Women: Your voice matters – Find it, use it, Own it

Be known for the punches you took as the ones you threw. It’s time to drown out the voice of uncertainty, build bigger, and challenge the status quo.

 

By Ms. Vrutika Dawda, Director of IdeateLabs

It is 2018. Times are changing with the advent of stronger gender-equality based policies for women in the workforce. So ladies, if you’re wondering if you’re good enough, smart enough, or if you can handle it, or if you even deserve it, you do. Because success begins with a powerful belief of knowing that you can do anything and believing that you can do more than you know.

It’s time you find your voice – and own it. Ask for what you want and deserve. As a Director of a full-service digital communications firm, I’ve learnt to take up more than my share of responsibilities, and I’ve been able to overcome challenges – just by believing I could do it. It’s a small but significant step – choosing to believe in yourself. Why? Because it hinges on others believing in you, too.

We need to build our confidence by celebrating our victories, no matter how big or small they are. Building confidence is crucial. When stymied business and reduced cash-flows challenged us, I took up the responsibilities of corporate affairs, operations, legal and human resources department – and slowly helped rebuild IdeateLabs from the ground up. I attribute this to believing I could handle it, and so I did. It’s just as simple as that.

Make yourself a priority once in a while. You don’t have be a 100% at everything; you can ask for help as often and early as possible and not be any lesser for doing it. In fact, rope in other women to help you out. We women must learn to share these opportunities with each other. In fact, we women must help other women. As the Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” I agree, and this is why I make it a point to be a mentor to my women employees. This encourages other women in management positions to invite mentees, besides changing perspectives to show them that there can be many more seats for powerful women.

An article in Forbes states that a recent Nordea study analyzed nearly 11,000 publicly traded global companies – all of which see at least $2 million in trades a day – over an eight-year period. The group concluded that the results were clear that companies run by women perform far better than the market. One more research found that companies with a female CEO or chairperson of the board of directors had averaged a 25% annualized return since 2009 – more than double the 11% that the MSCI World Index delivered.

An example of this is when Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi, moved up to the 11th rank in 2017 due to her strategy of adjusting to shifts in consumer habits by adding to her company’s healthier product lines. Even the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, accredits running a successful business due to his female employees’ capacity to think out-of-the-box.

This is a transition we must make – to take a stand and assert ourselves as women who will contribute valued additions to the world of business. So, let’s look at this from another perspective, that there really is no glass ceiling to break. Why? Because it’s time we made our own rules – realizing our potential to craft our goals and achievements based on what we as women need to lead humanity upward. Let’s create a world that’s not just based on gender achievements, let’s create a world that’s sustainable – enabling all of humanity to live a better life.