and later at Bluebird, a software company serving car rental agencies.

Later, I noticed that the rental car industry needed a damage recovery service for franchises, and I founded PurCo to fill this need. However, my road to founding PurCo wasn’t easy. Rather than relying on degrees or formal education, I was required to heavily draw on my lived experiences as a rental car employee and manager. I used that experience to create a unique leadership style.

Inevitably, leaders in fleet management must confront an array of challenges. Some of these include trying to stay afloat and relevant in a changing market, keeping total cost of ownership down, and optimizing operational efficiency. Other difficulties to be addressed include risk management and driver safety. I believe that all leaders are inherently endowed with the means to overcome these challenges. They need to be adaptable, experimental, communicative, and forward-thinking. Most importantly, they must work persistently.

Key traits of top-performing fleet management leaders

An outstanding leader in fleet management needs to nurture and maintain a willingness to adapt and experiment, maintain clear communication with employees and customers, and use foresight and persistence to work toward goals.

Adaptability

Fleet management is a dynamic business. Here, even the slightest changes or innovations can alter and disturb the entire industry. Factors such as competition, evolving business dynamics, ever-changing customer tastes, and advancements in vehicle technology make fleet management especially volatile. Adaptability allows leaders to overcome unpredictable situations and ride through uncertain times; unpredictable outcomes enable exceptional leaders to uncover new opportunities.

Experimentative

Fleet management rewards leaders with an experimental temperament. I found just how valuable this is when I created my circle of training method. Based on the circle of fifths, a concept in music theory, my circle of training starts with explaining at 12 p.m., demonstrating at 3 p.m., observing at 6 p.m., and evaluating at 9 p.m. This lets me see if my training is effective. My experimental mindset enabled me to create this training method.

Curiosity to explore new possibilities, willingness to entertain feedback, and readiness to test different solutions are some other qualities that help leaders navigate the dynamic fleet management services. When a leader adopts those qualities, they can experiment to find the optimal management style and path forward.

Communicative

Effective communication helps fleet management company leaders transmit information on technological advancement to all levels and manage stakeholders’ resistance to change. Communicating clearly ensures everyone is on the same page, which helps fleet management companies adapt and respond quickly to market and business challenges.

I’ve learned that as a manager, I need to communicate my vision and train my team effectively. My clear communication style helps my employees understand PurCo’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals, and it ensures that everyone at PurCo can coordinate to support the business running smoothly and efficiently.

Foresight and persistence

Having an idea of what could happen in the business landscape and maintaining persistence are essential for making decisions. Foresight allows leaders to anticipate where the market is going and lower risk. Persistence then helps companies survive tough times and reach their long-term goals. When these qualities come together in leaders, they can follow through on their experimental, bold attempts to improve their fleet management teams and processes.

Leadership advice for rising fleet management executives

My career has taught me that nothing can substitute for hard work. I take immense pride in working hard. Not even talent can make you level up to someone with a strong work ethic. Nobody needs to remain the way they are—they can always upskill and augment their potential through hard work, including the skills required to be a leader. Everyone has potential, but they need to be willing to put in work and effort to get there.

Good leaders cannot stop learning. The network they build around them needs to remain strong. They need to constantly challenge their mindset and move toward becoming the best leaders they can be. This helps leaders stay ahead of their competition and work toward their long-term goals.

Leading by example is also important. Leaders must practice what they preach to inspire people working with them. If a leader talks of better communication and actually does it themselves, the team follows suit. When the leader is seen to face uncertain changes head-on, they are unknowingly training their peers and juniors to do the same.

Driving fleet success through adaptable, persistent leadership

Fleet management leaders need to be adaptable. There needs to be more experimentation and communication. Along with this, they need to cultivate foresight and persistence. When combined, leaders can use these skills to improve fleet management systems and most effectively steer their companies in the right direction. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way: true leadership creates more leaders, not followers.