Personal Relationships

I like Friday the 13th.

Thirteen is a great number. Why?

First of all, my birthday is on the 13th, April 13th. Every once in a while it lands on a Friday, as it does this year, and I feel

“Everyone assumed that he had done all that work by himself — that’s what he wanted them to assume, but we were equal partners” –Dorothy Seymour Mills

Photo source: Dorothy Jane Mills

Dorothy Seymour Mills is one of the great baseball historians of all time. But you probably never heard of her.

Instead, she worked alongside her late husband, Harold Seymour. From 1960-1990; he received all the credit and did become famous in his field. Together they completed three of the earliest and most widely read books on baseball history.

First in the Field is Dorothy’s belated claim to her own life’s work. In it, she reveals her approach to baseball history, pervasive attitudes about woman interested in baseball, her reasons for finally demanding the credit she deserves so late in life and her struggle for recognition after her husband’s death.

The short eBook reads more like a research paper than a memoir. But then, the author is after all first and foremost a historical researcher. First in the Field moves through her personal and professional history much as an encyclopedia entry might, chronologically from fact to fact, event to event. Readers will not find much in the way of literary language: Dorothy’s narrative is told without literary flourish or thematic subtlety.

Yet despite the stylistic simplicity, or perhaps because of its straightforwardness and lack of pretense, the story will tug at the heartstrings of anyone who has experienced discrimination. And in recognition that one’s personal story is also political, Dorothy ties the personal injustices she faced to the widespread marginalization of women

Wow! Thanks, for sharing so many fabulous, and fabulously helpful, leadership lessons that you are thankful for! With the season of giving in full swing, here are more great gifts of wisdom shared by women leaders.

Want to give a gift to others? Post your leadership lesson in the comments section below.

And while you’re at it, post YOUR most burning leadership question for the New Year too…

This is an advice column where I’m supposed to answer your questions. But this Thanksgiving, I’m shaking things up in my life, so I turned the tables and asked some fabulous women leaders this question:

What leadership lesson are you most thankful for?

The outpouring of responses made me exceedingly grateful. Not a turkey among them.

Here with a Thanksgiving feast of delicious wisdom you can savor calorie-free—and use all year.

Saying grace (and listening to it)

Anita Sands last year at age 34 became COO of UBS Wealth Management Americas, and is one of the smartest and best grounded leaders I know. She credits her father with her most important leadership lesson: “common sense is not the common.” Not surprisingly, she then resonated with this advice:

My first boss when I was a young academic really trained me in how to “think”. The first thing he told me was that people who can find the answers are a dime a dozen but people who know what are the right questions to ask are really valuable. So I’ve always tried to employ that skill as a leader – am I asking the right questions, what question is not being asked in the room.

For the first year in over a decade, my husband Alex and I won’t be with our large blended and extended family in Arizona. We’ll miss them, sure. And we’ll miss family traditions, like debating whether Alex’s white bread stuffing or my cornbread dressing is better. Then there’s my daughter’s insistence that we serve the green jello mold my mother used to make, the one that packs more calories and cholesterol into anything else you’ve ever called “salad.”

This just seemed like a good year to shake things up. Perhaps it’s the influence of unpredicted social changes like Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street that are shaking up the political world. (Read my recent post on what OWS has accomplished.) Or maybe it’s simply that we felt we were getting into a rut…

I can’t wait to read Joanne Tombrakos’s new and first novel, The Secrets They Kept and you are going to see why below. After reading Joanne’s story, I think you’ll join me in running out to buy her book. At least I hope so.

Joanne and I met at an 85 Broads breakfast a couple of years ago when we shared our stories of making purposeful life transitions. I’ve admired her writing on her blog ever since. And just look at how she’s applied the 9 Ways Power Tools!

When Gloria Feldt extended the invitation for me to be profiled in this column I quickly accepted. And who wouldn’t? After all this was Gloria Feldt. Best selling author and activist for whom I hold such high esteem.

I was honored. I was excited. Until the waves of nausea washed over me. What was I doing that was worthy of a profile in this column? Certainly not curing cancer or feeding the starving in Africa.

Not a particularly commanding statement when invited to write on a blog whose subject matter is about women and power.

But forced, as I have been to think about it, the truth is I am doing it. My way…

I know I said this column would explore what we can learn about leadership from the presidential candidates’ endless mud-wrestling on our television screens these days. That’s a fascinating analysis I’ll get to eventually—we’ll have plenty of time since the election is still fourteen months away!

But when I realized I’d be writing this column on September 14, the birthday of a significant mentor in my life, I chose instead to focus on the most important leadership lesson I learned from her…

I still have my Girl Scout badge sash and a newspaper article about the year my father chaired the cookie sale in Temple, TX. I was in junior high school and looked pretty dorky in the photo, wearing my full green regalia. Daddy–never one to do anything in a small way–bought 12 dozen boxes of cookies. The freezer was packed with Thin Mints and those butter cookies I love with tea, and my friends knew what they’d be having for snacks at my house for the next year.

But enough of that. Today’s Girl Scouts are doing much more interesting things. “She’s Doing It” this week features Barbara Strachan, the Program Director of Girl Scouts Beyond Bars (GSBB) for the Arizona Cactus-Pine Girl Scout Council

A “Heartfeldt” THANK YOU to everyone who read and commented on my virgin column on leadership at BlogHer Career. Your lively responses, challenges, and questions affirm that leadership issues are high on the agenda.

Fork in the Road courtesy of Debra Condren, author of "Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word"

Hands down the hottest topic in questions this past two weeks was mentoring. Such as:

What’s the relationship between mentoring and fostering leadership capacity in women? Mentoring compared to sponsorship? How do you get a mentor and cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship? How to lead, mentor, and retain high performing employees? How to get a mentor or be a mentor when you’re a consultant or an entrepreneurial business of one?

Great questions all, threading into two major categories around which there are many stories and studies to share:

Madge Woods was a mediator and at a networking event, a woman asked her if she would like to mentor a parolee. The program was called “VIP Volunteers in Parole” and was then funded through the California State Bar Association. While Madge is not a lawyer, she was told they wanted her anyway and she agreed.

Her first parolee, in her words was “a disaster” and eventually after three years Madge “learned her lesson and moved on” and then she met LaKeisha Burton.

As I wrap up my next HeartFeldt Leadership BlogHer column on this very same subject, it is their touching story written by Madge I’m honored to share on this week’s She’s Doing It.