Women In Leadership: A Unified Voice
Christina Wallace, Senior lecturer at Harvard Business School
Frances Frei, Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School
Ginni Rometty, Former Chairman and President & CEO of IBM, Co-Chair at OneTen
Gloria Steinem, Writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer
Julia Boorstin, CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent, author of “When Women Lead.”
Mary Erdoes, J.P. Morgan’s CEO of Asset and Wealth Management
Stephanie Linnartz, Former CEO of Under Armour
Voiceover: Today, we revisit and celebrate seven trailblazing women whose leadership has reshaped industries and introduced new perspectives on navigating change, conflict, and innovation. Their diverse experiences and shared commitment to courage, transformation, and equality provide valuable lessons on leading with integrity, empathy, and insight in the constantly evolving world. We begin with Ginni Rometty, former chairman, president, and CEO of IBM. Her journey teaches us the value of innovation and embracing risk.
Willy Walker: But when you were asked to jump into the services business, IBM wasn't in the services business, and they asked you to take a new role in creating a services business, a consulting business inside of IBM. And that was a pretty risky move. You talk in quite some detail about the conversations you had with Mark about whether you ought to take the risk here of moving into that type of role, given your background and the career path that you had at IBM. It surprised me, to be honest, that you would take the risk of moving into that less defined role rather than staying on, if you will, the more traditional corporate path. What was it that gave you the, if you will, the chutzpah, the ability to jump into that new realm?
Ginni Rometty: It's a good segue and probably into something else you would like to ask me, but they are really connected to it a little disjointed, and there are a lot of people I know like me. Every time I see something new to do, I can think of ten reasons why I can't do it, not the three reasons why I can do it. And as you just said, “I'd always been on a pretty tried and true career path.” And when this new thing came out, it was full of unknowns, meaning if it didn't work out, that open one would never still be there, really. And I hemmed and hawed over, moving into something new. And it was really, again, one of these cases, my husband talking to you. But this would carry on through not just this job; it would carry on in other ways as I would go on in my career every time it was a new job. “I don't think I can do it yet. I need more preparation. I need more skills.” It would be through one of these conversations with my husband, Mark, that it would probably be one of the most profound learnings I would have in my life in what I share with people. There were a couple of jobs after that one, and Willy and I was interviewed. I was working for someone, and he said, “Hey, I'm getting promoted, and I think you should take my job.” And I said, “Oh, I am not ready for your job. I can do about a third of it.” It's very large in IBM. It's global. I don't know these three pieces, etc. He said, “Well, go to the interview, Jenny,” and I went to the interview. I got offered the job, and my reaction was not what most people would think. My reaction was, “I'd like to go home and talk to my husband.” And I can still see the gentleman's face looking at me saying, “Okay, I call Mark, and he says to me, he listens to me like I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And he says, "Ginni, I have one question. Do you think a man would have answered the question that way by offering the job?” I said, “No.” Now, I tell that story not because it was a gender story, really. What Mark was saying to me was, I've seen this movie many times now with you, and you're very nervous. But then, in six months, you're going to have it knocked down, ready to go to the next thing. He's like, “Why do you do this over and over?” In it, crystallize is almost an alternate name of the book, which is ‘Growth and Comfort Will Never Co-exist.’ To me, Willy is the reason I even tell any of these stories in the first part of the book. It's that essence that for all of us to grow, you gotta start to equate risk with growth, not risk with downside. Like, why would you do something, and it would grow over time to me? I would begin to do very risky things over time because I would start to associate anything I felt uncomfortable with, knowing I was learning something. And that's a very freeing feeling when you like, “No, I got to do something I don't know. Because God, I'm going to actually be on the other side, painful in the middle. But on the other side, I'm going to come out with some other skill I don't have today.” That's really good. And that idea of growth and comfort never coexists. I would find it to be true for a person. I would find it to be true for IBM, a company. I would find it to be true for a country. And it's at the heart of who I am. And there isn't a conversation. Even my sister who I was talking to you this weekend, and she said my brother said to her, “Do you not remember what your sister always says? Growth and comfort never coexist.” It's one of those. And to me, if people try to forget anything else on our webcast, maybe that will help them reframe risk and reframe how they look at taking some chances.
Willy Walker: The punchline to the story you just told is after Mark said.
Ginni Rometty: I took the job.
Willy Walker: Not only the punch line as you took the job, but you went back the next day to the gentleman who offered you the job. And he looked at you and said, “Never do that again.”
Voiceover: We now shift our focus to Dr. Frances Frei, professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School. She reveals true leadership is about elevating others and fostering an environment where everyone can thrive.
Willy Walker: In your book Unleashed, you talk about leadership and how everyone can lead to make the collective better and stronger. And the leader's job is really to help others do better. And as we've talked about this frame of great leaders who got companies going, Travis had 13,000 employees working for him. But at the same time, everything led back to Travis. As you think about sustainable leadership, sustainable breakthrough businesses. It's very clear that the leadership model you're focused on is leaders who actually aren't at the center of everything but are leaders who have, if you will, disseminated decision-making. For those people like myself who try and play as active a role in leading Walker & Dunlop as I possibly can. What coaching would you give to someone as it relates to how involved you need to be versus the empowerment of those around you?
