Want to succeed at work? Tap into your fears

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In the fall of 2018, Carolyn Childers was just about to launch Chief, a private network for senior female leaders. And she did what most founders do: She went on a press tour. 

When I spoke with Childers and co-founder Lindsay Kaplan back then, the duo discussed the issue they were trying to solve (not enough women in business leadership positions) and the revenue model for the startup (charge companies as much as $7,800 a year for their female talent to participate). They sounded confident that the business would work, and they seemed certain they had everything figured out. 

Some 16 months later, Childers admits that wasn’t the full story. 

“If you saw me right after I hung up the phone in our conversation back in October, I was diligently trying to put together an advisory panel… to give us validation of what we were going to do because I thought no company is ever going to sponsor this,” Childers admitted on stage with me at the ACG Women of Leadership Summit last week in New York. “There were many fears I had. This was just one of them.”

So far, Childers’ fears have proven misguided: Chief has a waitlist of 7,000 female leaders eager to join the network, and the startup has raised $25 million in venture capital. But too often the conversations around startup success — particularly for women — focus on the overnight victories, not the risks founders must take to get their idea out into the wild. 

While most women agree that “people who take more career risks progress more quickly than others,” only 43% of female workers are willing to take those kinds of leaps, according to a recent study by KPMG. And when women are asked what contributed most to their personal career success, risk-taking falls to the bottom of the list and “working hard” rises to the top. 

There is evidence that risk-taking among female leaders is on the rise. A total of 21 women-led startups reached unicorn status ($1 billion valuation) last year, more than ever before. That roster included firms like Glossier, Rent The Runway and The RealReal. What stands out about all those businesses? The founders’ willingness to take a leap of faith before everything about the business was really figured out, Childers points out. 

“[All those women] are people who went off the traditional path,” she said. “There is a huge correlation between people who have started to break out and ... being willing to take the risk, venture out and try something completely new.” 

While Chief has yet to reach unicorn status, Childers said many potential founders are under the misguided impression that their startup needs to be “all buttoned up” before they take the leap. 

Childers said she left her position as senior vice president of operations at on-demand cleaning startup Handy “sooner than [she] needed to” because she wanted to make sure she didn’t have a reason to go back. She needed that self-imposed pressure to fully commit to Chief’s success. 

“I had so many conversations early in Chief where it was a hodgepodge of things and it's through [talking about it] that I started to form [the idea] in a much more rigorous way,” she said. “It made me feel more accountable to continue to go and do it.” 

I want to hear from you: What fear did you have before taking a risk in your career? Did you share it with anyone? If so, why not? Let me know your story in the comments below using #WorkingTogether. 

What’s Working

Join us live: What are your goals for 2020? I sat down with Peloton Instructor Ally Love to discuss just that. Love has devoted her career to helping others meet their goals and it was a motivational conversation that you can check out above!

#YearofTheMother. 85% of Millennial mothers say that society doesn’t support or understand them. Lifestyle brand and blog Motherly is trying to change that by declaring 2020 the Year of the Mother and calling on lawmakers to push through paid family leave and more policies that support maternal health. [LinkedIn] 

Starting small can feel big. Launching your own small business is challenging. The NYTimes put together a list of advice from women who have ventured out on their own. “Your job as an entrepreneur is to tell them how they will make money. I have had to overcome the perception that I am a woman, a mother, in my late 30s, so I made a decision to take it head-on and describe how I see motherhood as a strength,” shared one owner. [NYTimes] 

What Needs Work

Pet to threat. While Black women in corporate America are often encouraged by their bosses early on in their career, that support changes dramatically once they start to move up the ladder. “This happens when women, typically Black women, are embraced and groomed by organizations until they start demonstrating high levels of confidence and excel in their role, a transition that may be perceived as threatening by employers,” writes attorney and writer Erika Stallings. [Medium] 

What choice? In discussions around if and when women take time off from work after having children, we often refer to her decision as a choice. This masks an important reality: “Very few parents have enough money to choose whether to opt out of paid work entirely,” writes Claire Cain Miller. [NYTimes] 

'Private policy.' It's no question that public policies need to change to better support working mothers. But as The Atlantic's Derek Thompson argues, how men and women speak about power structures at home must change as well. Research into how U.S. teens think about female ambition and the divorce rates of couples in Sweden reveals "the West isn’t nearly as progressive as we might think on the issue of female ambition and success." [The Atlantic]

What topics do you want to discuss next week? Let me know in the comments below using #WorkingTogether