You Don't Need Me
A woman reached out to me recently. Accomplished, with the kind of résumé that makes you sit up a little straighter. She had completed one of the top board-readiness programs in the country two years ago. She had been on boards before in Europe, so she has board experience. Covid and family brought her back to the US and she started over and rebuilt her business. On paper, she has arrived, yet she was not getting on boards here.
She was asking whether she should work with me. She asked me what I did for candidates and once I laid it out for her and learned about her background - I told her the truth: she didn't need me. She already had everything she needed. The training, the credentials, the seat at the table, she had done the work, and it had paid off. There was nothing I could teach her that she didn't already possess. She has enough. One other note though – she did say she was not willing to go “network” to get on a board. She was looking for someone to do that for her. I told her we DO help our candidates create a board brand, figure out their ideal boards, develop an action plan and market for them. And when board opportunities come along, the ACE grads get access to them.
Here is the part I didn't expect.
That is the moment she wanted in.
I have been thinking about why ever since, because she has everything she needs already - she has enough. For her the gap was her willingness to get out and market herself.
So, when someone like her comes to me with a full toolkit and a strong record, I point that out. You do not need fixing. You are not a project. You have done the hard part.
And what I have learned is that this, being told the truth by someone who isn't angling for anything, is rarer for powerful women than you would think. When you are the strongest person in most rooms, almost everyone wants something from you. To be told, plainly, you already have what you need is not a letdown. It is a relief.
Then there was a second thing underneath her question, and it is a big one.
Isolation.
She has been on the boards. She has the wins. What she doesn't have is a place to set any of it down.
This is the thing no one tells you - Nobody warns you how lonely it can be once you are there. The higher you climb, the fewer people you can be honest with, fewer peers, fewer confidants. And for a lot of us, the years since 2020 hollowed out whatever informal connection we did have. The dinners, the hallway conversations, the sense of a community you could lean on, much of that quietly disappeared.
So, you end up successful and isolated at the same time. Which, if no one has said this to you plainly: is far more common than anyone admits. If that is you, you are in very good company.
This is something we have at ACE for our grads. A room of women as accomplished as you are, where you can take the armor off for a while. Where nobody needs you to be the strongest person present because everyone in it already is. Where "powerful and a little lonely" is not a confession, it is just Tuesday, and someone across the table nods because she knows.
You do not need me. That was true when I said it, and it is still true.
Maybe you want a place to belong besides getting int he boardroom or executive suite or even own your own business (I've been there, I know). That is why I am so proud of the 225+ women I have had the honor of getting to know through my board coaching and how they have helped each other while they are helping themselves continue their journeys to the top. The side benefit of having a top-notch community is well worth all the effort to build it. We have a lot to offer as individuals and now as an accomplished, qualified and certified army of women ready to serve on boards, bring value to the table and do it with grace and ease.
I think that is what my new friend is looking for along with another board seat. I am here. ACE is here.
If any of this landed, and you are feeling you would like to join the ranks of an elite group of executive women, let’s chat about it. Book with me here.