Frances Frei: I would start with quality of life. It's like if you're going to be completely involved all day, every day, 24/7, nights, weekends, so that you're always on and the company isn't too dramatically big, and you're willing to sacrifice your life on the altar of that. Go ahead. But to me, in that scheme of things, that's a hobby business. You haven't prepared to hand it off to anyone; you haven't prepared the people for your absence. And I'm not saying you, Willy, for one. I don't find that to be sustainable. I find it's very ego-nourishing for people that we are so critically needed. But if I went and watched you, Willy, because I have read a ton about you now. I am sure you are setting people up for success in your absence. I am sure that you let people go and make mistakes on their own so that they can learn from them. I have learned about you. And I would be surprised if you didn't do it. I can be actively engaged in coaching you, in developing you, but I'm letting you go learn the lessons on your own. You're learning how to make judgments in my absence, not come to me for each of the decisions.
Willy Walker: Talk about high standards and deep devotion.
Frances Frei: Yeah. For most mortal human beings, we know two things. First, people tend to thrive in the presence of high standards. If I gave you someone who sets high standards for you or somebody who sets low standards, in general, we're going to do better when there are high standards and when there's something for us to reach for. There's another thing that, in general, we all know. If you were with someone who is devoted to your success, all things being equal, you're going to do better. And both of these things in concert are like, “This is the dream.” If I have someone who I experience as having high standards and I simultaneously experience as being deeply devoted to my success. That's magic. That's the beautiful place of leadership. For most of us, in our day-to-day practice, if you look at it, we act as if these two things trade off against each other. When we are setting high standards for someone, we shield them from our devotion to their success. We're almost like cool and cold calculated. And then maybe we got some feedback that we're cool, cold and calculated. And so we're like, “Oh, my gosh, I'm going to reveal how deeply devoted I am to your success, and I insidiously lower the standards.” Then, we gave ourselves feedback about how disgusted we were with that. And we go back and forth on that off-diagonal. Some people cry their whole lives and go back and forth on that. But as soon as we realize that “Oh, it's not a trade-off, it's not bad in the service of great, I can actually do both at the same time.” But the prescription when I have deep devotion only and get to go up to high standards and deep devotion is very different from the prescription if I have high standards only. This is like, “I have a prescription for great leadership. It depends on which quadrant you're in. Don't give me a generic one. It's going to work 50% of the time, and then I'm going to think it's unreliable.”
Voiceover: Former CEO of Under Armor Stephanie Linnartz has a similar approach to leadership and puts these principles into practice by supporting young female athletes.
Stephanie Linnartz: Yeah, that certainly helps. There is an interesting stat on Taylor Swift. She walks over ten miles for every single concert that she does. She's an athlete. Now, if you've been to a Taylor Swift concert, she's quite the athlete. But she is a real role model for young women. And I think that there's an inflection point in women's sports that is really important. And last year, you saw some of the highest viewership of women's sports ever, record attendance. Live attendance at a female sporting event was last year in Nebraska, and 92,000 people attended the women's volleyball tournament in Nebraska. The NCAA women's final had record viewership. You're seeing a lot with women's soccer. I mentioned flag football, and this is why I am passionate about supporting female athletes in particular, because sports are so important for changing people's lives, and this is another interesting statistic, one that's a little bit frightening. One in three girls drop out of sports when they are in their teenage years, and only one in 10 boys drop out. Young boys have millions of more opportunities every year to play sports. And it's thought whether or not you become a professional athlete. But sports teach you leadership, discipline, and community. Kids are so isolated these days because of social media and all this technology and sports bring people together and community. And girls drop out at a much faster rate. They may play Little League or peewee soccer, but then they'll drop out in middle school and then even more drop out before college. One of the things I'm passionate about and working on with our female athletes is encouraging more young girls to play sports. You don't even need to be a superstar. You don't need to be that great, and you're going to go on and get a scholarship. Maybe you will. But it's more about the life lessons it teaches you when you play sports. And I'm passionate about supporting female athletes. And yeah, Taylor Swift is, I think, the ultimate modern feminist and all that she's teaching young women.
Voiceover: We pivot to Julia Boorstin, CNBC's senior media and tech correspondent and author of When Women Lead. She sheds light on the challenges and opportunities within corporate America.
Willy Walker: It is a real pleasure to have my friend Julia Boorstin joining me today to talk about her new book about her new book, women leadership, When Women Lead. How they lead, and what makes their leadership so unique in guiding corporations around the globe. A little bit of background before we dive and enjoy it. Or I guess maybe we can dive right into when you got out of Princeton and went to work for Fortune magazine; you start your book talking about the fact that there had been a sexual harassment claim recently made against an executive inside of Fortune. And another colleague, another female colleague, said you had this is a really good time to be here because you're good. You don't have to worry about inappropriate behavior at this point. And I guess it gave you a little bit of a wake-up call of welcome to corporate America, I guess.
