Female Leaders Share Advice at GW

Public, private, nonprofit panelists discuss how women support each other in a multi-sector environment.

March 27, 2014

College of Professional Studies Women 2 Women event panelists

From left, Ina Gjikondi, Tara Palacios, Sabrina Hersi Issa and Natalie K. Houghtby-Haddon discuss how women support one another in a multi-sector environment.

By James Irwin

There was a point early in Sabrina Hersi Issa’s career when she couldn’t succinctly define herself. She had worked as a journalist, technologist and storyteller. She was a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Somalia, and a millennial working in a turbulent economy.

She wasn’t sure how to categorize what she did or who she was.

A mentor helped her realize this wasn’t a problem. She told Ms. Hersi Issa that a good storyteller lives with their feet in two worlds, explaining one to the other in order to connect them. It was a critical moment in Ms. Hersi Issa’s professional life.

“I felt the biggest weight off my shoulders because I realized I’m a border girl,” said Ms. Hersi Issa, now the digital director at Be Bold Media. “I grew up explaining America to my family, and explaining my culture to America. I was a journalist trying to bring light to marginalized communities. I was tired of seeing women subjugated in global politics, and I knew technology could create communities to amplify their stories.”

Ms. Hersi Issa’s story provided an early-morning spark at a breakfast panel on how women support one another in a multi-sector environment, hosted Thursday by the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership in partnership with the Women Inspire Action project, the International Council for Small Business and FedInsider.

The event, featuring Ms. Hersi Issa, GW Center for Excellence in Public Leadership Associate Director Natalie K. Houghtby-Haddon and Bizlaunch Director Tara Palacios, was moderated by Women Inspire Action founder Ina Gjikondi. Conversation revolved around a number of topics, including the role of mentors and how female leadership has evolved generationally.

“As women have evolved in leadership roles, they are empowered now—they can be women and leaders; they don’t have to be pseudo-men,” said Jim Robinson, director of the Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. “Women bring a different perspective, a different ethos. I think we recognize that important change and balancing of gender perspectives in leadership roles.”

As the senior panelist and an ordained United Methodist minister who teaches religion in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Houghtby-Haddon demonstrated the evolution of women in leadership positions anecdotally. She was ordained in 1985, during a time when there were about 30 female members in a clergy of 1,200.

“It was hard for women, particularly those who were blonde and had high voices, to be taken seriously, which goes back to Jim’s point about being pseudo-men,” she said. “When I was the senior pastor of one of our high-steeple churches, I used to be called ‘the Reverend Dr. Natalie’ and I had longish hair. Within about two months I cut my hair, dropped ‘the reverend’ and was known as ‘Dr. Houghtby-Haddon,’ as all my male colleagues had been titled in that senior role.

“It struck me, preparing for this event, what a difference 20 or 25 years makes.”

The continued leveling of a playing field once tipped absurdly against them has created opportunities for women to rise in leadership positions. But that doesn’t translate to absolute equality. Of 535 members of Congress, there are 101 women (three are non-voting). Full-time women earned 76.5 cents for every $1 men earned in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Ms. Palacios, who heads Bizlaunch, Arlington, Va.’s small business assistance network, believes solidarity is the only way to move forward.

“My concern is there’s this glass ceiling for female entrepreneurs that we haven’t been able to bust through yet, and the only way we can do that is if we come together,” she said. “Don’t let people or issues break us apart. No matter where you are politically we’re all in this together.”