E33: When High-Powered Women Leaders Fail Do All Women Fail?

You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound. And when I fall, you've tied a rope to me. You're blessing me every day. I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings. But now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet.

Hello everyone, welcome to Inclusion Unscripted, where we're not just building diversity and inclusion, we're living it. I'm Margaret Spence, your host. I am so happy to be back with you, uh, today on a Friday at 2 PM when we live stream this broadcast. If you're listening to this after the fact, You can join us live every Friday at 2:00 PM. We stream to LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook simultaneously. If this is the first time you're joining Inclusion Unscripted, welcome. Thank you for being here. Welcome to this open forum, open voice on diversity, inclusion, equity, equality, women's leadership, and all the things that make up talent strategies. In this weekly podcast, livecast, we talk honestly about tough topics. I am unfiltered and unscripted. I don't write a script. I write a basic program, and we go through the process of talking about issues. Some of them are in the news, some of them are happening around us, and some are just super important to me and the broader community. To tell you a little bit about Inclusion Unscripted, it's sponsored by the Inclusion Learning Lab. I founded the learning lab about 3 years ago. We are a learning community for diversity and inclusion, and we empower organizations and the folks leading diversity and inclusion internally, to find a place where they can be supported, empowered, where they can learn, have community, and be together. Because the, the most isolated job in most organizations is that of the person leading diversity, inclusion, and equity and equality. What we found is that leaders are isolated. They don't have a circle of support. Their voice is often drowned out sometimes in the sea of opportunity and possibilities. We wanted to have a safe space where diversity could foster, where we could empower and support all of you out there doing the work of diversity and inclusion. If you want to learn more about the Inclusion Learning Lab community, you can visit our website inclusionlearninglab.com. /community or just go to our main website inclusionlearninglab.com and you will be able to go to the community. The other thing that we have as a part of the Inclusion Unscripted podcast and the work that we're doing within the Inclusion Learning Lab, every third Wednesday we have an open forum on DE&I. In those open forums, we do a minor presentation and then we talk through issues and topics around diversity and inclusion. It's an open forum for DE&I leaders to join, bring your voice to the table, and have a support and a support system that you can use. Having said that, as I said, if this is the first time you're joining us, thank you for being here. If you're back and you're listening to this after the fact, today's hot topic is one that is near and dear to my heart. Um, as a woman, I often think that women are unsupported in the roles that we take on. And so over the last 30 days— I guess it's been a little less than 30 days— I've been watching the British Prime Minister and how she has navigated being the third woman leader in the British hierarchy. I, I looked at how she became, um, the leader. I also looked at what she was doing that we could see from the outside, just from the bird's eye view of what is this woman doing as a leader, um, out there, right? And so I predicted that she was going to fail probably a week in. To her prime ministership because I saw how she operated. And women have a telltale way that we operate when we are newly appointed leaders, when we, when we focused so much on the fight to become the leader that we didn't focus on executing as a leader. So let me say that again. A lot of times for women, we are so much in the fight, the fist back and forth of the fight, that we forget that we have to consider not only the fight to become a leader, but how we are going to lead when we are given the opportunity to lead. So that was an observation, a large observation. So we're going to talk about today Today's topic is when high-powered women fail, do all women fail? And it's an introspective view, and I'm going to spend some time on this one today. This session is focused on women, but I would like our male allies to listen to this episode of Inclusion Unscripted because If you don't hear some of the things that women go through when you set us up for leadership, we are bound to fail as leaders. So when we think introspectively, are women given winnable roles? If we start to dig deep into our mind, are women given winnable roles? What happens when a woman fails in public, like the Prime Minister of Britain? What happens then? Um, does the person's public demise make every woman pause?

I don't think it does.

I think as women, we watch another woman fail and we don't pause to say, wow, how do I support that woman? So does a public demise or public meltdown or flameout, as I want to call it, when that happens, um, and a woman fails, what should other women think about in the process?

And if a woman flames out, why does she flame out?

