Women's Leadership Week

This week is women's leadership week.

The week was full of interesting events and speakers. Today I participated in a discussion about "women and the labyrinth of Leadership: Why women don't make it into the c- suite" moderated by professor Ed Freeman. On the panel were four women in leadership roles and a man for diversity's sake.

I was looking forward to a discussion led by Ed Freeman, who always seems to get discussions to a new level, forcing people to defend their positions, drilling in behind the blunt statements to carve out what people really think. Not this time though. Today, Prof. Freeman was very low key and so was the discussion.

The panelists asked us to be honest and even provocative. Sadly, we were not.

Questions such as "what advice could you give us as we enter corporate America" after stating how difficult it was to adjust post undergrad were politely addressed by the panelists with an "every company has a different culture". Thank god men don't need to adjust because we all come genetically prepared, love football, NASCAR, Golf and drink a gallon of Guinness before we brush our teeth in the morning.

In my past, when I was young and pretty, I used to be razor focused. I went into a meeting, knowing what the agenda was and I would get to it. Why waste time on irrelevant chit chats, right? My boss commented on this and told me to loosen up a little before meetings, maybe crack a joke or talk about other things outside of work before starting a meeting. I am so glad I took his advice. It was something I had to learn and I'm grateful for the feedback. I was surprised to hear a similar story today from a female student who thought she only got this feedback because she was a woman.

Don't get me wrong. I am not doubting the fact that there are still people in the world who are prejudiced based on sex. I just think that this group of people contains women as well as men.

The discussion almost started to be interesting when another female student raised the fact that women often overcompensate and then stopped herself from using a word that is used to describe female canines, but nobody wanted to leave the comfort zone of discussion.

It was disappointing to see such a shallow discussion in a school known for it's invigorating discussions.

Packing Heat

Former president of Mexico - Vicente Fox - spoke today in front of the Darden students as part of the leadership speaker series that brings key leaders to Darden.

A major point that president Fox kept stressing is the importance of free trade and partnership the two neighboring countries should have and that walls never work. He actually brought it in as a funny anecdote after telling us about the walls of the world that did not work.

I found it very interesting that when asked which three leaders he admires, he responded immediately: "I have four" and then moved on to name leaders that have used non violence methods to lead to a social change. Even if this was a premeditated answer, hearing the names of Ghandi and Martin Luther King moves something inside.

I was surprised that they let us all in the auditorium with our bags and without checking them. I told myself that this is Virginia and not Israel and that there's almost no chance that a student would suddenly take out a gun.

I'm not sure if he was a Darden student because his face was covered, but one person stood up suddenly with his mouth covered by a black piece of cloth, a shirt with some writing about it and a sign that friends later translated from Spanish that said: "no police in the state".

The president calmly said something to him in Spanish and the student calmly left.

The translation, I was later told was: "We can talk later, please sit down" and then "see you in Mexico".

Overall, it was an interesting experience and former president Fox is a very interesting person.