How to step up and have anything but a normal career

You know, I get that change is hard. But it’s also inevitable. The world in which today’s young “will make choices and compose lives is one of disruption rather than certainty,” argues this report.

Indeed, when I started my current job, there was much disruption. In the beginning, it was the challenge of transitioning from being an employee to running an organization. Of being lonely. Of complete work/life distortion.

And when I say challenge, I am being polite, because what I really mean is not all unlike the walk of shame after a particularly rowdy and untoward night of college drinking. That is, what exactly did I get myself in to?

Lately, it’s been an entirely different type of challenge - that of being in limbo because the responsibility and possibility of it all paralyzes me more than I’m willing to admit.

Because, really, given the opportunity to change the world, would you take it? We all think we would, but it is so very hard to look in the face of what you truly want and take it. It is so very hard to fight the war of what really matters.

So Generation Y isn’t always stepping up. And those that do, often think about stepping right back down. Because unless you’re in the fight to make change, it’s difficult to know how ridiculously hard it is. I thought that this might have just been me, that maybe I’m just not cut out for all this leadership change stuff. But I recently met with a thirty-one year old vice-president. She told me no, we’re all neurotic. Really. Neurotic was her word.

“This next year will probably be one of your hardest,” she said. “But you know and I know, once you’ve tasted this, you can’t turn back.”

I think about her words on the days that I don’t want to strategize, or build encampments, or be so obsessed with seeing a CEO or colleague or client on the street that I spend fifteen minutes trying to look vaguely presentable before going to Walgreens just to buy some toilet paper. Really. Some days, I just want to buy toilet paper in peace. Some days, I just want to be normal.

“Being normal,” Hercules replied, “gets you a middle-class life in the suburbs. It’s fifth place, and you know you want to be in first.” All successful people then are understandably eccentric. They take risks that normal people wouldn’t.

There’s this thing about risks though. It’s easy to sign up, but it’s the follow-through that’s hard, the follow-through that decides your character.

Like when I went skydiving two weeks ago (here and here). I wasn’t nervous. Honestly. They tell you to get nervous because if you’re not, you’ll freak out when the door opens at twelve thousand feet. So I was trying to be nervous, but I just wasn’t.

But in skydiving, eventually the plane does fly up to twelve thousand feet, and the door does open. When that happened, my tandem instructor put my hand out into the wind. “That’s not so bad, is it?” he asked. No, I nodded; it wasn’t so bad. I was a rockstar, invincible to anything and everything. I was a rockstar, that is, until we moved to the edge of the plane and I had to put one foot out into the air. It was then that I thought oh, holy crap, I can’t do this. What have I gotten myself into?

That’s the moment, see. Where you have to muster strength from somewhere you didn’t know you had. The moment where you face all your fears. It’s only a split-second in skydiving. Literally. A split-second where you decide if you’re going to smile or cry. Move forward or turn back. Jump or freak out.

When you’re pushing adulthood, however, it can last months. It’s easy to say you’re going to do something. It’s easy to be eager with words. Actions are much harder. That pesky day in and day out stuff.

Like putting down the potato chips and going to the gym. Or not taking things personally when it would be so easy to join the fray. Or putting down your guard, opening yourself up, and then – and this may be even more difficult – letting someone else in.

“It’s the hardest thing in the world, to do what we want,” this character says. “And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want. Because it’s such a big responsibility – really to want something.”

Oh, and in case you were wondering… I jumped. With a smile on my face.

Risk normalcy.

The most important thing for a decision in politics

Today, I wore a sweatshirt at the same table as someone wearing a suit. Today, I had lunch with someone who I like. He’s intelligent, successful, good-looking. Today, I had lunch with someone who listens to my ideas, and doesn’t agree with me all that much. I respect that.

So, it shouldn’t have surprised me that today, I had lunch with someone who isn’t voting for Barack Obama.

And yet, never has my stomach risen to my heart so violently after eating just a regular ole’ hummus sandwich.

My whole body wanted to reach out and envelop him in all that is Obama.

If this sounds a bit hysterical, it should be.

Unity is not easy. Hope is not rational.

And as much as we’d like it to be, neither is politics.

It would be easy for me to argue for an Obama candidacy on the basis of the issues. I’ve researched those. And if I were voting on issues alone, settling for any one candidate would prove to be easy, because any one candidate is remarkably similar to the next.