What is it that causes women to become leaders and become this functional leaders. And God knows I've worked for enough dysfunctional leaders who are women in my tenure. And as a consultant, I've worked with enough dysfunctional women, um, especially in HR, that are in the role who can't see their own blind spots and blinders. Um, so the question that I asked at the beginning of this, when I wrote this up and posted it, is: What does a woman's failure say about the fate of other women? If one woman fails, what does that say about the other women? And are women the cause of our own failure? Lord, that's a lot to unpack. But before we start unpacking, I want to tell you all about the t-shirt I'm wearing. I'm wearing this t-shirt, um, I'm gonna hide the, um, the banners so you guys can see my t-shirt. Um, the t-shirt says, "I have to be successful because I like expensive blank," right?

Um, and so I, um, I was going through the airport.

I was on my way to Baltimore to the NAYA conference, and I was going through the airport, um, at the NAYA conference, and I was in the Charlotte airport, and I had a 2-hour layover. And so one of the things that I do in the airport when I'm in my 2-hour layover I go to the Tumi store because I am a Tumi nut. So I go to the Tumi store, I look to see what new Tumi things they have. I try to decide, do I want a new Tumi bag?

Ah, everybody has a vice.

I got Tumi as my vice. So that's my thing, right? So I go through the airport, I'm going straight to the Tumi store, and it's over by Gate CD. And on my way going there, I see this amazing gift shop, and the gift shop has really great things. And I thought, wow, this is great. And then I noticed that the gift shop had diverse items. And so I went into the gift shop and I looked around, and, and by the time I got there and started browsing through the store and picking up things and looking, I was now 10 minutes before my flight left. So I had no more time to really buy anything. So I saw this t-shirt and I thought, how could I support this business? But here's what happened. As I walked in, I saw these amazing African-American women. And I asked, is this organization, um, owned by a Black woman? And they said yes. They said, in fact, in the Charlotte airport, she has 4 concessions inside of the Charlotte airport. And for me, supporting this woman— whether I never knew her, I don't know who owns it, I never even went back and did any research I went and I bought this t-shirt, and I could have bought this t-shirt online because it's available online, but I made a deliberate effort to support this Black woman business. Didn't care what the t-shirt cost, right? I took my card out, I paid for the t-shirt. So I want to encourage all of you, as we're talking about women, it's imperative that when we walk through spaces that we look for businesses that is being run by women. And if we want to be totally diverse, we look for spaces where Black, Hispanic, Asian women, and Native women are running a business, and we attempt to support them as we support women going through our process. So my motto is, I have to be successful. I'm gonna worry about the back half of this, you know. I don't— I'm not a big 'I need expensive blank,' but it's okay. I will take the first half. I have to be successful.

And I think this shirt says everything we need to say today.

I have to be successful as a woman. I have to be successful as a Black woman, a diverse woman, a woman of color, an immigrant woman. A woman who is a grandmother, a mother, a daughter, a friend. I have to be successful, and in order for me to be successful, I have to create a village of people who want me to succeed. And we're going to talk about that at the very end of this podcast today.

So here's the issue: why do you think women fail in the first place? What is it about us as women that makes us fail?

I'm going to start off at the top. The main reason why we fail is we, we engulf ourselves in the fight to become a leader, but we never actually address our self-issues, our inner issues, our introspective issues that stop us from being effective leaders. And this is not about a woman crying. So any of you who think that this is about a woman crying, think again. This is about us being effective, deliberate, on-point leaders who have a level of emotional intelligence about ourselves women who have done the work on themselves, women who are continuing to work on their blind spots and backhands.

See, we can't just be in the fight for the opportunity.

Let me say that again.

As women, we cannot just be in the fight for the opportunity.

We have to fight for the opportunity, but also recognize that when we get the opportunity, we are a placeholder for multiple other people coming behind us. I did an episode, I think it was episode 12, um, of Inclusion Unscripted where I talked about the placeholder process and why we are placeholders. So if you want to go back and listen to that, that would be great information on what is a placeholder. So women often fall into 3 categories, and it's a part of the drama triangle. And if you've never heard of the drama triangle, Google it. Women fall into the drama triangle. We are either victims, we are persecutors, or we are rescuers.

That's our category.

Aspiring women leaders often find themselves in one of these three categories. The first one is a victim category. Um, I could argue that the British Prime Minister is a victim of her own making and the making of the standard that she was held to that her predecessor was not held to. That's a point, okay. But as we rise to leadership, We could be whining, complaining, me against them.

We could be the victim. It's me against them.

In order for me to be successful, I've got to fight them, right? And so we become a victim of our own circumstances. The next spot that we land in is as a persecutor, where we are a finger-waving micromanager. It's your fault. Everything is your fault. It's never my fault. It's your fault. And oh dear, it's really my fault, but it's going to be your fault.

