Natalie Copeland on Situational Leadership | AccruePartners

. In honor of International Women's History Month, host Amy Pack sits down with Natalie Copeland, a senior manager in IT, to talk about situational leadership, building people, and why the best leaders ask the right questions rather than having every answer.

At AccruePartners, we partner with organizations across Charlotte, the Carolinas, and beyond during times of growth, change, leadership transition, and transformation. For International Women's History Month, this conversation features a leader whose 25-plus-year career spans finance, manufacturing, and technology — and who is passionate about helping other women take a chance on themselves.

Key takeaways:

• Lead to the person, not the template. Natalie leans on a situational leadership style, gearing her coaching to the individual and the situation — the way her own best mentors challenged her without ever leaving her "on an island."
• Own the table by communicating thoughtfully. For her, claiming a seat was less about waiting for permission and more about being direct and concise — and clear on the three takeaways she wants people to turn into action.
• Build people by understanding what drives them. Not everyone wants the same path; point people toward the work they have heart for, and they stay empowered and engaged.
• Leaders don't need all the answers. They ask the right questions, bring clarity, and leverage the right expertise at the right time. Even the CEO has a capable team behind them.
• Take a chance on yourself. You don't need every skill on the application — be an avid, curious learner, lean on mentors, and know where to find the experts.

Amy: Thank you for coming to the AccruePartners offices for a conversation as we celebrate Women's History Month. Take a minute and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Natalie: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I've had a very diverse career across 25-plus years in corporate America — starting at Ford Motor Credit, collecting on delinquent car loans, all the way to now being a senior manager in IT, with seemingly everything in between. I worked my way up through Ford, then joined GE Plastics (Sabic), and later IR, before moving into technology leadership.

I'm originally from a suburb of Detroit — the Ford connection — and I did both my undergrad and master's at the University of Tennessee. I wanted to experience being on my own in new places, and I don't love cold weather, so Tennessee felt like home the moment I visited. I've been in Charlotte for about 25 years; we moved here in 2000 when my husband took a job here and I transferred with Ford Credit from Houston. I'm excited to share my thoughts on building culture and encouraging other women to take chances on themselves.

Amy: That's quite a journey. I look forward to hearing more about it.

Amy: When you look at your career today, what moment or decision most shaped the leader you are today?

Natalie: It was hard to pinpoint a single moment or decision. For me, it's really about leading — and self-reflecting on the challenges within the teams I've led, whether they're direct reports or people I'm influencing without being their direct leader — and understanding the different leadership styles that are out there. I lean toward a situational leadership style, so I can gear my leadership and coaching to that person and the situation they're in.

Amy: Did you have someone leading you that way at one point?

Natalie: Yes. Two of the best managers and mentors I've had personally led me like that. They challenged me, but they didn't leave me out on an island by myself. If it was a new situation, they really helped coach me through it so that I was successful.

Amy: Was there a point when you had to stop waiting for permission to have a seat at the table and just take the reins and own it?

Natalie: I've always been fairly confident, and I speak up when necessary. When I think about how my career has progressed, it's been less about waiting for permission and more about communicating thoughtfully at the table. I've learned to be more direct and concise in my approach, and to be very intentional about the three key takeaways I want the others at the table to understand and turn into action.

Amy: How do you think about your responsibility as a leader when it comes to building people, not just results? We know results matter — we need financial performance and growth — but we also have to develop people.

Natalie: It's really about understanding what matters most to the employee. Not every employee is going to want the career path I've taken, or be driven by what drives me. Understanding what matters most to them helps me lead them through challenging times and toward their deliverables, while keeping them empowered and engaged to succeed. If certain things matter more to them, you can direct them toward those opportunities, projects, or tasks — they'll have more heart for it, and they'll be more engaged.

Amy: I say this often at AccruePartners: you don't necessarily have to have the title — you can lead by influencing. And that ties back to developing people to get the results you want.

