Did you hear about US Olympic runner Alysia Montano? She wears a flower in her hair during every race. When she was a child, she raced against boys in her neighbourhood and she started wearing a flower in her hair to remind them that they were being beaten by a girl. Montano explained recently: “The flower to me means strength with femininity. I think that a lot of people say things like you run like a girl. That doesn’t mean you have to run soft or you have to be dainty. It means that you’re strong”
What a great example for women in business! Too often, women in business fall in to the trap of thinking you have two choices: be ‘tough’ (meaning ‘more like a man’) or be ‘soft’ (meaning ‘more like a woman’). Montano has captured a 3rd ‘choice’ brilliantly: run like a girl because that means you are strong.
Montano uses the flower to remind herself (and others) that it is possible to be both ‘strong’ and ‘feminine’ and that those two attributes are not mutually exclusive. In fact, as far as I am concerned they go hand in hand.The flower to me means strength with femininity. I think that a lot of people say things like you run like a girl. That doesn’t mean you have to run soft or you have to run dainty. It means that you’re strong
In other words, don’t hide from the fact that you are a woman in business. Don’t think that you have be ‘more like a man’ in order to succeed in business. Being a woman gives you a great deal of skills and attributes that you probably don’t even realise you have. The fact that you run a business in addition to all the other responsibilities in your life means that you understand what hard work is and what ‘being strong’ is all about. You have strengths as a woman that mean you already have the capacity to succeed.