Because at some point in the process, even when I've made a mistake, a critical mistake that affects someone else, I'm gonna try to make it their fault.

And the next phase that women fall into is what is called the Rescuer Phase. It's where we try to fix everything.

We fix the stuff that's broken, we try to fix the people who are broken, we try to fix the process that's broken, we try to fix everything that is broken, and we take on the role to be the fixer. And we burn ourselves out trying to fix and be everything for everyone. And when we burn ourselves out, we have great intentions to be great, to be good, to be exceptional at what we do, but because we are running around trying to fix every single dysfunction and we're not focused on our success the I have to be successful piece, we end up with a dysfunctional junction, and then we fail, and we fail miserably in the process. So leadership for women is a couple different things. It's emotional intelligence, it's how we get feedback, it's how we get honest feedback, but it's also how we are held to the standard.

So imagine for a second the poor British Prime Minister, because I'm gonna go with poor British Prime Minister because I feel a level of empathy and pity for her simultaneously. And it's a hard place to be as a woman where you're empathizing with somebody but you have so much pity for them at the same time.

She set out on what she thought was her mission Um, she surrounded herself with smart people, but it doesn't look like she listened to them. But the reality is somebody put a lettuce— listen to this— someone put a lettuce out 2 and a half weeks ago to see, to say— and they said one of the news outlets did this in London. They put a lettuce out, and in the lettuce they said which one will fail first? Is it going to be the Prime Minister or the lettuce? Which one will rot first, the lettuce or the Prime Minister? Here's the thing, her predecessor Mr. Boris was in that role, he was doing all kinds of crazy, right, that we could see across the pond in America.

But there was no lettuce ever put out that said, let's see which one rots first, him or the lettuce. But suddenly a woman gets put into the role and a lettuce becomes her benchmark. If the lettuce rots first, then maybe she'll survive. But if she rots first, the lettuce will survive.

So we have to look at, at ourselves and say, how do we set women up for success? And how do we empower a woman's success? We, we can't possibly, um, you know, we can't possibly set women up based on a lettuce. So this woman was given a world power position as the leader of one of the superpowers in the world, and with— and she had the shortest tenure as a woman. She flamed out brought down her own economy, and she was judged against the lettuce. And it doesn't seem that anybody in the room said to her at the very beginning, this is how you fail. Not this is how you succeed, but this is how you fail, right? So imagine for a second— and, and here's the other part— when she started eliminating the people she thought contributed to her failure She started with the brown people.

So that's just telling because she started eliminating the brown people on her team first, right? So it's, it's also telling when you evaluate this through the lens of a person of color where the leader is a white woman. Right, so there's, there's the lettuce analogy, there's the white woman analogy, there is the woman leader analogy.

In America, as we come back across the pond, we had Elizabeth Holmes, our own personal, um, rising star, rose to the star, best thing since sliced bread, and she flamed out.

She failed. She's probably mired in litigation now. So we've had our own women flame out. But here's the issue: when a woman flames out, it sets a bad benchmark for other women, because that is all we're judged against. A woman may run for President of the United States, and somewhere in there, somebody's going to compare her to the British Prime Minister. Someone may run for the— as a woman may run for the United States presidency, again right? And we will compare her to the woman that failed across the pond, and we will judge her based on that lens.

So here's, here's our lesson today.

In order for us to understand our own trajectory, we have to move through a couple steps as women We have to recognize when we are in the struggle of our role. Oftentimes as women, we are struggling in our role and we're doing a lot of stuff in the fighting process of the role that we are not actually embracing the leadership and strategic skills necessary to accomplish what we need to accomplish.

When you are in the struggle You feel frustrated. You find it hard to get a return on what you're investing.

You're fighting so hard to stay that you are not developing your own skill level. You're not building your own skill set. You're not moving yourself forward when you are in the struggle.

When women come out of the struggle, we end up in this place where we're striving, or we think we're striving.

We're moving in our mind towards power, and we think we're striving.

But when we think we're striving, a lot of women get into their comfort zone. I've accomplished everything, and, and the thing is, I have already become successful.

Not that I have to be successful, I've already become successful.

