Why I Hate Events and Why We Do Them Anyway

Issue 237 — August 7, 2023

I break out in a cold sweat when people say the word “event.”

There are so many moving parts to putting on a valuable and memorable conference — and why would you do one if it weren’t valuable and meaningful? The logistics alone break my head, and there are always dozens of opinions about who to invite to speak and perform, where to have it, what to have for lunch — you name it.

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What’s Tina Got to Do With Women’s Leadership?

Issue 230 — May 28, 2023

Back in the day, a friend of mine used to say that she wanted to BE Tina Turner.

As the tributes flowed following Turner’s death on May 24 at 83, it was obvious that she had an equally significant impact on countless people around the world. (In Australia, the whole country stopped to dance to “Nutbush City Limits.”)

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Report #1 From the Field: Forbes 30/50 Summit

Issue 223— March 7, 2023

Greetings from Abu Dhabi where I’m attending the Forbes 50/30 Summit.

That’s an event to which both those women on the 30 under 30 list and those on the 50 over 50 list are invited, along with their plus ones if they choose to bring someone, and many additional individuals who are here to soak up the inspiration and networking opportunities.

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King’s Less-Known Speech Teaches 3 Leadership Lessons We Can All Use Now

Issue 218 — January 16, 2023

January 16, 2023: The nation celebrates the birthday of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King today.

For many, the holiday acknowledging Dr. King’s transformational significance in American History has become primarily a welcome long weekend off from work. For others, it’s the opportunity to reflect on Dr. King’s legacy in secular and religious settings, as President Joe Biden did at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King had been the pastor.

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Six (Nonpartisan) Leadership Lessons from the 2022 Elections

Issue 210 — November 14, 2022

I believe so strongly that #votingisleadership that I created a hashtag for it. Civic engagement is in my view a critical part of leadership. We are all shaped by our communities and so must be part of shaping them.

Politics, as political scientist Walter Truett Anderson defined it, is the clash of uncertainties from which social realities are constructed.

Goodness knows that several big uncertainties in the cultural zeitgeist are clashing.

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9 ways to Take The Lead even in a terrible year

2020 came dancing in with such hope.

2020 was going to be Take The Lead’s year to scale up after seven years of building our credibility, developing our unique methodology of accelerating women’s advancement in leadership, and proving that it works. We’d earned the opportunity to grow exponentially. We had an amazing year of programming planned. Symbolically, 2020 being the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote after seven decades of struggle, seemed like the perfect time.

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Soledad O’Brien Explains Why Management of Energy is Your Essential Career Growth Skill

Issue 145 — October 18, 2020

A physicist friend once told me that everything in the world is ultimately just energy particles. In my non-scientifically trained mind, I visualized tiny pieces of matter dancing around amiably and without focus.

While my friend was referring to the physical world, the principle that everything is ultimately energy applies as well to leadership and to our individual career arcs. That’s because everything we give our time and attention to takes — energy.

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There’s Power in Naming and Power in Knowing your Name

Issue 134— July 6, 2020

My cousin Elizabeth is making good use of this time of sheltering during the pandemic to dig into our family history. It was rooted in the small town of Birzai, Lithuania for hundreds of years until two world wars either killed them or dispersed them to many corners of the world. One of the most intriguing and yet exasperating parts of this exploration is getting the names right as spellings varied from language to language. Vinn became Vinh or Bein, Henne to Hannah, and even some in the same nuclear family some people spelled their last names differently.

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What Leadership Lesson Are You Most Thankful For? Bonus Gift Edition

Wrapped PackagesWow! Thanks, for sharing so many fabulous, and fabulously helpful, leadership lessons that you are thankful for! With the season of giving in full swing, here are more great gifts of wisdom shared by women leaders.

Want to give a gift to others? Post your leadership lesson in the comments section below.

And while you’re at it, post YOUR most burning leadership question for the New Year too…

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She's Doing It: Barbara Strachan Gives Girls of Incarcerated Moms Hope

FBI Director Robert Mueller presents GSACPC’s Barb Strachan with the Community Leadership Award.I still have my Girl Scout badge sash and a newspaper article about the year my father chaired the cookie sale in Temple, TX. I was in junior high school and looked pretty dorky in the photo, wearing my full green regalia. Daddy–never one to do anything in a small way–bought 12 dozen boxes of cookies. The freezer was packed with Thin Mints and those butter cookies I love with tea, and my friends knew what they’d be having for snacks at my house for the next year.

But enough of that. Today’s Girl Scouts are doing much more interesting things. “She’s Doing It” this week features Barbara Strachan, the Program Director of Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) for the Arizona Cactus-Pine Girl Scout Council

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