But I’m not voting on issues alone.

I’m voting on something entirely more powerful.

That is, the first feeling you get - your gut instinct – which, as it turns out, is remarkably accurate.

We are highly instinctive creatures. We know how to read people and situations for survival, for love, and for power.

A recent study looking at the faces of successful CEOs proves it. The “experiment lends support to a growing argument among psychologists who study decision-making that when people come to quick conclusions without much information, their decisions are often good ones.”

Our human instinct is among our greatest strengths.

It’s why a woman can tell within the first five to ten minutes of meeting a man whether or not she will sleep with him.

It’s why Ryan Healy spent months going over idea after idea for his new company, only to return to his original thought.

It’s why individuals who hone the gift of fear - the most primal of all instincts - are able to save their own lives.

You cannot hide from instinct.

Across the ocean, there are those who use their instinct just like we do, and will look at Barack Obama and notice “first and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy,” argues Andrew Sullivan.

In fact, everything you need to know about Barack Obama is available in his face – his authenticity, first and foremost, and then the change he wishes to create, as well as his imperfections as a leader, husband and father, and his great hope for this country, his wife, and his daughters.

It is for this reason that Generation Y and Generation X have embraced Obama like none other. We know that “authenticity is not the product of manipulation. It accurately reflects aspects of the leader’s inner self, so it can’t be an act,” just as Harvard Business Online reports.

And yet, we have to be weary. Instinct is easily muddied. It can be dragged through lies and panic and deception, much like the sludge seen on the streets of Madison, WI after blizzard, upon winter storm warning, upon wind advisory.

You can call your instinct an evolutionary reaction, or maybe your soul, Nature, the Universe, your heart, or perhaps even God helping you throughout life, but don’t ignore it. Protect it. Learn to trust it.

Know yourself better than anything or anyone to change the world.

My instinct is that Barack Obama is the leader to unite this great country. You don’t have to agree with my gut, but I urge you to listen to your own.

Yes We Can.

Generation Y is too quiet, too conservative

I was sitting in a classroom. The walls were covered in plaster and moldings, but behind all that was red brick, so red that the color seeped through the cracks of the old windows, and the sun, and the light, and the energy filled the almost summer air.

It was a time when I was - more or less - happy, and we were seated, twenty or twenty-five of us. Our desks outlined a jagged circle, and I was trying not to check out the young man three desks to the right, because I was still dating my first real boyfriend, trying to make it work from four hours away.

We sat and spoke of our beliefs, the environment, of possibilities. It was the discussion I had come to college for. One that I had looked forward to since the movie Dead Poet’s Society. One that I thought I would have again and again when I moved into my own apartment someday, with paint on the floor and ink stained on my fingers, groups of friends visiting at all hours. Rules would be broken, the establishment dismantled, dreams fulfilled.

But soon, too soon, the imagination of the discussion in that classroom petered out like a mandatory orgasm. And we didn’t stay long after either, filing out of the room like an Orwellian army.

No yelling, no protest, no change. Not even the slightest smell of melodrama lingered in the air.

That was the day that I learned we weren’t like other generations. And it wasn’t all gravy.

Thomas Friedman calls this phenomenon - our generation - quiet. Too quiet, in fact. Penelope Trunk calls us conservative. Not like politically conservative, but lifestyle conservative. As in none of us, except me I guess, are found in dark corners balling our eyes out. Generation Y is balanced like vanilla. Idealism with a cherry on top.

You know, that’s not all bad either, contrary to my sarcasm-infused tone. We’re vanilla vocally because we mainly agree on things. It’s not like the Vietnam war, or women getting the vote, or abolishing slavery where there were clear sides, right or wrong, multiple or few . You know, like, opinions - impassioned and defining.

We don’t really have opinions much anymore. We have beliefs. Opinions are contested. Beliefs are “the acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something,” and offensive to question.

These beliefs include that global warming is a problem. The Iraq war sucks. We should all be treated equal. We’re nodding our heads in unison like bobble heads lined up on a bookshelf. Smiling bobble heads, of course. We can’t forget about our idealism.

We are a teamwork generation, fully in line with each other. This, again, is a good thing. Top-down management will not survive the knowledge economy. And so, teamwork, and thus, Generation Y, is inherently conservative precisely because there is consensus, Trunk argues.

