Empowering a Community of Women to Own Their Voice
Vanessa Cisz is a B2B storytelling professional with more than 15 years of experience in helping organizations convey the real value of their technology solutions. She holds degrees in creative writing as well as English and German literature.
Do you ever feel like you’re living in a box at work? Is this box holding you back or limiting your career?
Barbara Teicher, a guest speaker at Empower's mentor program and Founder of PropelHerⓇ, referred to this during her talk on how each of us can own our voice. Barbara brings a wealth of knowledge on mentorship, women’s leadership, and how women can bring their true selves to the table.
Connecting Your Voice with Your Future
When you limit your voice, you limit the opportunities you and other people have to see and understand your value. Barbara offered this statistic as a counterpoint: Companies that have women in leadership including the CEO role earn two times the rate of return and offer greater equity than companies led by men. What's the secret? Part of it, she explained, is because these companies have fostered a culture in which women are empowered to be themselves — their full selves — and own their voice.
Your Voice Starts with You
If you don’t develop and train your voice, you will limit the opportunities to be heard. Personal power, insight, and impact come from your voice. Each of us can take steps to empower our voice and bring change at work and in our community.
One of Barbara’s stories resonated with our mentor group. It focused on her mother-in-law, Mickie Teicher. Mickie worked for Mattel as a single, divorced mom at a time when divorce was taboo and being a working parent of small children was not the norm for women. Sharing her experience with the team, she made her voice known in her role regarding the Mattel Hot Wheels cars because she had two young boys who loved to play with them. Eventually, she gained the respect of the CEO. Turns out he was friends with a famous cartoonist who drew this for her. (Thanks, Charles Schulz!)
Small acts have big impacts. If Mickie hadn’t used her voice to share her boys’ opinions on Hot Wheels, who knows where the iconic toys would be today. What a great example of using our voice!
Every one of us has a voice. Focus on how to use it, how to train it, and continue to think outside the box. When you do, change is on the horizon. It can show up in leadership, in diversity, and on the bottom line.
For more information on Barbara’s work including PropelHerⓇ and TedTalks, visit www.propelherinfluence.com.
