Leading Her Introvert Way: Conversations about executive leadership, career growth, business and mindset for mid-life Black women.

69: {Black History Month}: The Power of Quiet Leadership: Strategies for Introverted Black Women Defying Stereotypes

• Nicole Bryan • Episode 69

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Stereotypes like the "angry Black woman" or the "loud Black woman" create a tightrope walk for many Black women in leadership roles. These labels are especially daunting for introverted leaders whose quiet nature often stands at odds with these unfair assumptions. It often feels like a constant balancing act is required to maintain authenticity while managing perceptions. Discover strategies for introverted Black women to cultivate executive presence and confidence in spaces that often feel isolating.

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Speaker 1:

Hi, lady Leader, and welcome back to another episode of the Leading Her Way podcast. I am your host, dr Nicole Bryan, and I am excited to be here and talking with you today. We are continuing our series. You know what? I haven't even named this series, to be honest with you, but it is a series that I am centering around Black female introverted leaders. Right, and I'm doing this in honor of Black History Month.

Speaker 1:

So if you're listening to this real time, it is February 2025, which, in the United States, is Black History Month, and as I was preparing for the quarter, I was like you know what? I really want to talk to the sisters, because I do think that there is something very unique about women introverted leaders, but I also think that there is something very unique about women introverted leaders, but I also think that there is something exceptionally unique about black women introverted leaders, and so I wanted to do a four part series. So if you have not already listened to episode 68, that was the first of the series Today is the second. Episode 69 is the second of the series. Today is the second. Episode 69 is the second of the series. So if you haven't already listened to episode 68, I invite you to go back and take a listen. It is all about the intersection of our identities, of being black, of being female, of being introverted and of being a leader, right, because the reality is, when you're just one of those things, it is significant. But to have all four of those parts of your identity combined, that's a pretty exceptional experience. It's very unique. That's a pretty exceptional experience. It's very unique, and I wanted to talk about what makes it unique and how we get to show up in the workplace. So, with that said, we are going to move on and talk about today's topic, right, and I'm going to start with a little story, because it's not necessarily a story about a professional in the workplace, but it will translate, I'm sure.

Speaker 1:

So I don't know if you know this, but I am the youngest child in my family and so I have a big sister and my big sister's 20 years, my senior, almost 20 years, my senior sister's 20 years, my senior, almost 20 years, my senior. So the beauty of that is, you know, she was already grown when I was just a baby and she would take me all over the place with her. I remember her taking me on some of her dates, actually when she had to watch me or when my parents needed a break, she and her boyfriend at the time would take me out to Chinatown in New York City and a couple of other places, which was really cool. I also got to visit her and her family when she and her husband were traveling all around the world on behalf of the United States Army, and so there was a few summers that I spent with them in Germany, and I don't know if you know anything about military bases, but when you are living on a base, to get on or off the base, you have to show your ID, and you have to show your military ID, obviously, and if you have guests, they have to show like either their driver's license or passport, some type of US ID to be able to access the base with you. And so we lived right off the base in family housing, or she lived right off the base in family housing, and that was essentially like the back entrance to the base, and so we would go through that entrance and exit every day, but this one particular day when we were going, the officer at the gate wouldn't let us in.

Speaker 1:

Now, I forgot to mention I'm very introverted. My big sister is introverted as well, right, and so we were going to the gate, we showed our IDs and the officer was like you know, you can't come in through this entrance because of me. Like I was the guest. She had her military ID, she could have walked right through, but she couldn't get me through, even though we were showing the same ID for me that we had been showing for like weeks. So the officer was like you know, you can't come through this entrance. And she was like well, why not? We've come through this entrance for the last two or three weeks. We show the same ID. You know, she's my guest. Her name should be, you know, already captured. What's the problem? And I don't remember all of the discussion, but he was very adamant Like you can't come through this entrance. If you want her to come on with you, you have to go to the main entrance.

Speaker 1:

Now the main entrance to the uh, to the campus, was like a mile away, so we would have had to get in the car, drive to the main entrance and then, you know, go through that, go through there. But why do that? We were right here, we wanted to go through this entrance, the back entrance, and so I'm laughing because I saw a side of my sister that day that I had never seen before. Right, and I think I was maybe like 12 or 13 at the time, and my sister is a gentle soul, she's very soft spoken, she is very much a nurturer and very introverted.