But when you seek only consensus and you don’t strongly encourage- nay, require - opinions to be voiced, challenged, turned upside down and explored like a mother searches for lice on her child’s head, then you aren’t coming to a rousing, exciting, and motivating consensus.

Generation Y is so overly focused on the yin of consensus that we’ve lost its yang of conflict. Like Seinfeld’s black and white cookie, the idea of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy is that positive and negative forces act together in order create energy. They are in constant battle, each trying to gain dominance, and if one succeeds in doing so then we are left without balance.

So, without conflict, consensus is a less than thrilling one-night stand.

Nowhere is this as painfully obvious as it is in social media, where we think we’re making a difference by adding the “Causes” application to Facebook, commenting on blogs in such a way as to not offend, where mediocrity reigns supreme, and we insist on engaging in a large amount of narcissistic navel-gazing every Monday morning.

“Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms… Virtual politics is just that – virtual,” Friedman states.

Ah, when will we learn? Conflict is good, fabulous even! Patrick Lencioni builds an entire fable around this exact idea in his popular book Death by Meeting. He discusses why most meetings suck, the main crux of his theory being that there is no conflict, no drama. No one voices their opinions loud enough in order to be hypothesized, tested, revised.

Think about decisions by committee (read: team). It’s a long, drawn out, excruciating process. The resulting consensus is often a watered-down version of what could have been.

This is the status of Generation Y - a watered-down version of what we could be.

We’re all about the team, but don’t exactly know how to use that effectively, preferring to be quiet, conservative, coloring inside the lines. Meaning, we play by the rules to create change and aren’t aware of what those rules are. Meaning we’re perfectly content not to push boundaries or ourselves.

There is good reason for this. “There is a strong, strong millennial dislike of ambiguity and risk,” Andrea Hershatter says. If the directions aren’t clear, we’re not going on any road trips.

This hesitancy creates a lack of urgency. Change is necessary, but there are no sands through the hourglass urging us that these are the days of our lives. No, we believe our children will deal with it, or someone will deal with it, somewhere, and we’ll just try not to make it worse, and probably – hopefully – make it better. We hope.

Hope. Guffaw.

Screw hope. Where’s the outrage?

If Generation Y is “not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention,” Friedman argues. “That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country.”

To light a fire, you have to have conflict, and to have conflict, you have to have an opinion.

That’s a good place to start for now. Stop being so nice.

Respect other viewpoints enough to challenge them.

Respect other ideas enough to disagree.

Moon the entire left side of the highway from your car window with your opinion on your backside. Put it out there for all to see.

Look to the cookie.

Social media doesn’t create new generation leaders

This post was originally published at Conversation Agent. Thank you to Valeria Maltoni for the opportunity.

We have a deep desire to feel that rise in our chests, the quickening of our breath, the spread of a smile.

Generation Y wants to change the world.

Not the environment. Not healthcare. Not education. Not poverty. Not racism. Not sexism. Not war. Not cancer. Not anything, really.

Just the world.

We want to change the world.

And in wanting so much, we get so little.

Restlessness courses through our veins, for we are never doing enough or being enough. Volunteering, leadership, and entrepreneurship, nor the eventual acceptance of the mundane satisfies our edge.

And there’s a majority of us who just sit back. We sit back, content to lead mediocre lives. To never step out. To work, to love, to lead good lives. To lead good lives, but not extraordinary.

Who among us will lead an extraordinary life? Who will be the leader who steps out on an issue? Who is strong enough in their beliefs and convictions to not only sell their Volvo for a hybrid, but to tell the world about it and get others to do the same? Who will stand up for the horror and revulsion that plagues our world today?

Because the warmth from our laptop screens does little but light our idle faces.

Who will be loud enough? Who will scream?

There’s an acceptance that it will all get done. And social media will help us do it. This idea that we can bring groups together over the internet through blogging and Facebooking, and that it will create significant change is ridiculous. It’s hiring a gardener for the privilege of missing the sensation of earth between your fingers.

It is powerful, this online community.

But it is not enough.

In finding so many ways to communicate, we are communicating less and less in a way that is valuable and meaningful.

Like the placement of a candle in a window was once long ago, social media is merely an instrument. You still have to show up.

You still have to get dirty.

