Center for leadership & well being

You do your best when you’re at your best— it’s a pretty simple concept.

The hard part is putting it into action.

STORY BY KATHLEEN OSBORNE

Meet Sasha. A junior at Hathaway

Brown with bouncy red curls, she’s the only girl in her family. Her two older brothers are away at college, and they’re doing very well in school. Sasha earns good grades too, which makes her grandparents proud. They gave up everything to come to this country. Education­­ —particularly for girls—is extremely important to their family. They often remind their granddaughter that she can be anything she wants to be if she just puts her mind to it and her nose to the grindstone.

Every day, Sasha wakes up early and makes the trek from Solon to the Carol and John Butler Aquatic Center at HB for swim team practice that begins at 6 a.m., followed by a full day of school. During classroom discussions, she’s pretty outspoken, especially when she really knows the subject matter. When it comes to newer topics, she prefers to sit back and listen as she types bullet points in a note-taking program on her laptop. A lot of her friends take the same courses she does.

They love catching up in the halls during class changes, and they study together in the Atrium during free periods. Sasha’s enrolled in the Science Research & Engineering Program and she’s a Global Scholar. Once a week, she makes her way to the Cleveland Clinic after school, where she works in a lab studying the neurological implications of certain cancer treatments. Next year, she’s planning to travel to Spain with the Center for Global Citizenship. Since she was a freshman she’s been taking Spanish and she’s looking forward to putting her speaking skills to good use.

Back at home in the evening, Sasha grabs a snack and heads to her bedroom to crack open the books. She keeps track of her assignments using a color-coded planner and she generally spends two or three hours a night on homework. Occasionally she FaceTimes with her friends on her iPhone while she’s working. Even if they don’t talk a lot, it’s kind of nice to have someone in the room in case she has any questions. Sasha really likes studying with her friend Katie because Katie’s really smart and really funny and she’s on the swim team too. They laugh a lot when they’re together. Other times, Sasha leaves her phone in the kitchen. This way, she can concentrate without the urge to check Instagram. She used to have a Facebook account, but she shut it down after her grandmother started commenting on all her posts. Her friends are on Twitter, but she hasn’t signed up yet because she’s not sure if she wants to add another distraction.

She tries to get to sleep around 10 each night because 5 a.m. rolls around pretty quick. Then it’s time to do it all again.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEN PERALTA

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The HB faculty met Sasha at the start of the 2013-14 school year, when she was introduced by Koyen Parikh Shah, director of the school’s Center for Leadership & Well-Being. Sasha is a friendly, bubbly, fresh-faced young girl with whom most people can relate. But Sasha isn’t real.

To be clear, Sasha isn’t an actual HB student­­ —she’s an amalgam of girls created to illustrate a point. Still, the idea of Sasha is real enough that she could be any girl on campus.

In fact, Shah dreamed her up as sort of an HB Everygirl, a poster child for the school’s “Be Well, Lead Well” initiative.

Announced as the year’s theme by Head of School Bill Christ, “Be Well, Lead Well” was designed to help girls and women reimagine leadership, broadening their personal definitions beyond title and rank.

Our understanding of leadership is expanding to reflect a world that is hyper-connected and rapidly changing, and girls today want to become intentional leaders of their own lives while they work to make the world a better place. Spearheaded by the burgeoning Center for Leadership & Well-Being, the initiative has made its way into every classroom on campus, as teachers explore ways to bring wellness, health, leadership, and power together. In addition to curricular lessons, a number of school-wide events and activities have united students and faculty members in discovering how they can be well and lead well at the same time.

Back to Sasha. As Shah brought her to life, she pointed out that there’s more than one way to look at the manner in which young women are structuring their routines in this day and age. One is to see Sasha spinning away on a “success treadmill” —running in place. In fact, a lot of multitasking women think of themselves in this way. They’re constantly busy, and feeling that they’re not really advancing in the way that they’d like on any horizon. For people on this treadmill, fulfillment always lies in the distance. Maybe they’ll find it in the next set of accomplishments, maybe they won’t. But they have to try.