And so we end up in this comfort zone But deep in our soul and in our heart, we are uncomfortable because we know within ourselves that we could be doing more, but we're not doing more. We're doing a limited amount as a woman in a leadership role. And this is especially true for women of color, where we fought so hard to be recognized, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to get some form of recognition from our organization.

That we end up getting the recognition and then we plateau and we go into, okay, I, I don't think I can fight anymore for the next level. I'm just gonna sit here and I'm just gonna strive.

I'm not gonna thrive. So here's the thing: striving is not thriving.

Thriving is where you're growing, but striving is where you're sitting in your comfort zone because the fight is just too hard as a woman. The fight is just too hard as a woman of color. The fight is just too hard, period. And so instead of moving or trying to move yourself and motivate yourself, or finding a board of directors to motivate you to move ahead, you sit in the place of striving. But then one afternoon you get up and you decide, I need to be successful, I have to be successful.

You You get up and that comes to you, and you realize, wait a minute, I can move again.

I can take that next move.

You're satisfied with the impact, and then—

and when you make that next move, you go, I'm satisfied with where I am. I don't want to break the rules anymore.

I'm just going to be the comfortable woman in this comfortable seat, and I'm not going to buck the system.

I'm not going to say anything that might get me fired might get me blacklisted or brownlisted or purple listed in the organization. I'm just gonna sit in my space, and when I sit in my space, I can go out to my family and friends and say, I bought nice clothes, I have a nice car, I got a great house, I got some beautiful kids, I got a wonderful husband or spouse, a significant other, I'm perfectly okay. I've got traditional success.

But as women, if we want to be fully whole within ourselves, we have to address what it is that we want, and we have to ask ourselves a critical question: what do I want, and why don't I have it now?

That's the question. I wrote an entire book around this very topic. It's here, shameless plug, Leadership Self-Transformation: 52 Career-Defining Questions Every High-Achieving Woman Must Answer. You can pick the book up on Amazon. This book asks the questions, 52 of them, very clear on what women need to do to be successful. And I'm sort of teaching that today, but when we realize that we could be greater, we could become a CEO, C-level executive. We move now to what is called exponential success, where we take on greater challenges, we work in our zone of genius, right?

And that's a whole nother thing. A lot of women don't work in their zone of genius. We work in our zone of comfort. There is a difference between the zone of genius and the zone of comfort. We have to work in our zone of genius, right? But here's what I know: in order for us to be successful women leaders, whether we are diverse or not, in order for us to be exceptional leaders We have to 10x our growth. We have to exponentially grow. We have to understand that year over year, our personal development and growth is the most essential thing that we must do.

Here's a news flash for all of you: your job is not to do the job that you do every day.

Oh yeah, your job, your personal job, is to do the inner work on yourself. And your personal job, your job, your role— not the role that you're doing, but your role as a human being, your role in humanity, your role as a woman, your role as a leader, your role that you stand in every day as a person Your role is to find your power, figure out your purpose, and 10x and become a champion. Not find a champion, but become a champion as a woman.

A champion for yourself, a champion for your own personal success. So on the flip side of this conversation When we give women opportunity to rise, what does an organization need to do to support that woman when she's risen? At every level of a woman's promotion, what is it that the organization needs to do for women? See, the question today was, are women given winnable roles? I would argue that we are not given winnable roles. We are given the role that is the cul-de-sac role, we're given the role that is the cleanup role, we're given the role of nobody else wants this role, we'll put a woman in there and we'll see whether she succeeds, but we are not given the role that is the prime prize role on our first jump out of the gate. We're given the role where we get to be tested, and as women we have to recognize that. But organizations— here's the thing, because this week the Lean In report came out about the state of women in the workforce in corporate America and globally, and the report read like the other ones that came in the 5 or 6 or 7 before it. Women is making no progress. Women aren't moving ahead.

Women still need support. Women still need this.

Women still need that.

So the Lean In report that's done by Lean In and McKinsey, it came out and I could have closed my eyes and read it the same as the year before or the year before or the year before that. So what is an organization doing to support, really support women? We aren't even talking about Black women, Hispanic women, Asian women, Native women, our LGBTQ community. We're not talking about any of the other categories. We're just talking high-level woman.

What is the organization doing to truly support women and allow them to rise effectively with support and resources and the ability to have coaching given to them so they can call out their backhand?

