Insights

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the 19th annual Women’s Business Leadership Conference. Hosted by Diversity Women Media, a publication that focuses on professional and executive leadership development, the conference gathered attendees from organizations as big as Google to small, private consulting firms. In National Harbor, Maryland, the conference hosted two action-packed days, where I attended a variety of speaker sessions, fireside chats, workshops, and luncheons.

The conference was designed with female leadership in mind. Its sessions focused on how good leaders are byproducts of healthy, self-embracing people. With wellness as a framework, the agenda provided actionable insights into achieving each unique woman's desired career, compensation, and influence––while integrating crucial leadership traits like compassion, advocacy, and trust. Representing Cambium at this conference was an honor because it signaled to me an understanding that when women lead, they bring transformational leadership styles to their organizations. A few 2022 studies have found the importance of ensuring women are in leadership positions––not only are female leaders perceived to be more fair than their male counterparts, but appointing women in management roles has been found to reduce stereotype-induced language at work. 

Purposeful Living: Reframing Your Mindset

On the first day of the conference, I listened to a keynote speech from Penny Pennington, managing partner at Edward Jones, who spoke about the importance of filling your cup in order to do better work and take care of your teams by first making sure you are personally energized.

There were two energy boosters that stuck out to me: “embracing how little you know” and “falling in love with problems.” Embracing how little you know encourages us to want to learn more. Similar to having a growth mindset, embracing how little we know as leaders makes us rightly humble in our need for many diverse opinions and minds at the table. As Pennington said, “be a learn-it-all, not a know-it-all.” In my own journey, I have to ensure my more than 15 years of experience do not get in the way of my team's fresh perspectives and creative problem-solving. Just because I have done something one way for a long time does not mean it has been the best or smartest way.

Similarly, Pennington had interesting points about reframing why leaders should fall in love with problem-solving. Being in love with a problem ensures that we never run out of energy in a quest to solve it. It gives us energy, and fills our cup, to contribute our best work. A few of the problems I heard throughout the conference were: financial literacy in the U.S., teacher turnover and mental health, and bringing a diversity of representation to positions of decision-making and authority. As a leader of a team of proposal developers, I love transforming formulaic, customer-prescribed requests for proposals (RFPs) into responsive yet artistic, graphically beautiful, and well-written cohesive proposals. 

Advocacy in and out of the Workplace

One of my favorite sessions was with Dr. Sharon Malone, a DC-based OBGYN and Certified Menopause Practitioner. Dr. Malone honed in on the importance of women advocating for themselves. 

“No one’s coming to save you,” she told us. “Don’t let your complaints be ignored or dismissed.” While Dr. Malone was primarily speaking from a health perspective, this easily translates to other facets of life, including the workplace. 

According to McKinsey’s 2024 Women in the Workplace study, despite increases in women’s representation in corporate management over the last decade, women are still less likely to be promoted to manager roles over their male counterparts. In 2024, for every 81 women promoted, there were 100 men. The situation is further exacerbated for women of color. In 2024, only 54 Black women were promoted to manager for every 100 men. It’s critical that as women, we must continue to advocate for ourselves and each other when at work to bypass “broken rungs” in the corporate ladder. 

The Importance of Authenticity 

One of my top priorities as leader of a team is fostering a culture of trust, so I found myself gravitating towards sessions focused on trust and authenticity. 

The authentic communication workshop I attended, led by speaker, coach, writer, and advocate Ash Beckham, was particularly impactful. Beckham showed us the Head-Heart-Core process, which teaches leaders to combine speaking from the head (thoughts), heart (feelings), and core (wants) in 30 seconds or less. By learning to communicate all three of these quickly, we show people we work with who we are, and in turn, empower them to show up as themselves as well. I enjoyed breaking into smaller groups and practicing this process, reliving conversations I’d had earlier in the year through a more authentic lens. This practice helped my partner and I work through "do over" situations, replaying times when we spoke with a mask on for fear of showing our real selves. It was thoroughly meaningful and transformative––even though we’d just met that day!

Bringing Our Best Selves to the Workplace

These sessions celebrated women’s tendency to bring compassion and understanding to the workplace. In an information and communication-heavy environment, we must embrace what makes us unique and human—bringing 100% of our gifts, abilities, and presence to the work we do. As we move into 2025, I look forward to continuing to see the strides that women executives make, both in edtech and the larger corporate world.

At Cambium, we make it our mission to ensure all employees feel seen, valued, and supported. When leaders continue learning, advocate for representation, and bring their authentic humanity to the workplace, we live this mission in transformative ways. Each team member has the space to bring more creative energy, the trust to take risks, and the potential to do great things.