There’s another side to the achievement spectrum, one that’s currently being debated and discussed at great length and in great depth by psychologists, authors, career counselors, and CEOs. Rather than seeing themselves in a never-ending rat race that starts when they are very young, women are shifting the paradigm. They’re looking at success as a present construct.

It’s not something to be achieved eventually; it’s something to appreciate and cultivate in the now. At HB, Shah calls this notion the “success garden.”

Sasha and the HB girls she represents are inspired to go above and beyond because they are in charge of their own work. They enact changes in their lives not because they’re unfulfilled, but because they want to discover the next best version of themselves. These girls are excited about breaking uncharted ground.

“Our students tell us they don’t want a watered-down version of HB,” Shah says. “They are aware that the kind of education they are receiving is of such a high caliber that they sometimes feel guilty because they know that there are so many girls all over the world who do not have the same opportunities. At the same time, they don’t want a typical American education.

They want to be exactly where they are: at HB, where they’re encouraged to expand their horizons, try new things, and nurture their passions. The key is that they’re not in this alone.

They’re in charge of their own lives, but a whole lot of people are here to help them.”

Connecting an inner life with outer purpose is tough today.

Given all the external forces at play, adopting a more personally fulfilling outlook is a serious challenge in our culture. Yet it’s extremely important. HB faculty members play a crucial role in shaping girls’ perspectives, and they take that responsibility seriously. With the establishment of “Be Well, Lead Well,” people all across campus have been redoubling their efforts to help girls develop their inner reserves and identify support systems so they don’t become unnecessarily stressed out. And in the times when girls do find themselves feeling overwhelmed, they don’t have to be derailed. Instead, they can find the help they need to dig in, turn the soil, and plant something new.

Understanding the Environment Nothing exists in a vacuum. Regardless of education, profession, or family structure, people are compelled to put their lives into context. This is especially true for women.

Working hard and feeling themselves pulled in many different directions, they want to be assured that it’s all worth it, that they’re bringing something important and valuable to the world. This can set up a vicious cycle, though. If you spend too much time looking outward, you may forget to look inward.

Huffington explained the reason she and so many other highly motivated and accomplished women are feeling compelled to step back and assess their leadership styles and lifestyle choices in light of other, less quantitatively measurable factors.

“Defining success just in terms of the first two metrics,” she said, “is a little bit like sitting on a two-legged stool. You’re going to fall off.”

If you’re going to be a leader—an effective leader, anyway— you’re going to have to make your own personal well-being more than just an afterthought. Anyone who’s ever been on an airplane understands this. Before each takeoff, in the event of an emergency you’re reminded to secure your own oxygen mask before attempting to assist anyone else. You can’t be much of a savior if you’re struggling for air.

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A new and growing entity at HB, The Center for Leadership & Well-Being was created to explore ideas at the forefront of women’s leadership. The center encourages girls in each division to consider the complexities of leadership work from a variety of perspectives so they can better navigate the numerous forces at play in any leadership challenge. Focused on what’s required to equip women in the 21st century, the center aims to guide young women to become leaders of their own lives—individuals who take steps to know, reflect, connect, and act as they make decisions.

Girls today want to become intentional leaders of their own lives while working to make the world a better place. Addressing HB students’ needs as emerging leaders requires immersing them in a culture that help girls imagine and approach leadership work with new possibilities in mind.

Center programming empowers girls to assume leadership roles with courage and encourages them to create change where needed. Curricular offerings include targeted leadership-development and wellness workshops open to all Upper School students. Ninth through 12th graders also are invited to enroll in Leadership Seminar, which meets twice a cycle and provides a comprehensive look at essential leadership skills and a great deal of support as they’re practiced. The center also is closely involved with Student Government, and Director Koyen Parikh Shah meets regularly with elected leaders to focus on the skills needed to move their organizations ahead. Students in grades 4 and 8 take a close look at leadership with similar programming tailored for their needs, and Upper Schoolers help design and implement some activities for the younger students.

