Lately there is the beginning of a groundswell to stop women in leadership from speaking for all of us. About time!
Whether we truly agree or not, when Sarah Palin, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Ann Coulter, Whoopie Goldberg, Angelina Jolie, and the like state their perspectives, it is our responsibility to align with or dispute in our own words.
More women are in positions of power, albeit, there are way more to come in this decade. Our voices are required. We need to speak out and create the dialogue model that is inherent in our basic personalities. We know how to listen, then ask questions, to collaborate, the make sure all parties are heard and respected.
I dropped the ball several years ago when I was listening to Laura Schlesinger on the radio as I was driving from here to there. I got so annoyed I started to backtalk to the radio, no one else in the car, and the radio and Laura didn’t hear or care what I was saying.
In a nutshell: a caller was getting married and was having a tough time pleasing her mother who wanted less people, she wanted more, mother wanted yellow she wanted deep purple, mother wanted, she wanted.
The advice she was given made me furious. “Take her off the wedding list. Tell her she is not invited. Have the day for you and forget about her.” I yelled for the young woman to hear me: “You cannot ever get rid of your parents even if you ignore them. Make peace with them, work it out.”
Schlesinger was relentless. The bride to be agreed to consent to this determined voice and tell her mother to in effect, “get lost”.
I did some research on the good Dr. and realized she was working out her own “stuff” on this vulnerable woman. Schlesinger had not spoken to her own mother for almost 20 years before her death in 2002. The mother’s body was found in her condo two months after she had died from heart disease.
Now, as a leadership educator, relationship expert and family therapist I do understand there are times we have to create strong boundaries to move beyond stuck places. I also know there are the human universals of life that follow us wherever we go. One is the parent child bond. It is best to make peace with our parents and them with us.
When we are in positions of power, when others are ready and willing to listen to us it is better to be a mentor rather than a rescuer. My take on Dr. Laura is that she has spent her life searching for a strong person to tell her what to do, perhaps what she wanted from her parents and never got as a little one.
In “Don’t Bring It to Work” the behavior pattern of rescuer can be transformed into the mentor by learning how to ask questions and by handing those who listen to you the gift of thinking through their own personal responsibility.
Women are gaining a stronger voice with each year. We need to use it wisely.
Sylvia Lafair
Sylvia Lafair, PhD, is President of CEO – Creative Energy Options, Inc., a global consulting company focused on optimizing workplace relationships through her exclusive PatternAware™ Leadership Model. Dr. Lafair is the author of Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success published by Jossey-Bass. As an executive coach and leadership educator, she has more than 30 years of experience with all levels of management from leading corporate officers of global companies to executives of non-profits and owners of leading family-owned businesses. She is now offering GUTSY Women Weekends, giving women the opportunity to dialogue and clarify next steps.
Follow Me:
I am so happy that the ugly (inside and out) crazy old gym teacher reaped what she had sowed. She could have gotten her argument across by saying “N word” and not using the word and by not saying “don’t NAACP me” but like Michael Richards AKA “Cosmo Kramer”,she ends up the the trash heap of history, a history of her own making. I am so happy that the free market AKA sponsors started to pull their ads (I guess they were exercising their free speach) and she finally realized that she was just another “run of the mill gabby” and her days were numbered. She realized that she was not as smart as she thought she was, finally!
The problem with Palin is the same when she mistakenly referred to Ronald Reagan Eureka College, being in California and we all know its in Illinois, same thing, she does not fact check anything she is going to say. She is soooo Palin!