Julia Boorstin: Yes. This colleague says to me, “Good news. There had just been this big settlement, this big claim, sexual harassment situation. And therefore, great news. Everyone will be on their best behavior.” And I remember thinking that was such a weird situation and a weird thing to celebrate as good news, and that's why people would be on their best behavior. It struck me as off but was an interesting part of a wake-up call of what the working world was going to be like in the fact that there are still these gender dynamics that were incredibly unbalanced. At Fortune magazine, where there are plenty of female writers, the most senior ranks were all dominated by men. I started Fortune magazine at the same time as an English major from Fortune, who was a guy I had majored in history, we had very similar backgrounds. And we were very close friends. We are still very close friends. He left the journalism business, but we're still very close friends. And we would catch up and talk office gossip. And he went and played tennis with our bosses. As a result, there was one day, he came in and told me that he had gotten this crazy assignment to go to Mongolia to do a story about the Mongolian gold Rush, which is a crazy trip and a big swing for Fortune to take to invest in those kind of resources, do a gorgeously reported, beautiful photographs of the gold rush in Mongolia. And I was so jealous. And I knew that he had the opportunity to have casual conversations about his crazy story idea because he was having drinks with our bosses after playing tennis. He was also an incredibly talented writer. And don't get me wrong. But he had a different dynamic with our bosses because of his gender. And I would not have felt comfortable. First of all, I don't play tennis. I'm terrible at tennis. But I wouldn't have felt comfortable being in that kind of situation having drinks at 9 p.m. at night with our bosses because of my gender. And I think that there was nothing malicious about that. He was incredibly talented. There was nothing malicious about the conversation that led to the assignment, but the social constructs of the situation enabled him to have different kinds of opportunities than I did. It all turned out fine for me in the long run. I was distinctly aware that I would not have had that same conversation over Bourbon at 9 p.m. at night that he had had. It's interesting to see how these things play out. But what I found in so much research about what actually was going on there and what continues to happen in the workplace is that this idea of pattern matching and there is nothing malicious about it. But people instinctively want to fit new people and new ideas into patterns of things that already exist or patterns of things that they're familiar with. We talk a lot about unconscious bias, but I think that term is so overused that we often lose sight of what it actually means. But basically, at the heart of so many things, in the way we live our lives, in the way the decisions we make and work, is this idea of pattern matching. What is a pattern of something that has been successful in the past? What is the pattern of a person? This type of person has succeeded in the past, so how can I continue to create these patterns so I can be successful in the future? There's really nothing malicious about it, but it is the perpetuation of those patterns, which is why say, “Women tend not to get funding or one reason why women tend not to get funding as entrepreneurs because there simply aren't that many of them.” I think it's really important to identify the dominance of these patterns and how people who don't fit into these patterns should be evaluated differently. I think it is really valuable to break free from these very powerful patterns in our culture and society.
Voiceover: Julia Boorstin emphasizes the significance of breaking down barriers and promoting equity in leadership roles across industries. But what are the effects of such efforts?
Julia Boorstin: But forget about golfing. How many men are asked? How many children do you have? It's going to be hard to be launching this business while also being a father to your children. That's just not a question. Frankly, it's not a question anyone should ask. I certainly would assume that men are not asked that question at the same frequency as women.
Willy Walker: You mentioned in your book that when you talk about Anne in the interview, the stock price is going up during the interview, and how well it went. In your book, you talk about research as it relates to the naming of female CEOs and the fact that the stock of the company typically sells off on the announcement of a female CEO. But then, over the next two years, Wildly, with a capital W, outperforms new male CEOs by 20%.
Julia Boorstin: Yeah. What's interesting is the stock goes down in the two days after a CEO has been announced if there's a high attention paid to the fact that the CEO is a woman. It's not that there's a female CEO appointed, but because that female CEO is rare as a woman as a CEO. There's a lot of attention paid to it. The attention paid to her gender causes a temporary sell-off in the stock. It's interesting because there is other research in the book that I find fascinating about how the less frequently you see someone in a role, the more you assume they're not good at that role. We talk about it like, “You can't be what you don't see, and the importance of representation is for the next generation to feel they could do anything.” But really, representation is important for everyone, including men and women. It's not that you can't be if you don't see someone in a role; you're going to assume they're not good at it. And there's a really fun study in the book about male and female jockeys. Now, people are actually losing money when they're betting against female jockeys simply because they don't see them frequently in certain races. I think it's really interesting to think about the importance of representation and how it can change our decision-making in a way that's irrational simply because representation is so powerful.
Willy Walker: I thought one of the other interesting things about that jockey study you talk about is the fact.
Julia Boorstin: It's a fun one.
Willy Walker: A very fun one. The other one is that the jumpers are the most discounted. And you would think that the thought is that men are stronger than women. Jumping jockeys need to be stronger on the horse. Therefore, I'm going to discount a female rider on her physicality and not necessarily on her skill. I think only goes to these embedded biases that we all carry as it relates to men and women, just from a physiological standpoint, much less not thinking about the performance and the training that goes into being a great jockey or being a great CEO.
Julia Boorstin: Yeah, absolutely, all of these things statistically. Back to that jockey study, people were losing money because they were betting against women in those races where they didn't see women represented. I think the more that we use the data, the more the data will reveal the impact of the bias. That's why I think it's like whether you're talking about jockeys or female CEOs, you have to figure out how to use data to help remove our reliance on bias or stereotype or pattern matching because it's not valuable. Ultimately, I don't think people should be investing more in women because it's like a nice thing to do or help balance things out. Ultimately, people should follow the data. The data indicates that female founders are more likely to yield investment, return on investment to their backers a year earlier on average, or they're more likely to yield higher returns. That data is valuable, not the stereotype.
