Lean In Leaders Conference 2018: Hope, Strength and Inspiration
In the last week of August, over a 100 women from across the globe descended in Palo Alto for the Lean In Leaders conference — an annual event hosted by LeanIn.Org. At the conference this year, I had the honour of representing our 1000+ member strong Lean In Bangalore network.
On a bright and sunny morning, conference attendees hopped on the bus that would take us to Stanford, where the conference was being held. Adrenaline took over jet lag pretty easily. We were introduced to our “pods” — small groups of 8–10 Lean In Leaders that would go on to sharing best practices on running Lean In Networks, and encouraging one another to “own it” over the course of the next two days. My pod had Lean In Leaders from Morocco, Kuwait, Singapore, Taiwan, Pakistan and New Zealand.
And if this wasn’t enough, we had the opportunity to hear from some several inspiring speakers across a variety of topics, a few of which include “How Men and Women Can Work Together for Change”, “How to Succeed as a Numeric Minority”, “The Problem of Being Human”, “Acceptance and Healing”, “Authentic Leadership”, “How Grit and Resilience Have Defined my Leadership Journey” and “Breaking the Boys’ Club”. Finally, at the moment we thought the lineup couldn’t get any better, we were told that Sheryl Sandberg will be hosting us for dinner at her house in Menlo Park (!!!).
As you can probably imagine, the two days were filled with a ton of practical advice, tips and inspiring stories. I’ve summarized eight of my favorite and actionable takeaways here:
1) Be Your Own Data Analytics Expert (Joanna Coles, Former Chief Content Officer at Hearst Media): there’s nothing more interesting than thinking about yourself. Take charge and understand your patterns and themes — life becomes much easier.
2) Talk so men will listen (Joanne Lipman, author of “That’s What She Said”): Keep it positive, don’t bring up things in the heat of the moment, be a #bragbuddy to your women colleagues and amplify each others’ voices.
3) Have a Plan A — but prepare to zig-zag — and Learn, Evolve, Reinvent, Do: (Deborah Lee James, 23rd Secretary of the American Air Force): Be persistent, get things done, get to know your team as real people, and learn the positive from every negative.
4) Three ways to be human at work — purpose, compassion, self-compassion (Leah Weiss, Professor at Stanford GSB): Recognize needs of others, and be candid, even if it’s the minority opinion. Be compassionate towards yourself.
Don’t forget the forest for the trees — always keep your purpose in mind.
5) Healing does not mean wholeness (Bozoma Saint John, aka “BadAssBoz”, CMO at Endeavor): Bozoma made us laugh, cry and rethink how we deal with adversity as she told us her story on healing and acceptance. I can’t do justice to her story in a few sentences, so I’d urge you to read about her.
My favorite line from her speech was “I’m a fighter, not just a survivor”. What a badass. What an inspiration.
6) Seek out People who make you stronger (Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO at TaskRabbit): A fellow Penn alum, Stacy talked about bringing your true self to work, surrounding yourself with people who strengthen you, and leading authentically.
7) Try, every time, and lean in to the unknown (Rosie Roca, VP at SalesforceIQ): Talking about grit and resilience, Rosie urged us to be prepared for uncertainty — and to keep trying.
8) Let’s find our collective courage to tell our stories (Emily Chang, Author of “Brotopia”): We’re finally hitting that point where women are coming out and telling their stories of gender bias and sexual harassment at the workplace, and it’s becoming unacceptable for companies to continue keeping jerks on the team because they are “brilliant” or “geniuses”.
We’re grateful for what Sheryl Sandberg and her team at the Foundation have created. They’ve given the world a platform to solve a very important problem, and we hope for Lean In Bangalore to continue to build on that platform and pursue our mission!
For more information on Lean In Bangalore, visit leaninbangalore.com, or contact us at leaninbangalore@gmail.com.