Give them opportunity where people are willing to have honest discussions that are not the discussion around Margaret Spence.

You know you need to wear a better suit than the one you're wearing today.

This is it. Organizations are not effectively supporting women.

We are not effectively supporting women of color.

So what the hell are we doing if we are not supporting women and we are not supporting people of color? What the hell are we doing? What is the point of you guys writing policies and procedures about women's leadership development if nothing changes year over year? If you still look at your data at the end of a year and it looks the same as it did last year, or you get to say we had a 1% success rate. Well, you know what, as women, if we aren't tired of the 1% success rate, then they surely aren't tired of giving us a 1% success rate, right? It's going to be up to us as women to demand the support we need, because here's what I know: the men who are dismal failures are given the support to stand in the roles that they've been given, but when a woman rises into the role, she's judged differently. The expectations for that woman is different. So if you are running a leadership development program, talent development for women, if you are building succession pipelines, if you are building DE&I programs, what the hell are you doing if you aren't supporting women?

Answer that question, because I can't see the purpose that you serve if you're not supporting women. Let's not even talk about all of our subcategories of women, just a high level.

If you cannot effectively support women, then what is the point? Maybe as women we need to all walk out the door for a month and leave these guys who don't think they need us to run the show and see how that works, because the reality is they can't run it without us. They can't run it without us.

But year over year, nothing changes for us as women.

Nothing changes for us.

In fact, an argument could be made that we are regressing with our rights, with our opportunities, with our ability, with all of it.

An argument can be made because it's real. It's happening.

I remember as a child Going with my mother to a women's equality rally in 1971. Think about that. And in 2022, we are still there. We are still having the same discussion about women and how women lead. A lot of you are living in fear. As women when it comes to being a leader. You live in fear that you're going to fail, and so you do fail. You cannot be an effective, powerful woman leader if you live in fear of failure. Failure is not fatal. I'm sure that the British Prime Minister got up this morning, even after she resigned yesterday. She got up this morning and she's still alive.

So failure—

her failure is not fatal unless you make it fatal. What is the story that you as a woman leader is telling yourself about your ability to rise?

What are you— what is the story that you're telling yourself? Are you saying that you are not appropriate for the role?

Are you saying that you're not ready to rise as a leader?

Are you thinking you are an imposter? I hate that they came up with that coined imposter syndrome because every woman feels that they need to say, I have imposter syndrome. Well, my mother, who immigrated to the United States in the '60s, didn't have imposter syndrome when she got on the plane to come to America to clean houses. She wasn't an imposter. She was clear on who she was and what she wanted. Clear, period. But somehow we've allowed these labels that have been given to us as women— we have embraced them, taken them on as a badge of honor, and then we live up to the fact that we are saying we are imposters. We are not imposters. How could the— it— no man— let me pause for a second. Here's the deal. See, women, we don't even get our power as women.

And maybe if we got the essence of our power as women, we would understand that we should be demanding more of organizations and we should be asking for more support.

And if an organization only has one woman leader among all the men, that organization should have women walking out the door and exiting. Because if I cannot see an effective level of diverse leaders who are women who look like me at the top, I would have already learned that I will not matter in that organization. Let me say that again for all of you organization leaders. If I walk in your organization as a woman and I look around the organization and there is no woman in a significant role, not a paper tiger role, but a significant role of power in the organization, I learn immediately that my voice will not matter. I learn immediately that I will never grow.

I learn immediately that I will never matter in this organization because right now today, as a new employee walking in the door, I cannot see myself anywhere in the organization.

And so here's the benchmark for women, and here is the benchmark for women of color. If you walk in the organization and there are no Black people, no women, no person of color in the top echelons of the organization, and none of these people that look like you coming behind you, then that is not an organization that you should invest years in, period.

It's not an organization you should invest years in.

Because if the organization cannot value the frontline employees to move them up, and the frontline employees to say, our diverse people are sitting here and there's no one at the top that looks like me, that I can emulate, that I could say, there's a vice president, yeah, there she is, I see her, she looks great, I could be her. I told an audience in Dallas when I was keynoting a conference there that I don't have to see it to be it. But what I do have to see is that you're making an attempt to show me that a person that looks like me matters in the leadership hierarchy of your organization. That's what I want to see.

I want to know that I matter in the organization. And that you're going to make a space for me if I give you my blood, sweat, and tears 40 hours a week or more, that you're going to make a space for me above.

