Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation: Inspiration and Strategies for Women
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About this ebook
Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation offers valuable information on what it means to be a leader and innovator and encourages you to discover and develop these skills for yourself. This book integrates leadership and innovation principles with personal examples and profiles of inspirational women. By providing a clear process on how to build upon your personal strengths to realize leadership and innovation goals, this book will inspire you to pick up the mantle and meet the critical need for leadership and innovation in the STEM fields. This is a must-have guide that is relevant and valuable for women in all stages of their careers.
- Examines research-based leadership and innovation principles to make these critically important characteristics both real and attainable
- Empowers you to build upon your own strengths and successes to discover and develop leadership and innovation skills
- Features a companion website that highlights women’s leadership success stories, innovation resources and best practices
- Provides a practical guide that educates, encourages and equips you to pursue leadership and innovation opportunities
Pamela McCauley Bush
Pamela McCauley Bush, PhD, CPE is a leader, innovator and motivator. She is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Ergonomics Laboratory, Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Department at the University of Central Florida. She is also the Chief Technology Officer of Bush Enterprises/Tech-Solutions, Inc. Dr. Bush is a successful researcher and innovator as demonstrated by the numerous federal research grants, technical publications, and national and international committee appointments to her credit. She is a nationally recognized motivational speaker in the Women’s Leaders and STEM Education communities.
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Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - Pamela McCauley Bush
CPE
Introduction
As I travel the United States and globally to discuss engineering, leadership, and innovation, it has become apparent to me that there is a dearth of encouragement and support for individuals in the STEM fields seeking to lead, innovate, and attain stellar careers. This issue is even more significant for women in STEM carreers. This is unfortunate because the opportunities for us to excel are ever present but we are often sidelined due to lack of positive reinforcement or because of the challenges we face in our professional and/or personal environment. As a result, we often become withdrawn, disillusioned, and fail to achieve all that we’re fully capable of achieving. As a woman in engineering, I have found these experiences to be disheartening when I see women who are not being encouraged, supported, or moved in the direction of leadership and innovation. This is because I can clearly see the power, potential, and opportunity for amazing outcomes in these women and their organizations. Thus, I embarked on a mission
to reach these women. This mission has taken me to various venues to share my experiences, message of empowerment, and basic processes that I and others have used to achieve our dreams. However, physically traveling to locations around the globe is not an efficient process to reach the masses of women that need to hear this message. Thus, I embarked upon the development of a book that would speak to the needs of these individuals from a person who has been through a similar situation.
I am a natural optimist and have had many exciting experiences that have produced a good measure of success in my career. Despite this optimism, as an African American, female engineer in the professional setting, I have often times felt isolated, misunderstood, not supported, and even unwelcomed. My natural optimism, support system, faith, and engineering problem-solving skills have always allowed me to deal with these situations and come out stronger. However, I’ve seen situations where this was not the case for other women. In many instances, they quit, they left the profession, or they withdrew and accepted mediocre roles rather than the stellar roles they were called to fulfill. This is a problem – but it is a problem with a solution. None of this had to happen if they had been given the guidance, encouragement, support, and knowledge to achieve their career goals. I hope this book will be a part of the solution for countless women seeking to realize their leadership and innovation dreams.
Finally, it is important to stress that this book is not a social science or theoretically based approach to leadership, self-improvement, or career success. I am a STEM professional speaking to other STEM professionals, and while I share details of research studies, the objective is on sharing practical knowledge, experiences, and encouragement from the trenches.
The objective is to reach every reader in a way that provides insight into common experiences of other women that will stir your creative energies, empower you, and set fire to your focus on accomplishing your greatest dreams. I like to think of the chapters that follow as letters; letters to a dear friend who is bursting with potential and on the verge of walking into greatness as a STEM professional. This friend and I share a common bond. This bond that ties us together is a beautiful tapestry that consists of exciting career and personal aspirations, a desire to impact the world, and a willingness to put in the work to make it happen.
As you read the pages of these letters, it is my intention that you will experience a sense of connection and know that you are not alone in your experiences and there are people who have succeeded in comparable situations. For me it is powerful to know that there are others who have had similar experiences, common challenges, and personal fears but yet still achieved great things. If they did it – I’m encouraged that I can do it, too! Likewise, I trust that you will find value in the stories, guidelines, resources, and conversations shared in the pages of this book and on the companion website. Let the letters
that follow empower, inspire, encourage, and uplift you in the pursuit of your innovation and leadership dreams. You can certainly make it happen!
With great confidence in you,
Pamela McCauley Bush
Chapter 1
A Call to Leadership
Chapter Outline
You Made It!
You Matter
Where We are Today
Perspectives from Other Women
Women in Industry
Women in Politics
Technology: Grace Hopper
Environment: Wangari Maathai
What Can You Do Today?
The Challenges We Face
Lead Today
Summary
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
Marianne Williamson
You Made It!
