Power Women: Tiana S. Clark Of Driver’s Seat On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Know yourself. Your authenticity is your advantage. Don’t try to emulate others at the expense of being you. The times I was most myself were the times I was most successful. I was once in a corporate tech org, and a new VP took over the organization. He had a very authoritative leadership style, and everyone feared him. One day, I went to a charity luncheon and sat next to him. He reached for my bread roll. I said, “You’re just gonna grab my bread like that?” He said, “I thought that was my bread.” I jokingly said, “No, it’s not.” He then showed me a trick he learned to tell which is your bread and which is your drink. He was right! But, I had the audacity to challenge him! When we got back to the office, he asked, “If you could have any job in this organization, what would it be?” I wrote my new job and became his trusted advisor for how to improve morale across the organization. Your authenticity is power, and it can open so many doors for you.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tiana S. Clark.

Tiana S. Clark has always had the audacity to carve her own path and defy the odds, from joining the military when everyone laughed at her and said she was too girly, to creating her own tech position in two Fortune Top 10 companies — with no tech degree, to creating a multi-award-winning web series for tween girls — with zero filmmaking experience. She’s also a former public-school teacher, non-profit founder, wife, and mother of four. She empowers girls and coaches women to get in the Driver’s Seats of their careers, businesses, and lives. Learn more at www.mydriversseat.com

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

As a young girl, I developed an uncanny level of resilience and confidence through the most traumatic experience of my life. One day in 6th grade, my mother dropped me off to school, and told me, “I love you.” As a moody tween, I didn’t respond. She never came to pick me up that day. I found out around 3 am the next morning that it was because she was killed. I was 11; she was 31. I felt a huge amount of guilt and grief, and went through a rebellious stage, where I found myself handcuffed in the back of a police car in 7th grade. That experience gave me the clarity that no one was coming to save me. I had to save myself. And, by 8th grade, I had graduated as valedictorian. I’ve been betting on myself ever since.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

My mother’s death lit such a fire under me that I set out to conquer the world, and by my definition of success, I’ve done just that. Perhaps, I was a bit too focused on accomplishing “all the things.” And, then in 2020, I lost my grandmother too, my mom’s mom, basically my second mom. She was young. She wasn’t sick. She was just here one day and gone the next.

I stuffed it down and kept working. I would have breakdowns during the day, wipe the tears, and hop on that next conference call. All the while, COVID was rampaging. Eventually, it all came to a head. I took a needed 3 months off work.

I sat my butt down is what I did — and I allowed myself to FEEL.

This deep introspection renewed a sense of not taking my life for granted. It begged the question: what is my true purpose and why am I looking everywhere else for it? Don’t get me wrong, I take pride in all my experiences and accomplishments because I am battle-tested — literally and figuratively. I’ve seen and done it all. And I am GRATEFUL.

But, I felt like there was more, and maybe the MORE was less tangible. Maybe there wasn’t a trophy at the end, but something even deeper.

Back in 2017, I said, “there’s such momentum for empowering women, and I love it, but we can’t empower women without empowering girls.” So, I created a film to empower tween girls to be confident, resilient, and inclusive — three years ago.

Then, my coach, my husband, and my friends, asked, “but, what are you doing for the WOMEN?”

And, I ain’t gonna lie, I said, “Women? Nooooo…they are already set in their ways, and they aren’t motivated to change. Tween girls are still malleable.”

But, when you are called to do something, you’re called to do it.

A few years later, a colleague called me. She leverages A.I. technology to prevent child sex trafficking. She is a very successful woman, and she called me because she was having some personal challenges. She asked, “can you coach me?” And, in that moment I thought to myself, “I am uniquely equipped to guide women on their journeys to become the women they want to be, who can fully do the work God has called them to do. Why wouldn’t I answer that call?”

