Understand, then Change the Game

So what is the single biggest piece of advice you have for women who are trying to break into male-dominated fields?

So one piece of advice that I would say is, you know, being an only and most of my full career out of 20 years, I probably have been the only for at least the last twelve? {indistinct} I feel like there's two things: Understand the game, but don't subscribe to it. Change it when you understand it so that it can meet your needs and open up more doors for girls and women to follow behind you.

Can you give an example of that? What do you mean by that?

One example about the game, is what I'm learning every day around leadership. There are some perceptions of what leadership should be like. Kids should be, you know, strong and bold and, you know, very directive. And we know that that is not necessarily the best effective way to lead and have individuals to follow. That sometimes you have to be vulnerable and collective and team-oriented to be able to get and galvanize your team to move toward a specific objective or goal. And then, you know, there is the aspect of not knowing the answer. And that's OK. As a leader. But there are these attributes or these characteristics that we've all grown up with that what a leader should be and should not be. And I think that you've got to understand that because you'll see it coming at you all the time. But then you also have to say, you know, I'm not going to subscribe to that because I want to be more effective, more effective in moving my team forward, more effective in galvanizing a larger community to move my mission forward. So I'm going to pivot and start to look at a new way or, you know, demonstrate a new way of what leadership can look like.

And for me, it's really important because I have, you know, ninety eight percent of my team are women. We serve girls. And so I want them to understand that there is not one way to leadership. There are multiple ways to leadership. However, you might have to bob and weave sometimes because there is that many expect a certain depth for you to be able to help you move that mission. And so you might have to play that game for a little while and then pivot. And once you're in the game, learn how to change it and demonstrate something different.