CEOs Who Made It While Being Authentic
Given the demographics of big company leaders—there are currently only 41 women CEOs in the Fortune 500, for example—it’s almost a coincidence that three of the CEO stories I read recently were written by women of color—Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, and Susan Rice.
What’s not surprising is that each of them told stories of having to figure out how they fit in their mostly male, mostly white professional environments.
For Susan Rice, this was a lesson from childhood. In Tough Love, she writes: “Dad summarized another key lesson on race as follows: I concluded that I am only one person. I am only human, and I cannot carry the burdens of the world around on my shoulder…. If my being black caused a problem, it was not going to be to me; it was going to be to other people.”
In Where You Are Is Not Who You Are, Ursula Burns wrote about choosing early in her career to dress in whatever was most comfortable for her. “I struggled at first to understand how to fit into this white corporate world. I wore skirts and a little jacket to work, like all the other women, but I didn’t feel comfortable. This isn’t working, I said to myself after six months, and I switched to wearing pants. I felt much better.”
For Indra Nooyi, this lesson came in business school when an ill-fitting Western business suit caused curious looks from classmates ahead of a job interview. In My Life in Full, she wrote: “I told [a career counselor at Yale’s business school] about my financial predicament and how I bought a suit to fit my budget. ‘I wanted to fit in,’ I explained. Then she asked me what I’d wear to an interview in India. A sari, I told her. I had many of them back in my room. Her advice: ‘Next time, wear the sari. And if they won’t hire you for who you are, it’s their loss. Just be yourself.’”
What I found interesting is that for each of these women, their decision to be their authentic selves occurred relatively early in their lives and careers. And having made that decision, it seemed to have armored them with confidence in their choices. They still needed to refine their work personalities as they developed and became more senior leaders, but they did so on a solid platform rather than constantly wrestling with their style.
By the time Susan Rice was dealing with senior diplomats and heads of state, she had the confidence to look past the challenges of being a woman, being relatively young, and having a reputation for mixing it up.
For example, she wrote about taking on a new position: “At the outset, I estimated that about two-thirds of my direct reports were hostile or leaning negative toward me, and about one-third were open or leaning favorable. My aim was to flip that balance over the course of my tenure, fully recognizing that there were some who would never be fans.”
That is, she knew she had leadership work to do, but she didn’t question her style.
And by the time Indra Nooyi read business reports commenting on her attire as CEO, she knew just how ridiculous it was.
“One Wall Street Journal story when I took over, with the headline ‘Pepsi’s new CEO doesn’t keep her opinions bottled up,’ describes me in the first paragraph wearing a sari and celebrating Harry Belafonte by singing “Day-O.” In reality, I briefly introduced Mr. Belafonte and, as a group, we all sang “Day-O” at a 2005 diversity and inclusion event. I was wearing a business suit with my trademark flowing scarf. Maybe they thought that was a sari.”
And by the time she was CEO of Xerox, Ursula Burns was comfortable exhibiting her own style as a leader.
“I got quite a lot of blowback for my tough-love approach from those who would have preferred a cheerleader instead of a critic. [...] My style was very different from [the previous CEO, Anne Mulcahy]. [...] Anne’s approach worked very well for her, but I just couldn’t do what she did.”
Commenting about meeting colleagues at a CEO roundtable hosted by President Obama, she wrote: “I don’t know what my fellow CEOs thought of me either, but I didn’t care much.”
Of course, as with most leadership challenges, deciding how authentic we can be in each moment is tricky. But perhaps there’s a lesson in Rice, Burns, and Nooyi’s experience that it may be much easier to handle those tradeoffs when we have a confident default decision to rely upon—that is, when we know where we stand.
Leadership Wisdom
“Hold on to your awareness of yourself, even as the world tells you how important and powerful you are. The moment you start to believe it all too much, the moment you look at yourself in the mirror and see a title emblazoned on your forehead, you’ve lost your way.”
— Bob Iger, in The Ride of a Lifetime