Interview of JoJamie Hahr

Sophie: So, this is a project for my Global Leadership Studies class. We had to interview someone that we view as a leader and talk about qualities and traits that we think make a good leader. So for my first question, it’s more like an introductory question, what do you think called you to the music industry and everything you are doing now?

JoJamie: Got it. Well, really, I was just a fan. I was a huge fan of country music I didn’t really… Growing up in a small town, I didn’t even realize that there was a music business, and didn’t realize until I was in college and saw an opening for an internship at a radio station. When I started my internship at a country radio station, I just realized that there was like a whole world of people behind the artist that were making it happen, and so that’s really what brought me to work in music.

Sophie: Going off of that, what experiences do you think have shaped you as a leader and in this job position?

JoJamie: Gosh, that could take all day… There are so, I mean every experience I would say from the small things that I deal with to the big, the big things, on an hourly basis. Probably, you know, what affects my leadership the most is probably my growth, from being in the music business as an intern to growing through all of the ranks to being an executive vice president, I think every experience within each level of those positions has shaped me to be who I am and the different ways that you grow though, you know, through being at different levels and having the confidence to be at the next level and I guess to be honest when you start as an intern at a business, sometimes you always feel like the intern and you have to step back and go like ‘Wow, I’m the boss now,’ i’m not the intern, i’m not the entry level employee, so gosh that would be such a broad question in terms of experience because I mean I’m 25 years in the music business so I can name a different experience for every year at least, so there’s been a lot.

Sophie: What are some obstacles and challenges you faced during these experiences and how did you learn from them and grow as a leader? I know you touched on that talking about growing through an internship and things like that.

JoJamie: Yeah, you know I think what’s obvious is being a woman and being a leader. I think, you know, I was in the music business from the time i was 17 when i started my internship, or 18 actually my first semester of college, to now and I would say it was probably not until I was about 28 that I felt people started taking me seriously and I don’t know if that was just by being a woman or being young, but both the combination of both I think was really challenging and you know, I moved to Nashville when I was 23 and I had already been in the music business at the radio station for 6 years, so I think that has been a big challenge having started so young and being taken seriously like as a young executive and then also a woman I just think that we are told different things as woman, it depends on you know how we look and how we act if we’re taken seriously, and I just think that’s something I’ve struggled with and I’ve been open with, my whole career I’ve been told that and luckily I work for a company and a boss with Jon Loba as my president that embraces that and lets me be myself and I think that, you know, authenticity shines through and helps you be a great leader because you’re being yourself. I think those are probably the two main themes of what has been difficult. Also, you know as you grow in leadership you become the boss of people that were your coworkers or colleagues and that’s difficult too. You have to really figure out how to draw the line between you know, being a friend and being a boss, and that can be really challenging as well. And then, you know, just trusting your coworkers or your staff when they become your direct reports to trust that you’re making the right decisions and you know, you’re moving forward in a professional way, that’s really tough when you grew up as friends and then you become the boss.

Sophie: Yeah, for sure. I can see that there are like a lot of great relationships within your company, such as the ones you foster with your artists and stuff like that, what advice do you have for building that relationship and trust within an organization without going too far into the friend aspect of it?

JoJamie: Yeah, I think the number one thing is fairness. I think, in multiple studies you’ve seen, people want to be treated fairly. It’s the number one thing. I’ve been in multiple leadership training seminars as I’ve grown with BMG and that’s the number one thing they say, is that employees and people in general want to be treated fairly. And so what I find the most helpful and it’s how I deal and what I have always asked of my leaders is to be treated fairly but also just to be given honesty. So, there are things probably every single day that I have to be honest about that maybe the employee doesn’t want to hear, but at least I’m being honest and they know where they stand, they know what’s expected of them and transparent, so transparency, fairness, and also a level of making people feel comfortable with making mistakes. I mean, I make mistakes every day, and I think the reason why I have so much freedom to lead a company is that my boss gives me the freedom to make a mistake. Meaning, if I do make a mistake, I can come in his office and he can say let’s fix it together. And that’s how I try to lead the rest of the team, I think that really breeds independence and you know, people making their own path and not being afraid to make a mistake because their boss has their back. So, I think that’s really important and I also think it’s important for great cultures in an office or in a workplace, there’s no toxicity in that because everyone feels safe and comfortable with each other, and they’re not gonna make a mistake that they would get in trouble for. And if they do make a mistake, we can work it out together.

Sophie: Going off of that, what are like two or three big action steps you believe are essential to enable other people to be successful?

