Calm Minds, Bold Moves: Amanda Hite on Leading STR Through Change

Josiah: This week, we're learning from STR President Amanda Hite, whom I had the pleasure of speaking with last week at the Hotel Data Conference in Nashville. Over the coming episodes, we're going to explore a wide range of topics from the state of the hotel industry to the role of AI in analytics and forecasting. But to start our series, we're focusing on something even more important than data: leadership. In this episode, Amanda shares the lessons she learned from STR founder Randy Smith and how she's applying them today as president to lead the organization through change. Let's get into it. 

[intro] 

Josiah: When you joined STR, I'm curious what stood out to you about Randy's leadership that maybe has stayed with you.

Amanda: Randy is so unique in that he really understood what he did not do well. He's the first leader that I worked for that was so open about it. Like, I know what I'm good at, and I know when someone else knows something better than I do, and I want them in the room and at the table and responsible for it. At the time, I was like, man, he's so humble. And then I just realized he's so smart, which obviously is how he built STR. But the value of understanding, I know what I do well, I can articulate that. And it's okay that I need and want other people to leverage their best strengths to help me and my business grow. And he is one of the best at that. So the other thing from his perspective, I talk a lot about, he created STR. He's an entrepreneur. So he's a risk taker at heart. And I think it's easier when it's your idea and your money, you can take the risk. And for the people around him, though, he did a nice job giving you comfort of like you're in command and you have the power here and giving you the guardrails of being able to take risk and saying, we expect some failure along the way. It's okay. You're not going to kill the business. He created guardrails that he knew would not kill the business but that allow people to stretch and take risk and that was important for the growth of the business. And so I try to keep that in my mind because when you're working in a dynamic environment as we are today, things are moving so fast, you have to make such quick decisions. And I think what I as a leader bring to it is calm and thoughtfulness when it doesn't always feel like you have time for that is important. And I find that my team really needs that and appreciates that space to, but while still moving quickly. I am in a business of a group of people. We're all analytical. We want to spend as much time as we can analyzing every option, researching everything. And the world doesn't give you the time to always spend that you want. So keeping the business moving in a dynamic, making the decisions, moving on. I say all the time, we've got to get to a place where it's good enough and go start executing. And you can always come back and iterate and revise and change course when you get better information. But when you have, you've got to get to the place where you have enough information that you're like, yeah, this is good. Let's go. And you try it out. And I really appreciate being a part of CoStar Group and reporting to Andy Florence, our CEO. I think he is one of the best that I have ever seen of a leader where he can immediately scan the environment, make a decision with the information he has at hand and go start executing. And he tells us all the time, let's go try it. Let's see. And then come back in three months and say, okay, do we need to retool? Do we need to change course? So I've learned a lot being a part of CoStar and trying to adapt that way and lead the team that way while still providing the thoughtfulness and calm that you need to shut out the noise that doesn't matter.

Josiah: It's really hard to do that. I feel like that's the hallmark of a great leader. And I wanted to kind of hear how you think about that because I feel like that calm, balancing these things feel like there's potentially a bit of tension where if maybe for some elements, you're letting people run, use their own judgment and decide their own pacing. And I imagine there's other areas where you have to sort of set the pace and you're like, I need it done this way. How do you think about what you decide to push for an outcome and what do you let people just run with?

Amanda: That's a good question. I think making sure you have the guardrails are the most important piece. And for me, I am a leader that I want to let people go do. I try to, I'm very open talking about what's in my head to try to let people know how I think about approach to whatever the topic is and why, what pieces I think matter to give them enough information to go figure it out. They actually have, in many cases, better experience with the customers than I do. They're going to think about something different. But making sure you say, okay, this is number one that matters. So if you get to a place where you feel like it's in conflict of what the number one goal of this project is that we're trying to accomplish in this time frame, come back to me. But otherwise, let you go and do. Yeah. In today's world, I feel like there's less things like that because we're in such a time, the time crunch in terms of the expectation is everything is immediate.

Josiah: Everything's immediate. And you mentioned earlier, calm is important. That feels tough to do. Is that something you have to do on a personal level as a leader? Or is it like there's something you do in the organization to find that calm? Because it seems...

Amanda: Yeah, it is. Well, I think that's one of my number one strengths as a leader. That's just who I am. I'm not an overreactor. I don't overreact good or bad in any way to anything. I'm pretty even keel in the moment. I may go away and have a reaction, but in the moment, the calmness is just who I am, which I think is very important. During COVID, that was one of those things that I think in times of crisis, especially, that's really important.