Amy: What advice would you give other women navigating stepping into a bigger, more visible role? That can be a scary time.

Natalie: It is — and it's challenged me. Taking on more responsibility and having doubts is a natural part of human nature. What I would say is: take a chance on yourself. Believe in yourself. Lean on your mentors, understand where the experts in the room are, and leverage them.

When you take a leadership role, people sometimes see you as having all the answers. I don't think leaders need all the answers — I think they need to be able to ask the right questions, bring clarity to the team, and know where to get the answers. You don't have to have every skill on the application. Be willing to learn — be an avid, curious learner.

Amy: Curiosity seems to trip up some newer, up-and-coming people. As an IT leader, maybe you can speak to this — they've always had a device in their hands, so getting information has been easier; they didn't have to exercise the muscle to be curious, ask questions, and peel the onion back. Do you find that a challenge as you hire and try to level people up?

Natalie: I do — I think it's across the board. Critical thinking is the piece that's often missing. That's where I lean on tools like the five whys. I may not have a five-whys spreadsheet in front of me, but when I'm learning a new process or system, or trying to solve a problem, the five whys is always what I'm using — why this, why this, why this — and I try to bring the teams to think through it, rather than just filling out a form. It's the act of the five whys that helps build critical thinking, and again, being curious.

When I'm put on a new project for an application I don't know, I tell my teams all the time, "Don't ask me to code — I'm not a developer. But I can take a business process and understand how it flows through a system," and then work through the problems and find a solution.

Amy: And you partner with someone who can do the coding.

Natalie: Exactly — that's where I find and leverage my experts.

Amy: What belief about leadership did you have early in your career that you've since had to unlearn?

Natalie: I always thought the leader had to have all the answers. They don't. They have to be able to ask the right questions, help teams bring clarity when there isn't any, and leverage the right resources and expertise at the right time.

When you're new in your career and new to corporate America, you see the CEO up there in town halls and think, "Wow, this person has all the answers." But that person also has a team of very capable people helping them get those answers. Learning to take that pressure off myself was the key thing I had to unlearn as I became a leader.

Amy: You can only be a subject-matter expert in so many things.

Natalie: Right — exactly.

Amy: As you look ahead, what does meaningful success look like for you now, beyond title and achievement?

Natalie: Meaningful success to me is more in my personal life than my professional life. I really want to give back my learnings to help mentor young women. I'm currently an advisor for risk management with my sorority's local chapter at UNC Charlotte, and being able to mentor these young women as they move through their education and begin creating their next journey after graduation has provided real meaningful success. I also want to keep working with organizations that empower women — through networking opportunities and speaking engagements when they come up.

It's a different market for young professionals now. There aren't as many entry-level positions or internships as there once were, and we need these early-career people to have opportunities, because they're part of any organization's succession plan. I look back at the start of my career and my own entry-level position, and I think about how to help others take those chances. My undergrad degree is in psychology, and I'm a senior manager in IT — what I got my degree in isn't necessarily what I do today. Somewhere along the line, technology piqued my interest, and curiosity — plus a willingness to take a chance on myself — kept me on that trajectory.

Amy: What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you 10 years earlier?

Natalie: Network. Be willing to take the time in the evenings to do professional development — with groups like Women in Manufacturing, Women in IT, or the PMI organization in your local area. Take the time to network and learn from others. I wish I'd done that earlier in my career; I think I could have learned more from others' experiences and opportunities, and been able to leverage that.

Amy: What's one bold move that changed your career trajectory?

Natalie: Taking on business transformation and moving into more of an application-software area. Leading a large business transformation really changed how I tackle work and challenges — and especially how I communicate. How I communicate at one level is different from the next, so I had to stop and be thoughtful about the ways I communicate and who I'm communicating with. That challenged me and gave me the growth in leadership I needed to continue on the path I'm on now.

Amy: You've obviously mastered that. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me and share your journey.

Natalie: Thank you so much for this opportunity.