The Center for Leadership & Well-Being fosters a shared language about leadership, presenting the concept throughout the campus in a girl-friendly, age-appropriate, consistent way. Shah partners with teachers in the Prime, Middle, and Upper schools to match leadership lessons with the challenges girls are currently facing, as she simultaneously works to establish networks, forming connections with leadership organizations locally and globally.

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In June 2013, Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, held a women’s conference in New York to discuss extending the notion of success in the new economy. “The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power” focused on redefining success to include well-being, wisdom, wonder, compassion, and giving. With a cadre of well-known successful women including Mika Brzezinski, Katie Couric, Candice Bergen, Lesley Stahl and Senator Claire McCaskill, Huffington tackled such topics as “Managing a Frenetic Life,” “The Mind/Body Connection,” and “Wellness and the Bottom Line.” The idea came after a nationwide survey found eight in 10 Americans have stress caused by overwork, only 30 percent say they feel pleasure in carrying out their work, half feel uninspired, and more than a quarter of those questioned are deeply dissatisfied with what they do. The conference launched a digital movement that now includes social media platforms and a website presence that garners millions of hits each month.

Program Guide

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Tapping Resources

Planting Seeds

The Head’s Council at HB is a small think tank of alumnae appointed to three-year terms. Made up of HB women whose graduation years span several decades and who have experience in a broad range of disciplines, the council serves as a sounding board and advisory panel for Head of School Bill Christ.

The group comes back to campus each fall for a weekend conference. Throughout the year, they exchange ideas remotely through email, videoconferencing, and telephone meetings as well. In 2013, the program celebrated its fifth anniversary and all the women who have served were invited to Shaker Heights in October to mark the occasion and share their perspectives about being well, leading well, and encouraging others to do the same.

The next morning, the Head’s Council met on campus once again. This time, they sat around tables in the Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 and Family Dining Hall, and they were joined by HB Middle and Upper School students. With spa music playing in the background, Center for Leadership & Well-Being Director Koyen Shah led 100 people through a session that was marked by thoughtful and honest discussion, allowing these HB sisters to learn significant things about and from each other in a short period of time. In their respective groups, participants took turns talking about the moments during which they discovered their own leadership styles and found ways to care for themselves and focus on wellness.

There were tales of running for class office; taking a break from sports; coming home from jobs halfway across the country that didn’t work out the way they were planned; discovering new pastimes in retirement; coping with illness, death, and loss; finishing big school projects; launching businesses; sparking friendships; and speaking up when it was the right thing (and the last thing you wanted) to do.

Nearly 75 Head’s Council members convened in HB’s Worldwide Communications Center, where they listened to presentations from Bill Christ, Director of Alumnae Relations Dana Lovelace Capers ’86, Associate Head of School and Upper School Director Sue Sadler, Associate Head for Finance and Administration Valerie Hughes, Associate Head for Enrollment Management Sarah Johnston, and Dean of Students Hallie Godshall on the meeting’s first day. The group was brought up to speed about how the school’s curriculum is structured and how specifically the “Be Well, Lead Well” theme was being envisioned and incorporated into the daily lives of the students. They also watched a few relevant TED talks about women and success, and were asked to offer their ideas about making wellness an intentional component of leadership development. Clinical psychologist and retired HB Director of Counseling Dr. Sheila Santoro moderated a discussion about health, lifestyle choices, and innovative and engaging teaching approaches to this nuanced subject matter.

That evening’s dinner program featured a presentation by Lily Roberts ’08, a Morehead-Cain Scholar and recent graduate of the University of North Carolina who is now living and working in Washington, D.C. Her remarks summarized many of the points that had surfaced throughout the day. “If you think people are either depressed or not, or they feel good in their bodies or not, or they’re anxious or not, you have not gone through your teens and 20s,” she said. “Being well is about acknowledging the moments when you feel like your job is less than you could be doing, or that you don’t know how to make grown-up friends after a lifetime at a close-knit all-girls’ school and four years of college bonding, or when you struggle with your family, culture, or religion of origin. Being well is about finding a community that supports your attempts to navigate the world. And being well is about knowing that your voice has value.”

