Wisdom Warriors

Wisdom Warriors:  Journeys through leadership And life, Women with the Courage to Be True to Themselves, by Carol Seymour, Signature Leaders Press 2017

When former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke about the "binders full of women,"  3 notebooks filled with resumes of female applicants,  although his statement elicited the opposite reaction from what he had intended, he was making a good point.  And as an old shop rat, I can say we have heard it before, soooo many years ago, supposed to be old news, but it isn't.   There are dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of qualified female executive candidates out there in a population that stands at 52% female - it's very easy to breeze by that fact.  Who wants to, after all, zero in on the gender of a professional rather than her more telling and useful skills and experience?

And that is exactly what Carol Seymour's colorful volume brings us - the unique and surprising background of 70 special women whom she calls wisdom warriors.  Backed up by over 1000 interviews with women leaders - executives like UPS Chief Human Resource Officer, Teri McClure, Monsanto President Leticia Goncalves, ABRA Auto CEO Ann Fandozzi, former eBay exec Sunita Mani, Hilton W/W VP Leslie Pchola, and Edelman Global Chair Kathryn Beiser, Seymour shows us a very diverse population.  But they all share a handful of powerful drivers.  Seymour, an executive coach and consultant, established a coalition to create gender parity in leadership roles by 2030. She believes that part of the work is to share wisdom, to pass down success stories, as well as war stories, from one generation of new women leaders to the next. 

Does Seymour's organized approach work?  Time will tell.  But we can see clearly how special these Signature Program (tm) women are.  Female up and comers, as well as younger male professionals will appreciate her advice on how to create and project a powerful leadership presence and build a personal leadership brand.  This is a risky business - building a strong brand does not, as so many women pioneers learned, guarantee them longevity, or even a decent cafeteria companion.  Because women are different. 

Which brings us to the whole issue of culture - how to read a culture, learn the language, fit, and build a network of colleagues who are moving in the same direction.  In the manufacturing world, culture still counts; despite increased automation and robotics learning to read the culture is a skill carefully - mindfully - developed.  Consultants and sales people learn to do it, and they know that this ability - being able to walk into a plant and within 15 minutes of a walk around, understand what the real problems are, who are the real leaders and decision-makers, and what is acceptable behavior in that space, will in the end determine an insider's shot at success.

Take Wisdom Warriors as a shiny tool in your tool box, along with your degrees and professional certifications and a good wardrobe.   Its one of those visual aid books that provides food for the journey, reinforcement and support for the inevitable hard times.     

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, pemoody@aol.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, tricia@patriciaemoody.com,  

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