Author Julia Boorstin
If ever a book reflected the foundational philosophy of The Female Quotient, it’s Julia Boorstin’s “When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them.” Julia is a good friend and I’m honored to be featured in the book, along with amazing founders such as Whitney Wolfe Herd, Katrina Lake, Gwyneth Paltrow and Lena Waithe who share their stories. The plot twist? Many of these leaders have learned that the key to success is to lean into the so-called “soft” skills usually associated with women and embrace our authentic selves.
Julia is a noted expert on leadership. In her longtime role as an on-air reporter for CNBC, she’s had access to some of the greatest business minds of our time. She also created the CNBC Disruptor 50 to spotlight transformative companies. Her book is a must-read for everyone, men and women, at any stage of their career, from aspiring entrepreneur to CEO. Read my interview with Julia to learn some of the hard-won lessons of these powerhouse women.
Shelley Zalis: You’ve interviewed thousands of CEOs and leaders. What are some of the surprising leadership lessons you learned from the women you interviewed for “When Women Lead?”
Julia Boorstin: The dozens of powerful women I profile in my book all led in ways that were totally authentic to them–and often with approaches that don’t match the archetypes of traditionally male leadership. It was interesting to learn that none of these women were born leaders–not only did they have to work hard on ideas, but they had to work hard on developing their traits into superpowers. That means we all–including myself–can improve on our leadership.
I was also thrilled to see how women can come together to help each other succeed and push through bias–there’s some amazing data about how small groups of women can neutralize the negative impact of stereotypes.
SZ: The women you interviewed represent a broad range of fields. Did you find any common threads in their stories? What are some shared personality traits that stood out to you?
JB: The first one is empathy. Any of the leaders I spoke to, from Cityblock Health CEO Toyin Ajayi, to KindBody CEO Gina Bartasi, to Melissa Hanna, the CEO of Mahmee, created companies because they saw other people struggling with major challenges, and they saw an opportunity to build businesses that would help them.
The second is vulnerability. So many of the women leveraged their vulnerability about their struggles or what they don’t know to help them succeed. Stitch Fix founder and former CEO Katrina Lake became a talent magnet very early in the company’s trajectory and attracted a top executive from Netflix to improve her algorithm and from Walmart.com to oversee e-commerce strategy. People were shocked by her ability to draw such senior executives to such a nascent company. Her explanation: she simply admitted that she didn’t have expertise in their fields and needed help.
Goop CEO Gwyneth Paltrow reached a much broader audience when she was vulnerable about her struggles with postpartum depression, which made her seem more accessible to readers. Paltrow was also open about her inexperience with business jargon. After secretly Googling acronyms under the table during meetings, she started asking directly about what things meant or why things were done in a certain way. Not only did she educate herself, she also made it acceptable for everyone else in the room to ask questions, too.
SZ: In the book, you describe how women have been held back because of what you call “unintentional pattern matching.” Can you explain what that is and how to avoid that pitfall?
JB: Pattern matching is the term behavioral psychologists use to describe the very human instinct to try to predict future outcomes based on past patterns. When it comes to startups, that means that VC investors might look for someone who reminds them of Mark Zuckerberg. The problem: the instinct to find the familiar thing can create an echo chamber, in which funding goes to a group of homogeneous leaders–and perhaps even homogeneous ideas or approaches. It also makes anything that deviates from that model hard for people to analyze if they don’t see a pattern for comparison. Just understanding that pattern matching exists–and isn’t malicious–is essential to succeeding in worlds where you might face it. Once you can recognize that a particular question or critique could be the product of you not matching a pattern, the better you’ll be able to address them–and explain why your new model of what a leader looks like is just as valuable.
SZ: One of the astonishing statistics you cite is that 82% of all investment dollars goes to all-male founding teams. Can you elaborate on the consequences of that?
JB: That stat is so crazy. In 2021, according to PitchBook, 2% of venture capital dollars went to all-female teams, and 15.6% of capital went to co-ed teams. The numbers are far worse from an intersectional perspective. A 2020 study found that businesses led by Black women drew .43% (that is not a typo–less than half a percent) of VC investment in 2020, down from .67% over the prior two years. Digitalundivided is doing an amazing job tracking the growth of Black- and Latina-led companies–and recently released a study showing remarkable growth of these companies in healthcare, education, and Fintech, but there are still enormous gaps.
The problem with all-male founding teams dominating the startup landscape is that they may overlook or not understand the needs of people who represent more than half the economy and the vast majority of purchasing decisions: women. Tech companies are incredibly powerful, impacting the way we live, work–everything. It will only benefit society–and it makes more sense from a business perspective–if the people who run the companies with the power look more like the people their businesses are serving.
SZ: With the lack of investment dollars available to women, what are some creative ways the female founders you’ve profiled have financed their businesses?
JB: Female founders have shown the ability to do more with less–there are some great studies about how female founders return more to their investors after getting smaller upfront checks. But I am hearing more and more about how women are bootstrapping–taking out loans and seeking out angel investments–and trying to do more on a shoestring. Some of these women are telling me that not only is it too hard to secure VC financing at the earliest stages, but there are also advantages to being independent and not beholden to investors who might be pushing for a certain kind of growth.
SZ: What can men learn from reading “When Women Lead?”
JB: The leadership styles that women have traditionally demonstrated–empathy, vulnerability, gratitude–are more important now than ever for everyone. The pandemic really shed light on the universal value of traits that are more typically associated with women–which had not typically been associated with great leadership. With workers dispersed and customers struggling with inflation and all sorts of different challenges, there’s no question that empathy and vulnerability are essential. And then there’s gratitude. I was surprised to learn that women are more comfortable with the feeling of gratitude, and practice gratitude more frequently. I was thrilled to learn that practicing gratitude is more likely to inspire people to take a long-term rather than a short-term approach. Men need to get on board–we all need to be planning for the long term!
SZ: After writing this book, are you more optimistic about more women stepping into leadership and founder roles in the future?
JB: Yes! All the data indicates that diversity–both of gender and race–is beneficial for all levels of business. Investing in diversity isn’t just a nice thing to do–if people want to make money, it’s a financial imperative.
“When Women Lead” is a masterclass from passionate female innovators who have discovered their unique superpowers. As Julia says in the book, I’m a convener, having created the Equality Lounge® as a space where women can collaborate on ways to uplift each other. Julia’s findings underscore what The Female Quotient has always maintained: When women lead, we all win.
