How Women Leaders Can “Shoulder Up” to Maximize Positive Impact

That’s what I asked my friend Stacey Abrams a few months ago after I learned about her efforts to fight voter suppression initiatives in Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Texas and other states. As I watched her  interviews on TV and read about her efforts in the news, I knew I needed to support her however I could, to roll up my sleeves and work with her in a way that would be meaningful and have a positive long-term effect.

When I asked her how I could best support her, Stacey said, “We need to shoulder up to vote.”

To me, shouldering up means moving forward together, shoulder to shoulder, in order to create the maximum positive impact while always being able to add more people to the movement. It’s committing to walking side by side with others as they navigate a path that’s new to them, but which may not be new to us. It goes far beyond what we typically think of as networking or even mentoring–it means advocating for others through long-term, sustained action.

I like this concept so much that I created a movement called ShoulderUP with Viola Davis that is dedicated to educating and empowering women around the world by helping them reach their greatest economic, political and cultural potential. Our organization works to educate women about leadership, influence and finances by providing res and advice–for women by women.

Instead of sending a few text messages or making a few phone calls to powerful women in my network, I decided to shoulder up by hosting a virtual event with women business leaders from all over the country. The event gave Stacey the opportunity to educate more than 125 of us at once about voter suppression and how we could fight it. The event amplified Stacey’s message, brought more women to the voting rights movement and provided information on specific actions we could all take, such as engaging our state legislators, publicly opposing laws that restrict access to the polls and educating our workforces to ensure they understand their voting rights. That was just the first step. I’ll continue to shoulder up with Stacey and the many others I know who are working to ensure every eligible American can participate in our elections, regardless of race, class or party.

The power of shouldering up first became apparent to me during my 22-year career in the Army, where I was often the only woman and sometimes the only person of color in the room where key decisions were being made. I realized that all of us who are “the only” must advocate to get more people like us in the room. That means if you’re the only female or minority member on a corporate board or in the C-suite, you have to go beyond just telling your colleagues, “You need more people like me around this table.” Once you earn a position of power, you have to use that to advocate for more diversity and shoulder up with others to guide them along the path you’ve already successfully navigated.

It’s crucial for women business leaders to shoulder up because, despite our significant gains, women still hold only about 20% of board seats at S&P 500 companies, even though companies led by women have historically performed 226% better than the S&P average, according to Credit Suisse. Also, companies with at least three female directors have generated a 66% higher return on invested capital, a 42% higher return on sales and a 53% higher return on equity, according to Catalyst. And it’s crucial because companies with ethnically and culturally diverse management teams tend to do 35% better financially, according to McKinsey & Company. When we shoulder up, we succeed.

If you’re a woman entrepreneur or leader, there are three actions you can take to develop your power to shoulder up in order to have the greatest positive impact:

1. Commit to meeting 100% of your potential: Every leader needs to understand her life potential and figure out what proportion of that potential she’s currently tapping. I check my potential meter every day as a reminder of what I can tap into. At one point in my life, I realized that even though I’d already had a rewarding military career, I was truly tapping only about 30% of my life potential. Tapping into my full life potential allowed me to start, run and grow a successful cybersecurity firm. I recognized that I wanted to use all of my potential while I was here on earth, and I focused my mind and committed to using my full skillset every day in order to help lift up and educate others so they could achieve more.
   Achieving your life potential is bigger than just succeeding in business; it’s about achieving your calling or purpose. If you increase your life potential, you automatically boost your potential in every aspect of your life.
2. Be intentional about maximizing your impact: There are plenty of good leaders in the world. What differentiates the great ones is that they are intentional about their purpose and the impact they want to have. Good leaders typically feel like they’ve done a good job if other people in their organization are happy. They see leadership as doing their job well. Great leaders are more concerned about the impact of doing the job. A CEO who is a great leader isn’t satisfied by guiding a growing company that provides value to customers, employees and stakeholders. Instead, she looks to have an impact at a higher level, to positively affect not just her company, but her wider community and society.
3. Understand your value card and don’t be afraid to play it at every table: Your value card is not just your special skill, but the one trait that drives you to succeed–and the moment you understand what it is, you can begin playing it consistently. Your value card may be leadership, meaning you take the role of a leader no matter what room or situation you find yourself in. Or it may be strategy, innovation, networking, research, mentoring or connecting the dots between trends and business opportunities.
   Every value card has subcards that come with it. For example, negotiation is a subcard for great leaders because leadership nearly always requires an ability to negotiate effectively. Diplomacy is a subcard of every great networker. Empathy is a subcard of great mentors and imagination a subcard of great innovators.Whatever your value card is, you need to be confident that the moment you play it, whether in a board meeting, a financial negotiation, an interview or any other situation, everybody else in the room will respond to it and not only respect, but welcome, your contribution.