It’s my pleasure and opportunity to participate in the Executive Leadership Council’s (ELC) Leadership Development Week (LDW) for the past two years. In 2018 I was enrolled in the Strategic Pathways program and in 2019 I was enrolled in the Leading Innovation program.
The Strategic Pathways program helps me understand how I should brand myself, develop key relationships, and create a plan that allows me to be successful in my career. The Leading Innovation program challenges me to use the tools and understanding that I gained in the Strategic Pathways program to truly unpack how I show up as a leader, identify me as a leader, and thus recognize how I can continue to create impact and change.
Outside of the programming, participating in the LDW has immensely expanded my network across different industries and business functions, which creates an avenue of continued learning. Through the relationships that I have built I have participated in book clubs, created connections for others to help them advance their career, learned about speaking opportunities for myself, and I have been able to leverage the knowledge of others to solve issues that I’ve experienced.
Often, I find myself feeling discouraged when thinking about my career advancement because in many companies there aren’t many people who look like me in positions of power. As a proud black woman, attending the LDW has helped to increase my confidence in the fact that black people are capable of anything we put our minds to. There is nothing like being in a space surrounded by black people at different levels in their career, thriving, learning and having fun.
On the first day of the Leading Innovation program, the facilitators instilled the idea that fear is false evidence appearing real, and I couldn’t agree more at this point because of the things I have learned and have now been exposed to as a result of participating in ELC’s LDW.