Sam Davidson tells a good fisherman story about a man that finds another man fishing, and explains to him that if he catches many fish, well he could eventually buy a boat. He could then catch many more fish, and could buy another boat, and another and another until he had a whole fleet of boats. And he would sure catch a lot of fish then, and with all of that he could do whatever he wanted.

And the man replies, “You mean, fish?”

So it goes with social media. There is a man talking to another woman in a coffee shop. He says to her, “you know if we stalked each other on Facebook and cuffed ourselves to our crackberries and twittered it up, we could communicate, and reach out to each other, and have great conversations, and you know, change things!”

And the woman replies, “You mean, like right now?”

We’ve created social media for the privilege of missing the look from someone across the table, face to face, secret to secret, ambition to ambition.

We create online communities that secure our quasi-anonymous lives, and moan about not being able to connect with someone.

When all we really have to do is simply say, “Hello.”

Don’t get me wrong. Facebook is great for all the reasons people say it’s great. But when you focus on how a tool can change the world, instead of the cause itself, you mitigate the importance of taking action.

The amount of effort we put into our relationships is what will create change, not the amount of effort we put into building and maintaining the printing press, the telephone, the television, or the better, more collaborative, more inclusive web.

We have to show up, face to face. Our actions, not the means - technological or not – propel change. Our effort makes the difference.

It will be quite easy, really. If only we paid attention to the rise in our chests, the quickening of our breath, the smile spreading on our face.

Eye to eye leadership.

New here? Check out some recent posts:
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Purge first. Creativity second.

12 reasons why being a woman leader is challenging

1. Being nice is seen as flirting.

2. Men say in response to your success, “I always knew you were beautiful, but I had no idea you were intelligent as well,” and you just smile.

3. The female commons is tragic.

4. A meeting is never just a meeting.

5. You’re told to use your sexuality. But not too much.

6. You’re told to ask. But not too much.

7. You’re told to be ambitious, but ambition makes you a dirty word.

8. You’re told that you’ll never marry, but married men love you.

9. You don’t know if it’s safer to be walked home or to walk home alone.

10. Pearls, candles, and lotion are supposedly better gifts for you than iPods, books, and domain names.

11. Shoes determine whether you’re a prude or just plain incompetent.

12. And if you’re a feminist, you have better sex, which doesn’t matter because feminism has “completely screwed you.”

Rise above.

Life as a Gen Y leader - week eleven

I texted Skinny last Friday night, “I’m just not up for it.” Which really meant that I had sixteen meetings last week, and I was exhausted, and however appealing a nice relaxing dinner sounded, Skinny would have just been a landfill. I would have dumped my entire life on him. And who is that fun for? No one.

The thing is, I’ve been saying “I’m just not up for it,” to my friends more often than not, and I’m quickly losing whatever semblance of balance I used to have. Big Brother claims he keeps his personal life separate because it’s difficult to be a public figure, but I’m increasingly wondering if the real reason is because he doesn’t have one.

And I’m wondering if what I really want is to become a workaholic.

The thing is, when you surround yourself with a certain type of person, you become like those people. Take, for instance, a meeting I was at last week. I sat nervously on the edge of my chair as we started the meeting with a WIGO (What Is Going On), where people described what’s been happening in their lives. When every single person talked about work except for one, I breathed a triumphant sigh of relief. They didn’t have lives either!

At the time, I was grateful to hear that others were just as crazy as me, but as Belle and my sister amuse me with their updates on promise rings and wedding plans, I’m anxious for the whole “not having a life” thing to be over with. Because I do want it all. The family. The career. And everything in between.

This idea of priorities came up earlier in the week. I was on a panel and one participant asked me, “If I’m more efficient during afternoon meetings, but my employees or volunteers are more efficient in the morning, what do I do?”

“You have meetings in the morning,” I replied. “That’s what you do. That’s a sacrifice you make for being the boss. The point is to make your employees or volunteers as successful as possible so that you’re as successful as possible.” You want to lift them up. You want to help them reach their goals. You should lead them to be as good, no, better than you.

I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life. A journalist, a teacher, and a designer are among the more prevalent. But the one thing that remains the same throughout is my desire to help others reach their dreams. I want to create environments where others succeed. I want my job description to simply read “empower.”

And in the end, isn’t that what a leader does?