Speaker 1:

There and talk to the guard for maybe like 15 minutes, her trying in her soft spoken way to convince him to um, to, to let us in, and I saw her frustration level reach epic heights and she just opened up on this 30-something white man who was in his army fatigues and his beret and he had his weapon on him and everything. And she did not care, because here she was experiencing a system that she had been a system meaning the US Army in a foreign country where she had been navigating that for at least a year or two and specifically in this instance we had already gone through this process for two to three weeks without incident and this new person who was at least new to the post he had never seen us before but he was quote unquote, following what he believed to be the rules and she was trying to educate him and he was not willing to listen to her and in this instance she had more experience than him because she had gone through this process several times. He would not listen to her and he was talking to her as if she were an idiot. Quite frankly, I do remember that very clearly. And she was trying with all her might to be patient and explain and encourage him to call up these other people who would know. And he refused and she lost it, and when I mean lost it, she raised her voice, she was gesturing, she was like I am not going to the other entrance. She was cursing Again. I had never, ever, seen my sister so irate and so adamant.

Speaker 1:

Now, before I tell you what actually happened, the reason or the ending of the story, the reason why I'm sharing this, is because I believe that, as introverted Black women, we often get held up to these stereotypes, right, that are in the atmosphere around the globe about Black women. Right, black women are usually called loud or they are often called angry, and that we will talk about where those kind of stereotypes originated. But in this instance we my sister was, you know she was very meek, she was very understated in her approach to life. She is, I should say she is because she's still that way to this day. But the situation that she was facing despite trying to negotiate it in her natural state, right, and from her natural strengths of you know, let's just explain, let's kind of negotiate, let's talk it through the situation forced her to show up differently in that instance and in that moment to get what she deemed the right decision, right. And so I don't know about you, but as a black introverted woman myself, I often find myself in those types of situations, right, where you are your normal self, but your voice at that moment seems to be too small or too quiet, right? Sometimes it might seem like it's too much and you need to make a decision in terms of how to navigate that situation. Do you need to flex? Do you need to speak up in a different way? Right, and this is all so relevant for us, both in our personal lives and in the professional setting. So what we're going to be talking about today is essentially what I'm calling the quiet disruption, and it's about breaking the loud black woman stereotype.

Speaker 1:

Now, what I will say is, when I think about this from a leadership standpoint, you know many of us as black women. We know our colleagues, our friends who are also black. Women work in many different kinds of professional settings, but when I think about the number of Black women who are in leadership, particularly C-suite or senior executive roles, it's a very, very small sliver, right. According to a McKinsey study from 2023, it's less than 2%. We're like at 1.6% of Black females represented in the senior executive and C-suite positions. So that's only a sliver. And with that context, if we also think about Black women in senior leader or executive positions, who are also introverted forget about it we're probably significantly less than that, not even 1%.

Speaker 1:

So what is unique about us as Black female leaders and who are also introverted, is that we have to face two invisible stereotypes, right? One is the loud black woman stereotype and then the other is the angry black woman stereotype. I think most of us may have taught, may have heard of and talked about and heard others speak about the angry black woman stereotype, but the loud black woman stereotype is actually different, complimentary, but different. And when I think about us as introverts who traditionally wouldn't fit either one of those stereotypes, we are facing them Like we. We don't talk about them and maybe other people don't talk about them in our presence, but that's why I'm deeming it kind of an invisible burden that each one of us, as Black females, are facing in the workplace. So let's talk about these stereotypes, so the angry Black woman stereotype, as you might imagine. I mean it's labeled accurately but it's basically painting the picture of Black women being aggressive and being angry.

Speaker 1:

Right, and this actually comes from the 30s, the 40s and 50s, where there were kind of radio shows and the beginning of television, where Black people were not necessarily portrayed in any shape, form or fashion. And then when they were included in these types of media, whether it be radio shows or sitcoms eventually sitcoms they were portrayed in these kind of slapstick either mammy, honestly, even before we had talking roles, there would be like the dark skin, very dark skinned black woman who was portrayed as either the maid or some type of domestic help, and the facial expressions in of itself were very kind of buffoonish and not in a positive light. Right Before TV, before we could actually visually see these images on television, there were radio shows like the Amos and Andy radio show in the 50s and with Amos and Andy, who were two white men who were doing a radio show, but one of their one or two of their characters that they portrayed was a black woman. Now, obviously it was Amos and Andy who were doing the voices, but the one particular role that they had was, or a character that they made up, was Sapphire, and Sapphire was an angry black woman.

