To understand why Marcy Campbell is such an advocate of mentorship, it’s important to grasp the three central tenets of effective leadership she espouses: getting critical feedback (which she noted is really hard to do), communicating with team members in a way that gives them validation, and remembering that everyone’s situation is different.
A key part of mentorship is the feedback the mentor provides to the mentee. It needs to be open and honest. Further, without effective feedback, Campbell noted that a person can’t grow.
“One of the reasons I'm so passionate about mentorship is because I believe it played a large role in getting me to where I am today,” said Campbell, vice president of digital in-store commerce and global professional services at PayPal.
“I have been very lucky in my early years to have worked with great leaders in both large and small companies and in many industries," she said. "These people gave me the confidence to test my abilities and begin to manage and then to lead. I was taught that you aren't leading if no one is following you, so it's up to you to create an inclusive environment, a vision for the purpose for the team and to really listen to those who work for you.”
Effective communication with team members requires a lot of listening, and then questioning for understanding. By not questioning, a leader can prevent someone from making the connection between what people are saying and what their needs are. Sales training was highlighted as providing the right mix of listening and questioning to grasp a person or team’s needs and situation.
In the past, mentorship may have been lunch meetings or impromptu get-together events at an office during a lull in activity. However, with many people working remotely and travel between companies curtailed, the pandemic has appeared to create an obstacle to mentorship.
But that’s not how Campbell has experienced it.
"Our remote work environment has forced us to rethink how we can build programmatic mentorship opportunities so that mentorship is sustainable, long-lasting, and impactful,” Campbell said. “Just as video work has allowed my sales team to gain greater access to decision-makers, it has also given junior leaders greater access to senior leadership and the ability to form a more intimate and impactful connection.”
In the business world, Campbell said that she’s benefitted from two different sets of experiences that have given her a 360 view of the payments landscape and the products her team is providing the industry. The first is that she’s worked at small startups, including advising at a San Francisco incubator, to large traditional organizations. In fact, her first job was an enterprise sales role for IBM.
The second advantage is that she’s worked on both sides of the product sales continuum, as buyer and a seller. This has given her unique insights beyond what’s in a sales brochure to understand how products work and which unmet needs are potential sales opportunities.
One notable outcome of the current situation is that it’s given executives the opportunity to take a step back and evaluate how they could be of most use to their customers and what voids they could address in the market.
It’s also opened up communication lines with customers. Campbell noted that in the past, her team may have been selling to a CFO, treasury or head of payments. Now the conversation has shifted to the CEO level as payments have come forefront to address consumer and merchant needs for technologies such as contactless, online sales and digital payments.
For anyone struggling during the pandemic, Campbell advises: “Be there for others as much as you can and ask for help when you need it. It's easy to feel fatigued and get frustrated with others who might still be struggling to juggle everything pandemic life brings ... Those struggles are still very much a reality for many. Remember that.”
