Last year, one of the speakers featured at Honeywell’s International Women’s Day celebrations gave a talk called “Launch Before You’re Ready.” At its core, it’s about being prepared and about taking a leap of faith. This phrase has been in the back of my mind as I’ve gone through the first few sessions of the Emerging Business Leaders Program. As I take a moment to reflect, I can appreciate that the EBL program is helping me collect tools to launch before I’m ready, as manifested in the lessons learned below.
The Power of the Network
I’m the kind of person that can’t walk into any public setting without saying hello to someone I recognize. More than likely, it’s the product of being a Charlotte native, but I also just love making those organic connections. So, it’s no surprise that I came into EBL already recognizing a few folks — a neighbor, a former colleague who I hadn’t yet met in person due to COVID, the sister of a college classmate.
The reality is, I hadn’t met any of them face-to-face when I walked into that first day, but the comfortability of seeing familiar faces was very welcome. Since then, I’ve formed connections with several EBL peers, both through our scheduled programming and “in the wild.”
The Launch Before You’re Ready takeaway: You never know who you’re going to see and where, and a small connection can go a long way.
We Can Do Hard Things
One of our sessions was about having tough conversations, especially with those that you manage. I’m currently an independent contributor, so I was sitting in the session thinking that it was not relevant to me. However, that’s not quite true. I have tough conversations every day, just not with people I directly manage. I have to have conversations about changing timelines, maintaining boundaries about my scope, advising leadership on certain decisions…all are tough in their own ways. In reading back my notes from that session, I realize I can apply some of the same framework to those conversations. Plus, I hope to have a team down the road, and know that those lessons will come in handy.
The Launch Before You’re Ready takeaway: The lessons you learn can be applied to your experiences more often than you think. Learning them today will help you tomorrow, whether or not you know it.
The Rollercoaster Career Journey Is a Gift
One of the first exercises we did as an EBL class is outline our leadership roadmaps. We were asked to plot all the pivotal moments in our leadership journeys — both the positive and the negative — and highlight their significance to who we are as leaders today. The activity was powerful, both in reflecting on my own journey and hearing about the experiences of my peers. I found many of us spent more time talking about our negative moments and how they shaped us. The resiliency we often don’t recognize came through strongly in our conversations.
The Launch Before You’re Ready takeaway: The “low” will one day be a “high” — it will just take some time to feel that way. Every experience in your career is going to help you become a better leader.
Pooja Panduranga is a director of communications for Honeywell Technologies. You can connect with her on LinkedIn here.
