By Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

NEW YORK (Reuters), Annette Clayton recognizes how few women work in the industry. As one of the top female employees in this field, she is trying to make a difference.

“I’m a huge believer in mentoring,” says Clayton, who is CEO and president of the North America Operations of Schneider Electric (PA:), which is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison, France.

Clayton oversees over 30,000 employees. His operations are located in Andover Massachusetts. She notes that mentoring has been key to the success of “non-obvious candidates” in her field.

“You find yourself mentoring people that need the skills that you have,” Clayton said. “And it’s really democratized the process of open roles and promotions.”

Clayton talked to Reuters on the importance of mentorship. Below are edited excerpts.

Q. Q. Tell us about the first job you held. Tell us about your first job.

A. I was raised on a small farm. The farm was home to my entire family, including livestock and gardeners.

My first job was outside the farm. I worked on a neighbor’s farm, and I planted and then subsequently picked strawberries.

When I was picking strawberries for only 25 cents per cup, I discovered the true value of hardwork. It was important to me to arrive on-time and be prompt.

Q. Q. Your engineer background has made you one of the few female energy CEOs. What can you share about your experience in that field?

A. I’m in the third chapter of my career. First, the automotive industry. Then came technology and then Dell Americas Operations vice-president. Finally I got into energy management.

Technical companies have a lot of engineers, but not many women. But there are some amazing women leaders–Patty (Patricia) Poppe at PG&E (NYSE:), Mary Barra at GM.

Although we are the exceptions to the rule, I remember Mary Poppe, Patty Poppe, and me working together at General Motors (NYSE) in an era when there was active support for women. This was a great advantage for us as we were able to benefit from mentorship, opportunities and a team of leaders that really developed us.

Schneider has the same goal: to create an inclusive work environment that allows everyone to succeed.

Q. What did the pandemic do to women who are working?

A. Many women have had to quit the workforce due to the pandemic and are now faced with difficult decisions about their families’ education or caregiving.

It is important to find ways that both men and women can work together in a way that allows them more flexibility, as this will ensure their engagement in the job.

We will be more productive if we are flexible and agile. We’ve created part-time options and other forms of employment, like job-sharing or sabbaticals of varying lengths of time, when we thought we were going to lose women.

Q. Q.

A. I believe high-performance teams can be powerful, so I devote a considerable amount of time to alignment. This is the process of aligning the team with the organizational and transformational goals.

Sharing leadership is something I love to do with my team. I operate more like a neural network. The network is highly connected and aligned. It is highly aligned and loosely coupled. This provides focus, but also autonomy.

My leadership style also includes being tough on problems but easy on people. It’s a particular way of leading through challenging times while still driving operational excellence.

Many times the result of that is not only good performance, but it’s also great talent.

Q. Q.

A. It came from an African-American woman early in my career – she said, “Annette, when you get a piece of feedback, you have to assume that you need it. Don’t assume you’re getting it because you’re a woman or because you’re young. And don’t lose the opportunity to onboard it. Don’t carry bias into it.”

That’s served me well.