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As soon as the In Your Shoes Activity ended, I remember saying to myself, “We should do this more often.” As I sit and reflect, I am now asking myself what exactly did I mean by that? What aspects of that were the most important to me that I hoped I could do a lot more?
One of the most striking things to me was the empasis on making us understand that we should ensure that as women, we come into leadership spaces as our full selves. That immediately felt so personal to me because I am a very bubbly person who loves to be loud and be jovial but as a leader, I noticed that I felt the need to “be more serious.” I would have never reflected on how I felt parts of my personality were left out of the door immediately after I walked into spaces that felt like leadership. But I see now that I had preconceived notions of leadership, I somehow did not attribute many female traits to leadership.
This day taught me a lot about being okay with experiencing emotions. Empathy is such a great component of leadership. Because how can you truly envision change for others if you are not in their shoes?
The listening exercise made me learn how to listen and understand what is important to others instead of listening to see what is important to me. It is important to know what you are listening for, because most times, in leadership, if an issue does not sound relatable to us, we forget that, that is not the measure of importance. Leadership is about hearing the words of others, and their story, and valuing them for what it is, not how we think they fit into our scale of importance. So leader to leader, what do YOU listen for?
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