Tonight I
went to a book signing by author Karin Slaughter. Her most recent book, Cop Town, tells the
story of two women police officers in the 70’s.
It was during a time when to rent an apartment a women had to have a man
cosign for it. Needless to say if it was a tough time to be a woman on the police force. Slaughter interviewed retired
cops as part of her research. When she
asked the women why they signed up- the most common response was “because I was
told not to”. J
The talk
given by the author inspired me to write this post (I was long
overdue). The topics of women in
leadership & women in technology have been swirling more and more around me
for the past year. I happen to be a
woman in technology leadership.
Last year
I heard Becky Blalock, former CIO of the Southern Company, speak at a Women in
Technology event in Atlanta. I just
finished her book Dare and identified with much of what she discussed in her book.
I thought I would share a couple of topics that resonated with me the most.
“Toot
your horn”. Women are taught from childhood
to focus on fitting in and collaborating with others while men are taught to
compete. One of the ways it manifests
itself in the work environment is that we don’t do a good job in promoting the
great work we do. We’re likely to
attribute our success to others. There
are ways we can graciously promote our successes and it is something we need to
do more of. This will help us compete better in the workforce and showcase our value.
“Getting
over your need to be liked” – I find this a lot more with women in leadership
than I do with men. One of my favorite
quotes in the book is “Change makes people upset. You can’t take it personally
or let it distract you. Dogs don’t chase parked cars.” In my current role, not everyone has liked
every decision I’ve made – and initially that was hard for me. I work to be
thoughtful in the decision making process and stay true to my core values and
the values of my organization. I understand not every decision will be right
and/or liked – but am getting more comfortable with those facts and am getting better at taking things less personally.
“Dare to
fail”- she asks how many times have you failed in your career? If the list is short it likely means that you
haven’t taken enough risk. Failure can
be a good thing if you fail responsibly and learn from it. Lack of failures over the course of one’s
career means you’re likely losing out on experiences and opportunities to
learn. The lack of failures also typically shows lack of risk which means we're not having the big successes either. We need to learn to take a more positive outlook on risk and how to
approach it.
Those are
just tidbits of leadership information covered in the book. If you get a
chance, it is a great book. Books like
these as well as networking with others in leadership roles are the best way to
learn, improve as well as understand how to get to a leadership role. The power of many is stronger than the power
of one – and I’m personally lucky to have a strong network of people in
leadership that helps me improve every day.
The book is also a great reminder to give back and share one’s
knowledge. If you want to connect,
here’s my linkedin profile.
I’ll
leave you with one of my favorite songs by “Geek Girls & the Doubleclicks"
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