Authentic Leadership in Automotive
Shasta Haddock on Clarity, Confidence, and the 300 List
Shasta Haddock
COO of Epic BDC, Host of I'm a Car Chick Podcast, Women In Automotive 2025 Speaker
It was a standing-room-only conference room, with attendees literally leaning in, and a speaker delivering hard truths about leadership wearing slides, with the kind of authenticity that makes you forget you’re at a professional conference. That was Shasta Haddock’s “Stop Winging It” session at WIA 2025 in Nashville—a masterclass in keeping it real while empowering women to take control of their futures.
As COO of Epic BDC and host of the I’m a Car Chick podcast, Shasta has built her reputation on turning dealership chaos into clarity. But what happened in that room wasn’t just about automotive operations—it was about permission. Specifically, the permission we don’t need but keep waiting for anyway.
“I wasn’t wearing any makeup yesterday other than my lips,” Shasta tells me during our post-session conversation, her energy still electric from the overwhelming response. “I was in slides. I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to be my authentic self.”
And that authenticity? It’s exactly what packed the room.
The Power of Being Unapologetically You
When I asked Shasta what drew such a strong crowd, she didn’t credit her growing reputation or her board position at WIA. Instead, she pointed to something refreshingly simple: refusing to put on a show.
“I didn’t want to be one of the super polished speakers that was all la-di-da,” she explains. “Not anything against them, but I knew that if I was trying to put on a show, you’d be able to tell.”
This approach resonated deeply with attendees who’ve spent years trying to fit into boxes that weren’t built for them. In an industry where women often feel pressure to be twice as polished to be taken half as seriously, Shasta’s message hit different: What if the key to leadership isn’t perfection, but permission to be yourself?
From Survival Mode to Leadership Mode
The heart of Shasta’s session challenged attendees to shift from survival mode into leadership—a transition many women in automotive know all too well. You’re so busy keeping your head above water, responding to immediate demands, that strategic thinking becomes a luxury you can’t afford.
“This year, nobody really came in their feels,” Shasta observed about the conference energy of WIA 2025 in Nashville, TN compared to 2024’s conference in Colorado. “We came ready to empower and be empowered. All we need is someone to give us the tools, give us the guidelines, and we’re ready to fly.”
But here’s where it gets interesting: The biggest barrier women face in leading boldly?
“Themselves,” Shasta says without hesitation.
Ouch. But also—exactly.
The 300 List: Your Roadmap to Intentional Living
Central to Shasta’s framework is Steve Harvey’s “300 List”—a vision-setting tool that sounds overwhelming until you understand its power. The concept? Write down 300 things you want to accomplish, experience, or become. No filters, no judgment, just pure possibility.
“I remember where I was sitting the first time I watched that video in 2019,” Shasta shares. “I have no memory of anything, but I remember watching that video for the first time and the impact it had on me.”
The response from attendees was immediate. Within the session, participants knocked out at least 20 items from their lists. But more importantly, they left with a framework for turning dreams into actionable goals—something the automotive industry desperately needs more of.
Shasta’s approach proves that goal-setting doesn’t have to be corporate speak and KPIs. Sometimes it’s about giving yourself permission to want more, then creating a roadmap to get there.
The Mentorship Revolution
One of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when discussing Bobbie Herron, the late BDC queen who took Shasta under her wing without formal announcement or fanfare.
“She never had that conversation with me,” Shasta reveals about their mentor relationship. “It was just the thing. She just showed up.”
This organic approach to mentorship challenges the industry’s tendency to overcomplicate support systems. As Shasta puts it: “It’s not formal most of the time. It’s a relationship. It’s a friendship that you don’t realize how much you’re being poured into because this is just your friend that you’re asking things to.”
Think about that for a moment. How many potential mentorship opportunities are we missing because we’re waiting for formal programs and official titles? The future of women in automotive might depend less on structured programs and more on showing up for each other, three-hour Zoom calls and all.
Leading Without Waiting for Validation
Perhaps the most provocative part of Shasta’s message centers on validation—specifically, not waiting for it.
“A lot of times we don’t feel like we have that validation, or we don’t feel like we have the trust from our organization or our family to be the one to make that step,” she explains. “And a lot of times they’re just sitting there waiting on you to make the step and waiting for you to show what you’re capable of.”
