Enough Is Enough: Leading With Equity in 2025 and Beyond For Success

Demi Moore in her recent Golden Globes acceptance speech for best actress for her performance in “The Substance,” said: “In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough, I had a woman say to me, ‘Know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’”

As a leader, it is crucial that you do not do that to yourself or to anyone on your team. Whether you are an entrepreneur working solo, or a colleague leading a team, it is important to know not only your worth, but the worth of building, supporting, maintaining and uplifting a broadly inclusive team honoring equity across all categories. Each person is enough and offers valuable contributions, so together it is an equation for success.

Change LeadershipMichele WeldonJanuary 10, 2025DEI, Leadership PositionsComment

Just Do It: 10 Ways to Make 2025 Your Best Leadership Year Yet

It’s a new year, new dawn, new day, but are you feeling good?

For 10 years, Take The Lead has been working to reach the goal of gender and racial parity in leadership across all sectors. So much progress is visible and palpable. But it isn’t all equal just yet.

Knowing that all change begins with each one of us, the suggestion is to take the time to set priorities to make 2025 a breakthrough year personally and professionally. By naming and reaching for these milestones with deliberate intention and action, you improve yourself and set a roadmap for colleagues, management, leaders, supporters and those you mentor.

Changing the WorkplaceMichele WeldonJanuary 3, 2025New Years resolution, parity 2025Comment

Joy To The Workplace: 10 Ways To Bring Happiness in The Front Door This Season

Whether or not you celebrate the holidays, it is undeniable that most of the world around you at work and in your personal life do. While you may not be humming the lyrics to “Joy To The World” every morning, noon and night, it may be in your best interest to seek out the joy this season and cultivate a work culture that oozes happiness. Or at least a genuine smile.

“Being joyful at work is crucial for mental health and overall well-being. Joyful individuals often experience lower stress levels, improved mental resilience, and stronger interpersonal relationships, says the expert,” psychologist Dr Neha Dutt tells Healthshots.

Listen, Hear: 10 Best Podcasts For Women’s Leadership & Why

Lots of choices and options are good, but when you have close to 4.2 million podcasts around the world to pick from, which ones are best for you as a busy person interested in women’s business, leadership and entrepreneurship topics?

Take The Lead has selected 10 of the best podcasts for women—by women—that you can spend your time listening to—while doing other things, so you can be the multitasker you are. With a range of shows aimed at different generations, fields and identities, this list can perhaps validate choices you already made or introduce you to others you may not have known.

Media, Women Career SuccessMichele WeldonDecember 13, 2024Podcast, Women LeadersComment

Free Up To Calm Down: 10 Ways To Restore Yourself, Your Workplace Now

It’s been a lot. The stressful developments of the past several months from political campaigns, the election and catastrophic global conflicts, to natural disasters have caused distress and disruption for anyone and everyone, regardless of politics.

The 2024 American Psychiatric Association report shows 70% of adults in this country “are particularly anxious about current events.”

Add in the requirements individuals bear for the holidays at work and at home, as well as end of the year presentations, reports and projections, and there is an equation leading to burnout. Add in the disparities of race and gender in culture and the workplace, and it may seem insurmountable. But it is possible to transcend the discord with strategies to stay calm—and productive.

Career successMichele WeldonDecember 5, 2024stress, Leaders, HolidaysComment

10 Reasons To Give To Take The Lead Now: How Your Gift Powers The Future

In 10 years of operation, under the visionary direction of co-founder and president Gloria Feldt, Take The Lead has accomplished immeasurable successes and influenced directly hundreds of thousands of people.

On this Giving Tuesday, Take The Lead is shouting out 10 of its greatest programs and resources, so you can see exactly what and how your generosity powers a path to a future of gender equity in leadership across all industries and organizations. There are so many more reasons to support Take the Lead, but this is a solid guide to what your giving enables to continue long into the future.

Michele WeldonNovember 27, 2024Comment

Wealth Fitness: Golden Seeds Co-CEO Loretta McCarthy Funds Women Entrepreneurs' Dreams

“It’s like health fitness; it is wealth fitness. Many women know they will be fully responsible financially for themselves,” says Loretta McCarthy, co-ceo, and managing partner of Golden Seeds, LLC, an investor consortium that invests in early-stage, women-led businesses.

Managing the nationwide network of nearly 300 angel investors, McCarthy has been with Golden Seeds for 20 years and in that time, “We have invested in 253 companies with $185 million from 1,100 investors,” she says.

Career successMichele WeldonNovember 14, 2024Entrepreneurship, women in leadership, Women In BusinessComment

Read Up: Top 10 Books in 2024 On Women, Power, Justice, Equity, History, Culture & More

Every year Take The Lead dives into select and recommended nonfiction books that further the mission of Take The Lead for its 10 years of driving gender and racial equity. As this is the season of reading, giving and swapping books, here are 10 titles published in 2024 (in alphabetical order by author last name) we suggest and why.

These books cover history, popular culture, politics, sports, COVID, feminism, aging, health and memoir from a range of women authors across race, generations, identity, experiences and points of view.

Michele WeldonNovember 8, 2024Comment

Safe At Work: How To Lead During Election Season With Fairness and Civility

In this highly fractious and divisive political culture, as a leader, it is essential to create a workplace environment that is absent of negativity and hate that exist outside the organization surrounding the election.

Guaranteeing that the workplace culture is safe physically and emotionally not just on voting day, but in upcoming weeks and months over a possibly contested outcome is a top priority. And one that exists whether the workplace is virtual or in-person. Decreasing political anxiety at work is the goal.

Tools and TipsMichele WeldonOctober 31, 2024Election Day, Workplace Advice, Workplace CultureComment

Scary, But Worth The Risk: 10 Leaders Share Why & How You Risk To Win

Some may find the scary business of Halloween entertaining, but in real life, entrepreneurship and business shifts are also scary and risky-- and maybe not so fun. Here 10 top leaders share how the discomfort of risk is worth it all and why.

For Take The Lead’s 10-year anniversary, we are offering a treasure chest of insights and strategies from Take The Lead’s co-founder, allies, colleagues, friends and business associates in an array of fields and disciplines. With the latest research and data on how women value risk and how that impacts financial behaviors, we can hopefully and helpfully deliver a path to turning risk into reality.

Many Possible Futures: 10 Ways To Use Your Power To Change The World Now

Change is going to come --not by itself but when you take action.

Looking to the upcoming close of the calendar year, the end of the quarter and what you have the capacity and intention to do now to make changes professionally and personally is worth your time.

As Take The Lead celebrates 10 years of successful and meaningful work toward the mission of achieving gender and racial parity across multiple sectors, through a wide variety of platforms, programs and events, it is appropriate to apply the finite measure of 10 to strategies you can use today for yourself.

Career successMichele WeldonOctober 18, 2024career path, career goals, Power To YouComment

Be The Best Leader Following Disasters: Strategies To Rebuild Workplaces For Recovery

Hurricane Helene last month and Hurricane Milton this month serve as reminders to every American just how much climate change and natural disasters affect lives—work lives as well as home lives. In many cases, everything must be rebuilt.

Beyond hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes and earthquakes also disrupt and destroy businesses and workplaces forcing leaders to have a plan ready for emergencies that benefit employees hit by these disasters.

So how can you be a great leader following devastation so your employees, colleagues, managers, clients, suppliers and administrators can press restart?

Community BuildingMichele WeldonOctober 11, 2024Leadership, worker rightsComment

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