Voiceover: Now we turn to writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem, a pillar of social justice.
Willy Walker: In reading a lot about you, self-esteem is something that you spend a lot of time looking at and focusing on. I think you said, “Women take out a lack of self-esteem on themselves. Men take out a lack of self-esteem on others.” Talk for a moment about the difference between genders and women as you fought for women's rights. How important that sense of self-esteem is for women to do what they want.
Gloria Steinem: It's not like it's some evil plot. It's that there are gender roles and there used to be much more than there are now. So, the idea of self-esteem was adjusted to the gender roles. For men self-esteem had to do with accomplishment outside the home, with earning, with having authority, however it was phrased. For women, it had to do with marriage, children, and the house itself. All the things that Betty Friedan was trying to say in her important book were, “Wait a minute, we're all whole people. We all have ways that we want to show our worth.”
Willy Walker: As you look at self-esteem, you delineate between core self-esteem and what is it, situational self-esteem.
Gloria Steinem: This guy has done all this research. When I'm losing my memory, I'm calling you up.
Willy Walker: Any time, Gloria. I will take those phone calls. I thought it was fascinating the way you analyze these two things, because just to summarize what I took away from your writing on this is that “As a child, if you don't gain core self-esteem, your parents look beyond you or you're constantly compared to other people.” That leaves a gap in your own core self-esteem, which in many instances for men, sets them up to go try and find situational self-esteem, which is how much money can I make, what kind of a car do I buy? And that gets you on this treadmill of this never-ending seek for situational self-esteem to try and fill in on the core. But if you don't have the core the situation, will never fill in. Fair summary?
Gloria Steinem: Yeah. No, absolutely. It is gendered. It is affected also by race, which it should not be, obviously. We are intrinsically worthwhile. Each person here is a unique miracle that could never have happened before and could never happen again. And we share human qualities. We have unique talents. But because of racism, the bias about males and females, and economic class, we don't necessarily know that. We don't necessarily know that we are or grow up anyway, knowing that we are each unique.
Willy Walker: You talk, Gloria, about that sense of being linked to one another rather than being right. And talk for a moment about how important that concept of being linked to one another rather than ranked against each other is to you because I've heard you talk about it numerous times.
Gloria Steinem: It's a helpful and, I think, realistic concept. Because if we are told that we are ranked, then we are constantly obsessed with where we are in the ranking and getting to the next one, and so on. We are probably distracted from trying to express what is unique to us, the talents we have, and so on. And we are communal animals. As I was saying, “The greatest punishment all over the world is solitary confinement because we are communal animals.”
Voiceover: We shift our lens back to the corporate world with Ginni Rometty. Her leadership at IBM showcases the practical steps taken to foster a more inclusive workplace.
Ginni Rometty: To me, one of the biggest things right now in the world is that more people need a better opportunity. And it's a little bit whether it's women who are CEOs or, generally speaking, in the population. I think one of the biggest things I fear about democracy is that not enough people feel they have a better future. Whether it's women or other groups, this is why I do a lot of work right now. If you let me end on this point, the work I do today is from something I learned through my 40 years and back to my mom about access and aptitude are not equal. This means that there are a lot of smart people out there, but they may not all have access to these great things. And if you don't think you have a better future or your kids aren't going to have a better job, then you start to say, “Hey, let's vote on something else, or let's have a riot. Let's storm this, let's do that.” You look for a different system. So, the answer to that question and others to me lies in the work all of us can do to give more people good opportunities right now. And how I've manifested that is something I have learned about hiring people for skills, not just their degrees. And if you do that, you will end up working with many underrepresented groups. Because a fact I learned, I had no idea until I stumbled upon it. 65% of Americans do not have a college degree. 80% of black Americans do not have a college degree. And I can quote the same numbers in every developed country in the world. And yet, all of our companies, maybe your company, I don't know mine, 100% of our good jobs require a college degree. But we don't have the time. My experience taught me that wasn't true. To get started, I'll bet 50% of my jobs, and that's what it turned out to be. We went through a decade-long piece of work re-credentialing jobs and getting people to understand that this wasn't lowering the bar. This was just recognizing people had different starting points. When we started hiring people with just an associate degrees from high schools and community colleges in underrepresented areas, they turned out to be as productive, with the same results. They were more loyal, more retentive. 75% did go on to get degrees but didn't have the money to do it to start. And I got a more inclusive workforce out of it. If anything, I would also leave people with, back to your question. Yes, women, but all underrepresented groups have this idea that one of the biggest structural barriers is that we all require college degrees for our good jobs. And I bet if you rewrote the job based on a skill, not just a degree, you would be surprised how many people qualify to get started. And that's what I do now. It's called Skills First, and it is a Movement. Some friends and I have created a group called 110, a million black employees without four-year degrees into middle-class jobs, upwardly mobile, whether it's Delta and Ed Bastian taking off the requirement for pilots to have a four-year degree, getting 1000 applicants the next day, they get it through other training in other ways. At the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, almost all jobs other than a doctor now don't require a college degree to start. We need caregivers. It's amazing to see the people in this country who have skills if given a chance. And then it changes your whole culture for everybody to be around promoting them and advancing them on skills, not just these sometimes false indicators.
