When I was a kid, I enjoyed being a leader.
What that meant at the time was that teachers looked to me to be an example for other students. Friends came to me for advice, because they (mistakenly) believed I had some inner wisdom they didn’t have (I had strong opinions and read a lot, which made me an expert in my own and apparently my peers’ eyes). I kept my brother and sister out of trouble (or tried to) while my mom worked multiple jobs to put food on the table.
In college, I ran the university newspaper as editor in chief, acted as the leader of a band, and organized multiple social groups. But into adulthood, those leadership roles began to slip away.
It seemed much easier to be a leader when I was younger.
I don’t consider myself a natural leader. Even when I was younger, I stepped into roles only because there were great, gaping holes that seemed important to fill. I stepped into them because no one else would.
But my life today is filled with amazing, competent leaders. And, I don’t know. Maybe I’m tired. I have a lot of kids. I live every day as a leader—a mom…and my kids’ lives aren’t getting any less complicated, and their problems aren’t getting any less challenging.
Maybe that’s enough for me, I told myself. To be a leader of this one, tiny world.
But it wasn’t. I could feel it down deep—that aching to make a difference, that longing to change the world that I’ve felt since I was a child.
After watching through Mrs. America, a Hulu original series that follows the women’s movement to push for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (highly recommended, if you haven’t seen it!), I spent months obsessed with learning more about Gloria Steinem, one of the movement’s leaders. I felt a strong connection with Steinem, who spoke up for women’s rights, wrote endlessly about their importance, and founded a pivotal magazine, Ms.
Her story—and the stories of all the other women leaders—were so inspiring. But I could never be them.
I believe in the ERA. But if I had lived back during that time, when women were fighting for it, would I have been a Gloria Steinem or a Betty Friedan or a Bella Abzug or a Pauli Murray or a Shirley Chisholm or a Gloria Watkins? Probably not. (Maybe I could have been an Audre Lorde.)
I’m not comfortable in the spotlight. Public speaking makes me uncomfortable, unless I’m talking to kids and teens. When I used to sing the national anthem for sporting events—in middle school, high school and college—I hid behind a curtain or up in an announcer’s booth so no one would look at me while I was singing (except for the college baseball games, which left me vulnerable at home plate…I only did three of those, because my anxiety couldn’t take it).
And then an episode of the show highlighted a group of women athletes who in 1977 organized a 2,612-mile relay from Seneca Falls, New York, where the first national women’s convention was held in 1848, to Houston, Texas, where the pivotal National Women’s Conference was happening, and I told my husband: That would have been me.
They didn’t say a word. They ran. And their voice was heard.
Here’s the thing. We often mistakenly believe that in order to make a difference in the world, we have to be a loud leader, in the spotlight often, with millions of followers. But some of us are quiet leaders. Some of us lead by example. Or we lead by arranging careful words on a page and occasionally (or often) sending them out into the world. Or we lead by expressing our creativity and our hearts in music or dance or film or sport or marketing or science or math or interior design or fashion or engineering or food service or the millions of other possibilities that exist.
We do what we can with what we have. Some of us have legs to run. Some of us have voices to speak. Some of us have a marvelous gift for creating communities. Some of us like to be alone.
We’re all leaders, whether loud or quiet. Whether large or small or young or old. Whether we want to be one or not. Someone somewhere is looking at us as a leader to follow.
So the question is not Will we be a leader but What kind of leader will we be?
A. Breeze Harper, an American critical race feminist and author, says, “No one is on the sidelines; by our actions or inactions, by our caring or indifference, we are either part of the problem or part of the solution.”
I want to be part of the solution. I want to act and speak up and make change—in my own way. I don’t want to be indifferent; I want to care. I want to help repair the broken places in the world.
I think, at the heart of us, we all do.
So now the question(s) becomes, How will you use your one, unique voice to make a difference? To lead the world into a better tomorrow? To repair hearts and minds and whole lives?
I can’t wait to see.
I hope you have a lovely month of surprising opportunities to lead.
