5 Women Who Lead Authentically, On Purpose, Every Day
“Authenticity” is an overused word for a pretty interesting and important idea. For most of us, it only starts to feel exciting when we see it in practice. Authenticity isn’t just an idea then. It’s something we do. And it’s something we better understand if we want to follow through on our goals for ourselves or our organizations or those ideas we have for the world (often that the world needs badly).
So here are 5 women leaders who, to me, are shining examples of authentic leadership. They are leaders to watch who happen to be women at a time when the world really needs more women’s voices.
How are they “authentic?” They know who they are and what they believe, make the bold move or just plain different/unexpected move, and take a stance or say the hard thing. In so doing, they push conversations, organizations, and movements forward. They also just inspire the heck out of me.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I first learned of Adichie through her TED talk “The Danger of Single Story,” one of the best teachings on what respect for difference really means that I’ve ever seen. Since then Adichie has published her third novel, Americanah, and written this fantastic little piece on fashion/so much more than fashion for Elle last month. (Ever “dress down”/dress plainly in order to be taken seriously)? Adichie used to, too, and is done with that now.
Sarah Milstein As CEO of Lean Startup Productions, Milstein is a leader in the business/entrepreneurship scene teaching businesses how to thrive in uncertain times who is writing about gender equity (and gender balance at conferences) every step of the way. Check out her piece “Putting an End to Conferences Dominated by White Men” in Harvard Business Review. Milstein saw a problem, named it, and then went beyond this to offer concrete advice on how to address it.
Natalia Oberti Noguera Oberti Noguera heads up Pipeline Fellowship, a program teaching women how to become angel investors in women-led startups, recently featured on NPR. Whether she’s helping all of us understand that it’s a human thing to invest in those entrepreneurs “who look like us”—so it makes sense to get more women and women of color investing—or calling on organizations to #changetheratio and feature a much greater diversity of voices—Oberti Noguera is deepening conversations left and right and making us all look at our own biases.
Meryl Streep I’ve always liked Meryl Streep for her acting and the fact that she’s so damn down to earth (check out this interview in The Talks, it will remind you you’re human), but these days I’m impressed by how beautifully she is standing up for other women. Whether you agree with Hillary Clinton’s politics or not, Streep gave Clinton an incredible introduction at the Women in The World Summit 2012 that still gives me goose bumps. This is what supporting each other looks like. And far too often we forget this—supporting each other’s projects is leadership, too.
Rebecca Traister While most folks were shouting “lean in!” or “lean out!” after the release of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In last year, journalist Rebecca Traister cut through the noise recently with her piece for The New Republic, “The Uselessness of Hating Sheryl Sandberg.” She calls for women to collaborate, saying, “Work together, from your recliners and c-suites and assembly lines and customer service consoles, to send aggressive messages about what’s wrong not just to each other, but to the dudes. The ones whose responsibility it is to step up, lean out, and lean in to the conversation we’ve been having amongst ourselves for far too long.”
Sure, we’re not all writers, actors, or entrepreneurs, and not all of us do work around leadership and gender or women’s rights, but neither of these things are the point. What’s note-worthy about these women’s careers and actions is not just their ability, but their willingness to embrace conflict or complexity and offer something new to the conversation. Change-making is hard, but when we choose to act based on what we see right in front of us or know ourselves to be true from our own lived experience—this choice creates all sorts of new opportunities and possibilities.
Related or unrelated to women’s leadership, who’s on your list of authentic leaders or leaders who are shaking things up/making things a heck of a lot more interesting?
Interested in learning more? Join me for one of two webcasts, May 1st or June 26th to talk authentic leadership, influence, and power. You’ll leave with a new understanding of the difference between the three and learn how you can use principles of authentic leadership to advance your career or move your projects forward, whatever your field. This will be a highly interactive discussion. Join us!
Read more posts by Lex Schroeder.
About the Author
Lex Schroeder is a writer and speaker on gender equity, systems change, and the future of work. She is a Leadership Ambassador with Take The Lead and is based in NYC. She can be reached at lexschroeder@taketheleadwomen.com. Follow her on Twitter @lexschroeder.