I am SO not going into politics here with today’s approval of Supreme Court Justice nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Instead I’d prefer to share some insights into leadership and diversity that affect all of us.
My regular readers and followers likely know that I have known former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman for 25 years. She’s one of the first elected officials I met when I started my radio news career in Central New Jersey. Whitman would go on to serve as NJ’s 50th Governor and the first woman to hold that position. In the mid-1990′s, I had the honor of serving as Deputy Director of the Governor Whitman’s Office of Radio and TV. Just last month, I had the opportunity to once again, interview “The Governor.”
This time I didn’t want to talk politics or specific issues. I was interested in her thoughts on diversity in leadership, communication and success. Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Christie Whitman. It’s timely in light of Mrs. Sotomayor’s history-making news of being the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, and the third woman to serve as a Justice.
“We need more women in leadership roles and government because the challenges we face today as a society are far too complicated to assume that any one group,much less white males, have all the answers. We need more minorities and more women but it’s still going to be tough. What women need to do is be less harsh on our sisters. It’s not that women should support other women just because they are women…we need to bring diversity to the decision-making table because it will make a real difference. In business and industry it is important, in communication it is important. We need the female perspective. We have different experiences and a different way of problem-solving. That voice needs to be heard. We need to be supportive of one another, not blindly, but thoughtfully…Women are often afraid to fail…the guys fail all the time. That’s ok. We need to get more comfortable with the fact that we can fail too. We (women) still need to be at the table.”
No politics. Just a good message. Amen.
(Photo Credit: OCSP)
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