Late Inaugural Reflections

January 20, 2021 was an emotional moment—decades in the making. Because of the espoused mission of this blog, I feel like I should write 10 posts with happy emojis doing backflips over pictures of Kamela Harris, Michelle Obama, Amanda Gorman, and Jill Biden. I didn’t.

I feel shame about this. How the heck can I be a blog that “..is a celebration platform for women” and not mention this historic event?

As I scroll through amazing tweets from celebrities, friends, and internet randoms that capture the spirit of the moment so well, I feel like an imposter for not having my own insightful or comedic quip and the shame continues.

Isn’t it ironic? This issue of not having confidence in my own voice is symptomatic of the larger cultural and societal problems that women face in their professional lives. “Other people can do it better. Why don’t I just forget it? I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation!” Sound familiar?

I don’t need Alanis Morissette to tell me that this is ironic.

These are all internalized versions of self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence that fly in the face of everything I “know” about leadership (cue: Sheryl Sandberg).

But please, don’t interpret this to mean that I’m shouldering this blame and going right into a suck it up and “pull yourself up from your bootstraps” spiel. There are good reasons why women, especially women leaders, have taught themselves to make themselves small — to listen to others and to play it safe. 

An article from PsychologyToday cites scholarship showing that women leaders frequently:

1) experience challenges to their leadership,

2) are questioned about their legitimacy as leaders

3) are evaluated more negatively than men doing the same job, and

4) face performance expectations often associated with their social identities rather than their leadership.

Source: Chin & Trimble, 2015; Chin, 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/leadership/201907/why-aren-t-there-more-women-leaders

And that’s what makes January 22 so notable to me. At a time when we need more prominent leaders who are women, January 22 was a celebration of — Kamala Harris, Amanda Gorman, Michelle Obama, and so many more — all women who navigated these and so many other challenges to be THERE on that national stage.

So when you see a woman in a leadership role like Kamala Harris, let it be a reminder that not only is she qualified but she is super qualified because not only does she check the standard marks of qualifications but she has also overcome a heck of a lot that has been thrown at her by a culture that has a history of trying to make women make themselves smaller. Oh, and let’s try to see ourselves as super qualified too.