With the projections that the “normal life” of pre-pandemic may not return until the end of 2021—if ever—is causing enormous anxiety, affecting most everyone from a remote contract freelancer to a CEO of a global enterprise.
“Are you OK?” is a question leaders can ask at the start of a Zoom conference calls, but it no longer affords a simple, quick response.
Read MoreThousands gathered for a vigil near the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court following the news of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, from complications from pancreatic cancer.
Men, women and children carried signs and lit candles in honor of the woman who spent a lifetime fighting for “the end of days when women appear in high places only as one-at-a- time performers.”
Linda Hirshman, author of Sisters in Law: How Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor Went To The Supreme Court and Changed The World, writes in Washington Post, “In her last years, people made songs and movies about her, and the public bought out her bobblehead dolls. None of that mattered to the real RBG. She cared about the Supreme Court, making it again the engine of an expanding legacy of American equality.”
Read MoreThis must be about more than selling Frida Kahlo t-shirts once a year.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson initiated a week to honor the influence and legacies in the arts and culture of Americans with heritage origins in Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. President Ronald Reagan turned it into a month celebrated from September 15 through October 15 by law, inaugurating Hispanic Heritage Awareness Month.
Read MoreIssue 142 — September 14, 2020
Don’t get the wrong idea. I have great respect for Hillary Clinton, and she has been a woman ahead of her time in many ways. But her recent essay shows she has caught up with my core message about women’s relationship with power. Let me roll back the tape and tell you what I mean.
You know that great song in the musical “Hamilton” — “The Room Where It Happens?”
I was in the room where it happened 25 years ago. Two rooms where it happened, actually.
And the experience was life changing. World changing even. But that was then.
Read More“As an organization and an individual, you have to stick to your North Star,” Soledad O’Brien, founder and CEO of Soledad O’Brien Productions, told a virtual convening of two cohorts of Take The Lead’s 50 Women in Journalism Can Change the World.
“The story of one’s arc of one’s life is to figure out what your values are,” says O’Brien, award-winning journalist, speaker, author and philanthropist who anchors and produces the Hearst Television political magazine program, “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.”
Read MoreFrom the age of five, Jennifer Brown was performing. On stage, she was singing and dancing as a child growing up in Southern California in a musical family, then as an adult pursuing a singing career.
“I love the adrenaline, I love being under pressure,” says Brown, the CEO and founder of Jennifer Brown Consulting, a global strategic leadership and diversity consulting firm that coaches business leaders on critical issues of talent and workplace strategy. “Which is good because I have three 90-minute keynotes online today,” Brown says.
Read MoreIssue 141— September 7, 2020
Drew Dixon’s resume includes Former Vice President of A&R at Arista Records, a former director of A&R at Def Jam Recordings, the former general manager of John Legend’s label Homeschool Records, and the former manager of recording artist Estelle. She produced more hit records than I can count with artists you know. Dixon is the founder of the independent label The Ninth Floor, the tech-enabled beauty start-up EverythingDid, and the co-creator of the TV series Reciprocity.
Definitely an ambitious and intentional woman who knew from her teenage years that working in the music business was her dream.
Read MoreSeptember is Literacy Month and also typically back to school month. But with school on hold, virtual, hybrid or postponed, we can still enjoy a robust reading month. And what possibilities you have with great new books by, for and about women and the issues and concerns facing all of us.
Take The Lead frequently highlights the latest books from women leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers and doers. It’s why Take The Lead has launched a new Book Club and why Take The Lead includes great reads from our leadership, staff and partners here.
Read MoreIn 1995, Madonna, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson topped the pop charts. A new music option called DVD launched. Windows 95 and Ebay were introduced.
And Hillary Clinton gave a world-turning speech in Beijing, China.
“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women’s rights. And women’s rights are human rights,” First Lady of the United States Clinton spoke to a crowd of 1,500 on September 5, 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Program.
Read MoreHow can women leaders deal with the issue of workplace stress among their employees?
Nearly every employee today is experiencing work stress, perhaps in varying degrees and in different forms. This is especially true given the current global health crisis brought on by COVID-19 and the resultant changes in today's workforce.
Even prior to COVID, a 2018 Fidelity Investments survey found that in America, the workplace has been deemed the top stress factor among employees. In the U.S. workplace stress is responsible for losses of up to $300 billion.
Read MoreIssue 140 — August 31, 2020
It was so predictable. Any woman who had the audacity to run for president must be too ambitious, said the wagging tongues and talking heads.
Ambitious when applied to a woman becomes an epithet. Applied to a man, it isn’t just a compliment, it’s an assumption.
Read More“Just start.”
That is author and renowned journalist Heather Cabot’s advice to entrepreneurs as well as her own motto.
With her latest book out this month, The New Chardonnay: The Unlikely Story of How Marijuana Went Mainstream, hitting a bestseller list on Amazon recently, Cabot is taking stock of her successes as well as looking for what she will tackle next.
Read More