Voiceover: We now focus on Christina Wallace, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. She exemplifies adaptability and a zeal for continuous learning through her unique journey, weaving together diverse interests into a cohesive career.
Willy Walker: In The Portfolio Life, Christina adapts tried and true practices from the business sector to help you eschew the cult of ambition and experience the freedom of building the flexible, fulfilling, and sustainable life you want. Drawing on research, case studies, and her own experience, she walks you step by step through the process of designing a strategy for the long haul because you deserve rest, relationships, and a rewarding career. Not someday, but today, and after all, you only live once.
Christina Wallace: Part of this, I think, stems so deeply from I go after every piece of my career, every piece of my life because I want to. I care deeply about it. It fills me. It brings me joy. There's no element of what I do because I am driving for prestige or money or something that other people are impressed by. I remember when I started my MBA at HBS, I met all of these folks. I came from a very nontraditional background. I'd worked at the Metropolitan Opera before I came to business school. And I asked folks, “What do you think you're going to do with your life? Why are you here? What are you here to learn?” And many of them said, “Well, I'm going to be the CEO of a multinational company.” And I was like, “Okay, which one? Do you have an industry in mind about a sector that you care about? Do you have any connection to this work, or is this just a certain level of power, cachet, and prestige that you aspire to?” And I really didn't feel a connection to that at all. My ambition is very much from a place of doing things that I care about and that I want to see a difference in. Part of what I'm trying to espouse in this book and in this sort of model is to allow yourself to reconnect to the sh** you care about and then figure out the business model for your life and for your work that actually matches that. And it's probably not going to look like everyone else's. And it requires a certain amount of entrepreneurial-ness and creativity in how you're going to put those pieces together and manage it. But that is what I believe is going to fill you and give you the longevity to still hustle 20, 30, 40 years down the line because that's going to keep changing as you change.
Willy Walker: You state in your book, “Step Back from the Cult of Ambition.” Yet you're teaching at the Harvard Business School, where, at least from my take, that's probably the most ambitious cohort of people you can possibly find on the face of the planet. Help me understand that's a little bit conflicting there. If you were teaching the arts across the river at the college, I could get it. However, teaching this way of disassociating yourself from the cult of ambition at the Harvard Business School seems a little counter to what I would typically think.
Christina Wallace: Sure. For one, let me be clear. I'm incredibly ambitious. But the cult of ambition, the way I think about that, is the world in which every time you achieve a thing, the very next thought in your mind is, “Okay, what's next? What's bigger? What's higher? What's more impressive? What's next?” And it is this linear mindset that requires constantly moving up to the right. Usually, there is only one dimension of your life: your professional life. I am incredibly ambitious right now. I'm ambitious in many dimensions of my life, not just in my work, my book, my teaching, and also my family. I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old. There's a lot of work I'm putting into helping my kids get off to a start where they have emotional control. They have an understanding of how the world works in a way that they fit into, and they can be kind and generous. I have ambition for my marriage that it doesn't fall apart at this notion of early children at a career. There are a lot of dimensions that I seek ambition, and part of what I'm trying to bring to my students at HBS is that understanding that ambition can be incredibly wonderful. It can drive you for sure, but don't let it be the only God you worship as you think about the experiences, the network, the mindset, and the resources you need to be a successful entrepreneur. Do you feel like you have access to them yet, or is there some experience you might want to gain, maybe as the chief of staff to an early-stage CEO. You can see what these environments feel like. The roller coaster, the constant change, the uncertainty that comes in the earliest stages, you might find that's not the best fit for you. Maybe you are a better fit in the later stages of company building or once it's already up and running and you're thinking about the scaling of a company. Not everyone has to be that founder that they're on day zero to be entrepreneurial and to build things. And part of this work is to figure out where you fit. I write in the book that one of my great joys was finally embracing that I'm a very strangely shaped puzzle piece. I embrace that, I'm a weirdo. And I would argue that everyone is a strangely shaped puzzle piece, and your work is to figure out what shape you are. When you go into rooms, whether it's jobs or relationships or anything else, you have an understanding of where you fit. And it's not a question of “Do you like me?” It's just like, “Do I fit the puzzle? How did I get the space that's available? Do I fit in or not?” And if I don't, rather than shave off parts of my puzzle piece to try to jam it in, maybe I should find the rooms that want me. People say, “It matters if you're happy.” That's not just like a silly little thing that people who don't aspire too much get to have. It matters. Unhappy people who are hugely ambitious can wreak havoc on the world. It matters that you're happy. It matters that you invest in your family and in the communities that you serve. That impact is as important as your professional ambitions.
Voiceover: We now turn our attention to the role of empathy and vulnerability and understanding consumer needs through Julia Boorstin's lens.
Willy Walker: You also talk about female entrepreneurs and leaders, generally speaking, being better at being empathetic. And the other one is leading with vulnerability to skill sets that the pandemic has really underscored. And what you talked about, ‘the great resignation.’ You talked about what people are looking for in companies that both have purpose as well as profit. But talk for a moment about those female leaders who really understand being empathetic at difficult times as well as meeting with vulnerability. Clearly leading with vulnerability is one of the things that many male CEOs don't get at all. And female executives really excel at it.