Before they went their separate ways, all of the participants were asked to leave some thoughts behind on paper. A prompt written by Shah was placed on every table: Think about your wellness story – a time when you felt a sense of well-being, and the factors that contributed to this feeling, as well as the accompanying benefit. Perhaps you found a way to manage something new or unexpected; you have a helpful belief or daily practice; you responded to a change or challenge effectively; you made a choice or decision that has improved your sense of well-being. What is the main idea, quote, or simple takeaway from your story?

The responses, which have since been shared with HB students and faculty, were insightful, instructive, and inspirational.

A sampling: “ You cannot lead well from a position of stress.”

“Adversity can help you grow.”

“Step back, take a breath, evaluate, and proceed.

Find time to do this. Or get a massage.”

Homegrown Support

Those conversations and revelations were extremely cathartic because they helped the “Be Well, Lead Well” architects discover that the concepts they were discussing were not only important in their students’ lives, but in their own lives as well.

And it opened their eyes to the wealth of resources available to the HB community not only on campus, but in the world at large through collegial networks, the school’s alumnae and parent bodies, and visionary scholars, businesspeople, and wellness practitioners.

All of this laid the groundwork for a fall presentation to HB parents by Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, whose new book, The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age encourages parents to help their children find balance by demonstrating that balance in their own lives.

Turn off your smartphone and make a concerted effort to be present with your family, Dr. Steiner-Adair advised. Not only will this help you to appreciate your blessings, but it will make you more successful in the long run because you will feel less distracted and more fulfilled.

At the start of the school year during HB’s fall Legacy Day, the community shared ideas from the film Girl Rising and considered the value of a girl’s education, at HB and everywhere else in the world. Girls across the school connected with each other on important themes throughout the day, and the closing celebration included folk dancing and students and teachers of all ages linking arms together.

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Last summer, as students enjoyed well-earned downtime with their family and friends, a group of HB faculty and administrators met regularly to discuss the ways in which the “Be Well, Lead Well” theme could be meaningfully incorporated into girls’ lives at school. They read and deliberated the assertions in a number of books related to female adolescent development, parenting in the 21st century, and expanding leadership. They watched the PBS documentary MAKERS: Women Who Make America, they planned student and professional mentor initiatives, subscribed to pertinent blogs, read countless magazine features, followed prominent thinkers on Twitter, and made notes about their own parenting, teaching, and leadership styles. They brainstormed about classroom topics, schoolwide events, web videos, service initiatives, and enhancing HB’s Center for Family Support. They shared personal stories, observations, and hopes for the future. They planned to make being well and leading well top of mind.

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“Being well is about finding a community that supports your attempts to navigate the world.

And being well is about knowing that your voice has value.”

Felicia A. Swoope ’87 New York, New York

Who She Is / What She Does Felicia A. Swoope received her B.A. in English from Dartmouth College and her M.F.A. in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She was the Founding Curator of E-Moves, the emerging choreographers’ showcase at Aaron Davis Hall (now Harlemstage). She has performed with Nathan Trice/Rituals, Siwela Sonke South African Dance Theatre, Souloworks/Andrea E. Woods & Dancers, Jubilation!/Deeply Rooted, The Dancer’s Co-Op/Gabri Christa and recording artist Shannon. She was a teaching artist for Battery Dance Company for three years and Alvin Ailey’s Arts-In-Education Program (AileyKids) for seven years. She also served as the first Camp Director for AileyCamp Newark, one of 10 Alvin Ailey summer camps across the country for at-risk youth. As the founder of GENDARC DANCE NYC, she produces showcases for choreographers, hosts workshops for pre-professional and professional dancers, and has her own Arts-In-Education program in the New York City public schools.

