Hearing from a leader

I recently had the opportunity to observe Cathy Chamberlain, Managing Director for Marketing at Deseret Book. When she spoke at our Women In Management meeting, she proved to be immensely successful in her career as well as in her personal life. When she majored in marketing at BYU, the only majors that were deemed appropriate for women were nursing and elementary education. Still she persisted and ended up working for the George H Bush task force on women voters in the 1990s. She is now in a high position at Deseret Book as well as an adjunct professor of communication at BYU and on the Board of Trustees at Southern Virginia University.

As she spoke to us, I wondered what specific values and attributes did she have that allowed her to get so far. What I found surprised me. She was not a hardcore competitive woman who had essentially clawed her way to the top. Instead, she had decided early on that she would not worry about what those around her thought and that it only mattered what her Heavenly Father thought of her. She never married but she knew that she was doing what she was supposed to do with her life and that brought her continual peace. Even though the title of the speech was “Women in the Workplace”, my big takeaway was that we will have no job that will be more important in our lives than being a mother. Even if we become President of the United States, that job will not be as important as taking care of the children we have in our own homes.

It was interesting because I was expecting to hear from an autocratic leader. One who continually had to break through glass ceilings and prove her worth by unilaterally making decisions that coerced employees into her way of thinking. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find a reformer. This woman didn’t resort to coercion or bullying which is an easy tactic to resort to for the career woman who had to break boundaries. Instead, she stuck to her traditional values while fueling an impressive career. This allowed her to be in a position of influence where she could help our LDS values be heard in Washington DC. This, I believe, is the highest version of a reformer and I was happy to be associated with this leader.