Julia Boorstin: Yeah, It's so interesting because my book is very much about socialized skills and strategies. Women are more likely to lead in these ways, not necessarily because of any biological instinct. Women tend to rank higher on tests of empathy. And there's a great empathy test that's online that I have on my website, which I reference in the book. And women tend to be more empathetic. They're better able to figure out what someone is feeling or thinking based on a very limited photograph of their face that is actually a photograph just of their eyes. And what's really interesting is I don't think that this is something that's just born. This is something that's socialized from the time girls are little; they're told to try to figure out what their friends are thinking and to use that as a skill to be successful socially. It is an incredibly valuable skill from a professional standpoint.
I was talking recently to a male VC who equated empathy with kindness. I said, “Those are two totally separate things.” Being empathetic can lead you to be compassionate and kind, but empathy is really just about the ability to understand what someone else is feeling or thinking. That is a superpower. If you're negotiating against someone, you want to know what your counterparty is feeling and thinking because that helps you understand what they really want. I think it's really important to separate empathy from compassion. Not that one can't lead to the other. However, the interesting thing about empathy is that it can help you identify a new business. I think about the women in the health tech space. April Koh, the CEO of Spring Health, which is a unicorn health tech company focused on mental health. She saw her community of classmates at Yale struggling with mental health issues. And she wanted to figure out a better solution for people like them. The fact that she could understand what they were going through, all the fertility-oriented companies that have exploded in popularity recently. Also, out of empathy for women who are not finding solutions to their personal fertility struggles. There's this opportunity to use empathy to find better business solutions. I also thought to mention another health tech company, Cityblock Health, co-founded by Dr. Toyin Ajayi, who saw how the current healthcare system had no empathy for especially low-income patients who are not complying with their doctor's orders. She said, “If we could be more empathetic to why they aren’t taking their meds and why they aren't coming in for their checkups, then we would be more effective. We will reduce healthcare costs, improve healthcare outcomes, and use empathy as a business tool.” I think it's really important to just understand how empathy can be really strategic and financially valuable.
Voiceover: Our discussion of strategic leadership continues with JP Morgan's CEO of Asset and Wealth Management, Mary Callahan Erdoes, and her thoughts on preparation and risk management.
Willy Walker: Mary, I'd like to start here. You sit on Zoom calls and conference calls with your global management team, as well as investment professionals from around the world, every day. What's the underlying sentiment about the markets in the world we live in today on those calls?
Mary Erdoes: All of the world's emotions are at play. And it's been a long time since we've had a war on European proximity, where you have a situation that we're all facing and focused on. And crisis is not new in this world, and it's certainly not new to financial services. But how you deal with it, how you think about it, and how you prepare for it are the most important things. And I think you having these dialogs with people to talk about what it's like inside in terms of how they're preparing for various scenarios. I think anyone telling you they know what the scenario is and exactly what's going to happen in the month of May, June, July, August next year, or whatever is very uncertain at this point. But how are people preparing, what are they doing to make sure that they are risk managing, risk mitigating, and then also there to help and do things for clients in the future? I think that's the most important thing. And you do it so well. You've been doing it so well with all of us ever since we went in to... Many of us never even used Zoom prior to lockdown. You got us all used to it. Now you're an expert. And I just love these dialogs that you're having.
At JPMorgan Chase, as you can imagine, our job is to always prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And if you do it the other way around, you're going to get yourself in big trouble. That's how we are wired, and that's what we do every time that we face a risk that is a little bit less certain than the one that we faced the day before or the year before. And so you can imagine, we have our daily meetings. We were in three-times-a-day meetings early on a couple of months ago. Thankfully, we are not holding them three times a day anymore and on weekends, they've subsided a little bit. But that doesn't mean that the risk management of how we think about things has subsided. I think we're now in a routine of what we're going to do, how we're going to deal with it, and what the shifting plates around the world are. What does it mean for global GDP? What does it mean for local interest rate scenarios in different places in the world? What does it mean for the flow of money and investments and then all of the other humanitarian issues that we think about as people inside of this great firm.
Willy Walker: That's interesting; you're more, if you will, concerned and, quite honestly, sounding pessimistic than I would have thought. And the reason I say that is that I've heard you in the past speak about talking to your team, about trying not to look at the geopolitical landscape too much, because, in a long-term economic outlook, those geopolitical situations tend to come and go and long term markets correct and get to where you want them to go to. Is there something today, given the volume of issues, that makes you more concerned than normal?