In Her Words: How to Be Well & Lead Well In order to “Be Well and Lead Well,” a leader should perceive her role as an act of service. Having a leadership position is a gift and often a sacrifice. A leader who governs from a place of humility and generosity coupled with selfconfidence will always succeed. She sets the tone for her team. Team members who are confident that their leader is concerned not only about their well-being, but also their growth, will be highly motivated to excel in their roles while being supportive of each other. Her vision must be clearly presented, firm, and always inclusive.

My experience at Hathaway Brown prepared and encouraged me to seek a life of leadership. We were presented with so many opportunities to develop our leadership skills. I remember entering my freshman year of college eager to take on new challenges. I had absolutely no boundaries or fear.

And just before Winter Break, the Center for Leadership & Well-Being sponsored the school’s inaugural TEDxHBSWomen conference, one of more than 220 TEDx events in 58 countries around the world that simultaneously took part in TEDWomen. HB’s program featured three inperson speakers, followed by a networking reception and a live-stream of the national TEDWomen conference in California. More than 100 women and men came to campus to connect and share ideas.

In her talk titled “Transformational Journey,” Sylvester described the moments and lessons in life that brought her to the place she is today. She explained that she makes it a point to share some of that wisdom with her young daughters. In a world that is marked by competition, she said it’s important not to fall into the trap of constantly comparing yourself to others. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing as long as you know you are working to your own potential. “Be your best­­—effort counts,” she said. “But remember to run your own race, like a thoroughbred. Move forward, but run your race.

You’re competing with yourself. Write your own story.”

What it most likely boils down to is that there are as many different definitions of success as there are women to own them. Because the individual is a vitally important part of the equation.

Brady echoed similar sentiments. She encouraged attendees to become the CIOs of their own lives. In addition to offering real-world guidance for bolstering technological acumen, she gave some insight into why young women should seriously consider pursuing technology careers, which traditionally have been pursued instead by men. “The leaders of tomorrow will understand and embrace technology in new and important ways,” she said. “We need women in the whole ecosystem of technology­­, from invention to development to implementation. And we need that because women have an innate ability to problem-solve, to learn, to think creatively. At the same time, women are incredible at adapting to disruption. ­­And let’s face it, technology can be very disruptive.”

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Two of the TEDxHBSWomen speakers are mothers of HB students: Maryrose T. Sylvester, President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Lighting ( Jules ’20 and Ella ’22); and Amy G. Brady, Chief Information Officer for Key Technology & Operations (Amanda ’15 and Madi ’16). They offered perspectives about how their leadership styles were shaped by their personal lives and vice-versa, as the two are not mutually exclusive, but instead part of the larger whole. Good leaders do not isolate and fragment themselves, they bolster themselves with the support of their families and colleagues.

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Diantha Smith Harris ’64 Vero Beach, Florida

Who She Is / What She Does As a graduate of Hathaway Brown, Diantha Smith Harris has always been interested in making this world a better place, but in 1964 she didn’t know how that would manifest.

Through her later experience with interior design, she became interested in Feng Shui and Color as tools for healing and consciousness, and she learned how to read the Akashic Records. In her quest to continue learning and improving, she ended up with enough initials after her name to fill a notebook (ASID, FSIA, FFSF, FA, CPIA, MPIWOC, and Rev., to name a few). She is the founder of Life Potentials, a practice in which she employs her knowledge and holistic treatment tools to enhance, support and transform the lives of her clients. She also is the author of the book Simply Color, which is now in its third edition.

Tips for Being Well & Leading Well

Favorite Quotes

Always listen to your intuition.

If you are tuned into it, it will never lead you astray.

Give back in any way you can: donations, volunteering, free seminars for your community, or create your own charity!

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

Never lose your sense of fun, creativity, joy, or lose track of your vision. These things will help you keep a good perspective and keep you on track.

“When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ’We did it ourselves.’”

All the answers you are seeking lie within your own heart.

If you can’t access those answers, get professional assistance in learning how to go within. There is so much help out there in the holistic world from books to seminars to practitioners.

