SOUTHFIELD ? Author Anne Doyle’s advice to women “never eliminate yourself.” Her goal: For women to represent a third of the leadership population to gain a stronger voice for women.
Those words were imparted March 6 at a global event hosted by Cisco that used advanced video technology and local networking at a half-day seminar on how women can lead with impact. More than 60 women from Cisco, Cisco partners, and the customer community came together at Cisco?s offices in Southfield.
Doyle, author of Powering Up: How America?s Women Achievers Become Leaders, focused on how women can advance their careers and provided a unique history of various generations of women in business. She pointed out that ?over 50 percent of the world?s population is women, but yet women only earn 10 percent of the world?s income and own 1 percent of the world?s property.? She also highlighted the seven leadership practices from discovering your purpose to ?Womaninity? that are covered in detail in her book.
Doyle a native of Michigan has an impressive resume of work in sports reporting and executive leadership. Her message, honesty, and passion gave many women at the conference a lot to think about. She also autographed copies of her book. Her biggest advice for women was to ?never eliminate yourself.? The goal is for women to represent a third of the leadership population to gain a stronger voice.
The broadcast portion of the event featured Diane Bryant, Senior Vice President of Intel. She discussed the tipping point when enough women in organizations bring in a proportionate amount of other women. Bryant also shared personal stories and highlighted strong women leaders as Doyle did.
?Mary Kay had it right with a philosophy to Praise people to success,? Bryant said. ?A leadership technique that helps cultivates women talent in any organization. She also added her opinion on some mainstream authors work and said that ?if we leaned in any further, we would fall over? speaking about how far women have come in careers.
The event also featured live social network streaming, lots of face to face networking, as well as highlights of local women resources such as the Michigan Council for Women in Technology (MCWT). Attendees included the founders of MCWT and present leaders who shared with the group all the ways the organization provides support for women through all stages of their technology career.
March is International Women?s month, so this event showed women how they can invest their time to become stronger leaders.
For more Cisco events like this, please check out the Cisco Empowered Women?s Network: Cisco.Com
Associate Editor Nicole Johnson leads MITechNews.Com?s efforts to foster STEM education, as well as provides coverage for her fellow women in computing. If you have a story idea for Nicole, email [email protected]