But I was still confused, thinking, “Is this REALLY what I am called to do? Educate, guide, celebrate, support, and connect women? Don’t go off and build the next big tech app? Just use my raw gifts to help women empower THEMSELVES, as I have done?” It felt too clear. Too easy. But, using our natural talents in the ways that give us life and doesn’t drain the life from us, isn’t SUPPOSED to be that hard.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Joining the military at age 19 was an extremely pivotal moment in my life. I was living in the murder capital of the world, yet knowing that my life was supposed to have MORE. So, I left. I spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Y2K New Year’s in basic training. To survive the experience, I tried to hide, blend in, and go unnoticed by the drill sergeant. He noticed me anyway and appointed me as troop leader. From then on, I was in a leadership position in every step of my military career, including becoming Airman of the Year — the #1 airman out of 2,000+ at my base. As a reward, I co-piloted a fighter jet over England with my commander, and sipped champagne on the tarmac afterwards. My job in the military was intelligence. I had to learn everything there was to know about military missiles and aircraft, and how to evade them. I’ve even briefed international military officers at the Pentagon on MY geopolitical assessments. That huge responsibility at such a young age and those early wins in my career proved to me that I am not only capable, I am also a FORCE. Everything I needed was already inside me, and I could either wield that power or stifle it. My choice.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. AUDACIOUS CLARITY — You must have clarity. It’s hard to get clarity when you are in constant “execution mode,” however. You must allow time for introspection, meditation, thinking, and listening with your heart. I spent so much time and mental energy climbing the career ladder, and not enough time being still. When I get still, I allow myself to feel and to think about what I want — not what I am SUPPOSED to want, not what society tells me should be the next “logical” step, and then things become clear. With this clarity, I am invincible. My audacious clarity led me to skip the traditional college route for the military — even though my entire family pressured me to “go to the good college.” I knew the best plan for me. My audacious clarity led me to join the military when everyone laughed in my face because I knew I could get a free college education and see the world. It didn’t make sense to anyone else, and it didn’t need to. It only needed to make sense for me. My audacious clarity led me to create a web series, Soci Circle, for tween girls because I knew that video would be a scalable platform to “mentor” girls globally. I had zero filmmaking experience, but six months later, Soci Circle won a Hollywood film festival, and girls love it.
2. RESOLUTE CONVICTION — Once you have clarity, you must be convicted and resolute, knowing that for every step you take towards your goals, the universe will match that step. It’s like the 401k for your dreams! And, you must know that you deserve it. This is how you manifest the seemingly impossible. When I joined the military, I was asked to give my top 3 desired locations. I gave my #1 destination as England. As a little girl, I was fascinated with the UK and had always wanted to live there. England was a RARE assignment, however. And the military joke is that whatever you ask for is exactly what you WON’T get. So, the strategy everyone else employed was to put on the list what they didn’t want, and maybe they’d get what they actually wanted. My strategy: put that same energy into asking for what I truly wanted and believe I would get it. I put England down as my #1 choice. I woke up every day envisioning my new life in England. Months later, I got the phone call that would reveal my first assignment, and I fell out on the floor and cried. It was England.
3. SELF-ADVOCACY –Due to the patriarchal nature of society, women can be stereotyped as less qualified and less competent than men –women of color, even more so! This becomes an even bigger issue for women who don’t ask for what they want, and hope to “be discovered” for their potential. Our patriarchal conditioning also prevents us from celebrating our accomplishments, let alone sharing them with others. We minimize our work and our efforts, and we make excuses for our success. This trains us to be poor advocates for ourselves. And, when we can’t advocate for ourselves, we will repeatedly be passed over. Self-advocacy isn’t arrogance, it’s influence. Lack of self-advocacy breeds low confidence and creates some of the imposter syndromes we experience. I created what I call my “Audacious Bio” or AudaBio™ for short, and it was featured in The New York Times and The Economist. It’s a one-pager that highlights “the things I wish you knew just by looking at me.” It’s not a regurgitation of my resume, but a holistic view of Tiana, the woman. I share this document in advance of meetings with someone new, as part of my job application process, and so on. It’s also a way of saying, “put some respect on my name,” and it forces me to acknowledge my work and put respect my name as well!

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

Our patriarchal society’s lack of comfort with strong women stems from our relationship with the concept of being “strong.” Most of us interpret strong as powerful, muscular, rugged, tough, indestructible, and so on. This is a direct contradiction to the way we are taught to perceive women. Our historical relationship with the concept of women is that they are nurturing, sensitive, gentle, humble, helpful, and so on. The definitions, in and of themselves, clash, and so they clash in our minds also as a result.