Mary Erdoes: I think you're 100% right. In general, geopolitical issues, which we've had for centuries, don't have a long-term impact on markets unless you get into severe commodity disruptions like oil prices. And that's one of the things that we have at play here, given the changing supply and demand dynamics that are happening in the world. That can have impacts that are harder to quantify and longer lasting than most geopolitical issues. The markets have brushed off a whole lot of this, but the question is how long would inflated oil prices would affect the world? What are the shifting dynamics you've got? You've got natural gas issues all across Europe. You've got electricity prices. Basically, everything that you think about in terms of pricing stability is out the window right now. Everything is up roughly fourfold in gas and electric prices in Europe. That's not the end of the world if it doesn't last for a very long period of time. But if it's a sustained period of time, you've got contraction in GDP that spills over, obviously, and then into the rest of the world. So, $110 oil has had a pretty big impact, especially in Europe. It's about a point and a half of GDP. I think you've got some real issues you have to deal with. Then, the war, in general, has so many uncertainties as to how long you're dealing with actors that are not necessarily predictable in any measure. You don't know. And when you don't know, you don't have any other option, at least in our seat, except to prepare for the worst. That doesn't mean I'm negative on markets. That means my job right now is to make sure that the companies that I deal with, your company, your family, all the way through to the governments and the sovereign wealth funds. Have you done risk management? Have you thought about your stress testing again? Did you get too comfortable with the leverage that you had? When you think back to the world of Fed funds as the basis of all pricing in the world for financial instruments. Everything is discounted back basically at that Fed funds rate plus some risk premium. And then you think about that moment.
Just think back to when I first started on Wall Street, I landed on a fixed income desk where, all of a sudden, Greenspan was raising rates by 25 basis points a clip, every month. And then, bam, there was like 50 basis points, and then bam, in the fall, it was like 75 basis point move. And the whole world was like, "Oh my gosh.” And so Fed funds went for 3%, 6%. And you were sitting there saying, “How could this be?” Ten-year treasuries up to think they hit 8% at one point. I didn't know any better. I thought that was the way the world works. Of course, then everything normalized. But I think that there's a whole population of people out there today who don't know anything but a bull market in bonds and low interest rates. And that could change very quickly. And when interest rates change, it affects the pricing of every financial services instrument that there is because you're just discounting back at a higher rate. I don't need to tell you that's the business that you're in, that you master, that you do so well, and that you help so many people with. And that's what we're facing. And we've enjoyed very healthy markets. We've enjoyed the benefit of very low rates and lots of quantitative easing and sloshing around of central bank money in all pockets of the world to try and help through a global pandemic. And we had to deal with the ramifications of that at some point. Whether it's today, tomorrow, or a year or two from now, my job is to prepare those portfolios to sustain that. Because I need those portfolios to be there in a hundred years from now, that's my job.
Voiceover: Being in a leadership role requires more than steering a corporate agenda. The expanded role of leadership is exemplified by Gloria Steinem's A Lifelong Activism.
Willy Walker: After Smith, you came to New York. And I've heard you talk about seeing a woman walking down the street in Manhattan who is dressed in an Australian coat. And you looked at her and said, “That's the first free woman I've seen.” What captured you?
Gloria Steinem: It was interesting that you found this true. She was an artist whose name I may come back to before we leave. I was across the street from her, and she had no purse, which struck me as freedom. She had on a big old coat that was flying out behind her. And I thought this is the first free woman I've ever seen. And I never forgot her.
Willy Walker: Did you talk to her?
Gloria Steinem: No. She was across the street. And only later on did I understand who she was. She was an artist.
Willy Walker: And what was it at that moment when you saw that first free woman, in your view, that said to you, “I need to do something along these lines I need to take with that made me feel like and make more women free.”
Gloria Steinem: I don't know if I thought about it then as a movement, but there was still in my era, the idea that you didn't find your own identity, you married your identity, and that was very strong. We're talking about the 1950s, which was a very conservative time when people were consciously trying to go back to the old way because after World War II, that seemed much safer. And my classmates, the shine of engagement rings as people raised their hands in class was blinding. Everybody was engaged. I was engaged too. And to a very good person and somebody I continued to know all of my life. But it seemed as if you made this one decision; you didn't have any other decisions to make after that. Instead, there was a small scholarship that somebody had left at Smith to go to India. I went to India instead. I don't know how to explain this exactly. But my mother and both my grandmothers have been pacifists, which is a philosophy that leans heavily towards India. I had some familiarity with India. And I just got on a ship and left. It's amazing what we do in our news.
Willy Walker: Talk to me for a moment about the rally when you said, “I have.” When were you talking about abortion rights?
Gloria Steinem: Yeah.
Willy Walker: And you were giving the speech, and you were talking generally about the right to choose. And then you inserted into the speech, “I have.” As you thought about, if you will, coming out with that. In that day and age, did you say it because you wanted to be honest? Did you say it because you needed that from a leader standpoint to, if you will, put your own personal story into the broader narrative?
Gloria Steinem: No, I think I said it because, at the time, one in three American women had an abortion at some time in life. And it seemed crazy that this was not recognized. Also, I think by that time I had visited Africa and discovered sitting with women in the middle of the Kalahari Desert and they were showing me the herbs they used to facilitate the birth, that literally the herbs that were growing, the herbs they used to support the ephesian. I suddenly realized, wait a minute, this has always been true. It has always been sometimes necessary and important, for women especially, to regulate births. And why have we allowed various religions or whatever to tell us otherwise? It seemed totally illogical. I remember also speaking with a woman named Florynce Kennedy. Who was a wonderful, outrageous civil rights lawyer and she always used to say, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”
Willy Walker: You dedicated ‘My Life on the Road’ to Dr. John Sharp. And when Dr. John Sharp was the doctor who performed that abortion illegally in 1954.