JoJamie: One would be just letting them do their job, not micromanaging. That’s something that’s tough for me even though I hate being micromanaged, but that’s something that’s tough for me because I just want to like help people be their best. So, I mean I again have been in the business for 25 years so I just, I know how things work and how it’s done. So it’s my intention usually to just jump in and help somebody but really they need to figure it out themselves and let them go down that path and not be micromanaged. Then the other thing is like showing confidence. Showing confidence and positive reinforcement, like if someone is doing a great job, you know highlighting it pointing it out complimenting when someone has a great achievement because I think that positive reinforcement helps to create more of that.

Sophie: Yeah, for sure. I saw the CMA Awards, you had artists such as Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson that won like, top honors, due in part to your leadership skills. I can see that your company really empowers their artists, and I think empowering others is a really big component of leadership. How important is that component to you, and how do you continue to empower others?

JoJamie: Yeah. Well, with our artists it is our number one, you know BMG stands by artists first. Meaning that their creative vision is always first and foremost in all of our minds. I think what we do is add to their story, not try to change their story, their story or their talent or their creative. We’re more there to kind of offer that, those years of business experience and we connect them with different partners and we are able to, like, expose their music more through DSP platforms, TV, et cetera. But we empower them to always lead creatively with what they want to look like, what they want to sound like, what do they want to say to their fans, and honestly that takes a lot of pressure off of us. Like, if we had artists that were signing that know exactly who they are like Jelly Roll, Lainey, and Jason Aldean we are able to just do our job by supporting them. And then, I would say same with employees. Empowering them helps me do different things. So if I’m empowering someone to do their job in a digital marketing space and I just have confidence that they’re going to place the right digital ads for the right campaign, like I don’t, as long as I’m empowering them I can be thinking about other things like a year down the road and what touring’s going to look like for Lainey or what we do internationally, so it really helps me to grow and be a bigger part and a bigger leader in other places. So I think empowering employees is just as important as empowering artists.

Sophie: Going off of the successes, BMG has had so many great successes lately, and how do you measure this success and how do you learn from some failures that may have happened along the way?

JoJamie: Gosh, I would say success, I mean from a business standpoint and monetarily we measure success on streaming numbers, streaming and sale numbers is how we make most of our money along with touring depending on the artist deal, so that success is big for us. You would think that awards are, now I think awards play so much into the overall narrative, but then you do have an artist like Jason Aldean who has a top selling album this week who wasn’t nominated for anything, so thats okay too. So I think success can be measured in many different ways when it comes to artists, but the big thing we’re looking at every week is how many times did the song get streamed, there’s not a lot of sales anymore.

Sophie: Yeah.

JoJamie: It’s about streaming, as you know. So that’s how we measure success for sure with artists, and gosh we learn from failure every day. I mean we have, you know, again Jelly, Lainey, Jason, Dustin Lynch, parma(?), you know we’ve got some artists that are doing some really big things. We also have an entire roster of artists that aren’t that we’re working on, that we’re growing, and seeing signs of success but we’re not there yet. And so I think that’s where most of our work goes into is these like young artists that we’re trying to help become like the next Lainey or the next Jelly, and yeah I think that I don’t want to call that a failure, but it’s just something that we’re working on every day. So again like , I think everybody sees the success, everybody sees the like 4-5 artists that are like really doing well and were stacking up #1’s, but then I think we’re all working so hard on those younger artists that don’t have really anything going.

Sophie: Yeah. This is kind of going back to the earlier topic about like leadership style and things like that, do you think you were called into leadership or did you seek it because of held convictions or something else in your life?

JoJamie: I think I was probably called to it I say that because in high school I was a cheerleader, and you were not supposed to make varsity cheerleading until you were a junior or a senior, well I made varsity my sophomore year, and it wasn’t because I was the best cheerleader. Like, I could not do the back handspring, but I became co captain at a young age. Looking back, I didn’t think about it back then but I think I have always just been a natural leader, like a called leader, and i think that because I just have no problem with tough conversations, confrontation, I’m very open and an extrovert and I think all of those qualities are just like in somebody, I don’t, I think you probably can teach leadership for people who want to be a leader and I can certainly always be a better leader, but I think those certain qualities are kind of just like in you and how you were raised. Now me and my brother are totally different, like he could be a great leader but like he’s in a job where he drives big semi trucks over the road so like he’s by himself all the time and I’m with like thousands of people all day, so we were raised the same but we’re just like totally different people. So I do think I was kind of called and like born into being a leader but I’m still learning every day on how to be better.