We need to reconcile the two. The great thing is that women can be both nurturing and powerful, sensitive and tough. We are multifaceted and can use that to our advantage. If we embrace that dynamic, we can bring forth unique leadership capabilities that are truly unparalleled.

When I think of a “strong woman,” I think of a woman who knows herself and her worth, who can ask for help, who can validate herself, who can be assertive when she needs to be and accommodating when she needs to be, who can be honest with herself, who embraces continual learning, and who can coach herself when she backslides.

Those qualities should make our society very comfortable with strong women.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

As creator and executive producer of Soci Circle, my vision was to create a film where girls of many different backgrounds and ethnicities can see themselves represented. I hired a director, a male, and our visions didn’t exactly align. The nurturing part of me was focused on providing the girls the best experience and having diverse representation. The powerful side of me had to own my authority in the matter, when he thought he had the authority to make the decisions. The sensitive side of me respectfully discussed the issue with the director, and the tough side of me fired the director and hired a new director — just three weeks away from the shoot date!

As a leader, it can be lonely at the top, and we can’t second-guess our decisions, or allow others to walk over us. We must be resolute, and in this case, I balanced being the authority with compassion.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

When a powerful woman feels that people are uneasy around her, she must realize their uneasiness is likely due to their patriarchal conditioning and previous experiences, and less to do with her. She shouldn’t take that as a personal attack. She must understand that people will have biases, predisposed definitions of what power should look like, and preconceived notions of how power “should” show up for a woman. Previous experiences or few experiences with women can cause assumptions. I joined an all-male team once who admittedly hadn’t worked with many women, and very rarely Black women, at that. When a senior leader came to town, he was so blown away by my work that he praised my work at a major regional event, leaving my teammates out of the accolades. My team turned against me. My success and influence with our leader had made them very uneasy and caused them to make assumptions about my character, assumptions that were completely unfounded and untrue. I handled this by setting the tone for who I am. I had compassion for my team and helped them to see that I wanted the entire team to win. Once they realized they could trust me, they became my biggest advocates.

I didn’t internalize their uneasiness or take the attack personally. As a leader, I was curious to understand their underlying issue: they wanted to be recognized. I could help them with that.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

As a society, we need to step back and first ask ourselves what does true power in a woman look like, and is that good for society? Power is the ability to influence, not coerce. Power is being honest with ourselves, and not giving ourselves excuses. Power is trusting ourselves and knowing our worth, not doubting ourselves. Power is loving ourselves enough to care for ourselves and not burn ourselves out. Power is using our voice, and not staying silent.

There’s power in the diverse opinions of women and the lens in which we see the world. This makes us assets in any government or company and on any board. Furthermore, women who know their power wield it in the best interest of their communities and make a positive societal impact through investing their time and money into organizations, systems, charities, foundations, schools, and more entities that will elevate us all. Why wouldn’t we want that?

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

In my experience, being not only a woman, but being a young, pretty, Black woman has certainly landed me in ridiculous situations. To rattle off a few: asking a clarifying question and being told I was stupid; defaulting to become the “team mom” — and in many cases volunteering for the role!; witnessing people — even other women — being way too surprised that I was successful at something; having my ideas stolen and credit taken; being perceived as a weak leader because I was “nice”; and so on. These things will inevitably happen. What matters is how you respond and how you bounce back. If we allow these situations to shrink us, we forfeit our power. We must recognize that others’ perceptions and biases are not a reflection of who we truly are, and we must not internalize the ridiculousness. This takes practice. One way we can counter this is by reminding ourselves of our capabilities and accomplishments. When I first entered corporate America, I felt inferior. Here I was, a young woman from an underserved community who had piecemealed her bachelor’s degree together like a quilt, taking online classes while deployed for war, busting my butt to graduate before I separated from the military. I entered a new corporate environment where people wore fancy suits and graduated from Ivy league colleges. Once in a meeting — and we’ve all probably experienced this — I (one of two women in the room) made a novel comment, and everyone treated me like I was speaking gibberish. A white male repeated the comment, and everyone called him a genius. I internalized this and thought that I needed to get better at articulating myself in corporate spaces. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t my inability to articulate myself as much as it was the bias that I was incompetent. I reminded myself that I had an entire military career before this corporate one, where I was named Airman of the Year and flew a fighter jet. The men in the room who looked down on me had only flown fighter jets in their video games. And really: who are THEY to judge ME anyway? That was a pivotal moment. I began to let my actions speak for me, and when I knocked every project out of the park, people started listening.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Three of the biggest challenges faced by women leaders are (1) we are unable to advocate for ourselves and give ourselves full and proper credit; (2) we aren’t given the benefit of the doubt and constantly need to prove ourselves, and (3) we lack the same levels of sponsorship as men and thereby don’t have as many advocates at the decision-making tables.

Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

My precise struggle fitting my personal and family life into my business and career was prioritizing my career as my primary source of worth and validation. A lot of the career challenges I faced as a woman were due to poor work policies and practices created centuries ago with only men in mind, such as only getting six weeks of maternity leave as a young mother, and the impossible circumstances of balancing my paycheck against the cost of childcare. These, I couldn’t control. But there were some things I could control. The higher I climbed the corporate ladder, the more and more I subconsciously perceived my worth and validation based on titles and levels. This caused me to prioritize my career more than I prioritized not only my family, but my personal well-being. Once I was so angry and hurt that I didn’t get the next level role — that I knew I was a shoo-in for — that I stressed myself into a miscarriage. I’d love to say that I learned my lesson immediately afterwards, but I didn’t. It took years for me to realize that my only validation needs to come from within. I also learned that the balance is a cycle. When I took on a new role, there was a six-month period of onboarding and getting up to speed, which meant longer hours, more brain power, more “proving myself.” After that period was over, I had more balance. Understanding that cycle helps me to better balance personal and family with work. I call it the build phase versus the operational phase. My problem was that every ~18 months, I was bored and ready to advance again, and looking for a new role!

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

The tipping point came in realizing not only am I my only source of validation, but I am ultimately the one in control. That’s self-empowerment at its core. It’s honesty of the co-creation of our situations and the audacity to do something about it. For example, if I am changing roles every 18 months, and I know that it will require a six-month onboarding period, I am making the choice to throw my life out of balance for that time. To reach equilibrium, I first had to uncover WHY my source of validation was coming externally. For me, it was my upbringing. Growing up orphaned in the murder capital of the world, I was determined to make something of my life. My goalposts of success were constantly moving further outward. I had to take stock of my life, redefine success and admit to myself that I had already achieved it. What I did from that point on could be in joy.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

As a Black woman, I’ve had to contend with my personal or cultural beauty styles contributing to people’s perception of me and my competence or skill. For example, I may wear a headwrap or braids or a daishiki dress to the office or work event, if the mood struck me. Whenever I did, rarely did people “recognize” me in the office. They’d walk right past me and never speak — even though we had just sat across from each other in a meeting the day before. Once I wore my hair natural, and had a White male co-worker tell me he much preferred my hair straight.

As a leader, however, I recognize that expressing MY definition of beauty — regardless of what others might consider to be the norm or to be professional — gives other women the permission to express their definition of beauty as well.

Similarly, it’s important that we break the conditioning of one or few definitions of beauty for our young girls. When I created Soci Circle, the web series for tween girls, it was critical that we represented a diverse array of beauty, which is not typical in media, so that young girls of all backgrounds could see themselves as beautiful. In the pool scene, I required the tween girls be fully covered, and not in two-piece bikinis. We also discuss one girl’s love for her hijabs and another girl’s disability. Many different skin tones were represented along with the ethnicities of Mexican, African-American, Haitian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Italian-American, Pacific Islander, and more. We also aimed to normalize different hair styles from straight to curly, locs to afro, and everything in between.

How is this similar or different for men?

