“The tone set by a business leader is increasingly important in shaping how an organisation responds to disruption, influencing how challenges are framed and how stakeholder confidence is built and maintained,” said Constellation executive chair Avril Palmer-Lavery.
Palmer-Lavery is behind the business which controls dealer group Marshall, loss making used car retailer Cinch, the UK’s largest used car buying service webuyanycar and the UK’s largest auction group BCA.
Speaking to PWC, she said: “Leading from the front calls for positivity, deep reserves of self-belief and the conviction to take risks when opportunities arise.
“You have to take risk if you really want to move forward, you can’t stand still because if you do, someone will catch you up,” she said.
“Achieving and maintaining that forward momentum also requires leaders to communicate clearly to employees and customers—championing stability, resilience and a robust plan.
“There’s a lot of negative noise around, and at any level negativity can affect people. For me, a big priority is making sure our staff feel the business is stable and our customers see that stability,” she says.
“We have a plan and we’re sticking to it. The message has to come from the top that we know what we’re doing.”
“That message carries weight because it comes from a position of experience. “I built this business from nothing, with my team.
“So, we have absolute self-belief,” says Palmer-Lavery. “A lot of our staff have seen the ups and downs of the economy many times, so they trust in our vision. We’ve been through the 2008 financial crisis, we’ve been through COVID, we’ve been through Brexit. We’re resilient.”
Palmer-Lavery says she splits her time equally between short- and long-term time horizons. “We’re big planners, but we do deal with the day-to-day 50% of the time. It’s my role, with my senior team, to think about the strategic vision but you also have to deal with the problems in front of you.”
One area of challenge, which Palmer-Lavery says is causing confusion across her industry and customer base is a lack of clarity over electric vehicle legislation.
“I don’t think we’ve ever been so confused in automotive as we are today,” she says.
“Clarity is the most important thing for any business. You have to be clear on your own direction. You have to be clear on what’s happening in your marketplace. But you also have to be clear on the legislation that is coming. Our job then is to make all of that work within our business and our marketplace.”
