The 12 Best Leadership Lessons From Take The Lead in 2022
Who really needs a partridge in a pear tree? What many women in the workplace need is a reliable set of accessible tools, insights and proven leadership lessons to enhance and transform their careers and their work lives.
Take The Lead offers those valuable tips each week in interviews with a broad range of leaders across identities and communities in various industries across the globe, representing different approaches to distinct challenges many face.
Here is the 2022 roundup of the best 12 leadership tips and priceless advice from Take The Lead’s featured experts; one for each month of the year. And not one of them involves a pair of turtle doves.
“@Takeleadwomen offers valuable tips for #women in the #workplace each week in interviews with a broad range of leaders across identities and communities in various industries across the globe, representing different approaches to distinct challenges many face. ”
1. Your story is not just about you. Rebecca Sive, author of Make Herstory Your Story: Your Guided Journal to Justice Every Day for Every Woman: “Until you tell your story, you don’t situate yourself, or emotionally and intellectually grapple with what is important in your life. The words that matter most are inspirational and concrete. You have to be willing to share your personal story to mobilize other people. If you can take nuggets of your personal knowledge and put it in a broader context, you see it is not about you, it’s about everybody.” Read more here from Rebecca Sive in Take The Lead.
2. Find a place where you want to be and can be yourself. Lily McNair, board chair of Take The Lead and former president of Tuskegee University: “Find a place that fits who you are authentically. You have to fight the battle anyway, why not fight the battle where you are that if you win, you want to be there. Be authentic in everything you do. As a woman in leadership, we can back down and fall prey to negative thoughts.” Read more here from Lily McNair in Take The Lead.
3. Develop empathy. Fang Cheng, founder of Linc, and co-founder of the product she sold to Amazon that later became Kindle: “You need to develop a great deal of empathy. Team members have different realities and some are home with children and you have to understand your team members and be sensitive with what they are dealing with. Do not be an idolized leader. Bring them into the vision. What it takes to be a success is so much more than being a single leader. Treat your team as co-founders. You have to get the vision right and you have to have your team turn the vision into their own.” Read more here from Fang Cheng in Take The Lead .
“Develop empathy. Fang Cheng, founder of Linc, and former co-founder of the product she sold to Amazon that later became @AmazonKindle: “What it takes to be a #success is so much more than being a single #leader. Treat your team as co-founders.” #careeradvice”
4. Be a strength finder. Donna Cryer, founder of the Global Liver Institute: “We are strength finders. The team and the organization build on their strengths—community assets, not community deficits. I have to be mindful of how I can achieve high levels and high standards, and lean into the strengths, rather than the weaknesses my body has. I have to optimize that in myself, in others and that gives me a lot of energy, hope and power. And that creates power in other people.” Read more from Donna Cryer in Take The Lead here.
5. Change how you think about gender-based violence. Anita Hill, lawyer, advocate, professor and author of Believing: “Gender-based violence is sexual harassment, stalking, incest, rape, murder, sexual violence, domestic violence. It is not a pretty story. But it is a happy ending story, that is because it has not ended yet. We have to change how we think about the problem. Today five years after the #MeToo movement and moment of reckoning, we don’t know enough about gender violence. We have to think about who is harassable and who is credible. Language does matter. The message is nobody is going to do anything. It comes down to how we value women. This is a pivotal moment for intervention. How far are we willing to go before we make these issues public issues?” Read more from Anita Hill in Take The Lead.
“Change how you think about gender-based violence. @AnitaHill, lawyer, advocate, professor and author of Believing: “It comes down to how we value #women. This is a pivotal moment for intervention. How far are we willing to go before we make these issues public issues?” #EndGBV”
6. Be inclusive. Gemma Arnott, Chief Operating Officer of Standard : “It is important for our community to reflect the world around us, people of different cultures, shapes, sexualities. We double down on the mission of inclusivity. You have to say to yourself, ‘I know I can do this.’ And if you make a bad call, the ability to be introspective and to learn from it is huge. Many leaders can’t admit that and don’t look at why or how they can do it differently.” Learn more from Gemma Arnott in Take The Lead here.
7. You can control how people perceive you. Carla Harris, Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, leader, professional singer, philanthropist, winner of Take The Lead’s 2022 Leading Woman Award and author of Lead To Win: How To Be A Powerful, Impactful, Influential Leader in Any Environment: “If you know what you need to do, go for it. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. I realized I had the power to control how people perceived me and that impacts how people deal with me. You can be intentional about that. Decisions are made when you’re not in the room. So you can control how people perceive you. You do not know what it is as a person that causes another person to connect to you. When you lead to win, you become a powerful, impactful leader in this environment.” Read more from Carla Harris in Take The Lead here.
“You can control how people perceive you. @Carlaannharris, Senior Client Advisor at @MorganStanley and winner of @Takeleadwomen ‘s 2022 Leading Woman Award: “I realized I had the #power to control how people perceived me and that impacts how people deal with me. You can be #intentional about that.””
8. Find common ground with other women. Kate Isler, co-founder and CEO of TheWMarketplace, activist, wife, mother, partner, friend, businessperson and sister: “When women talk to one another, they immediately find the common ground. Then they think, ‘If she can do that, I can do that.’ We need to feel empowered by one another, not intimidated. We hear it and we can do it if we see it done. Women supporting women will change the world.” Read more from Kate Isler in Take The Lead.
9. Real change starts locally: Isabelle Leighton, executive director of Donors of Color Network: “Most change starts local. If you can’t make change with the person who lives next door to you, how can you make change across continents? As we started to bring people together for the first gathering, it was the first time many reported being in a room filled with people like them. They said they felt powerful, joyful and seen. We need to be honest and humble. Everything is not going to get solved today, tomorrow or in the next two years. We want to shift the center of power toward racial justice. We have a tough job at Donors of Color Network to keep up the optimism. It’s our job to plant that seed today if you want that tree to grow.” Read more from Isabelle Leighton in Take The Lead here.
“Isabelle Leighton, executive director of @Donorsofcolor: “Most change starts local. If you can’t make #change with the person who lives next door to you, how can you make change across continents?” #community #progress ”
“Build a nurturing career circle. Kristin Naragon, VP of global marketing and strategy at @Akeneopim: “You need nurturing career circles, a group of women who are an independent board of advisors.” #careeradvice #femaleleader”
12. There is no place for hate. April Ryan, CNN analyst and author of Black Women Will Save The World: An Anthem: “We have to have safe spaces to have conversations. It takes people to make our country become a space where everyone is accounted for. Laws are not permanent. SCOTUS has power. The White House has power. The legislative branch has power. And people can rise up. They are voting to make change. I don’t stand here on my own, but on the shoulders of trailblazers, of Black men and Black women. We are linked to one another. We are communities that have been through atrocities and it has to stop. We need to stop giving voice to crazy. No one should be threatening any group at this moment in time. I believe in the celebration of all. I do not believe in hate.”
Take The Lead Leadership Takeaway This Week: “Find a place that fits who you are authentically. You have to fight the battle anyway, why not fight the battle where you are that if you win, you want to be there. Be authentic in everything you do. As a woman in leadership, we can back down and fall prey to negative thoughts.” Lily McNair, board chair of Take The Lead and former president of Tuskegee University
“There is no place for hate. @AprilDRyan, CNN analyst and author of “Black Women Will Save The World: An Anthem”: “We have to have #safespaces to have conversations. It takes people to make our country become a space where everyone is accounted for.” #stophate”
