Leadership
Friday Round Up: DADT Away Yay! Edition
About 40 years ago, someone close to me told me she was involved with another woman and asked me how I felt about that. “I don’t know,” I replied. That was my honest answer at the time. You see, this “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) business has been around for a long time. Nobody asked, nobody told, nobody really talked at all about sexual orientation with me as a heterosexual woman, and certainly not in the social justice and human rights context as I now understand them to be.
But change can happen. This week I joined many other Americans, gay and straight, to celebrate the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” an event that culminates decades of LGBTQ movement building and educating people like me about the fundamental fairness and justice of ending discrimination based on sexual orientation. It’s not the end of the battle, but certainly a great milestone. This Friday Round Up is a tribute to the end of an unjust and unworkable policy on gays in the military, with particular emphasis on its impact on women…
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Jane Roberts – 34 Million Friends Still Going Strong
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2wr6WONEBU[/youtube]
In today’s fast-paced world of social media, having a lot of friends has become a status symbol but what if you were looking for 34 Million Friends? In this week’s She’s Doing It, activist & author Jane Roberts, co-founder of the 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is doing just that and their efforts are still going strong.
Roberts has dedicated her life to women’s access to education, health and human rights. Her work includes teaching about reproductive health and family planning, surviving childbirth, the prevention of STDs, avoiding HIV/AIDS as well as the prevention of gender-based violence. The fund, co-founded by Roberts and activist Lois Abraham, is a grassroots movement that has supported health initiatives since 2002…
Friday Round Up: Inspiring Women and Taking Leadership NOW
Greetings from Tucson, I couldn’t be more excited to be here today to keynote the 2011 Annual YWCA’s Women’s Leadership Conference on my favorite topic, No Excuses and doing a brief workshop on the 9 Ways Power tools with about 400 women.
I’m honored to be tag-teaming with the inspiring Shoshana Johnson, the first African American female prisoner of war (POW) of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Plus, we were Glamour Women of the Year honorees together in 2003! I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.
Thursday was a big day as I was getting ready for Tucson…
Read MoreHeartfeldt Leadership: What’s the #1 Leadership Attribute?
I know I said this column would explore what we can learn about leadership from the presidential candidates’ endless mud-wrestling on our television screens these days. That’s a fascinating analysis I’ll get to eventually—we’ll have plenty of time since the election is still fourteen months away!
But when I realized I’d be writing this column on September 14, the birthday of a significant mentor in my life, I chose instead to focus on the most important leadership lesson I learned from her…
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Manisha Thakor & “MONEYZEN”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxQvK9BxoCc[/youtube]
This isn’t the first time you’ve seen Manisha Thakor on my website. But when I happened to catch her recent Emmy-worthy appearance on the NBC Today Show, I knew it was clearly time to touch base with her again. She has new and wonderful things on the horizon…
Read MoreSaturday Round Up: Obama Sees Women's Economic Power in Jobs Speech
The big presidential “Jobs Speech” has been delivered, and Obama’s now on the road to garner support.
Expectations were high for this speech. The most important takeaway from my perspective was that Obama’s passion had returned, and his energy was higher than we’ve seen in a long while. Finally, after years of tossing the agenda setting responsibility to a Congress functionally unable to lead, he presented a specific proposal and exhorted Congress in no uncertain terms: “Pass this jobs bill.” Thank goodness. Even the Republicans responded with a more respectful and measured rhetoric afterward. This week’s Round Up offers a selection of pieces that respond to the speech. What did you think about it? Please share…
Read MoreShe's Doing It: Barbara Strachan Gives Girls of Incarcerated Moms Hope
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
Read MoreFriday Round Up: Good News About Women and Power Edition
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jws-zl7q-0[/youtube]Yesterday afternoon I went to the Women’s Media Center office in New York to do a short video interview about the future of feminism. This set me to thinking once again about how much unused power women have in our hands, as I continue my search for the practical power tools and tips that can help us get past our resistance to power…
Read MoreThe Joys (and Occasional Challenges) of Mentoring and Sponsoring
A “Heartfeldt” THANK YOU to everyone who read and commented on my virgin column on leadership at BlogHer Career. Your lively responses, challenges, and questions affirm that leadership issues are high on the agenda.
[caption id="attachment_5338" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Fork in the Road courtesy of Debra Condren, author of "Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word""]
[/caption]
Hands down the hottest topic in questions this past two weeks was mentoring. Such as:
What’s the relationship between mentoring and fostering leadership capacity in women? Mentoring compared to sponsorship? How do you get a mentor and cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship? How to lead, mentor, and retain high performing employees? How to get a mentor or be a mentor when you’re a consultant or an entrepreneurial business of one?
Great questions all, threading into two major categories around which there are many stories and studies to share:
Read MoreShe’s Doing It: Madge and LaKeisha
Madge Woods was a mediator and at a networking event, a woman asked her if she would like to mentor a parolee. The program was called “VIP Volunteers in Parole” and was then funded through the California State Bar Association. While Madge is not a lawyer, she was told they wanted her anyway and she agreed.
Her first parolee, in her words was “a disaster” and eventually after three years Madge “learned her lesson and moved on” and then she met LaKeisha Burton.
As I wrap up my next HeartFeldt Leadership BlogHer column on this very same subject, it is their touching story written by Madge I’m honored to share on this week’s She’s Doing It.