The Minerva Foundation’s “Learning To Lead”

A couple of weekends ago I was selected to participate in The Minerva Foundation’s “Learning To Lead” Program at UBC.
I feel so honoured that I was selected as a “Community Leader” in the program! 🙂

It was such a great weekend filled with wonderful, brilliant women of all ages.

Here’s more info about the fabulous program…

Learning to Lead™

The Learning to Lead™ Leadership Development Program brings together 30 high school students, 30 graduate students and 30 business and community leaders from around the province to interact and learn from one another through a series of workshops and activities. The objective of the program is to provide tools for all participants to achieve their personal, educational and career goals, as well as to advance opportunities for participants to pursue leadership roles in all facets of society including business, government and the community.

More info on their site…

I was asked to share a story about my experience as a woman in leadership, so I thought I would share some if it here…

The most important component of leadership is confidence. As there is NOTHING more powerful than self-confidence!

Confidence is the foundation for everything in life and your confidence (or lack of) directly affects HOW you do everything in your life.

Leadership is about having the confidence in yourself, your abilities and your decisions and taking risks and taking action in spite of your fears or doubts, or the negative opinions or criticisms of others. (Which I’ve experienced many times as I embarked on my leadership endeavors.) And as Eleanor Roosevelt so eloquently put it, leadership is about building confidence in others, and empowering them to find confidence in themselves.

Trying to be a leader or teach leadership without first building your confidence is like building a house on a foundation of sand. It doesn’t work and it will not be effective.  It may appear to be solid on the outside,  have a nice coat of paint, but it’ll be shaky.

Of course there are other components to being an effective leader (passion, enthusiasm, persistence, understanding, encouraging, supportive, etc) But if someone is unsure of themselves and afraid to make decisions, commit to them, and to take action, none of those other qualities matter.

Where as someone who has unconditional trust for herself and her decisions, and who confidently sets a positive example for others, she will be a more effective leader. The more confident you are, the stronger you’ll stand, the more able you’ll be to help others do the same. And at the end of the day, that is what we are all here to do…help each other.

“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader,
a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

And here’s a pic of the group….