Issue 2861— October 7, 2025

Note: I’m writing this post on October 7, the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. I didn’t deliberately choose the date, but sometimes fate sends a message. Turns out, this is the exactly right time.

When I started what has become a trilogy (here are part 1 and part 2), I intended to write only one blog to explain my leadership intentioning tool “Uncover yourself,” by revealing a part of my story I’ve not shared. I had kept it inside for three reasons:

I believe it’s not appropriate in a pluralistic democracy to bring personal religious beliefs into workplace leadership responsibilities.

I was made to voice Christian prayers in school, camp, and even Girl Scouts throughout my youth. It felt like a betrayal of my very being to do so. It made my stomach queasy because I knew I was “singing a song that was not my own.” Yet if I didn’t comply, I was singled out for being “other” at best and a pariah at worst. No young person likes to be the different one.

· I had not yet come to terms with my full self after decades of having part of me erased by the culture in which I lived—a culture I so yearned to be accepted by. The arrogance of the prevailing assumption that everyone was or should be of the same faith made me feel first fearful and then angry as I grew older. Still, it was far easier to cover than to speak up for my true self.

Here's what happened to change me:

The moment I chose proactively to be Jewish (as I mentioned previously, my parents were mostly nonpracticing and I grew up in small towns where there was no Jewish community let alone a synagogue, so not surprisingly I had married a Methodist) was when a neighbor’s kids upset my children by telling them they had black hearts and would go to hell because they hadn’t accepted Jesus.

I was horrified. I knew I didn’t want my children to treat anyone in that cruel and bigoted way. And I realized that if I didn’t give them a more inclusive ethical framework, whether grounded in religion or not, they would grow up making those negative judgments about themselves and others.

In that moment, I became grateful—yes grateful—that my experience helped me empathize with all people treated as “other.” No longer was it a burden; it was a liberation that shaped the rest of my life.

I started studying the world’s religions and made a deliberate decision to embrace my Jewish heritage, not because of ideology but because of the Jewish ethical imperative to “repair the world.”

That led me to work for social justice causes. Still, it was easier to advocate for others who had been treated unfairly than for myself. I was releasing some of the masks that had been layered onto my psyche, but there were still layers to unearth.

First I joined several Civil Rights organizations, where I learned valuable lessons about movement building. I saw that people working together could make significant social change even if they had little formal power. I worked at Head Start, a preschool program to help level the academic playing field for children from homes without financial resources to send their children to private preschools and provide other enrichments that are routine for middle and upper class families.

I noticed that in most of these organizations, the men held the preponderance of leadership positions while the women did most of the frontline work with little recognition. That led me to this epiphany: if there were to be Civil Rights, women must have them too.

So I began to work primarily for organizations and movements that helped women attain equality in law, culture, access to reproductive healthcare services, and in organizational leadership. Parity in leadership positions became the mission of Take The Lead because I believe that until women hold equal power, we will keep fighting the same battles and never fully win them.

My most recent book, “Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone's) Good.”

As I rose in levels of leadership responsibility, I never once included this central part of the story that shapes why I am so committed to making life fairer and better for Black people and all people of color, for women, and for every group that has been faced with discrimination. A wise leadership consultant once told me, “The oppression of the Jews in a free society is the relinquishing of identity.” I decided to reclaim mine.

And that is where my story would have ended before October 7, 2023.

But when the world responded to the attack not with sympathy but with hatred and a level of antisemitism that has not been seen since World War II, I found myself called to tell the secret part of my story that I had covered over for decades. Possible repercussions mattered less than the integrity of my being.

As it happened, Take The Lead launched 50 Women Can Change the World in Entrepreneurship shortly after the October 7 attack.

The course opening exercise is called “the power continuum.” I ask participants to place themselves on a 1-10 continuum of how powerful they feel, 10 being most powerful. After everyone else had spoken, I said that in my work I’m 9 1/2.

But in my current emotional state, I’m a 2. I shared for the first time in a Take The Lead course that my grandparents emigrated to America to escape exactly the kind of violence that happened on October 7, and I talked about the true reasons, rooted in my life experience of being the other, for my life’s work for the freedom and equality of others and why this moment feels like such a gut punch as a result.

Because more than half of the cohort was Black or Brown women, including some Muslims, I didn’t know how my story would sit. But I couldn’t not tell it and feel authentic this time.

I received nothing but kindness in return, though I’m sure many perspectives and loyalties were in the room. I am perfectly comfortable and respectful of that.

I believe there should be no place for hatred and bigotry in our hearts, communities, organizations, and nations. But the implementation of that noble aspiration requires vulnerability, courage, and willingness to speak one’s truth. Especially as leaders, it is essential to know oneself and show oneself to people who work alongside us.

And I am grateful to have taken a giant step to uncover myself to myself as well as to others. For it turns out that uncovering myself was the most powerful leadership act of all.

GLORIA FELDT is the Co-founder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, and a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.

Uncover Me: The Secret Story I Finally Tell (Part 3 of 3)

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