If you go against your own code of ethics, you will never be a success in the true sense of the word.

Start every day with the intention to be the best you can be. Then be it.

Make your goal personal realization rather than success.

You will be much more successful in the long run – especially in areas that really count.

– John Quincy Adams

– Lao Tzu

“Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” – Steve Jobs “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein

It should be noted that while Brady’s remarks focused on technology specifically, they can be applied to an array of disciplines or lifestyle choices. Women are really good at adaptation. And they’re amazingly resilient in the face of obstacles. As the CEO of an electric company, Sylvester also spoke at length about power, light, and energy—in both their literal and metaphorical senses. “With power, you have a platform to have your voice heard,” she said.

A large contingent of Upper Schoolers attended TEDxHBSWomen, including those who participated by showcasing their artistic talents in singing, dance, and spokenword poetry. It was an energizing event. Footage from the presentations has been viewed and discussed by students in Koyen Shah’s leadership center on campus and the faculty and administrators who designed “Be Well, Lead Well” have enhanced the reserves of fruitful material from which they and their students will continue to draw.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that “of the 3.2 million youth age 16 to 24 who graduated from high school between January and October 2012, about 2.1 million (66.2 percent) were enrolled in college in October. For 2012 graduates, the college enrollment rate was 71.3 percent for young women and 61.3 percent for young men.” Those are some pretty important figures. In higher education and in the professional workforce, women are starting to outnumber men by a growing margin.

So what does this mean?

Despite the fact that women now earn more bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees, they still are not well represented in senior management positions in United States corporations.

This is a real problem that is being analyzed and hotly debated by many. Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operations Officer for Facebook, addresses it in her book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Succeed. She writes, “We’ve ceased making progress at the top in any industry anywhere in the world. In the United States, women have had 14 percent of the top corporate jobs and 17 percent of the board seats for 10 years. Ten years of no progress.”

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Students at Hathaway Brown aren’t the only ones who are inspired to Be Well and Lead Well. If they’re going to be the kinds of leaders in their own lives that they’re urging the girls to be, faculty and staff members know they have to model healthy behaviors in leadership and life as well.

HB views itself as a “cosmopolitan, innovative, dynamic city of learning, but a city with a heart dedicated to educating the whole person, mind, body, and spirit.” To that end, an array of leadership development opportunities are available to employees, including Osborne Catalyst grants, which allow teachers to pursue their own passions outside of the classroom and bring their findings back to campus to be shared with others. Entrepreneurial thinking is encouraged and supported, and new programs are continually being launched. In addition to mentoring students, faculty members also mentor each other. And people throughout campus belong to a wide range of professional networking and advocacy organizations that offer leadership seminars and other training initiatives.

On the wellness front, the school’s new dining-services provider, AVI Foodsystems, focuses on fresh ingredients and faculty and staff are provided a healthy well-balanced lunch every day featuring seasonal fruits and vegetables and numerous low-fat offerings. Before and after school, yoga, fitness, and Pilates classes are available, including several taught by HB’s own faculty members Beth Burtch and Denise Keary. Employees are welcome to work out in the training room and to swim in the pool. Every Wednesday, Director of Human Resources Gerri Jeffrey floods her colleagues’ inboxes with a “Healthy Tip of the Week,” with advice for everything from keeping track of finances to maintaining your weight during the holidays.

And each month, Lesley Sargent LaBenne ’83 returns to her alma mater to offer chair massages to help faculty members unwind and de-stress.

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Reaping the Harvest

Helping the Helpers

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Marie Dempsey Carter ’72

Richmond, Virginia

Who She Is / What She Does After she left HB, Marie Dempsey Carter went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, and a law degree from the University of Texas in Austin. She recently retired from Dominion Resources, Inc., where she was Assistant General Counsel for Ethics and Compliance. She and her husband, Hugh, have three daughters and one son, who now all are graduated from college and starting their own careers. In November 2013, she published a cookbook that she had been working on for more than 15 years.