As women, here's what I want to say to you: you've earned the right to grow. You've earned the right to be a leader. You've earned the right to get support when you are given a leadership role. You've earned the right to stand in the roles that you've been given because you are contributing to the organization. You've earned the right to ask for what you need to be successful. Do not take on a role where you know you are going to fail because you're not competent enough to do the role and pretend that you don't need help. Trust that they gave you the role. Trust that you're in the role. Trust all of that as a woman. As a woman, trust that you are in a role. You've been given the role. Trust that process, but also trust yourself to say, in order for me to be successful, I need the following help to be successful. Because here's what I know as a consultant within multiple organizations across the planet, your male counterparts are verbalizing what they need. They are asking for what they need, and they are getting it. But as women, we take on leadership roles like the Prime Minister of Britain, right? We take on those leadership roles, and we aren't clear about what we need to be successful, and so we don't ask for it.

And then when we drown and they officially dunk us under the water and, and drown us officially, the world looks at it and says, there's a woman that failed.

We will never give another woman the opportunity because there's a woman that failed.

But we failed because we didn't know what we wanted.

We didn't understand why we don't have it now, and we didn't open our mouth to ask for what we need to be successful.

So I said at the very beginning that I was going to talk about success at the end, and my t-shirt, my wonderful t-shirt that I bought from the store in, um, the Charlotte Airport—

here's the thing for all of you women, and this episode is squarely for us: there's two types of success. And there are two types of people when it comes to success.

And let me give the two types of people to you, and it's imperative that we as women figure this out. There are people who want you to be successful, and there are people who are holding space for your success. And I'm gonna put a pause here. I'm going to say that again. There are two types of people in your mentorship, in your growth, in your championship, in your sponsorship roles. There are two types of people. There are people who want you to be successful, and there are people who are holding space for your success. Let me tell you the difference between the two, and and there's a big difference. The people who want you to be successful want you to be successful on their terms, not yours. They've identified where you should go. They've picked out a job that they think you would be good in. They're giving you direction to take on a path. They're not interested in asking you what you want. They're not interested in what dream or what future you had for yourself. They're not interested in any of your thoughts personally. All they want is for you to be successful so they can be successful, and they want to have a narrative around your success that goes something like this: there's Margaret, our woman, whether she's Black or brown, Asian, Native, there's our woman and I made her successful. That is the conversation that they want to have around your success. That's the conversation. So the challenge for you is to figure out who those people are that only want you to be successful so they can be successful. They are not interested in whether you fail in the role. They're not interested in whether you succeed in the role. They just want to have the story and the narrative of, I made Margaret successful. And oftentimes, as people of color, we live in that space because we will get leadership roles and we will decide that we're going to pick out the person that we want to be successful. We're never interested in talking to that person. We don't care about their dreams. We don't care about their aspiration. We don't care about what they wanted when they got out of bed in the morning. We just call them into our office and we say, Margaret, I got a role for you, and that's the role I think you should apply for, and I'm gonna put your name in for it, and I'm gonna march you to that role.

And like sheep women, we are so afraid to say no to that opportunity, because if we say no to that opportunity We feel that we will never get another opportunity from that person. And for those of you who want people to be successful, who are the want-to-be-successful people who want to tell the story about our success, whether it's my success as a woman of color or whether it's my success as a woman, you want to tell the story about how you made me You're not interested in what's going on inside of me.

You're not interested in whether I'm melting down.

You're not interested in my growth.

You're not interested in my spirituality. You're not interested in my own personal angst. All you want is to tell that story. I want you guys to look in the mirror because you all do it. You all say to people, here's a role I think you should take. It fits you. But we forget that the person we're talking to had a dream, had an aspiration, had a trajectory, had a thought in their mind. HR people, you are the most guilty of doing this because you run around out there building these confounded ladders for people, these career ladders that says if you, if you join rung 1, you join rung 2, you You join wrong 3, you join wrong 4.

You know what?

Take your ladders and shove it.

We don't need a ladder. What you need to do is ask me what I want. You need to ask me where I want to go. You need to ask me what my dream is for myself. You need to ask me what my aspiration is. You need to ask me what my ambition is. You need to hear me as I language my dreams. My dream doesn't need to fit into your ladder. And people of color and women, we need to stop pushing our dreams into the toilet bowl and taking the ladder of opportunity because we're so afraid to ask for what we want.

