On Tuesday, March 3rd, Take The Lead hosted Morgan Stanley banker and gospel singer Carla Harris as the first guest in our 2015 Virtual Happy Hour series. Throughout the session, Carla wowed participants with a master class on being yourself at work and strategizing for success. A few of our favorite pearls of wisdom from the evening are below.
Read MoreTake the Lead prepares and propels women to reach leadership parity. In reaching that goal, it’s important for all women from diverse cultures and ethnicities have equal opportunities to fill these spaces. But as Catalyst reports, only 4.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEO women hold positions and another too-tiny percentage (a whopping 5.2 percent) hold Fortune 1000 CEO positions. How can this really be 2014 (nearly 2015) in America?
Read MoreJust as I was getting tired of talking about the necessity of women’s leadership – ever have the same feeling? – 13 year old Mo’Né Davis showed up, threw a 70 mph fastball, and reminded me why I care.
Women are people, she reminded me,
Read MoreJust the other day, I revisited the inspiring and igniting speech Carla Harris gave at the Take The Lead launch this spring at Arizona State University. Each time I hear her speech, I find a new message, I sing a new tune, and I define a new motto. This time around my new message, tune and motto are glued to one aspect: authenticity.
Read MoreMany people did not know the wonderful ballerina Misty Copeland until her debut in the first commercial released for Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” campaign. It begins with Copeland flexing her impressive array of muscles to stand en pointe as the voiceover of a young girl reads a rejection letter from a ballet company telling her she had the wrong body and that she was too old.
Read MoreI remember the first time I read Maya Angelou’s book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It was the most searing yet beautiful prose I had ever encountered. And later, the phenomenon of her poem “Phenomenal Woman” invaded my consciousness and became a kind of anthem for women everywhere:
Read MoreFor months, I’ve been obsessed with the question, “How do we stay with a story and think about it deeply after it passes through the news cycle?” With information moving so fast, so much of it coming at us once, and so much incentive for media companies to keep throwing it at us 100 different ways, how do we collectively just stop for a minute and wrestle with the stories and questions that are really important to us to look at in society?
Read MoreYoung women are becoming a powerful force in business.
The Story Exchange’s first-ever list of Young Women to Watch shows a crop of female entrepreneurs who are shaking up traditional industries, spearheading social change and driving advances in medicine, technology and even transportation.
Read MoreLast week I did an interview with Dr. Portia Jackson for her daily podcast on her website Working Motherhood. It’ll be up on their site in a few days and I’ll share it then.
Read MoreIn honor of Mother’s Day, I want to take a moment to write a letter to one of the most inspirational people in my life; my mom. The bond my mom and I share is incredible. She has always been there when I need her and on this Mother’s Day, I’ll be sure to thank her for it.
Read MoreHow often do you hear about the dearth of women in technology, especially leading start ups? And then comes the litany of complaints about how awful it is to be a woman CEO in the testosterone-driven tech culture. That’s why it was so refreshing to read Yunha Kim’s smart take on her experience, concluding that it either sucks or is awesome depending on how you frame your own perspective. Take The Lead thinks its time we change the narrative to the awesome part. Read on for Yunha’s insights.
Read More“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).
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