Daily Bread from my kitchen to yours is somewhat unique in that it is in a daybook format, with a recipe and inspirational quotation for each day of the year. She wrote the book in memory of her mother, who died of cancer in 1997. Daily Bread is available on Amazon, B&N, and all major book distribution websites. She is donating 25 percent of the sales proceeds to fund cancer research at NCI-designated cancer centers, such as Cleveland’s Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, where her mother was treated.

Four of her favorite sweets in Daily Bread were inspired by HB: Black Bottom Pie, Apple Crisp (of course), Frosted Butterscotch Cookies (recipe by Cindy Wachter Happ ’72), and an awesome, thick fudgy chocolate sauce that used to be served with peppermint ice cream. The quote she featured on the Apple Crisp recipe day is Non Scholae Sed Vitae Discimus. And on the chocolate sauce day, she included the first line of Helen Taylor’s song Bless this House.

In Her Words: How to Be Well & Lead Well One of my favorite quotes, which I included in Daily Bread, is from James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), the author and historian who coined the term “American Dream”: “Perhaps it would be a good idea, fantastic as it sounds, to muffle every telephone, stop every motor, and halt all activity for an hour some day to give people a chance to ponder for a few minutes on what it is all about, why they are living, and what they really want.”

Imagine what Adams would think of our crazy lives today!

With all the competing demands on our time, my advice is

to practice mindfulness. It will make you think more clearly, help you identify and stay focused on both personal and professional goals, significantly reduce stress, and generally make you a happier person. Many schools, including the other HBS­ —Harvard Business School—are now incorporating mindfulness practices into their curriculum. Some describe it as the mental equivalent for your brain of weightlifting reps.

There are even mindfulness apps available to help you integrate the practice into your schedule, no matter how busy you are.

Ideas in Action In 2014, HB’s “Be Well, Lead Well” theme is being put into practice in each division in a variety of ways, with a different emphasis each month of the school year.

January: Exploring Mindfulness February: Caring for Sisters and Self March: Noticing the Natural World April: Leading Your Own Life

There are a multitude of hot-button topics related to women in leadership, and countless schools of thought about the right approach. For decades, we’ve been talking about “having balance” and “having it all.” While Sheryl Sandberg advocates leaning in, Debora L. Spar, president of the all-women’s Barnard College, says it’s OK to pull back. In promoting her new book, Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, Spar wrote, “We have opportunities today—to choose our educations, careers, spouses—that would’ve stunned our grandmothers. But now we’re dazed and confused by all the choices. Feminism was meant to remove a fixed set of expectations; instead, we now interpret it as a route to personal perfection. Because we can do anything, we feel as if we have to do everything.”

A Google search of “women’s leadership and well-being” yields 78.2 million results, ranging from scholarly articles to proprietary business sites. While it is daunting to try to synthesize all of the different points of view, tips, tricks, and definitions of female success, it’s incredibly heartening to know that so many people are talking—and talking loudly—about it. At the same time, people are paying more attention than ever to the women themselves. What it most likely boils down to is that there are as many different definitions of success as there are women to own them. Because the individual is a vitally important part of the equation.

At HB, we’re using all of this material to inform the way we teach girls about being leaders in their own lives. We provide them with an array of resources, support systems, and opportunities to develop and enrich their minds, bodies, and spirits. We also encourage them to try new things, expand their leadership vocabularies, and exercise their voices. Because we know that what a woman thinks and knows and feels mean just as much to any organization to which she lends her talents as they mean to her personal well-being.

When one girl learns to look inward and nurture her own aspirations, everyone benefits. The best kinds of leaders do just that. And the best kinds of leaders change the world.

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May: Celebrating Being Well and Leading Well

Sandberg asserts that women are being held back by the culture and by themselves. In defense of her somewhat controversial advice for women to “lean in” at work, loosen the reins at home, and recognize why they don’t stand up for themselves, she has said, “My message is not one of blaming women. There’s an awful lot we don’t control, but there is an awful lot we can control and we can do for ourselves, to sit at more tables, raise more hands.”

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