Inspired to be a Confident Woman Leader
By Hang Phan—The Cameron School of Business gave me and twenty other female students an opportunity to joyfully join an excellent and efficient learning section and discussion about confident women, which is a part of “Aspire to Lead: The PwC women’s Leadership Series.”
MEETING FEMALE LEADERS
At the PwC Houston offices, we watched a panel webcast with three successful female guest speakers: Katty Kay, Claire Shipman, and Eileen Naughton. Through their discussion, I learned that women often underestimate their capabilities while men overestimate theirs and willingly take risks. Because most women do not realize their potential abilities and fear risky actions, they are not confident to act and have missed their potential opportunities in their career.
LEARNING THE SECRETS TO CONFIDENCE
I understood that men’s secret of confidence, from which women can learn, consists of asking other people questions and listening, diversifying their networking for a broad knowledge, and acknowledging their “blind spots.” The webcast speakers also mentioned that men advocated for inclusion, which encourages every team members to be involved and share their experience and ideas. The discussion also instructed us in an action plan for confidence-building practices. These include daring to take difficult problems and solve them, being brave enough to say “I don’t know, but I will figure out” when you do not have a solid solution, and practicing these concrete steps: face-know-grow your confidence.
The webcast discussion also suggested some cool websites where women can stand for their equality and benefit from them. For instance, to speak up for gender equality, visit HeforShe.org; to learn how to be a confident woman – LeanIn.org; to train women to think differently and build their leadership skills – bigthink.com.
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
After the panel webcast, to understand each other’s viewpoint, both the PwC’s women’s staff and CSB students enthusiastically discussed some more questions to share and express how they personally think about confidence. We also discussed our own challenges of practicing our confidence and how to close the confidence gap between women and men at our workplace or at school. I believe that I, as a woman, am confident when team members, especially male colleagues in a group respect my knowledge and ideas, encourage me, and support me to excel at facing challenges in the workplace or at school. To be respected, I have been working hard to consolidate my knowledge and take the initiative to commit to projects for improving my personal credibility.
LEAVING INSPIRED
As an international student, I face some obstacles such as cultural and linguistic differences that restrain me from acting with confidence. To overcome those challenges requires my intelligent curiosity for understanding, observation and hard work. A close relationship helps women confidently cooperate with men in the workplaces, where people frequently interact and observe team members’ strengths and weaknesses. They create a community of verifiable gender skills that compensate others’ shortcomings and create a competitive workplace compared with their rivals in an intensively competitive global market.
I returned from the PwC visit with a positive and confident spirit that is very important for me to succeed in my academic and professional life. I need to always excel in challenging environments to develop my technical and leadership skills. The PwC trip gave me a wonderful opportunity to reinforce my confidence, which will lead to future opportunities and potential successes. Therefore, I can help poor people and contribute to a better world.
University of St. Thomas -MS Finance Candidate (2013-2015)