The firing of Jill Abramson from her position as Executive Editor of The New York Times once again focuses the spotlight on the treatment of strong, high-ranking women managers.
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Jessica Lawrence is the executive director of the New York Tech Meetup, which hosts monthly events that cater to over 39,000 members in New York’s technology community. She is also part of Girls Who Code‘s brain trust. Before taking on those tasks, Lawrence served as CEO of the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council in Southern California. Her leadership experiences have introduced her to countless girls and women with passionate interests in STEM careers.
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The ladies of STEM can stick together now. Last fall, Boston University opened a residence hall for undergraduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The hall is an expansion of the original WISE@Warren program, a floor for freshman women interested in the sciences.
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Last week I did an interview with Dr. Portia Jackson for her daily podcast on her website Working Motherhood. It’ll be up on their site in a few days and I’ll share it then.
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In honor of Mother’s Day, I want to take a moment to write a letter to one of the most inspirational people in my life; my mom. The bond my mom and I share is incredible. She has always been there when I need her and on this Mother’s Day, I’ll be sure to thank her for it.
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I read an article in The Atlantic last week about the vast “confidence gap” that separates the sexes, and it made me ponder why I haven’t suffered from the same self-doubts that afflict so many women. The article’s authors, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, point to several studies showing that women not only lack confidence about their performance and careers but often under-estimate their abilities—in contrast to men, who generally have few doubts about their competence or capacities. This lack of self-assurance holds women back because, it turns out, confidence matters as much as competence in achieving professional success.
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How often do you hear about the dearth of women in technology, especially leading start ups? And then comes the litany of complaints about how awful it is to be a woman CEO in the testosterone-driven tech culture. That’s why it was so refreshing to read Yunha Kim’s smart take on her experience, concluding that it either sucks or is awesome depending on how you frame your own perspective. Take The Lead thinks its time we change the narrative to the awesome part. Read on for Yunha’s insights.
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The minute I saw this post about storytelling as a leadership skill, by Joanne Tombrakos, I asked her if we could share it with Take The Lead readers. As she says, “When we own our stories we become a magnet. People want to know who we are. Read our stuff. Buy our products. Hire us. Maybe even take us on a date.” Our story is the root of our authenticity, the topic of Lex Schroeder’s June 26 webcast – sign up here to learn her authentic leadership tools. And read on for Joanne’s explanation of why sharing our story benefits us and the listener.
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Here’s the truth: women need to help other women and in order to do that confidence is a factor we need to focus on. The lack of confidence that women have in their abilities is by no means the entire reason for gender inequality, but it is certainly a factor in the equation.
I am sure by now most of you have heard of “The Confidence Gap” piece that showed up in The Atlantic on April 14th and then subsequently all of the backlash from that article.
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“Know your audience.”
We hear this all the time, but how often do we practice it? Even if we think we know our audience, most of us spend a heck of a lot of time talking to ourselves. It’s only human, but it doesn’t serve us well.
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People have often asked me what “career path” I took to becoming a management consultant to social justice organizations. Sometimes I give them my revisionist history, which makes it seem as though I consciously chose all my earlier jobs as building blocks toward this career. But more often I tell them the truth, which is that I simply took jobs that interested me, and where I ended up was mostly a function of serendipity.
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“Authenticity” is an overused word for a pretty interesting and important idea. For most of us, it only starts to feel exciting when we see it in practice. Authenticity isn’t just an idea then. It’s something we do. And it’s something we better understand if we want to follow through on our goals for ourselves or our organizations or those ideas we have for the world (often that the world needs badly).
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