AWL Alumni Spotlight

Describe the six months you spent in the Bloombase experience for Advanced Women Leaders.
It was challenging to find the time to fit it in, balancing my work. I’ve done a fair number of leadership programs, but the AWL experience was one of the most rewarding. It was the first experience that looked at me as a whole person; it changed me and it changed my ability to influence and lead others. I remember at one point I was one on one with Sheri and I started to cry. I was a blubbery mess because I was forced to look at myself holistically - as my work and my personal self. It provided insights I hadn’t uncovered before. Then, I needed to face and conquer that. It was challenging, rewarding and frightening all at once. It made me a better person by the end of my six months in AWL.

What did you get out of the Executive Coaching sessions?
I realized through the coaching sessions that I lived a little bit in a world of denial. I found the coaching sessions to be a safe environment to have someone, in a friendly way, help me see what I really needed to admit to myself. Not only tell me what I need to hear, but push me to say, “this isn’t really the path I want to be on.” Being honest with yourself is frightening and it is something people avoid, but AWL opened up a door for me to do that in a safe space. And after those realizations hit me, somebody was always there to bolster me back up and be supportive. When I came out on the other side of AWL, I had learned a lot about myself and about how to be a better person and a better leader.

What would you say to someone else considering this experience?
There’s a lot of leadership training out there that will develop you to be better in the workplace, but having gone through AWL, I truly believe that you can’t just focus on how to be better in the workplace and get to where you want to be, because part of being better in the workplace is being better in your whole life. And AWL was unique in focusing on that.

What is the greatest ROI for this investment you made in yourself?
Courage. I learned things that made me more confident in my choices. The cohort is a benefit for that too. I saw other people in my cohort make choices and I saw how it impacted them. And that gave me more courage. Then, there are the speakers who talked with us, who said, “here’s what I’ve done, here’s where I hit a wall and how I climbed that wall and came out better on the other side.” Their stories were so honest, so raw and so courageous. You hear that and you think, “she can do it, I can do it.” 

My favorite way to spend an afternoon by myself is… assuming it’s not 94 and humid I’m reading a good book by the side of the pool. That is how I shift. That is how I refresh myself.

I feel like I am fulfilling my purpose when I am… helping others believe in themselves. There are a lot of people out there who don’t believe in themselves, they talk themselves down rather than up. I lost my best friend to cancer and it caused a huge change for me in how I saw the world and how I felt about myself. I consciously decided I needed to live more in the moment and focus on the positive, not the negative, because you might only get another 365 days of moments and then they’re gone.

One of my favorite role models is… a Partner I worked for at the beginning of my career at Ice Miller. He really gave you the latitude to fail. He truly was okay if you made a mistake; everyone makes mistakes. What was critical was not the mistake, but owning it and having a plan for solving the problem the mistake created.

To me, leadership is… it’s about being honest. The best leaders I’ve had are leaders who are direct, honest and explain the “why.”  They aren’t afraid to sometimes tell you things you don’t want to hear.