Three Lessons on Leadership
Advice from Women Who Lead
I’m standing at my 20th high school reunion, surrounded by four other bookish women from my graduating class at Lower Merion High School, outside of Philadelphia.
We’re comparing stories about how we think we ended up as business executives with technical backgrounds, at a time when women leaders like us were in the minority.
Suddenly, one of my classmates, who is division head of a large pharmaceutical company says, “I’m really glad I ignored what Mrs. Grayboyes told me.”
There is complete silence — until, one by one, each of us confesses something we had never shared before. We had all ignored Mrs. Grayboyes’ advice.
It turns out that when each of us was planning our senior year course work, we sat with our guidance counselor, Mrs. Grayboyes, and told her about our love of science and math. She responded with the voice of experience:
“If you take Advanced Calculus, you’ll stop having your menstrual cycles.”
We all ignored what Mrs. Grayboyes said (and, instead, listened to a braver inner voice). That made all the difference for each of us on our paths to leadership. Each of us considered that tradeoff between menstrual cycles and math, and each of us chose to risk the possible implications and take advanced math anyway.
There are three lessons I learned from that high school reunion scene. The obvious one is a rule I followed from that day forward.
Lesson #1: Know when to ignore the voice of experience, and follow your inner voice.
But today, as the CEO of LaunchPad Central, a San Francisco-based technology company that drives the success of internal startup teams of intra-preneurs at companies like Nasdaq, Mayo Clinic, and Jones Lang LaSalle, I think about a second rule that inspires the expert advice that I give to these aspiring innovators at large companies. I tell them:
Lesson #2: Consider the evidence from the past, but go bravely where others have not been.
Which brings me to my third piece of advice for women leaders. Each of the five of us at the high school reunion thought that we were alone in our pioneering spirit. For 20 years, we never knew that Mrs. Grayboyes had given all of us that same advice (advice that we chose to ignore). Simply by sharing our fears and supporting each other, we could have accelerated the pace of progress, doubted less, and transformed our fears into a firm embrace of the adrenaline rush that comes from leading others into uncharted territory.
Lesson #3: Share your stories. Support the next leaders in their brave pursuits.
