Our authentic self

This week I had the chance to have lunch with an extremely successful and powerful business leader. She offered many words of advice, shared her experiences and perspectives, and encouraged me in my learning.

She said something that really stuck with me...

"Women are not strong enough yet to share the playing field"

What did she mean?

• There are not enough of us in leadership roles to really support each other
• We are competitive so we are careful about how we share information and help other women
• We can't separate the business from the personal - we get our feelings hurt and hold a grudge

It is in our wiring. I watch my girls learning not to brag, not to talk too much about themselves, not to boast. I've already heard "she thinks she is all that" as a put down. So we spend all our lives learning to downplay our accomplishments and then come in to work trying to act like a man - tooting our own horn. We aren't good at it, it doesn't feel good, and it usually doesn't work.

And we still look at the women who are at the top and we say "she thinks she is all that."

And when she comes to us for advise, we wonder if she wants it to just make herself look better.

We talked about reaching a certain age and being able to let go of the striving and competing. It seems that once we get here, our authentic self can emerge. Now... we can finally do the right things and stay true to our values.

• It doesn't matter how people perceive us - we finally know who we are
• We can help other women because we know now that the younger ones will be the ones to make the next big changes
• We don't worry so much about the personal stuff at work - it's just business
• And we have built up a network of friends to support us in the different areas of our lives

So maybe sometimes the learning really does take some years under the belt...