This hits at the core of what holds so many women back in automotive leadership. We’re waiting for someone to tap us on the shoulder, to explicitly tell us we’re ready, to give us that official stamp of approval. Meanwhile, our male colleagues are already three promotions ahead because they didn’t wait for permission—they just went for it.
The worst-case scenario? “You do it and get told, hey, that’s not your area of expertise. Okay, great. I won’t do that again. But there’s so many more great things that can come from it.”
What Leadership Really Means
When I asked Shasta what the automotive industry still needs to unlearn about leadership, her response cut straight to the chase: “That it’s the same thing as management, because it’s not.”
“Leadership starts with you and it’s you lead by doing, and you don’t lead by pointing and directing,” she emphasizes. This distinction matters because too many dealerships are stuck in old patterns where leadership means telling others what to do rather than showing them through action.
She shares a telling story about her mother’s recent car-buying experience—still terrible despite all the industry’s supposed progress. “How is it that we’re putting in so much effort into making this industry a better place and it’s still that bad out there?”
The answer lies in leaders who think they’ve got their finger on the pulse because they’re directing traffic, not realizing they haven’t actually experienced their own processes in years.
But What If You Do?
One of the most powerful leadership philosophies Shasta shared challenges conventional thinking about talent development. When employers worry about pouring into employees who might leave, she flips the script: “What if you don’t pour into them? They’re sitting there, not learning, not growing. They’re not being any better for you.”
But here’s the real kicker: “What if you pour into them and they don’t leave? How amazing would that be? You now have this rock star on your team that is invested in you.”
This approach has already borne fruit. Shasta recalls taking her first big team through the 300 List exercise. Years later, they’ve all moved on to bigger things—one building a barndominium, another becoming a paralegal while pursuing law school, all of them living out goals they wrote down in that session.
“Getting to watch all of them as they move forward in life is every bit worth it for me,” she says. “Those are the goals we set out. It’s not gonna happen overnight—it’s been six years—but the fact that they’re even there because they wrote it down and said ‘I can do this.'”
Your Shot to Take
Shasta’s favorite quote, scrawled in Expo marker on her office wall, sums up her entire philosophy: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
“You have to take a step in order to start walking,” she explains. “You have to start something in order to finish. A lot of times fear holds us back from all of the could be, should be, would be, or what can be. And it’s useless because you’ll definitely fail if you don’t try.”
As for her leadership theme song? In true Shasta fashion, she chooses “Gangnam Style”—”because it’s uppity beat, but I don’t know what’s going on. But we’re all dancing to it because we need to dance.”
That might be the perfect metaphor for leadership in today’s automotive industry. We don’t always know exactly what’s happening, the words might not always make sense, but if we’re all moving together toward something better, that’s what matters.
The Road Ahead
Shasta’s session at WIA 2025 wasn’t just about goal-setting or leadership techniques. It was about permission—the permission to be authentic, to want more, to take up space, to lead without waiting for someone else’s validation.
“The amount of people that I heard say, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t make it to WIA this year’—for whatever reason, they couldn’t make it. Then what? They have to just wait until next year? A whole year without this? No.”
This urgency drives WIA’s expansion into metro communities, bringing these transformative messages to women who can’t make it to the annual conference. Because waiting another year for permission you don’t actually need? That’s not an option anymore.
The standing ovation Kate Beirowski received as a first-time speaker, shaking with nerves but delivering anyway? That’s what this movement looks like. Women showing up for women, creating space for authenticity, and refusing to wait for validation that was never required in the first place.
Your Turn to Stop Winging It
If you left Shasta’s session—or if you’re reading this wishing you’d been there—the message is clear: Stop waiting. Stop winging it. Start writing down what you want and taking steps toward it, even if they’re in slides instead of heels.
The worst that can happen? Someone tells you it’s not your lane. The best? You discover you’ve been ready all along.
As Shasta would say, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So what are you waiting for?
Ready to stop winging it and start leading with intention? Connect with our WIA community for ongoing support, resources, and that push you need to take your next shot. Visit Women In Automotive to join a movement that’s reshaping what leadership looks like—slides, Converse, and all.