So, I’m thinking it’s not so bad to be working so hard if I remember these things. In fact, I feel like I need to be working a lot harder, if not smarter. But that’s another discussion all together. Nevertheless, I’m going to make the commitment to take more time for myself, my friends, and my family - publicly, here on this blog - so that I become accountable to the promise I’ve made to myself.

In the meantime, if someone wants to give me the key to changing the world, or if you simply want to introduce me to Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome, I very much doubt that I’ll reply “I’m just not up for it.”

Up for it all, baby.

How to think bold and dream big, and a realization

‘Tis the season for annual dinners and last night was another one. When the keynote speaker took the stage and began his litany of jokes, I turned to my friend and asked, “Is he drunk?” My friend’s eyes got wide as he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head.

Better drunk then boring, we shrugged.

But as the speaker went on, his short stature quickly filling up the two big screens on his left and right, and then the entire room, I realized that he was certainly not drunk. He was Texan. A Texan State Senator and former Mayor of Austin to be exact – Mr. Kirk Watson.

With a southern charm, certain bravado and blatant honesty that made us Midwesterners simultaneously laugh and blush, Watson spoke on how to think bold and dream big:

First of all, don’t be afraid to think bold and dream big, Watson drawled in his thick accent. Failure is good, as long as you learn from it. As long as you don’t go cry in a corner, he said. As long as you take action from what went wrong.

And don’t wait for something better either. “My wife tried that and she still got stuck with me!” Watson warned. Take action with the opportunities that are in front of you.

Find both the chicken and the egg. Go after them both. And then find things that are neither the chicken nor the egg:

“Do you want to know what the number one bumper sticker is in Austin?” Watson asked. “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s not ‘Kirk Watson for Senate’ as it should be. No, it’s not. It’s ‘Keep Austin Weird.’ That’s it. That’s what it is. ‘Keep Austin Weird.’ That means keeping Austin ‘Austin.’ Keeping it open. Out of weird you get bold ideas and vision.”

With bold ideas and big vision, you are not going to meet everyone’s concept of perfection, so don’t even try, Watson said. Don’t even try. If you try to please everyone, you will come up with a plan that is unworkable or someone will just say no and that will be the end.

He goes on, “Let me tell you about my 84% rule. If 84% of the people say, ‘Huh, yeah, I kind of like that idea’ and it sounds like progress, take it and run.” How did he come up with the 84% rule? That’s the percentage he was elected mayor with.

Avoid the nitpickers, naysayers and know-it-alls. The people who think they are just so much smarter than you, he said. The people who think you’re dumb. They’re in the 16%. Their negative energy will bring you down. Really, it doesn’t matter how pretty you are. You’re not going to make everyone happy.

Instead, focus on your assets. You got ‘em, Watson said. Utilize what you have.

And be willing to admit your weaknesses, Watson advised. He then told us simply that he was a cancer surivior. A testicular cancer survivor. He has had three surgeries and has gone through chemotherapy. After all that, they found another tumor in his abdomen.

But that was in 1995. He’s cured now. He assures his wife that if anything happened to her, or between the two of them, he wouldn’t want a young woman. He wouldn’t want to start a new family. He loves his family. And she tells him, “You know dear, with all they cut off of you, you won’t have many young women coming after you.”

“And that’s true!” Watson stated triumphantly. The point from the story is that he admits his weaknesses. “And another is that I’m a survivor,” he said. “Hope matters.”

Afterwards, I approached Kirk and introduced myself. He was just as excited to meet me as he was on stage, and we talked about blogging (yes, he has a blog too), and the ability to say in his speech, or write in his blog, whatever he wants. We discussed the ability to execute the “what you see is what you get” attitude, which inevitably lead to a discussion on credibility.

And I don’t know if it was the charming accent or what, but more than ever, I got why people were so concerned with credibility. I mean, Kirk has built a bridge for goodness sakes. And while someday I might build a bridge too, I haven’t accomplished such feats yet. I have more work to do. That makes me excited, because being a little like Kirk Watson is definitely something to look forward to.

Texan moxie.

No co-workers a challenge for the twenty-something boss

You’re more likely to enjoy your job if you make friends with your coworkers. But if you don’t have any co-workers, the challenge to not only enjoy your job, but to perform successfully in it, becomes immense.