Speaker 1:

And so all of this is, you know, the angry black woman trope is about, you know, black woman, um, the personality of the Black woman being kind of amplified and there being a lot of sass and disapproval and argumentative. These are kind of how the Black woman was portrayed in those types of you know to support the angry black woman stereotype. Even in more modern days, on shows like Martin, the character of Shanaynay, that was the epitome of an angry black woman being portrayed. So that's the angry black woman stereotype, the loud black woman stereotype. It's similar to the angry black woman, but the distinction here is that the loud black woman stereotype it's similar to the angry black woman, but the distinction here is that the loud black woman, her voice is amplified, right, so she would be argumentative, she would be a loud talker. She would be not even just a loud talker or loud speaker, speaker, but how she showed up is loud, like very bright colors, in terms of her clothing, ways in which she would be standing out, but not necessarily in a positive way.

Speaker 1:

I'm bringing these two stereotypes up the loud Black woman and the angry black woman because we have to recognize that they do have historical roots, tracing these stereotypes all the way back in their origin in terms of being racist and sexist in the workplace. The narratives that go along with each of these stereotypes will pigeonhole, or are set to pigeonhole, black women in particular. The other thing that's important to know about the invisible burden of both of these stereotypes is that how these stereotypes are. They actually create a no-win scenario for Black women, particularly Black introverted women, because what it means is is that, well, first of all, they're invisible. We're not seeing it all the time. So people around us may be thinking about them or might hold these in their mind, knowingly or unknowingly, but we're not aware of them.

Speaker 1:

So we're navigating the corporate space or the workplace, thinking we're just going about our businesses, but the truth is that other people's paradigms of what it means to be a black woman has the loud black woman or the angry black woman associated with it, and what that often results in for us is that others project onto us, wrongfully, these kinds of characteristics. So we might be thinking we're having a conversation, maybe we are asserting ourselves and having a healthy debate, when the other person in the conversation with us is seeing us as either an angry black woman or a loud black woman. The other thing I want to say about these invisible burdens is that, as introverted women, we are naturally quieter. We're not necessarily loud and using our voices assertively or aggressively. Our voices assertively or aggressively, we're not necessarily showing up as the angry person right, who basically hates the world and is, you know, ready to go toe to toe every day Like. That's not who we are, and so what that means for us is that, as introverted Black female leaders, we carry another burden right. We carry an additional burden of having to navigate our white workplaces and or any traditional workplace, and having to carry these with us. We are we didn't create these stereotypes, but we are put in circumstances on a regular basis where we have to fight against these stereotypes, and so I want you to think about whether or not you've ever encountered this.

Speaker 1:

Have you ever, in your work life, have you ever modulated your voice or your passion or your very existence to fit into a space that wasn't designed for you? I know I have. I mean, I remember in my early 30s like I was maybe like 30 or 31, and I was working for, honestly, one of probably my favorite roles that I have ever had. It was my favorite roles that I have ever had. It was yeah, it was, it was a great role and I was reporting directly to the CEO. It was a small, nonprofit organization. It wasn't that small, honestly, but it was a nonprofit organization, but we were part of a larger corporate company.

Speaker 1:

So I remember that one day that I was having a conversation with him and I was telling him that my mom was, she had been sick, complications related to high blood pressure. And you know I made the comment that you know the high blood pressure, particularly for black women and black people, you know it's a you know we suffer at, we suffer from it at a higher percentage or at a higher rate than any other demographic in the world. And I remember him looking me dead in my face, dead in my face, and he was like you know, really he was like you know, blood, high blood pressure. That's something everybody deals with and you know it's one of these situations where I mean I really like my CEO, really liked him, really respected him and I believe that he really liked me and really respected me as well and we had a great working relationship.