See, I told you guys I was gonna spend some time on this one today.

So let me talk about people who hold space for your success.

As I said, there's two types of people: the people who want you to be successful and the people who hold space for your success. The people who are holding space for your success, the first thing they say to you when you say, 'I think I want,' they ask you, 'What do you really want, Margaret?' They say to you, '5 years from now, what do you want to write on your business card?' What was that big dream you had when you walked into the door of this organization?

What was the big dream you had in college? What was the big dream you had as a child? What did you forget 10 years ago because you conformed to the norm?

Can I help you go back there and pick it back up so that you can live your full self?

That's how people hold space for your success. They unpack the dreams that you left behind. They unpack the dreams that you even forgot about. I've said to people oftentimes, what was a dream you had as a child? My dream as a child was to become a doctor. Then I got into college and realized I couldn't slice things open. But then I picked up a new dream and I'm living it. But oftentimes as women, we put our dreams down for the men, for our relationships, for our friends, for our family, for our children. We put our dreams down, and then the organization comes along and tramples on that dream.

And we as women haven't figured out how to go back and pick that dream up.

So here, as we close this, when high-powered women fail, every woman fails. It's imperative that we learn how to put our arms around each other as women, not as Black women, as white women, as Hispanic women, as Asian women, as Native women, as women, period.

We have to understand what we want, but we have to be willing to ask for what we need to be successful.

My shirt says, I have to be successful because I like expensive shit. There you go, that's what it says.

Right?

But in order for us to be successful, in order for us to not flame out like the British Prime Minister did, we have to know our backhand.

We have to know our, our failings.

We have to know when we are dysfunctional as women, and we have to seek out coaching. We have to invest in ourselves to grow. And what I find, especially for women of color is we don't want to pay for our success. You know, I, I listened to Tony Robbins and he says, I'm— I made myself, but I hired the best coaches, I hired the best people, I hired the best folks. Here's the deal: if you want to be a great football star, you hire the best coaches and they coach you. You will spend thousands of dollars on your children to get them football coaches, soccer coaches, basketball coaches, piano coaches, track coaches, all the things. But we will spend zero on coaches to allow us to deal with our past because it becomes our present reality. See, we have to learn to invest in ourselves.

Nobody's going to invest in us if we don't invest in ourselves.

And this program's gone a little bit longer than I normally do, but I think it's important that we talk about this at length.

Women, we can be successful, but we must learn how to ask for what we want to be successful.

What do you need as a woman at every level of your career to be successful? The question your organization should be asking is, what does Margaret, Joan, Joanne, anybody else, what do you need to be successful here?

That's the question that your organization needs to be asking.

And you need to say, this is what I need to be successful here.

And if you promote me into this leadership role, if you give me this responsibility, here's a set of training that I would like to have as a leader. Because oftentimes they slap the most dysfunctional people in the head and make them a leader. And they are dysfunctional with their teams. So I want to close by saying simply this. We can rise or fall as women. It's up to us. But we have to learn how to advocate for our own success. And I thank you, uh, Trina, for being here today. And I thank you. We are always creating a safe space to have these hard discussions. Um, thank you for the wow, this really rung true. If you are being coached or mentored by people who don't ask you what you want, walk away. Walk away because they don't have your best interests at heart.

So thank you guys for joining me.

I'm here every Friday at 2:00 PM Eastern, as long as I am not traveling, I do these shows live. Check out the Inclusion Learning Lab community and join the community. We are open, we are ready for members in the community. We're so excited you're here. Join us for Third Wednesday. The dates are on our website. On the events page, we have an open forum every third Wednesday around DE&I, women's leadership, and all the other topics in the industry. This is Inclusion Unscripted. I'm Margaret Spence. Thank you for joining us today. I appreciate all of you that came today to join. And The Real McCoy, thank you, great show. Thank you for that. Um, I appreciate you. So I'll see you guys again next week. Um, have a great week ahead and weekend.

You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound. And when I fall, you tied a rope to me. You're blessing me every day. I was down with an illusion like a sparrow with broken wings, but now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet. That you showed up.

Thank you guys. Peta, Trina, thank you all for joining today. McCoy, thank you. Um, and, and I appreciate all of you for joining us live. See you next week. Take care. Bye.