Issue 195— March 28, 2022
The first time I gave a speech where I said “Be bold and carry out!” was to an audience of probably 1000 or so at the annual conference of WICT, Women In Cable Telecommunications. Smart, ambitious, accomplished women. And yet they still held no more than 20% of the top leadership positions in their industry.
Read MoreIssue 194 — March 21, 2022
That’s a no-brainer, right? But I’m serious. Studies have shown that women lose between $400,000 and over $1,000,000 cumulatively over a lifetime of work in comparison with men in equal jobs with equal experience. You deserve to be paid fairly and equally to others with your qualifications.
Equal Pay Day was March 15 this year. Saying that women make on average 83 cents to men’s $1 is an oversimplification because there are huge variances based on race and ethnicity.
Read MoreIssue 193 — March 14, 2022
It’s progress to be sure that March 15 marks Equal Pay Day 2022. Women now earn 83% of what men earn for matched full time work.
Last year the annual recognition of when U.S. women had to work into 2021 before they earned what men earned what men did in just 12 months of 2020 occurred on March 24. The year before that, the day was March 31.
Read MoreIssue 192 — March 8, 2022
My heart clutched as I watched Stephanie Ruhle interview Ukrainian Member of Parliament Kira Rudik on “The 11th Hour.”
I urge you to watch it a few times, not to become fearful but to observe how she speaks powerfully AND with empathy, humanity, and courage. These characteristics are what I mean when I say she leads like a woman.
Read MoreIssue 191 — February 21, 2022
If you were eagerly awaiting the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That,” perhaps you were one of many who concluded that you can’t go home again and expect it to be a satisfying visit.
I loved the iconic television series back in the day. Yet I can see that trying to update it while maintaining the elements that made it so much fun in its first go-round was an impossible task. Because its current iteration takes place in a culture chastened by a pandemic and awakened to deep seated racial injustice that makes the whiteness of the original four female friends, especially in one of the world’s most diverse cities, seem so out of place.
Read MoreIssue 190 — February 7, 2022
Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project said it like this: “At some point when you have proven yourself and fought your way into institutions that were not built for you, when you’ve proven you can compete and excel at the highest level, you have to decide that you are done forcing yourself in,” she writes in her statement explaining why she left the University of North Carolina after an acrimonious but ultimately successful tenure battle to take the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at Howard University.
Read MoreYes, there is a Rosa Parks signature series Barbie doll, Ella Fitzgerald Barbie (who comes with a standing microphone), Ida B. Wells Barbie with a newspaper in her hand, as well as Katherine Johnson (with an ID badge around her neck) and Maya Angelou Barbies, each in the collector series costing about $30.
Read MoreIssue 189— January 17, 2022
I honestly can’t believe that my column on January 18, 2021, recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday barely struck the alarm it deserved.
How could I not have drawn brightly the profound contrast between Dr. King’s exhortations to Civil Rights movement activists to hold nonviolent protests and last year’s January 6 violent breech of the Capitol?
Read MoreIssue 188 — January 3, 2021
🎆Happy New Year! What are you Intentioning for your life and leadership this brave new year of 2022? 🎆What will this year mean for you? 🎆What first step will you take to go from ambition to Intention to done?
Read MoreIssue 187 — December 20, 2021
Just when we thought it was safe to go into the water…or to the theater, to the office, inside the restaurant, to have our family and friends together for holidays…maybe even to feel comfortable taking our masks off — everything changed again.
Read MoreIssue 186 — December 6, 2021
Dr. Harbeen Arora enters a full room of women leaders from around the world. She lightly clangs a spoon against a teacup. Immediately, attention focuses on this petite woman, whose passion fuels her intention for global gender equality. Soft spoken and eminently gracious, she calls one by one on the G100 global chairs and then country chairs eager to join in her bold vision; she aims to mobilize a global network of powerful women and men who support the effort to turn the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #5, to “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls” by 2030 from rhetoric to reality.
Read MoreIssue 185 — November 22, 2021
Before holiday season gatherings (in person or virtual — please stay safe), I’m taking a moment to say how grateful I am for all we have accomplished together despite pandemic-induced setbacks. Seriously, it has been amazing to look back at 2021 and realize that thanks entirely to your support, Take The Lead has provided over 10,000 women with resources and actionable tools to navigate career challenges and changes. You helped us help women rethink, refresh, retool, or revise their career intentions. And those are just the ones we can count.
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