Speaker 1:

But it was in that moment when he said that where he was trying to downplay the significance and how different it is for black people you know, from high blood pressure, right, which dates all the way back to that, the crappy food that we had to eat as slaves here in the in the United States but I remember him looking me dead in my face and basically trying to disempower me through through ignoring or denying the significance of what I was saying. And in that moment I was like you know what? I don't think I'm ever going to raise any type of topic like this with him again, because I felt like he deliberately was unwilling to hear what I was saying. He was deliberately ignoring the point that I was trying to make and in this instance I was the only Black person on his leadership team. I was probably the only Black person in maybe the top 50, 60 in the organization, and so I was like I'm not going to even waste my time talking about this or anything like this in terms of my blackness again with him, because it's just going to piss me off and it's going to probably make me see things about him that I'm not willing, I don't want to see, because I wouldn't be able to continue working here, like I remember talking myself through that situation. So I definitely have modulated my voice and my passion and my opinions to fit into places or to not ruffle any feathers that's probably another way to say it Knowing that that probably wasn't the right thing to do.

Speaker 1:

But in that moment I was like I just I, psychologically for myself, I could not afford to keep pushing that needle Because if I did, I knew that everything that I had worked for in that particular moment would start to unravel, not because he wouldn't want it, because he, he was good it would. It would have been me. My perspective would have completely shifted and in that moment I actually I I'm ashamed to say it now, but I chose to ignore it, or I chose not to keep picking at it. That's what I didn't ignore it. I chose not to push the push the button there, if that makes any sense. So for you, I'm curious if you have ever modulated your voice, if you have ever stopped a conversation or avoided a conversation, or if you had have ever had to not acknowledge in the moment an aspect of who you are in order to fit in a space that probably was not designed for you in the first place.

Speaker 1:

I do want to talk about what could be done, what should be done when we find ourselves in these situations, because the example that I just gave you about myself and my former CEO for me that was almost 20 years ago, but still happened to me in this time period of my career, and I'm sure it happens to you as well. So what do we do about it? How do we handle those situations right and how can we handle it and keep our sanity, our emotions regulated and, frankly, you know, not necessarily have to carry our entire race, sometimes because we have a seat at the table or because we have the voice and the or the air of someone who can make a change. We feel this obligation to ourselves, to our colleagues who are not represented at the table, to our race, since we have to fight and scrape to get into the corporate environment in the first place. I feel like there's a huge weight that some of us carry. So I want to talk about what do we need to do?

Speaker 1:

As a Black, introverted woman, what does it look like when we can successfully navigate some of the invisible burden of the stereotypes that I was talking about previously and just kind of being in corporate spaces where we can have our voices heard without us falling prey to all of these other things that try to oppress us? Essentially, so, the first thing I want to talk about is redefining executive presence and, by the way, you are a female, introverted Black leader who is looking to improve your executive presence and, frankly, I think we all could benefit from improving our executive presence and, frankly, I think we all could benefit from improving our executive presence. But if that is you, then I do want to take a brief pause right here and point you to a resource that I have. I don't always talk about it publicly, but because so many of my clients, they have a need for increasing their executive presence and because of so many of my clients don't necessarily have other resources, a few years ago I put together a brief email course. It's like a four day course where every day we focus on a different aspect of executive presence. It's very short, it's very sweet, it's like maybe 15 minutes every day and you get to learn something new every day, and then you get the opportunity to go practice it and you come back on the second day, you learn something new and you go and go practice it. So if this is interesting or is of interest to you, then I will put the link in the show notes. Or is of interest to you, then I will put the link in the show notes. It's called Master your Executive Presence, and you can also get it at wwwthechangedoccom. Wwwthechangedoccom forward slash presence. Again, that's wwwthechangedoccom forward slash presence.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's get back to our conversation. So one of the things that, as you continue to navigate in your career and you're trying to do your day to day responsibilities as best as you can while also advancing your career right, you want to move up, you want to have more responsibility, more decision-making power and to do the right thing. What I would encourage you to do is really break down the traditional misconceptions of executive presence, and that would include thinking about what leadership really looks like. Historically, people have thought that leadership could only be outgoing, leadership could only be charismatic, leadership could only be about power, leveraging power. Leadership could only be about being aggressive and loud, and we know that that is not the case, right? So it's likely not how you approach leadership from your standpoint, and it's definitely not how I approach leadership from my standpoint, but we also find ourselves in environments where that might be the culture. The culture might be a very assertive or aggressive environment, particularly if you're in male dominated industries like tech or any types of sports industries or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

It's natural for part of the way people move and interact with each other to hold on to these former or old school ways of thinking about leadership, but one of the things that you can do is actually leverage who you are to help start breaking the misconceptions. Not that you need to take on the responsibility of doing it for other people, but just by the way you show up and the way you use your influence, which is may likely be a lot more soft-spoken. It could be about you using strategic silence in a way, or intentionally communicating without necessarily becoming aggressive or loud or playing into the environment around you. This is not as difficult as it may seem. All you need to do is stay true to how you are and your natural strengths and navigate. It does require a certain amount of intentionality, for sure, but it doesn't need to be difficult.

