How to #InspireInclusion this International Women’s Day

It takes all people to make the world a better place.

To develop, build, and nurture the leaders of tomorrow. 

Whether you’re stepping into leadership at work, at home, or in any area of your life, leadership is a choice. The choice also requires you to embrace who you are and show up fully as yourself each and every day.

I’ve been living behind the fear that if I create content, events, and programs specific to women, I’m isolating and excluding men. The truth is, I love working with men. I’m good at working with men. I spent 12+ years in an industry that is undoubtedly male dominated - only 26.7% of tech jobs are held by women. Not to mention in a sales role where my team and the roles my customer’s held, tended to be male as well. I didn’t mind… but there was always a part of me that was trying to fit in - to be one of them. Until I wasn’t.

Until I learned that being myself was enough, that I could bring all of myself to the table. 

I’ve been afraid that if I say I work with women who want to develop and expand their leadership skills and capabilities, I’ll somehow not be taken seriously by the other half of the population. That I’ll exclude men from the coaching conversation. 

But that’s not true. How do I know? Because I have both female and male clients right now, as we speak. Shame on me for allowing an assumption to trip me up, to give me pause, to opening up the idea of limiting myself.

After all, it doesn’t have to be divided, that’s the problem in the first place.

We’re operating in these two spheres constantly acknowledging, measuring, and comparing our challenges, how we respond to them, and how we overcome them, further isolating ourselves from each other. When, in fact, we’re facing a lot of the same challenges including showing up fully as ourselves at work. 

Being authentic holds a resonance, a frequency.

One in which if you can tune to your radio station, the broadcast is bold and heard with clarity and received with authority. As a result, the world around us responds with authenticity, clarity, and authority too - don’t we want more of that in the world?

Real problems being solved by real people.

When we can bring our full selves to our work and to our lives, diversity shows its true colours: it’s ability to have lasting impact as we open our hearts and our minds to different perspectives, approaches, and points of view. It shakes up our thinking - in a good way. It allows us to think differently instead of staying trapped in the limited world of what we already know. 

To inspire inclusion is to create space for everyone to come together and show up fully as themselves. 

Commit to your leadership development and life journey by joining Authenticity in Action - a live webinar to guide you to your authentic self and inspire inclusion in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Kirsten Schmidtke is a professional coach, speaker, and lover of lake life. She works with leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs to help them up-level their careers, businesses, and lives. Are you ready to explore what’s possible for you? Contact Kirsten to start the conversation!