GM CEO Mary Barra 'Missed’ Importance Of Being A Woman

As General Motors chief executive Mary Barra comes up on her two-year anniversary leading the company, she said one of the biggest things she’s learned is how important it is to other people that she’s a woman.

“I think I missed it early on,” Barra said in an exclusive interview with Yahoo Autos. She’s come to understand that some people need role models who they can identify with to help them see a path to success, a concept she said was foreign to her at first.

Barra made global headlines in December 2013 when she was named the first woman CEO of General Motors. During early interviews, she subtly deflected questions about her experience as a woman, stating repeatedly that she never felt different at GM, a company she joined when she was just 18 years old. She was a part of a team, she told journalists again and again, and her gender was nothing special.

Mary Barra’s first press scrum at the 2014 Detroit auto show.

But now, Barra realizes that what she accepts as normal is revolutionary and inspiring for others. Recently at a GM town hall meeting, an engineer came up to her and thanked her for being in her role because it meant his 1-year-old daughter would never live in a world where having a woman CEO of an automaker would be considered newsworthy.

Related: Why Barra Thinks A Chinese-Made Buick Will Work In America

She didn’t understand why people found her gender such a noteworthy part of her job. Barra’s father was a die maker at GM’s Pontiac division, and he let her tinker around in his shop when she was a girl. She never thought there was anything unusual about being a woman in the male-dominated industry.

“I never want to get a job because I’m female,” she said. “I want to get it because I earned it and I deserve it … Whether my hair is going to be blue or purple, people should be judged on how well they do the job and deliver results and whether they do it the right way. That’s how I like to be judged, most people are like that.”