Speaker 1:

Now. It sometimes can be difficult to envision what this looks like, right, particularly if you are the only introverted black woman who is a leader in your work environment. But if that is you and you are looking to kind of see and understand and know more about someone who has done this before, who's come before us and have successfully navigated their work setting and was able to slay it and still stay true to who they are as a black, introverted female leader, then I would invite you to look up two women. The first is Ursula Burns, and Ursula Burns is a businesswoman. She happens to be the former CEO of Xerox and she was actually the first Black woman introvert to lead a Fortune 500 company. So definitely check out her career and I'm sure that you will be inspired and amazed by her trajectory. And then the other introverted Black female leader that I think if you don't already know who she is, I think it would be interesting for you to learn more about her. Her name is Rosalyn Brewer and she is the former CEO of Walgreens, and I love her background as well. She is a straight powerhouse. She actually, I believe she is of Spelman College, but she also served on a number of different boards of directors like Starbucks, coffee, amazon, lockheed Martin, molson, coors Brewers Company. So she has originally earned her degree in chemistry, which, right when she was getting her degree, a black female getting a chemistry certificate or a chemistry bachelor's of science come on, that was almost unheard of. So if you are looking for two role models or two success stories, because you don't get to see this in your day-to-day environment, then I invite you to check out Ursula Burns and Rosalind Brewer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now I want to talk about one more thing before we wrap, and I truly would be remiss if I did not bring this up. I know that I deal with this on a regular basis. You may deal with it as well, so I want to talk about it. So I want to talk about this unique situation that we find ourselves in as introverted Black female leaders, where in one setting that we're in, we are not Black enough and in other settings we find ourselves in we might be too Black.

Speaker 1:

I call it navigating the not black enough, too black double bind. So what do I mean by this? I don't know about you, but the way I speak, the way I show up, I do truly believe it is authentically me. But when I go and navigate between two types of different environments, like when I go to my professional setting. It is a predominantly white environment. In fact, now that I think about it, the two exec teams that I am on I am the only black person, I'm not the only woman, but I am the only black person and actually on both of the exec teams that I'm on I am the only person of color. And then the companies that I work with, the representation of black people. One of them, I would say, is probably like 30%, but none at the leadership level, like I just said. And then the other, it's less than that. So in those environments, I can bet that I am deemed too black because I show up just like that. I mean, I, you know I may break into slang, I might be at the leadership table one day and I'm breaking into slang, I curse, because that's who I am Like. I don't try to hold that back. I'm professional, of course, but if a curse word is going to slip, slip in, it's going to slip in, I find, if I can. But if a curse word is going to slip in, it's going to slip in, I find, if I can. You know, my brain processes sometimes faster than my mouth. If my brain processes in a slang term, that's what I'm actually going to use.

Speaker 1:

I am often talking about black issues in those environments, even though my audience is clearly not black people, so I am confident that those people around me may think I am too black. But what's interesting is when I come home or when I'm talking to my people, when I am in a predominantly black environment, whether it's around my friends or, you know, it's in my, the communities that I live or I work out in, or whatever. I know that in those environments people look at me like I am not black enough, right? Because, just, I dress a little differently, I speak differently than those individuals who are my friends and family members, who only navigate in a black community. Because I go back and forth, I work in a predominantly white environment. I, you know, live and socialize in a predominantly black environment and so, because I go back and forth, I know that those environments see and receive me in two different ways and a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

I felt guilty about that, like. I felt like I was questioning myself in terms of am I black enough? Like, do I need to be using more slang? Like, what does black enough mean Right, I was truly challenging myself in that way, even when I was single and I was dating. Challenging myself in that way, even when I was single and I was dating, I would meet guys and I preference is to date black men. So I would meet black men and even they would question sometimes like yo, you know, are you, are you really down or are you not down? So the black enough? Are you really down or are you not down? So the black enough, not black enough?