Gloria Steinem: ‘57.
Willy Walker: ‘57. And you write that he said two things to you. “Don't tell anyone my name. And live your life.”
Gloria Steinem: “And do what you want to do with your life.”
Willy Walker: “And do what you want with your life.”
Gloria Steinem: What a wonderful man. And I was living in London, working as a waitress, trying to wait until I got a visa to go to India, where my fellowship was. I didn't know anybody, maybe a couple of people. I found his name in the phone book, and he was this enormously wise, kind person who came along at a crucial moment, which I hope we can do for each other. People turn to us in a moment of need. I hope we can do that, too.
Willy Walker: After giving that speech where you said, “I have,” there's a quote, “Choose between giving birth to someone else and giving birth to ourselves.” Why do you think certain women react poorly to that statement? Or why do you think certain people in society react poorly to that statement? Is it threatening?
Gloria Steinem: I can't be sure. I don't know what's in their hearts when they say that. But I think that various institutions in our lives have tried to make birthgiving more important than their personhood or for women. But religions have sometimes done that, although I'm not sure we know the truth of it exactly because the Catholic Church actually allowed you to abort a male fetus in less time than a female fetus. They wrongly thought that when the fetus quickened. Abortion had been allowed, and it was only Napoleon III who made a deal with the pope to declare abortion a mortal sin because he wanted more people for his armies. It isn't as if it has come down to us necessarily exactly as it happened, but it just seems to be the basis of democracy. Either we get to make decisions for men and women over our own physical selves, or what good is democracy to us?
Voiceover: We now listen to Dr. Frances Frei, whose journey showcases the importance of perseverance, a positive outlook, and overcoming challenges.
Willy Walker: In reading your history, you applied to 17 colleges, which in today's world isn't a huge number because of the common app. But back when you and I were applying to college, applying to 17 colleges was an incredible number of colleges. First of all, what was it in your personality that made you apply to 17 schools? And then what was it that took you to Brandeis to begin?
Frances Frei: I wasn't sure I was going to get in any of them. There weren't college guidance counselors or things like that. I went to a small public school; I just applied to lots, hoping I'd get into one. Brandeis, I didn't even know anything about the school, but they paid for me to go there. As someone who came from no means from my family, I found it the easiest decision. Even though I didn't know. Now, the school I really wanted to go to was the University of Pennsylvania. All of the others, they were like the backup schools. The University of Pennsylvania said, “No.” And you'll like the theme of me is I'm undaunted by a, “No.” I went to Brandeis but then applied to transfer to Penn and learned, at least at the time, that it's easier to get in as a transfer.
Willy Walker: I'm surprised that you say that Penn was where you really wanted to go because, as you have admitted, you applied to Harvard five different times before Harvard actually took you as a professor at the business school. Where does that tenacity of going back and back come from other than being number six out of six?
Ginni Rometty: I think a lot of it is number six. But I will say I don't have the expectation of a yes. It wasn't my experience growing up. I got people who said yes to me for the first time, very rarely. And I really early on realized that I'm not going to let the decision of a mortal influence my life's trajectory. If I got a yes, it was just a surprise. But usually, I got a, No, and I learned to think that this is not now and to come back. And I had a boomerang of resilience to come back. It's not that I wasn't disappointed when they said, “No,” but it didn't change my ambition in any way. I'm not fragile to a no.
Willy Walker: Your research examines how leaders create the context for organizations and individuals to thrive. And one of your classes investigates how organizations build business models that reliably delight customers. Can you summarize for us how companies like eBay, Oracle, and Cleveland Clinic, three companies you've written case studies on, have built business models that “Reliably delight customers.”
Ginni Rometty: Yeah. The secret is that they also reliably disappoint customers. Here's the trick. In order to be great, you have to be bad. Not bad for sport, but bad in the service of great. And every sustainably great organization is optimized to be great and optimized to be bad. I'll give you the simplest example I can of this, which is Steve Jobs, who created the MacBook Air. He wanted to create the lightest weight laptop on the market even though he cares about excellence more than anyone I ever met. And even he understood that if we had the lightest laptop on the market, we would be best in class at weight. We have to be the worst in class at physical features because they trade off against each other. He would say, “We could be best in class at physical features, but then we're going to be worst in class at weight.” And then he would make a joke, “Or we could choose to be average at both, but then we'd have to rename the company Del.”
For every one of the companies you mentioned, we can say you can clearly see what we are optimized to be great at? What are our lightweight and physical features? And if you can't articulate it, my guess is you will not have sustainable excellence because somebody is going to come around with initiative to get better at physical features, not understanding the tradeoff. And then you're playing Whac-A-Mole, and you become more exhausted, mediocre, and similar to your competitors.
Voiceover: The insights from these seven leaders highlight the rich diversity and depth of leadership. Touching on key themes like innovation, empowerment, and social responsibility. Despite their varied backgrounds, their experiences unite around the core principles of effective leadership. They challenge us to approach leadership with courage, empathy, and a readiness to embrace change. Let us be inspired by their paths to promote diversity, equity, and innovation in our leadership practices. Please join the Walker webcast next week for another insightful discussion with today's most innovative leaders.
