Leading with heart, not just with knowledge

By Dani Sheehan. 

Rackley Roofing’s COO Michelle Boykin shares valuable lessons throughout her career in roofing. 

In a recent episode of Stories from the Roof, sponsored by Johns Manville, Megan Ellsworth joins Michelle Boykin, the COO of Rackley Roofing to learn more about her journey through the roofing industry, discussing lessons she’s learned and wants to pass on to others. 

Not only the current chief operating officer at Rackley Roofing Company in Nashville, Tennessee, Michelle is also a past chair of National Women in Roofing (NWiR) and the current president of CREW Nashville, a commercial real estate group for women. She shares about her journey through roofing, explaining, “I’ve been in roofing for about 15 years, and I’ve been at Rackley for 13 of those. I’ve done everything from receptionist to running our service division to now running our leadership team.” 

When asked about what lessons Michelle has learned from roofing, she enthusiastically tells Megan, “I've learned a lot about myself and my value and worth. For probably the first four to five years that I was roofing, I never stepped foot on a roof. I didn't know that was an option. And once I did know that was an option, it was like, ‘Oh, well, the doors have opened.’” 

She never was a big fan of public speaking but realized that to be an effective leader in this industry, she needed to find a way to move past her fear. It’s now part of her everyday job and she loves helping others and meeting other leaders. She doesn’t feel like she would do anything differently, but had she known at the start of her career, she shares, “I would've started learning about myself more. There's a lot of things that as you get into leadership, you learn personalities, you learn how to deal with people in certain ways. You learn that not everybody acts like you or works like you. So, I think it would've been helpful to know that information earlier on in my career.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast episode to hear more great lessons from Michelle and some of the work she’s done with other organizations.