7 Leadership Principles from Women in National Security

Twenty-three years ago this month, I was a young reporter covering the U.S. military intervention in Somalia. Operation Restore Hope never lived up to its name, but as a reporting gig, it was exhilarating. My job wasn’t exactly remarkable—by 1993, female journalists had been covering combat operations for at least two generations, and women in uniform had been serving in the military for much longer. But for a couple of Army infantry officers I encountered in that forlorn nation, my presence was a problem. Women weren’t allowed to serve in combat units at that time, and the officers saw no good reason to deal with a female reporter. I still remember one captain’s argument that he couldn’t allow me to travel with his unit because he couldn’t spare a soldier to carry my bags. Never mind that my “bags” consisted of a single duffle that I had lugged around for weeks with no help from the infantry. Ultimately, the officers relented (possibly because I was accompanied by a male photographer). I spent several productive days chronicling the unit’s successes and setbacks.

I was reminded of that long-ago experience this week when I moderated a panel discussion for Washington Women Speak, a leadership event celebrating women in the military in connection with Women’s History Month. The event, sponsored by Grant Thornton and the Association of Government Accountants, took place at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. It was a humbling privilege to lead the discussion with five extraordinarily accomplished women, each of whom merits a book to chronicle her accomplishments (and I hope they each write one). Their titles alone do scant justice to their accomplishments, but they are:

• Anne Davis, assistant deputy chief of naval operations for manpower, personnel and training  
• Heidi Grant, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for international affairs
• Maj. Gen. Camille Nichols, director of the sexual assault prevention and response office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
• Rear Adm. Cari Thomas, assistant commandant for human resources at the U.S. Coast Guard
• Carol Holland, deputy project director at the International Monetary Fund and a former commander in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps

Many women in the workforce today are too young to fully appreciate the barriers these women faced in the macho world of national security. When Anne Davis reported to Officer Candidate School in the mid-1970s, the Navy issued her a makeup kit. Three years later, she earned a Marine Corps commission—and that time, she was issued an M-16 rifle.

When Camille Nichols was 17 and looking for a way to pay for college in 1975, she found an Army recruiting office that promised an opportunity to be all that she could be. She enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps, where she was issued a skort (that’s not a typo). But to really be all she could be, two years later she made her way to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which opened to women in 1976. She graduated in the West Point class of 1981, only the second class with female graduates, and was commissioned as an engineer officer.

Davis and Nichols navigated their way through a culture that wasn’t just unwelcoming to women but often actively hostile. There were no female role models for what they were doing. They figured it out on their own.

Thomas, Holland and Grant charted different, but equally challenging courses. Thomas considered the Naval Academy in Annapolis but a male friend there suggested she’d do better at the more accommodating (to women) Coast Guard Academy, from which she graduated in 1984. She ultimately chose the Coast Guard because she wanted a career on the water and there were no legal restrictions for women in the Coast Guard as there were for women in the Navy. But there were barriers nonetheless. Holland attended the Naval Academy a decade after it opened to women, but long before women were truly accepted there. And she chose a career field—engineering and later construction—that was as male-centric as the combat arms. Grant’s civilian career was indelibly shaped on 9/11, when she was in charge of the Defense Department’s counterterrorism budget. She was in an emergency meeting at the Pentagon, called after terrorists crashed jets into two World Trade Center towers in New York, when the Pentagon itself was hit.

There’s no shortage of advice out there for women in the workforce—much of it from professional advisers, sociologists and others who have studied management and leadership. But the women on the Washington Women Speak panel are leaders in a sector that hasn’t always embraced them. And their advice for younger women reflects their hard-won experience.

Here are seven things they said their experiences taught them:

Know your job and pursue your work with passion. If you want your subordinates, peers and the boss to respect you, you need to master the skills your position demands. If you don’t know something, ask questions and listen to the answers. Get additional training or education if you need it. Be worthy of your position. When asked what qualities they look for in new hires, all of the panelists said commitment to the mission was essential.  

Know what your subordinates are doing. You may have the best ideas about how to run things, but if you don’t know what’s going on where the work actually gets done, your ideas won’t get very far. “Get out and walk around,” said Nichols. It’s important to get to know the people doing the hard jobs. Find out what’s holding them back and figure out how to remove those barriers.

Meet people where they are, before you try to move them somewhere else. When Holland, fresh out of a graduate program at the University of California-Berkley with advanced degrees in systems and environmental engineering, was assigned to command a Navy engineer unit in Gulfport, Mississippi, she was less than thrilled. As an African American woman, she would manage a mostly male unit in the Deep South. Her staff would include men who had been passed over for the position she was assigned. Nobody wanted her there, and she didn’t want to be there herself. But she sucked it up and faced her subordinates’ skepticism directly. She got out of the office and got her hands dirty, accompanied safety inspectors on the job, worked with fire crews, and spent time getting to know the people who worked for her. Most importantly, she demonstrated that she knew what the people in her unit did—and that she knew what she was doing. “I’m proud to say that by the time I left that unit, I believe I had earned all but one person’s respect,” she said.         

Don’t put yourself in compromising positions. In a perfect world, we’d all be judged by our actions alone, not someone’s unfair perceptions. But the world we work in isn’t perfect. While it’s important to fit in with the culture of your organization and get to know your colleagues, it’s equally important to draw effective boundaries. Holland recalled how as a young officer in the Navy she felt it was important to attend social functions after work to develop deeper bonds with her mostly male peers. But she made it a point to leave those gatherings early, even though it meant potentially missing out on discussions that might help advance her career. “Once the drinking started, I went home,” she said.  

Be adaptable. Sometimes being a woman in a male-dominated world has advantages. The trick is to recognize them. During an assignment in Saudi Arabia, while Grant’s male colleagues were invited to dine with their Saudi counterparts, she was invited to dinner with the defense minister’s wife. Grant’s staff urged her to decline and to insist on dinner with her male counterpart. Instead, she sought a compromise—a one-on-one meeting with the defense minister first, followed by dinner with his wife. It turned out the dinner included many senior Saudi officials’ wives. “I gained so much from that experience,” Grant said.

Know yourself—and be yourself. Don’t try to act like a man (or how you think a man acts), just because you’re working with men. Learn to lead in a way that is authentic to who you are. Find the strengths in your own nature, and maximize them. Several years ago, when a subordinate told Thomas in a 360-degree review that her leadership style was “motherly,” she was offended and irritated. Then he explained what he meant: His mother would do anything to support and nurture her kids, but was formidable when crossed. For the first time, Thomas said, she recognized how motherhood had affected her leadership style, and she felt comfortable with it. 

You can have it all. Maybe. In 2012, Anne-Marie Slaughter sparked a national debate about feminism and how professional women balance work and family in her Atlantic article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” When Grant’s career took off, she and her husband decided it was in their family’s best interest for him to be a stay-at-home parent to their then-three-year-old daughter. Everyone—male or female—has to figure out how to best navigate the tradeoffs that come with balancing demanding careers and family, Grant said. “I do believe you can have it all, just not all at once.” Thomas expressed a different view: “I’ve reached the point in life where I’ve figured out that I don’t actually want it all. It’s important to know what you really want—not what other people want for you.”

I would offer just one additional piece of advice: Gratefully accept support from those who offer it, but always be able to carry your own bags.