You have succeeded in fostering a vision and achieving a STEM career, something that far differentiates you from most men and women. Many of the women I talk to and interact with around the world are leaders in their STEM fields, and yet so many of them don’t realize what an important contribution they are making to their communities and the world. Given the challenges you’ve overcome to secure a career in a STEM field, it is imperative that you realize the significance of your achievements to date, and use this as fuel to propel you to the next level, and carry others with you. The world needs innovators to address global challenges like environmental destruction, economic crisis, and health issues, and those of us with knowledge and experience in STEM careers must do our part to help develop solutions to these challenges.
Your days are probably already incredibly full with various responsibilities from career, family, and the community. For most of us, we manage to do this well but it is difficult in the scarce remaining time to find time for your many other interests. Somehow, we find a way to juggle the various roles we are required to play. So how do we begin to think about adding something else to our lives in the midst of all we have going on today? It’s actually a management action. In many ways, you are a manager each day – managing tasks at hand, at home, or at the workplace and managing people and relationships around you. But there is a difference between managing and leading. A manager is one who functions within defined parameters and works toward a definite goal. A person’s intelligence, inherent skills, knowledge, creativity, and personality contribute toward this end result. However, it is passion that makes a leader out of a manager. A manager with a passion to make a difference, sculpt change, or create something new, goes beyond managing to leading. In a company, the CEO who achieves targets is likely a good manager, but the shift supervisor, who instills in people the desire to be the best in the company, may actually be the true leader. So for our careers, we must be managers as well as leaders. In other words, we must engage in the activities on a day to day basis (manager role) that will result in achieving the long-term vision we have for our career and life impact (leadership role). Yes, it takes effort to do this but it can be accomplished and the results are well worth the effort.
So, recognize the fact that you are a success as a professional, student, or aspiring STEM educator, innovator, or leader. Truly take time to celebrate yourself and where you are today. In my experience, this celebration and appreciation of our achievements can be powerful in restoring and maintaining the confidence we need to move forward. You made it! And let this moment be a celebration of your success, vision, and ambition today as well as the launch-party for your plan to go to the next level! It’s time to transform your STEM career as a leader and an innovator.
You Matter
You matter when it comes to making a difference in your community, country, and the world. There is a broad consensus that the long-term key to continued U.S. competitiveness in an increasingly global economic environment lies in the quality of our STEM workforce. According to a survey taken in 2004, by that time scientific innovation had already produced roughly half of all U.S. economic growth in the previous 50 years [1]. The STEM fields and those who work in them are critical engines of innovation and growth. According to one recent estimate, about 6% of the U.S. workforce is employed in STEM fields [2], while the STEM workforce accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s sustained economic growth.
While you were growing up there were undoubtedly people who mattered to you. Perhaps you looked up to a grandparent who took care of you and your siblings while your parents worked, or the professor who spent extra time helping you with your thesis. As we get older we tend to forget just how much each of us matters and the effect we have on individuals in our community. You matter. You matter to someone and to a cause
today. Someone is looking up to you – whether it’s a co-worker, a student, or the kid next door – it’s important to recognize that because you’ve made it, people admire and respect you, and as a socially conscious individual you should take this as a leadership challenge. As we considered women in STEM this becomes even more important. It is critical that we, as women, inspire and encourage other women to maintain and develop their STEM careers as this has a ripple effect when we don’t; not only do we waste talent that has taken years to grow and develop but we deter other women from pursuing and staying in the profession. Your example impacts society and young women’s perceptions of their opportunities in STEM careers. In order to serve the world to the best of our ability, we as STEM leaders must encourage other women from all walks of life to join us in our mission. We are not monolithic – and that is great! STEM careers demand diversity in problem solving among their team members, and diversity among women not only allows us to work in various environments but also encourages diversity in thoughts and ideas. The result is a solution resource that represents perspectives, experience and ultimately produces better outcomes. Remember, the value you bring today and in the future – you matter.
Where We are Today
There seems to be a universal sigh of reluctance among women when it comes to taking on leadership roles in our careers. The National Science Foundation estimates that between 4.8 and 6.4 million people work directly in science, engineering, and technology – just over 4% of the U.S. workforce. However, while women comprise about half of the global population, we made up about 27% of the STEM professionals in the latest 2008 survey. While sex disparities vary among STEM occupations, the most extreme disparities are in engineering, where women make up a meager 13% of the workforce according to the most recent estimates [3]. Unfortunately, our presence hasn’t always translated into leadership or innovation opportunities. And, in cases where it has, there is often a feeling of dissatisfaction, isolation, and lack of acceptance. So why are so many of us unhappy, leading and innovating in our careers? An American Association of University Women (AAUW) study designated eight factors that depress the numbers of women in STEM professions:
• mistaken beliefs about our intelligence
• gender stereotypes
• self-assessment
• spatial skills
• the college student experience
• university and college faculty
• implicit bias
• workplace bias
The truth of the matter is one or two of these factors would be enough to discourage women from pursuing, maintaining, and excelling in a STEM related career, much less the synergistic impact of multiple factors. However, despite these known factors that inhibit our growth – we are succeeding. Certainly, not on the level we’d desire but it’s important to note that there are many who’ve managed to navigate this environment and have satisfying and rewarding careers. The objective now is to learn from them, do what we can to change the environment, and move forward as individuals and leaders ourselves as this will move us all forward as