Men judge too. They look to the man in the room with the expensive suit and proper “grooming” as the leader. A Hispanic man once shared with me that when he went to pick his daughter up from school, other parents backed away from him because of his many tattoos. When they learned he was a leader at a major tech company, they suddenly changed their stance. A Black male executive who wears dreadlocks once expressed that he must work extra hard because of the bias he receives by simply wearing his hairstyle of choice. It’s society’s conditioning, and both men and women are in the crosshairs.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Know yourself. Your authenticity is your advantage. Don’t try to emulate others at the expense of being you. The times I was most myself were the times I was most successful. I was once in a corporate tech org, and a new VP took over the organization. He had a very authoritative leadership style, and everyone feared him. One day, I went to a charity luncheon and sat next to him. He reached for my bread roll. I said, “You’re just gonna grab my bread like that?” He said, “I thought that was my bread.” I jokingly said, “No, it’s not.” He then showed me a trick he learned to tell which is your bread and which is your drink. He was right! But, I had the audacity to challenge him! When we got back to the office, he asked, “If you could have any job in this organization, what would it be?” I wrote my new job and became his trusted advisor for how to improve morale across the organization. Your authenticity is power, and it can open so many doors for you.
2. Don’t seek validation. That dirty little “V” word. When you seek validation, you seek recognition and confirmation that you are valuable. This plays out in SOOOOO many ways. At work, when you are soooo happy that a senior leader notices you. Of course they do, your talents are astonishing. As an entrepreneur when you share your excitement about a business idea, and no one gets it! Not everyone WILL get your vision, and that is ok! Or, the myriad of certifications and the alphabet soups of credentials you think you need to put behind your name. The list goes on. True power is being SO CONVICTED of your own value that you don’t need ANYTHING OR ANYONE’S VALIDATION. BECAUSE YOU VALIDATE YOURSELF.
3. Your value is in WHO you are, not where you are. Don’t ever confuse your career worth with your self-worth. Working for major organizations was my identity for 20+ years. When I decided to become a full-time entrepreneur — at the height of corporate career trajectory — doubt crept in. I wondered if anyone would care who I was anymore if my LinkedIn profile didn’t say Tiana, COMMA Microsoft. Similarly: When I left the military, I had lost my identity as a staff sergeant in intelligence and a war veteran. At the HEIGHT of my military career, when I had won Airman of the Year and the military offered me $100k at the age of 23 to reenlist, I chose me. I’ve learned that your value is NOT in WHERE you are, it’s in WHO YOU ARE. It didn’t matter where I worked, the power was always in ME bringing excellence to the organization. You have the power to bring excellence to WHATEVER you chose to do because the value lives inside you.
4. Practice Setting Boundaries early, often, and with everyone. This is especially important for women because you need that balance between work and home. And, setting boundaries in your personal and professional life gives you the energy you need to bring your full self and be fully present. For example, if your in-laws consistently show up uninvited and stress you out, it may affect your patience with others at home or at work. If your manager doesn’t know when to turn the workday off, but you have obligations outside of work and need to end at a certain time, you need to set that boundary. Don’t set bad habits too early in your career that will be even harder to break as your responsibilities increase. A powerful woman knows the boundaries she needs, sets them, and enforces them.
5. Advocate for yourself. If you don’t ask for what you want, and hope to “be discovered” for your potential, you will often find yourself disappointed that no one was able to read your mind. Additionally, if you don’t celebrate your accomplishments or share them with others, don’t expect someone else to do that for you. As women, we minimize our work and our efforts, and we make excuses for our success. This trains us to be poor advocates for ourselves. And, when we can’t advocate for ourselves, we will repeatedly miss out on opportunities. Lack of self-advocacy breeds low confidence and creates some of the imposter syndromes we experience. Self-advocacy isn’t arrogance, it’s influence. And, influence is power.
   I created what I call my “Audacious Biography” or AudaBio™ for short, and it was featured in The New York Times and The Economist. It’s a one-pager that highlights “the things I wish you knew just by looking at me.” It’s not a regurgitation of my resume, but a holistic view of Tiana, the woman. I share this document in advance of meetings with someone new, as part of my job application process, and so on. It’s also a way of saying, “put some respect on my name,” and it forces me to acknowledge my work and put respect my name as well! I encourage you to create something similar and be unafraid to show it off!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’d love to share a breakfast or lunch with Serena Williams and talk about representation and inclusion as it relates to raising little girls. I’d love to tell her about Soci Circle, and how we are empowering all tween girls to be more confident, resilient, and inclusive. I know she’ll “get it.”

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Thank you!