Bonnie Hagemann, Lisa Pent and their colleagues from the Women Execs on Boards network offer a collection of truly inspiring stories of the struggles that defined and shaped them as strong women leaders. All 36 women who share their experiences here participated in the Harvard Business School network program and are passionate about Hagemann and Pent’s cause: increasing gender parity in leadership roles worldwide.
Their stories expose the less glamorous side of success and demonstrate the strength women must muster to overcome adversity. These revealing narratives about how women leaders found strength and persevered will inspire readers to overcome obstacles in their path.
Take-Aways
- Successful women’s stories of triumph over adversity demonstrate important leadership lessons.
- Muster your courage to face the dangers of difficult but necessary jobs.
- Be resilient through change and setbacks.
- Adapt to new challenges as you forge a better path for others to follow.
- Pause and reflect to make sure you’re learning the right lessons.
- To grow as a leader, be vulnerable, authentic, honest and transparent.
- The hardships you face will teach you important leadership skills.
The story of Elaine
Environmental scientist Elaine Dorward-King learned how much her work as a leader benefited from having a network of trusted colleagues. She has been the director of several top global mining companies, including the Newmont Mining Corporation, Richards Bay Minerals and the Rio Tinto Group.
In addition, she led the mining industry’s efforts to develop conservation practices, improve sustainability in mining communities, and set world-class standards for health and safety.
How to grow as a leader
To grow as a leader, be vulnerable, authentic, honest, and transparent.
When you are a leader, people watch your every move, even in your most vulnerable moments. Embrace these moments and allow them to shape your growth.
The bottomline
The hardships you face will teach you important leadership skills.
These profiles offer a behind-the-scenes look at the painful side of falling down and an honest view of what it takes to get back up.
Women who share their courage, resilience, adaptability, strategic thinking and vulnerability provide a realistic, inspiring picture of the path to success. They demonstrate ways to power through your struggles, embrace your challenges, and consider the encouragement and energy your actions could spark in other women.
It’s OK to change your career path and to change companies to find a better fit, achieve a higher level or just to feel valued at a different level.
The Story Of Women in the workforce
Successful women’s stories of triumph over adversity demonstrate important leadership lessons.
Women lack representation in the top positions at companies and within industries across the global workforce. Those who do reach the top are in a unique position to provide mentoring and foster gender equity for other women on their way up.
Women’s stories of overcoming difficulties and crafting their own leadership path illuminate the qualities leaders need, including courage, resiliency, adaptability and vulnerability.
Looking Back
Pause and reflect to make sure you’re learning the right lessons.
Great leaders stop and calculate their actions during a conflict. They rely on information from other people to help them make sense of events around them. Their problem-solving skills offer important lessons, and one way you can learn those lessons is to build your own community of mentors.
Have a strong network in your organization, including above you, below you and, critically, parallel to you.
If you get knocked down or if you take a detour, you’re going to come back. Just put one foot in front of the other, and keep moving in the direction of your goal.
First Hand Harassment: The story of Lisa Pent
Author Lisa Pent, a client partner and head of diversity and inclusion in capital markets at Cognizant in New York, had to be brave as she learned to adapt to male-dominated Wall Street in the 1980s. Pent encountered gender discrimination on her first day at work. She wore a pantsuit to her Merrill Lynch office, and her boss ordered her to return home to “dress more appropriately.”
She faced additional misogyny, arrogance and sexist behavior.
