“Bravery Has no Gender” Kira Rudik and Volodymyr Zelenskyy Lead Like a Woman in the Face of the Unthinkable

Issue 192 - March 8, 2022

My heart clutched as I watched Stephanie Ruhle interview Ukrainian Member of Parliament Kira Rudik on “The 11th Hour.” 

I urge you to watch it a few times, not to become fearful but to observe how she speaks powerfully AND with empathy, humanity, and courage. These characteristics are what I mean when I say she leads like a woman.

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This Week’s Takeaway? Every Little Girl Can Be POTUS

Issue 158 — January 25, 2021

Each week I write about what the week just past has taught us. I reflect on what happened and search for the larger meaning in its disparate events. I look through the lens of whether it’s been good for women or bad for women. I search for trends. And I look for moments of power shifts related to gender and race.

Well let me just say last week took the prize on all those fronts.

It was one to the most meaningful weeks of recent American history.

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No, No, Nancy — Women Must Change the Power Paradigm or Never Progress

No, No, Nancy — Women Must Change the Power Paradigm or Never Progress Issue 76 — November 26, 2018 Dressed in angry orange from pantsuit to stilettos, Congresswoman and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) regally graces the cover of the November 25, 2018 issue of the New York Times Magazine. The caption is her quote from within the article, “No…

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Equal Doesn’t Mean Equal Yet but We’re One State Closer: the ERA, Lessons Learned, and The Story…

Image by Patrick Randak wearing the AlalaxEME collection to raise funds and awareness toward ratifying the ERA Issue 52 — June 1, 2018 Counterbalancing Roseanne Barr’s hideous racial slur, and on par with the good news of Starbuck’s anti-bias training for 180,000 employees in the US, the Illinois legislature voted to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment this week. The amendment’s…

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Start Your Own Game: Muriel “Mickie” Siebert — Leadership Lessons for Women from Wall Street

muriel

A few days ago, I went to the best funeral I’ve ever attended.

It’s unusual to say that about an occasion normally considered sad and somber. But the memorial service for Muriel “Mickie” Siebert, a well-known finance executive in the U.S. and the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, goes down in my book as a perfectly delightful send off.

Mickie founded her brokerage firm, Muriel Siebert & Co, Inc. which became part of Siebert Financial and went public in 1996. She also served as New York State’s Superintendent of Banking (referring to herself in her 2008 autobiography Changing the Rules as the S.O.B.). Mickie’s career has lessons for all women, no matter their occupation:

  • Have a dream and go for it.
  • Start your own game if those in power won’t let you into theirs — or even if they will but you prefer your vision of how things should be.
  • No matter how high you climb, help other women rise and keep them close to support you.
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