Women Make Great Leaders: Real-World Lessons to Accelerate Your Climb

By Jill Griffin

Women Make Great Leaders is about women who have beaten the odds. Early on, they heard the whispers, the inner-call to leadership. They answered, and continue to answer it, with fierce passion—and the courage, boldness, and resilience required to rise to the next level and the next, and the next. They continually polish their talent with a capacity to work really hard, help others succeed, and play the game fair and honest.

Welcome to the lessons these amazing women teach us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9780996921817

Book preview

me!

Lesson #1

Find Your Passion and Purpose

Trust to that prompting within you.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Passion and purpose are like two bookends. You need both to succeed.

Did you find your passion and purpose early? Or are you still seeking it? Either way, you are doing okay; the important thing is to be passionate about something.

For me, some big clues about my passion and purpose came early simply because I followed my curiosity.

Like many small towns in the 1960s, my hometown of Marshville, North Carolina, boasted a thriving business district made up of mom-and-pop stores. (Think the fictional Mayberry in the 1960s’-vintage sitcom The Andy Griffith Show.) Audrey’s Dress Shop, Gaddy’s Shoe Store, Creech’s Five and Dime, The Fabric Shop, Rollins Jewelry Store, and Pfeiffer Hardware were a few of the shops owned and operated by locals.

Those shops were only a ten-minute walk from my neighborhood, and when I was a grade-schooler, they became my playground. I would visit them as often as possible, inquisitively making my rounds to check out what was new.

As humble as they were, with their counters, shelves, and racks of merchandise, these stores never failed to fascinate me. And I also began to notice a lot about the shopping experiences these merchants delivered: I studied what they featured in their windows. I found myself touching the finishes and fabrics of their store’s offerings. I took note of the store’s natural light (or lack of it). I was mindful of whether the front doors opened to the ring of a bell affixed to the inside knob to alert the shopkeeper someone had entered.

Your Passion Can Get You Hired

When asked how he goes about interviewing and choosing which candidate to hire, Victor Ho, CEO of FiveStars, a customer loyalty network for small businesses, has this to say: I want to figure why you work and what your deeper purposes are… I want to see if the person has thought on a very deep level about why they dedicate such a big portion of their life to what they do.*

A word to the wise. Come at the subject of what you’re passionate about, what purpose underpins what you do. Prepare and polish your answers to as many variations on those themes as you can imagine. If the interviewer doesn’t pose them, take the initiative and do so yourself—and take first place among the candidates!

Of special interest to me was whether someone was on hand to greet me. Were they warm and welcoming even though I was a kid? Or were they dismissive? In one store that catered to children, I was closely watched. Because I was unaccompanied by a parent, they probably thought I would shoplift. (It was naughty fun when a group of us would enter together and purposely spread out all over the store. It drove the storekeeper bonkers!)

This early curiosity made my choice to earn a business degree in college a natural one, and to follow it immediately with an MBA. Upon graduation, I joined the brand management department of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, where I got great schooling in how and what customers buy. And that experience also solidified an understanding of why customers buy, which enabled me to write a customer loyalty book that was named on Harvard’s list of Working Knowledge titles.

And, in case you’re wondering, I am still a recreational shopper!

Move Toward What Interests You

Don’t feel anxious if, unlike me, you’re still fuzzy about your ultimate career direction. In fact, your life will be far richer if you experiment with a variety of jobs, roles, and functions. That way you can zoom in on your purpose and passion. That’s because interests are not just discovered, they can also be developed. Angela Duckworth explores this principle in her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. For example, she cites that Julia Child didn’t fall in love with French cuisine until she was in her late thirties.

Early jobs are often trial-and-error processes that reveal what you don’t want.

It’s analogous to having an annual eye exam. When the optometrist shows you images of different-sized letters and asks, Is it clearer with A or B? your answers help narrow down the prescription that is right for you.

Likewise, Duckworth advises that in making career and job choices, always move in a direction that feels better than worse.

Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, offers a similar opinion. You start out on a trajectory, a direction. But you have to understand that there are a lot of forces along the way that can change your trajectory. But you try to keep your eye on that North Star and understand why you started down the path in the first place.**

Here’s how one of my interviewees discovered her passion in a high school biology lab, and how it’s fed her purpose in the world.

How Dr. Imogen Coe Found Her Passion and Purpose

Dean of the Faculty of Science at Toronto’s Ryerson University, Dr. Imogen Coe has a keen sense of passion. As she discussed in our interview, once she discovered her love of and dedication to science, it propelled her to lead courageously.

Born in the United Kingdom into a family of modest means, her parents taught the importance of fairness and that every man/woman deserved a chance. Dr. Coe absorbed the values of equity, diversity, and inclusivity, and they are at the core of everything she undertakes.

Education was the priority. The youngest of four siblings, she attended an all-girls school and always had a keen curiosity of the natural world. She recalls that one of her very first questions was, "How do bugs work?"

When I asked her to tell me when she first fell in love with science, she said with a chuckle: My high school biology class, when I dissected a worm. While other girls considered the task ‘gross,’ I was struck by the magic and beauty of the worm’s nerve cord.

That passion for science led her to earn a PhD in biology, but soon thereafter she found that making her way as a woman in academia would also take courage and perseverance. The field was full of highly competitive men who were natural self-promoters. Teamwork was not always on their radar screen. Early on when she voiced her opinions, people declared her to be outspoken. But she didn’t buy it. No, she said, "I’m just spoken."

Around the age of forty, Dr. Coe reports, I reached a high level of academic leadership, which enabled me to start changing the culture around me to one that was more collaborative and team based.

Here are some things she learned:

Leadership is about building social capital. To empower people, they must feel heard and their contributions appreciated. Leaders must encourage their team members to go outside of their comfort zones.

Leaders need to have champions too. She defines them as, Those people who are behind me, holding me up, pushing me forward at my own pace.

As a leader, you must get out of your peoples’ way so they can innovate.

Active listening—concentrating on and grasping the other person’s words, responding empathetically, and remembering the outcome—is hugely important.

When you make a misstep as a leader, own it and learn from it. In the process, be kind to yourself and forgive yourself. Remind yourself that you’re doing your best.

Young fathers need parental leave too. They need to get out of the lab and help with the new baby.

Women in science need to learn how important and strategic it is to build a large, strong network of colleagues. Staying in the lab with your head down doesn’t cut it.

The drive for equity and diversity in science must be led from the top. In this cause, influential and supportive male allies are needed to promote the equity and diversity