That was one of the first things I noticed as I transitioned from being an employee to running an organization. There wasn’t anyone to talk to.

As many of us are taking the plunge from cubicle prisoner to being the boss, we’re stumbling over the entry gate. Support is the number one desire of newly-minted leaders and entrepreneurs. Who can understand the situations we’re in? Who can empathize and congratulate our failures and successes? Where is the team at?

I often tell my best friend Belle about Guy A who sucks at life, or Situation B that just rocked my week. She empathizes, congratulates, and is a good friend, but she has no idea about the foolishness or magnanimity of either like a co-worker would.

Co-workers have shared experiences that they can talk about and understand, and they support each other. They know exactly who Guy A is and are acutely aware of how important Situation B is. It’s a unique bond that can’t be replaced by even the best mentor or friend.

Here’s how to deal with no co-workers:

1) Manage yourself differently. Being a leader is about making sacrifices. This is one of them. It’s part of the package, so you just have to deal with it. Dealing with no co-workers, however, does not mean relying on Ben & Jerry, my good friends of a few weeks ago. You have to maintain your healthy habits – perhaps journaling and exercise – and create new ones.

For me, this means changing my mindset. It’s letting go of things that would have bothered me in the past. It’s looking at situations differently, and oftentimes strategically. It’s realizing that people will treat me differently, and that’s what I signed up for. Mostly, it’s concentrating on what makes my position exciting and fun.

2) Start a support network. In the upper-echelons of CEOs and Presidents, support groups are quite common. Company leaders often get together for breakfast or lunch roundtables and share the challenges of running an organization. They’ve defined it differently, but really they’re simply building co-worker relationships.

It would be difficult, however, for a young leader to find value from these roundtables outside of a mentor relationship.

Generation Y leaders need to create their own groups, and those groups need to respond to how we work. Being a young leader has its own set of unique challenges. If we’re going to be taking on positions of authority earlier, and creating our own rules, we need to be honest about what those challenges are.

3) Lean on people who know nothing. As is often true, weaknesses are also strengths. While Belle cannot fulfill the role of my co-worker, I am much happier with her as my friend. You need to have people that are outside of the work/life blender to keep perspective.

Belle doesn’t come to any of my organization’s events. She doesn’t know the majority of the people. She leads a completely different life. And while we don’t have those shared experiences, it is for that reason that it’s refreshing to be around her. I’ve known her so long that I’m not defined as a young leader, as a Gen Y Princess, a blogger, or as an Executive Director. I’m just me. And that’s a big deep breath of happiness.

Co-workin’ it.

What gives you the right to be a young leader

My friend Nick asked me first. Then Marci said the same thing. And then today, one of my favorite creatives posed a similar question. They all wanted to know, what gives you the right to be a young leader? What gives you credibility?

Wait, what? What do you mean what gives me the right? I must admit that I didn’t have a good answer, even the third time around. To me, it’s like asking what gives women the right to work?

It seems to me that if I want to do something, then I should do it. This notion that young people have something to prove, that we must pay our dues, is outdated. But it’s obviously on the minds of my peers.

My gut reaction was to reply, “because I work really frickin’ hard. How about that?” But somehow that didn’t seem like the leader thing to do.

There’s a new trend where we’re checking under the rug to see what has been swept underneath. It’s a matter of ethics, a matter of accountability, credibility, and simply realizing that if we’re following, we should pay closer attention to who is leading.

We’ve always wanted our leaders to be transparent. But as it becomes easier to create yourself on the internet and tell whatever story you wish, being transparent is increasingly difficult. You as a blogger and who you are in real life may or may not always match up.

Indeed, our generation is moving up so quickly, that discrepancies aren’t just showing up in the online world; who you are in one job could be drastically different from who you are in the next.

And if we’re changing so drastically and consistently, do we have the expertise to move to the front of the line?

Questioning the validity of a person’s leadership skills is why more leaders aren’t stepping up to the plate in the first place. It’s why we have a leadership crisis in areas like the environmental and nonprofit sectors. And it’s why a slew of Generation Y doesn’t want to be engaged at all.

There’s nothing special to being a leader. You have to deal with a lot once you jump in, sure. It’s a challenge and it’s hard work and it’s rewarding and it’s fantastic. But leaders aren’t all that different from the rest of us.

