Leadership Ambassadors Tackle Take The Lead Day and Win With Powertopia

Leadership Ambassador Shalini Sardana led a Powertopia workshop on Take The Lead Day.

Leadership Ambassador Shalini Sardana led a Powertopia workshop on Take The Lead Day.

Twelve of the more than 20 certified Take The Lead Leadership Ambassador trainers around the country provided a specialized sneak peek of their training at a wide variety of workshops, webinars and panels to align with the mission of Take The Lead Day, the global day of action to reach gender parity by 2025.

In Phoenix, Lisa Mead, Leadership Ambassador, president of Crowne Healthcare Advisors and founder of Arizona Women in Healthcare, hosted a sold-out crowd for the “Women in Healthcare Take the Lead” webinar.

“Women in Healthcare have particular challenges in taking on senior leadership roles, inhabiting those roles joyfully and leveraging their power in a positive and authentic way,” Mead says.

Take The Lead Leadership Ambassadors provided a sneak peek of their training during #TakeTheLeadDay

For more than 30 years, Mead worked in healthcare as a registered nurse, then as an executive. Mead runs three companies to support individuals and organizations to better execute, improve and succeed in healthcare.

Her webinar – and all of her training work for Take The Lead – merges Mead’s professional experience with her the expertise in women’s leadership she’s gained as a certified Leadership Ambassador.

Mead designed her Take The Lead Day program to include an overview of the current issues in gender parity and explain how to identify and master an individual’s inherent power to chart an individual path to leadership.

Mead and all the Leadership Ambassadors deliver the actionable “9 Leadership Power Tools to Accelerate Your Career” curriculum. Each trainer has her own area of expertise which allows Take The Lead to match each client company with a trainer who knows the industry.

After hosting a series of Take The Lead salons, Leadership Ambassador Sara Nett, founder and principal consultant at Engage Consulting, says she understands how deeply ambivalent women in her community of Mankato, MN are  about power. Her contribution to the global day of women’s leadership parity included hosting a webinar called “The P Word.”

“I’m part of Take The Lead Day because I work with so many women who are afraid to claim their expertise and put themselves out into the world,” Nett says. “Key takeaways include a deeper understanding of the bases of power, and strategies for using our power to define terms that promote inclusive leadership in our organizations and communities,” according to Nett.

Across the country in the tech hub of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, Leadership Ambassador Shalini Sardana hosted a workshop at Galvanize, a Take The Lead Day partner. Sardana’s workshop, “Changing the Narrative for Women in Tech,” was sold out.

As a design thinking expert and tech veteran, Sardana offered insights on Silicon Valley’s bro culture and how it’s struggling to deliver on its promise of a better work future for women in tech.

“We are creating awareness about Take The Lead and how we can help to change the oppressive narrative for women in tech,” Sardana says.

The best part of the event, Sardana says, was “women sharing their negotiation stories about how difficult it is to face male bosses about asking for a raise, how these bosses cleverly dodge the topic, how strategic and prepared they’ve been despite being unsuccessful and how each one in the room never walked away without at least attempting some degree of negotiation. There was resilience and determination in their approach.”

Sardana adds, “Take The Lead equips women to transform the narrative by embracing their personal power and turning challenges into opportunities. We offered a glimpse of the possibilities available through Take The Lead training, role modeling, mentoring and thought leadership along with some powerful networking at this workshop.”

In Phoenix, Galvanize  was a partner and sponsor of Take The Lead Day offering a full day of programming. Laurie Battaglia, CEO and Workplace Strategist for Aligned at Work, kicked off the day with “Power Up! 9 Leadership Power Tools to Advance Your Career and Life.” She concentrated on “the ways you use power can make or break your career. We started with how we got where we are today, and then took participants through the nine practical tools to create power their way,” Battaglia says.

Mary Collum, Founder and President of Vantage Strategic Consulting, and a Leadership Ambassador, led the workshop, “The Role & Responsibility of Leadership in a Diverse Workplace,” an interactive discussion of a multi-generational workplace and challenges leaders face at each level.

Leadership Ambassador Dr. Mallary Tytel, CEO and Founder, Healthy Workplaces, presented the workshop, ”Gender Economics: The Intersection of Money and Gender.”

“Personally and professionally, this is about Every Woman: to recognize her own skills; build her own capacity; and crack the code of leadership and equity for all,” Tytel says.

In Los Angeles, Leadership Ambassadors, Tabby Biddle, author, coach and speaker, along with Elisa Parker,  Co-Founder President and Host of “See Jane Do,” presented, “How 50 Women in Media and Entertainment Can Change the World.”

The webinar supported their four-month leadership training program that is accepting applications from women in media and entertainment in the greater Los Angeles area.

In Sacramento, Take The Lead Leadership Ambassador Jenn Manuel, Founder and CEO of Via Consulting Group, presented, “Powertopia!” Manuel says, “Talking isn’t enough. We need action.”

She provided “new tools to use immediately to shift to a more collaborative notion of power.”

Watching webinars around the world, many offered by Take The Lead Leadership Ambassadors, viewers added their comments to why they chose to participate in this inaugural Take The Lead Day of global action. Here is a round-up of a few of those comments:

Viewers commented why they chose to participate in #TakeTheLeadDay from around the world

“It’s essential that we all stand up with voice and action to support each other, to be a collective powerful presence that rises up and overcomes the forces that seek to limit us, and to create bold new opportunities and futures for ourselves, our kids and the men who will benefit as well,” writes Cheryl of Montana.

“To advance and show my leadership abilities in an organization of mostly men. Pep talk for myself mostly!” writes Tracey of Ohio.

“I want to take part and join others who are engaged in changing the world around us. I believe if we each contribute, that together we can create a significant impact,” writes Ellen in California

“We need to support each other to make a change – groundswell, crowdsourcing, whatever we call it – there is power in numbers, in the collective strength of the females in this world,” writes Brenna from Arizona.

“Being at the forefront of equality gaps within the technology industry, I experience this quite frequently. I want to join the movement and gain insights on how we can get better every day by embracing the challenges and gaps as one in order to lead the charge with equality,” writes Jennifer from Kentucky

“I am passionate about women being equally represented in the seats of power throughout our society as I believe it will lead to a more just and compassionate world,” writes Lisa from Texas

“To continually learn how women can realize their full potential and help each other to succeed,” writes Audrey from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

“I’m the founder and president of a non for profit organization, Mujeres por Mujeres Ecuador. Our mission is to promote the advancement of more women into leadership positions. The content of this event is very important to broaden our thinking and learn from other organizations, as well as learn the situation of Gender Equality globally,” writes Maria from Ecuador.

Miss the livestream? Sign up here to request the recap from the global day of action with all the Take The Lead Day’s live streamed workshops and presentations.


About the Author

TAKE THE LEAD prepares, develops, inspires and propels women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025. It’s today’s women’s movement — a unique catalyst for women to embrace power and reach leadership parity.