The coronavirus pandemic has altered every aspect of life, and the workplace is no exception.
In 2020, 2.3 million women left the U.S. workforce—either through job loss or being forced to quit in order to care for their children—leading to the lowest levels of women in the labor force since the 1980s, prompting Vice President Kamala Harris to declare it “a national emergency.”
Read MoreNonprofit organizations have traditionally used fundraising events to help achieve their goals. However, it’s not enough to only have a handful of people supporting their cause.
That’s where digital marketing comes to play. Digital marketing is usually attributed to for-profit organizations. While this is the case, nonprofits also reap the same benefits it has for businesses.
Read MoreIssue 187 — December 20, 2021
Just when we thought it was safe to go into the water…or to the theater, to the office, inside the restaurant, to have our family and friends together for holidays…maybe even to feel comfortable taking our masks off — everything changed again.
Read MoreSometimes a surprise email makes your day, or week, or year.
Take Lead Co-Founder and President Gloria Feldt opened this email recently from Erica Miles, a leader in tech.
“Gloria, you are my inspiration,” Miles writes. “Because of my work with you, your 9 Power Tools, and the Take the Lead training, No Excuses, I made a leap for a promotion. Thank you for your leadership; you encouraged me to step out, market myself and personally drive the next step in my career. I was getting stuck and not realizing my own value. I am hoping that all the inspiration I received from you will be realized by all your training participants, so they also realize their own worth.”
Read MoreYou have likely heard the adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words. In the case of Annie Leibovitz, iconic photographer for more than 50 years, her pictures are priceless.
The legendary creative force and winner of the International Center of Photography Lifetime Achievement Award and the Centenary Medal of Royal Photographic Society, Leibovitz humbly graced the Chicago Humanities Festival stage recently to talk about how women are seen—and not seen authentically—and ultimately not known.
Read MoreIssue 186 — December 6, 2021
Dr. Harbeen Arora enters a full room of women leaders from around the world. She lightly clangs a spoon against a teacup. Immediately, attention focuses on this petite woman, whose passion fuels her intention for global gender equality. Soft spoken and eminently gracious, she calls one by one on the G100 global chairs and then country chairs eager to join in her bold vision; she aims to mobilize a global network of powerful women and men who support the effort to turn the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #5, to “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls” by 2030 from rhetoric to reality.
Read More“I am driven by justice,” says Sonali Kolhatkar, author, radio host, nonprofit organization co-director, artist, musician and mother. “There’s a time and a place for rolling up one’s sleeve and getting the work done,” says the Los Angeles-based host and executive producer of the nationally syndicated radio and TV program, “Rising Up With Sonali” which airs on KPFK and KPFA and also as a TV show on Free Speech TV.
Read More“What we don’t see, what we don’t hear, we cannot humanize,” says Nakisha M. Lewis, the new president and CEO of Breakthrough, a global nonprofit that uses the power of media, technology and popular culture to transform systems around gender, race, sexuality and immigrant rights.
Read MoreIssue 185 — November 22, 2021
Before holiday season gatherings (in person or virtual — please stay safe), I’m taking a moment to say how grateful I am for all we have accomplished together despite pandemic-induced setbacks. Seriously, it has been amazing to look back at 2021 and realize that thanks entirely to your support, Take The Lead has provided over 10,000 women with resources and actionable tools to navigate career challenges and changes. You helped us help women rethink, refresh, retool, or revise their career intentions. And those are just the ones we can count.
Read MoreIt was early on Thanksgiving morning a few years back and I had just placed a stuffed 24-pound turkey in the oven. I called my mom to double check how long to bake the extra stuffing in a separate casserole dish. After I dialed her familiar number, I could not believe I momentarily forgot she passed a month earlier and this would be my first holiday without her culinary help.
Sure, I had her cookbooks, my cookbooks and boxes filled with stain-splashed recipe cards, but calling my mom was easier, until it wasn’t.
Read MoreIssue 184 — November 15, 2021
The Microsoft Work Trend Index says over 40% of the global workforce is considering leaving their current employer, and 46% plan to make a significant career pivot.
This and other recent studies have pundits and business leaders wringing their hands about the difficulty of filling jobs in the wake of the pandemic’s massive economic disruption.
Read MoreIt is likely that if many of us had a nickel for every time someone questioned our authority or expertise, many of us would not be too concerned about having enough saved for retirement.
Yes, those moments when your title and role are announced and the naysayers shrink in the back of the room, can be satisfying, but the consistent presumption of a lack of authority and credibility based on gender is far too prevalent and costly. It hinders not just acknowledgment, but advancement, opportunity, income and quality of life.
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