Sophie: Of course. What are some, we were talking about this, what are some traits you would think characterize a good leader and how would you characterize your leadership style and does it differ from like leadership that you’ve seen in your life before?

JoJamie: Yeah, I think something I haven’t touched on much is empathy. I think that is, maybe the #1 quality of a good leader, and I have that in leaps and bounds and to the point where its actually been like a deterrent for me a little bit, because I take in people’s stuff so much that like I could be having a great day and you come tell me as an employee that you have something going on in your family and I will literally take it on as if somethings happening in my family and just be done for the day because I’ll be so bothered by it. It’s something I’m actually working on in my own personal growth, to be able to take in, because as I’ve grown in this leadership role specifically being responsible for a whole team of people, I get that more and more. People are dealing with stuff, it’s a hard time to just be human, and I’m taking in a lot of people’s issues and problems with kind of learning how to help them navigate it without taking it on myself. So, I think empathy along with the other things we talked about; loyalty, also compassion goes with empathy, fairness, transparency, all of that goes into it. And I think my leadership style would be called empathetic, hopefully fair. Hopefully clear, that’s something I like to be as well because if you’re not sure what your leader is expecting from you it can cause like a lot of confusion, people being unsure, so I’m hoping I’m clear. Although, sometimes you have to be harsh to be clear. So, I deal with that quite a bit but I also don’t have a problem doing that. Like, I’d rather be straightforward and honest and just to kind of hit on your other question something I just thought of, my dad was military, so like I grew up in a very black-and-white house like theres right and there’s wrong, there’s no in between and I think that probably helps me be a leader today and be fair and honest with our team.

Sophie: Yeah. We were talking about being women in leadership earlier, and that is something I really wanted to touch on. How do you think your identity in that aspect helped shape your leadership and how do you continue to empower other women to be better leaders?

JoJamie: Well, I think you know one thing I’m really passionate about it’s not necessarily about female leaders but about females in general in business is the you have to watch what you wear to be taken seriously. Like, I could go speak about this every day to colleges all over the world because like I’m so passionate about that. And that goes for men or women, I just don’t think that it matters. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, it matters that you’re kind. It matters that you work harder than anyone in the room, that you show up and you do what you say you’re going to do. Those are like, the core things to me. To just be like a good human and then be somebody great at business. And I just think that females specifically are judged harshly on what they look like, what they wear, and/or you know, maybe judged unfairly on both sides of the spectrum. So, when it comes to being a leader as a woman, gosh that’s a thing like I’m still navigating and luckily in my upper-level management that I’m in now I just have a great team so like I have men and women treat me equally, they treat me the same, that might not always be the same. I might go somewhere else one day where I have men that are reporting to me that I don’t feel like that, but at BMG I just feel that we breed an environment where we all treat each other respectfully. Wether we’re like the intern or EVP. And then I didn’t answer a part of your question a couple of questions ago. I think the way I’m learning this leadership is through Jon Loba who’s our president. He’s exactly like all of these things. He is empathetic, and fair, and kind. I just walked into his office today before I was leaving, he had an employee in there that was going through something and he stopped everything, I mean he’s the President of BMG and he stopped everything to listen to what that person was going through, and I’ve learned so much and still do from him. So I’ve had a great example of it.

Sophie: Yeah, thank you. I realize it’s almost 3 so I have one last question then we’ll wrap up. It’s kind of like an overarching question, what do you want your legacy to be? I know it’s very broad, haha.

JoJamie: That’s awesome, well I want to be known as someone who loved the Lord. Like first and foremost, and that makes me emotional even saying that and thinking about it. But somebody that’s shone her light for Him. I don’t try to impose my faith on people, but when people ask me like ‘I don’t know how you do it, like how are you’ and I’m like it’s not me, everything that is done through me is through my faith and through the Lord and I would hope that first and foremost they would say that. And then from that I would hope that they would say she’s a badass. I feel really confident in that because I love that term. I want someone to say like she was tough, but she was fair she was passionate. I want someone to say she was passionate, I want people to say you know she lived and breathed her artists and her craft or her work. And I would love people to say that everybody loved her. And you know I know that’s not always gonna be the case, but it’s something that I strive for and strive for people to respect me, and you know think that I was kind to them. Those are kind of the most important things to me.

Sophie. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Thank you, and thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate you meeting with me.

JoJamie: Of course! This was fun!