My organization just finished a series on how local leaders in politics went from interest to action. We had a senator, state representatives, our mayor, our county executive, aldermen, lobbyists, and more. Across the board, every single political leader expressed that their story wasn’t unique. They saw an opportunity and went for it. Funny how remarkably easy it is to make a difference.

I don’t have a special skill set to be a leader. I’ve never taken leadership classes, and while I’ve been in positions of leadership since high school, I don’t think this makes me more qualified to be one now. It’s just, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Like, when I visited Madison to decide on where I would attend school, I felt in my bones that this was the place to be.

What gives you the right to be a young leader is the fact that you have stepped out from the rest of crowd. That you have put yourself out there, taken a chance, and have simply tried.

You will mess up along the way. You will make mistakes. You’ll take things personally. You won’t want to be a leader sometimes, and sometimes you might not be.

You won’t have all the skills, and perhaps it’s easier to think about it as if you’re a leader in training. But if you make that commitment, you’re already miles ahead of everyone else. And the others will follow. Because you believe in yourself. And that’s half the battle to believing in others.

Rightfully young.

In searching for links for this post, I found that Rosetta Thurman does a great job discussing this subject as well. Go check it out.

Generation Y breeds a new kind of woman

This post is an opening argument to the question, “Do women need men and/or children in order to be fulfilled?” Check out the opposing viewpoint from Justin Sanders here. This post was also published at Damsels in Success.

Update: This post was also published at Huffington Post.

Women need men. Just not like we used to.

While career guru Penelope Trunk insists that we will find deeper fulfillment from relationships over work, others like Hannah Seligson wonder why we can’t talk about “young women and careers without talking about the hunt for a husband?”

Generation Y women don’t relate to either. We don’t live container lives, with work and family and play muffled under air-tight lids. Our life bleeds together, and instead of a singular goal of family or career, we lead our lives as a continuum, family and career ebbing and flowing.

The reality of young women’s lives today is that we want it all, despite the warnings. While coming of age during 9/11 reinforced that family is deeply important to us, we were also raised to believe we could do and be anything, especially equal to men professionally.

It’s not about prioritizing one over the other, nor is there a single answer that works for everyone; there are extremes at either end. What remains consistent in women, however, is their sense of increasing independence.

Whether we check off men, children, career, or all of the above, the fact is that we have a choice, and what fulfills and limits us is not created by society and media, but increasingly our own desires.

As a result, our roles are changing. Women are becoming the leaders, and men the supporters. Even in relationships where children are the priority, and the woman chooses or is able to stay at home, women take on the dominant role, commanding a deeper respect than any time in history.

Many view the shifting roles as threatening the very basis of our biology. But it isn’t. It is simply uprooting the traditional western viewpoint.

Indeed, while spouses and children still rank as a source of fulfillment for women above careers, one’s personal fulfillment is increasingly not just augmented by, but necessitated by professional fulfillment as well.

Bored with motherhood and marriage, we savor the challenge of work. Michelle Obama said in a recent interview, “I love losing myself in a set of problems that have nothing to do with my husband and children. Once you’ve tasted that, it’s hard to walk away.”

Women don’t need men or children for fulfillment. They might get on okay with a cat, or their career, or another woman. But really, Generation Y doesn’t need much. We’ve been coddled and spoiled, and have long surpassed what we might need, and are instead creating what we want.

And what we want is to define a new kind of woman, a “compassionate alpha.”

The Generation Y woman has leadership and strength, and promotes community and empathy. We don’t dismiss motherhood, but embrace our strengths and use those to change the workplace, reaping from it a greater sense of fulfillment than ever before.

It is not a coincidence that at a time when power-hungry hierarchies are being broken down, women are leading and infiltrating the workplace. It is our skills and talents that have created such an influential shift.

Generation Y women are high-achievers, shrewd, well-dressed, and possess an emotional intelligence that far surpasses our male counterparts. We don’t rule by insecurities or fear, but by knowing ourselves well, and seeking connection with others.

In short, we’re women. We strive to be who we are, in our sexual identities, and in how we construct our personal and professional lives. We acknowledge our own complexities.

Our personal and professional lives are blurred more than ever before, and a woman’s strength in today’s society is the fact that we are true to ourselves — more so than any other generation — because past generations fought for our right to do so.

Ruthlessly beautiful.