Speaker 1:

Dichotomy might be showing up for you in different ways, but when I think about that and how I combine that with being an introvert, that is a lot to carry, that is a lot to think about, that's a lot of clutter in my mind. And I finally had to get to a place where I am now, which is I don't care, I'm just going to be who I am, and maybe others may see me as not black enough in some instances and maybe others others may see me as too black, but I'm just going to show up how I am. But it took a lot of work for me to kind of get to that place. But regardless, I always know that I am representing not only myself, but I'm also representing every aspect of my identity. So I am representing being black of my identity. So I am representing being black even for those people or in those settings where I'm deemed not black enough or too black. I am always representing introverts, because that's just who I am. That's how I function. That's how I navigate the world. I'm not going to try to not navigate that way, because it's virtually impossible for me to do. I am a woman. I see the world through a female lens, right, I'm a naturally born woman, so I see the world through that lens.

Speaker 1:

All of those things combined taking you back to episode 68, all of those things combined are important. Episode 68, all of those things combined are important. So when we are communicating, when you are communicating, it's important to recognize and to understand not that you need to take on the burden of how other people see you, but that you have to, intentionally for yourself, make sure that you are showing up and communicating in a way that you want others to see you, that you want others to receive you. If you want to show up as you want other people to think about you in terms of a great communicator, then you have to intentionally show up and take the steps that's necessary to communicate clearly, to be extremely articulate in what you're saying, to be able to demonstrate and speak in a way in which people can understand and receive you. That's just an example. But all of that to say that whatever you're doing, it needs to be Okay.

Speaker 1:

So let me just acknowledge this this, this episode, was way longer than I intended it to be. I thought I was just going to come on here for 15, 20 minutes and and kick it, and clearly it's much longer than that. But I think that just goes to show, you know, that the truth of the matter is, when we are talking about this intersection of being black, being a female, being an introvert and being a leader, there's a lot to break down, and so I don't want to I wasn't going to shortchange the episode to, you know, short change our discussion. I wanted to make sure that I kind of broke down the stereotypes that we talked about, how that you know how it shows up in terms of executive presence, and then I shared a couple of stories where you know you could see it kind of coming alive both in from a personal standpoint as well as from the professional standpoint. So I appreciate you hanging in there with me, so for me, I just want to, as we close out the episode, I want to affirm you right, sis? I want to affirm you. I want you to know and I'm saying this for myself just as much as I'm saying it for you but you are complete, you are powerful and you are worthy, exactly as you are, as the black, introvert female leader that you are. You are complete, you are powerful and you are worthy. You are worthy to be where you are and you are worthy of all the future leadership seats that you are going to claim. Okay, so that's a wrap.

Speaker 1:

Listen, if you have experienced any of the things that I talked about today, shoot me a message, send me a direct message on LinkedIn, or click the link in the show notes and get on my mailing list and shoot me a message there. I would love to hear from you. I enjoy hearing from each and every one of you. I respond to every message that I get because I just love connecting and hearing your stories and hearing your experiences and just bonding over all of that. And if anything that we've talked about today are keeping you from getting your next leadership role or getting your executive seat, then I would love to help you Like. This is what I do, this is what I live for, so I invite you to book a sales call with me.

Speaker 1:

We will have a conversation about what your goals are, what the leadership role is that you are looking to get for yourself. We will talk through kind of what you've tried already, what you haven't tried. We will talk about your work environment, whether you want to stay there, whether you want to move somewhere else, and then we will put together a strategy to help you and ensure that you land your next leadership promotion and role. So that's all for today, lady Leader. Make sure you come back for next week.

Speaker 1:

Our next episode is going to be continuing this series that's dedicated to Black female introverted leaders, and we will be talking about building your circle, how you can create strategic relationships to advance your career to the executive level. In the meantime, take care and keep leading your introvert way. That's a wrap for this episode of leading her way. Thanks for tuning in. If you have thoughts, questions or ideas for future topics, connect and send me a message on linkedin and if you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe. And please take a minute to write a quick review on Apple Podcasts. Your review will help spread the word to other ambitious females so they know they're not alone and that this podcast is a community of support for all of us leading her way to the top. Remember your leadership is needed, your leadership is powerful, so lead boldly. Until next time.