Necessary Drive - An industry veteran seeks to help women develop the leadership skills required for senior management success.

It’s no secret that great companies need great leadership. Unfortunately, in today’s competitive job market, finding great leaders can be a real challenge for many organizations. But what if, instead of searching in vain for leaders outside of your company, you could help develop the natural leaders that are already working for you? That’s where DRIVE. Organizational Solutions comes in.

 
Firearms industry veteran Kristi Elrod founded DRIVE. with the goal of helping companies develop leadership skills in their employees—especially women in male-dominated industries.

“Women working in the firearms and outdoors field are really passionate about the industry. They want to advance within the company they work for. They want to contribute more. They want to take on leadership responsibilities. But there are barriers that get in the way,” Elrod says. “I try to help them identify those barriers and how to overcome them.”
Elrod says that those barriers are very rarely insurmountable.

 
“Sometimes it’s something as simple as not having the confidence to speak up within a meeting or stepping in to resolve a conflict,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of stepping outside their comfort zone.”
One of the biggest barriers for women in male-dominated industries is the lack of role models to help them develop their own leadership styles.

“A lot of women struggle with their leadership styles because they don’t have mentors. They try to lead like a man does, but that usually backfires on them,” Elrod says. “There are leadership styles that work better for women, and if they can learn them, and incorporate those ideas into their own leadership style, they can be much more successful.”
Helping facilitate that concept is exactly what Elrod formed DRIVE. to do. Whether it’s providing seminars and workshops for women in your company to help expose them to leadership styles that will help make them more successful or working with individuals on a one-on-one basis, Elrod has developed programs that will help turn potential leaders into great leaders.

 
“I can customize it for every organization depending on their unique needs,” Elrod says. “I can also provide assessments of employees such as their emotional intelligence and how they’re handling their own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Once the employees get that feedback, they can see where they need to grow and improve to be ready to take on the leadership roles they want to have within the company.”

Elrod says that the first step toward helping women become successful leaders is identifying those women within an organization who demonstrate the potential to thrive in leadership roles.
“If a female has a male advocate, that’s huge,” Elrod says. “So, if you’re one of those men who sees leadership potential in a woman at your company, stand up and advocate for her.”

Because it’s not just the women who benefit when they take on more leadership roles; it’s the entire company.
“By having more women in senior leadership positions, you get different perspectives, different ideas, and more diverse opinions, and that’s going to contribute to the financial success of any company,” Elrod says.

 
According to Elrod, if a company has at least 15 percent women in senior management roles, it is 50 percent more profitable than companies that have less than 10 percent women in executive leadership roles.

 
But it isn’t just having more women in leadership roles that can help a company be more successful; it’s having the next generation of leaders. And that’s why DRIVE. also focuses on helping prepare emerging professionals (which Elrod defines as college graduates to 28-year-olds) for leadership roles within an organization.

 
“There are a lot of articles coming out now that talk about Gen Z and say they don’t have the skills they need to join the workforce, that college isn’t preparing them to become tomorrow’s leaders,” Elrod says. “So we work with universities, companies, or the individuals themselves to help them develop valuable skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and conflict resolution that they don’t always learn in college.”

Elrod says the training DRIVE. provides has been successfully implemented in many other sectors, such as the tech industry, but it’s largely absent in the shooting, hunting, and outdoor industries. And that is exactly what Elrod is hoping to change.

“This industry is where my heart and passion have always been,” she says. “This is the industry I love, and I want to help it grow and evolve and become even better than it already is.”

And nothing can help facilitate that growth faster than training and education. “It all comes down to learning and development,” Elrod says. “Once you stop learning, you’re dead.”

The same thing can be said about your business. So before you post your next want ad for a senior position, take a hard look at your own organization. The executive you’re searching for might be right under nose, just waiting for the training they need to become the leader you need.