🎉 Celebrating 90 Women Leaders with 10 Career Lessons
Investing in Growth this International Women's Month
This International Women’s Month, I’m celebrating a milestone — 90 women leaders interviewed for The Switchboard. As I reflected on my learnings, I summarized 10 leadership lessons from my conversations. These impactful quotes deliver career lessons for all. Here’s the top 10 list by leader:
🙋 Ask the Dumb Questions: Cynthia Horiguchi
💚 Make People Feel Seen: Claude Silver
🥅 Be a Goal Champion: Farrah Mitra
⁉️ Ask For What You Want: Jennifer Levine
🌲 Focus on The Big Picture: Carmen Boon
🧱 Build Relationships Before You Need Them: Elizabeth Rasberry
🧑✈️ Say Yes to Opportunities: Holly Nicola
🎩 Wear All the Hats: Brooke Kruger
🎇 Embrace Your Superpowers: Julie Inouye
🎤 Stand Firm with Conviction: Emily Singer Mandel
1. 🙋 Ask the Dumb Questions: Cynthia Horiguchi
In communications, I really like that we get to learn about so many different topics. I often tell people that my job is to “ask smart people dumb questions.”I also half-joke that my ignorance is part of the value I add. If something doesn't make sense to me – as a comms person who lives and breathes our story – then it’s not going to make sense to the outside world.
2. 💚 Make People Feel Seen: Claude Silver
Our job as leaders is to turn other people into heroes and leaders. It's about helping them find themselves so that they can help others do the same and be the best versions of themselves. Ultimately, as a leader, your job is to show up in a way that makes other people feel better and feel seen.
3. 🥅 Be a Goal Champion: Farrah Mitra
I think of executive coaching as being a thought-partner to people. The people who I work with hold the content of their goals and challenges. I bring the right questions, frameworks and tools to help them achieve their goals.
4. ⁉️ Ask For What You Want: Jennifer Levine
If you go in with confidence and honesty, you can learn new things on the job and take on projects outside of your scope. Have the guts and ask for what you want. This also empowered our relationship too as I worked with a senior executive and delivered.
5. 🌲 Focus on The Big Picture: Carmen Boon
It’s very important to look at the forest from the trees. My communications training in city government gave me the ability to have a sense of risk assessment and trained me to always look at the big picture, something many communicators take for granted.
6. 🧱 Build Relationships Before You Need Them: Elizabeth Rasberry
You can’t just sit at your desk and write, you’ve got to pick up the phone, ask questions, have virtual coffees now, to find out about their department. It might not be until months later that you tap into that relationship but keep in touch to be able to reach out when the time is right.
7. 🧑✈️ Say Yes to Opportunities: Holly Nicola
I said yes to every opportunity that was in front of me. I took on many special assignments including a production crew member for our company-wide summits with our Learning and Development team, a choreographer for our Pride Parade with the Employee Experience team, and eventually an administrative assistant role where I worked with leaders every day.
8. 🎩 Wear All the Hats: Brooke Kruger
You also have to be able to have the attitude and willingness to do it all — you can bring in support when needed, but you always want to be a master of your craft, and not too far removed that you can't pick up the phone to call a reporter or do a quick brief with an executive. You need to be strategic and tactical — always willing to execute when necessary. If you were called upon, could you do the work you’re asking someone else to do?
9. 🎇 Embrace Your Superpowers: Julie Inouye
My advice is to take a moment to really understand and embrace your natural superpowers. What are your natural passions? What are the things that make you most proud? What do you find yourself doing even when nobody's looking? If you can align those natural gifts with whatever career path you take, be it in comms or not, you’ve hit the career jackpot.
10. 🎤 Stand Firm with Conviction: Emily Singer Mandel
The ability to influence people is incredibly important. As part of that, you should be able to add to good ideas, but don’t be afraid to push back on ideas that won’t work. It’s really important with executives — you may feel like the most junior person in the room, but you are entrusted to help this leader communicate. You have the responsibility to push back if it’s going in the wrong direction.
Join me in celebrating these stories and investing in your growth by sharing this post, giving it a heart or forwarding it to a friend. Signing off for this edition — Julia