Welcome to the forty-third issue of CEE News!

Picture a leader. Do you see a woman? If not, you aren’t alone. A recent study published in the Academy of Management Journal confirms that getting recognized as a leader is more difficult for women than for men. That is why I’m excited that March is here. If you follow our LinkedIn page, you’ll know that I contribute a weekly blog around topics like leadership, culture, and purpose.

Since March is Women’s History Month in the U.S., I dedicate this month’s posts to women leaders. I’ll be sharing stories of trail-blazing, hell-raising women like Elizabeth Jennings, who teamed with a future U.S. President to win a suit against a railroad company after being forcibly thrown off a segregated streetcar in 1850’s Manhattan. She won.

I’ll be sharing some of this year’s best books written by women leaders. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord, for example, challenges the traditional performance review model in favor of a go-for-broke honesty model and challenging work. McCord, who served as Netflix’s chief talent officer, offers an inside look at how Netflix used this formula to build its famed culture and, in turn, an increasingly valuable company.

I’ll be writing about key takeaways from the annual San Diego Women’s Week conference and hearing speakers like Stanford Social Psychologist Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt share insights from her book Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do.
.
.

One day, I hope that people like these historic figures, executives, and professors will be known simply as leaders, rather than women leaders.  Until then, I’ll close with a quote from Shirley Chisolm, the first major-party black person to run for President of the United States, “Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.”

Sheri Nasim | President & CEO