I think we can agree on three things.
1. You are incredibly intelligent.
2. You are female.
3. The world isn’t yet ready for 1 & 2 together.
Here’s what I know.
Your intelligence creates some amazing dynamics - you don’t need to experience things ten times to figure them out. Once and you’re quickly able to master something.
Among your actual peers there aren’t many equals. You stand out and you know it. It’s easy to see. To everyone.
But that will create occasions where your peers will feel threatened. That’s not the time to engage them. You’ll want to hit it directly. Make them face their stress and overcome it. That’s because that’s what I’ve taught you to do. But they can’t and won’t do it. And you need to understand this.
Walls go up. Narratives are shared. Soon you’re the scapegoat and the source of the problems in whatever group you find yourself in.
You’ll be tempted to reach out to a higher authority, only to find out they’re conditioned to make you look internally at what you can do better. And this is a good lesson to learn. People will want to fix you more than they’ll want to fix systems.
The lesson here is two-fold: a) to learn which battles to fight, and b) to learn how to fight them in a way to win.
Rarely is the direct route the way to go. Rarely. So rare that it should never come up as your initial strategy.
So let’s back up for a second. Of all the battles to fight, which ones are worth pursuing?
It’s not often the ones you feel like fighting. Your feelings will betray you. “Go with your gut,” is only good advice if you’ve trained your gut. Otherwise it’s a poor indicator of which battles to fight.
You have a strong sense of injustice which leads to your desire to right each wrong. But you weren’t placed on this Earth to right every wrong. And if you burn your energy on the wrong fight, you won’t be ready when it counts.
So how do you know which battles are worth fighting? Let’s take a few of the fights off the table.
1. Something bothers you. That’s how life works. There is no setting, now or later, where you’ll never be bothered. Develop an ability to thrive even when you’re bothered.
2. Someone isn’t listening to you. Again, this world isn’t ready for you. Treat this as a puzzle to be solved. How can you get your message across even if it doesn’t come out of your lips? Can you get others to champion your ideas? It’s amazing how much you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit.
3. You’re being disrespected. I know, you’re shocked because this one pushes your buttons and you likely thought I’d tell you this was one to fight.
Your job is to figure out how to gain respect without demanding it.
I once allowed 12 men - older and far more senior than I - to yell at me for something I didn’t do. Instead of fighting back, I took copious notes. They were mad, but not really mad at me. After 10 minutes that felt like 2 hours, one of them realized that I was taking notes and that they were ganging up on a kid (I was 26). He apologized. Then 11 others did too. One by one. And they all learned my name. I can’t tell you how many doors that opened later.
So which fights should you fight?
1. Fight for your integrity. If someone asks you to cheat, lie or steal, that’s a place to take a stand. You won’t be able to create any leadership context after you’ve lost your integrity.
2. Fight for the folks you lead. Protect them and create opportunities for them. It is work to do this when you don’t feel seen or appreciated, but it will pay off. And it’s a righteous fight - your team will embrace your leadership because of it.
3. Fight against injustice when it’s widespread and it’s impact goes beyond your context. I’m not talking about the injustice I referenced above - you and/or your friends getting disrespected. If people are doing something wrong that affects your whole team, other teams, and your clients - then that’s worthy of a fight.
Now we get to the crux of the matter - how to have the fight.
There was a time in this country when women didn’t have the right to vote. You know who gave them the right? Men.
There was a time in this country when Black people didn’t have the right to vote. You know who gave them the right? White people.
If you can’t figure out how to get your cause lifted and moved forward by allies, then you haven’t figured out how to have the fight the right way.
Remember, I told you the direct fight is rarely ever the right way. Indirect fights, leveraging “insiders,” is normally the best and fastest way to win.
But that means, and you know what I’m going to say here, you have to figure out the right narrative to engage and encourage them. You making an eloquent argument won’t cut it. It won’t be nearly eloquent enough.
I started this by telling you the world wasn’t ready for you. It likely never will be. Sucks but it’s true. The challenge for you is to navigate it and make it yours, without ever seeming to be in control.
Learning how not to push buttons will be equally as important as developing your other leadership skills.
Every classroom you’re in, every team at work you’re on, every context you find yourself in will feel imperfect, and unjust. No one asked you to fix the dynamic.
Unless you have a job title with a “C” as the first initial (CFO, CTO, COO, CEO), you’re likely not there to change the culture. It’s incredibly important that you realize this and not paint a target on your back simply because you didn’t think strategically about how to navigate the situation you find yourself in.
Tonight we talked about a situation where you felt you had the right answer and weren’t being listened to. I know the feeling. It made you boil. I get it.
But here’s the last thing I’ll leave you with. What if you’re wrong? What if, regardless of how sure you were that you had the right answer, you only had limited exposure to some of the complexity of the situation. There will always be easy answers to complex problems that are incorrect.
You’ve been in a situation once or twice. It doesn’t make you an expert. There’s a chance that the situation is more complex and your answer is not only too simple but also wrong.
It’s hard to know if you’re not being listened to because you are right and a smart girl, or because you’re not as experienced as you feel you are and you’re wrong.
Imagine you have one of those six shooters. Six bullets. You can afford to have a fight over stuff six times. It means you have to think carefully about whether this fight is worthy of one of your six bullets.
Go slow. Be patient. And consider wisely whether the battle you’re about to step into is the right one, and worthy of one of your bullets.