What does leadership mean to you?

I always thought I would have the “corner office” (by 30, no less) - but in every job I worked in, I kept myself small.

I KNEW there was something bigger in me and I couldn't understand why I squashed it, why I didn't believe in it.

So I surrounded myself with women that were high-powered & CRUSHING it. Corporate lawyers, Broadway actresses, MBA's.

I looked at all of them like they had “it”...and I didn't think I did.

So I took on the role of sidekick…cute, little me next to high powered, fabulous them.

High powered sometimes meant in work, sometimes social circles, sometimes it was simply in their attitude - but they had something I didn't believe I had in me so it just felt good to be around it.

But something changed in me when I became a mom.

I started to trust my intuition.

I wasn't afraid to ask for help - but I also knew when I had the answers that I needed.

I stopped asking for validation from everyone I knew.

I accepted that motherhood would be one big series of mistakes… but that didn't make me a failure.

I let things get messy…

I started trusting myself to…well…LEAD these little people.

This is one of the reasons I speak so much about parenting as leadership.

I learned that it wasn't weak to need support. I learned that not having all the answers myself didn't make me less than. I learned to have compassion for myself - because everything I was doing was being watched by my daughters.

I stopped saying disparaging things about myself out loud (and slowly stopped saying them in my head).

I learned the value of letting myself have a FULL range of emotions and giving myself the space to work them out without being reactive to my kids. (I mean - let's be honest…that happened about ⅓ of the time…the other ⅔ I learned how to model saying I'm sorry and taking responsibility…) because the other thing I learned is that I'm fucking human and no matter how good I am at something, I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS make mistakes along the way.

All of these are imperative to what I believe makes a good leader:

💥compassion
💥the willingness to try new things and make mistakes
💥the ability to both trust your intuition and know when to ask for help
💥taking responsibility for your impact on others
💥acknowledging where your intentions and impact don't match up
💥allowing yourself to feel a full range of emotions without being reactive
💥making the harder but more fulfilling choices that allow you to live into your values
💥and stepping out of the sidekick role and directly into my own spotlight.

Motherhood is where I started to understand the Art of Compassionate Command.

Leadership is not about your title or a position that you hold.

It's about how you show up in the world and in all aspects of your life.