Courageous Women Can Make It To The Top!

In Margie Warrell’s Forbes.com article Can Women Do More To Make Their Way To The Top?, she addresses the lack of females in top executive positions and on the boards of Fortune 500 organizations. Whether in healthcare or finance, the female executive is still largely underrepresented. According to Warrell, “From where I stand, the light is now streaming through, despite the barriers women still face, and cracking that ceiling open once and for all will demand women to courageously challenge both the perspectives they bring into the workplace and the actions they are willing to take to grow their leadership ability.”  Warrell addresses three changes that must take place:

1. Mindset: a fundamental shift into a leader mindset
2. Capacity: intentionally cultivating habits that build resilience and grow leadership capacity
3. Courage: a willingness to step into difficult conversations with greater candor and boldness

Too often though, we allow the emotion of fear to keep us from engaging in the conversations needed to build value, manage expectations, address contentious issues, and expand our network of influence.