APA On Leadership

If You Want To Go Far, Go Together

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:11:29 GMT

If You WAnt to go far, go together

Minority Fellowship Program Leader Spotlight

Jeffery S. Mio, PHD

Professor Emeritus, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Alumnus, Minority Fellowship Program

What was your biggest takeaway from your MFP experience?

My biggest takeaway was in meeting many participants whom became giants in the field, such as Melba Vazquez and Thomas Parham.

How did you apply your MFP learnings to your life and your career?

I became more aware of the needs of the ethnic communities. This developed into me writing about multicultural issues, culminating in co-authoring a textbook on multicultural psychology.

What's the best leadership advice you've ever received?

The African proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together."

What can you share with MFP alumni and prospective MFP participants about what you learned about yourself through the program?

Embrace your personal development. I was hesitant to pay attention to multicultural issues when I was a grad student, but I came to appreciate its importance as I matured and developed.

Be Your Authentic Self

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:10:16 GMT

Be your authentic self as a leader

Minority Fellowship Program Leader Spotlight

Candice Hargons, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences, Emory University

Alumna, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (MHSAS) Fellowship

What was your biggest takeaway from your MFP experience?

I was so affirmed by joining a community of brilliant scientists and practitioners of the global majority in psychology. What I learned was less important at the time than how we connected.

How did you apply your MFP learnings to your life and your career?

The network from MFP helped launch my career. I worked with Della Mosley, one of my cohort members, and became her mentor and academic advisor as she completed her PhD. We were able to do amazing work transforming the University of Kentucky.

What's the best leadership advice you've ever received?

Be willing to lose your seat to do what's right and just. And succession plan so when your time is up, you've trained others to keep going.

What advice would you give to aspiring psychology leaders from underrepresented communities?

Be your authentic self as a leader. You come in with gifts that are necessary in psychology right now. But always be willing to learn and grow.

What can you share with MFP alumni and prospective MFP participants about what you learned about yourself through the program?

It was confirmed that we're not imposters. We are inheriting what our ancestors built, even though it was stolen and co-opted for a while. Being healers and scientists is in our heritage.

You are Meant to Live as Yourself

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 17:09:18 GMT

You are meant to live as yourself

MInority Fellowship Program Leader Spotlight

Sherry C. Wang

Associate Dean of DEI in the School of Education and Counseling Psychology, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University

Alumna, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (MHSAS) Fellowship, Psychology Summer Institute (PSI)

What was your biggest takeaway from your MFP experience?

My biggest takeaway from the MFP experience was the importance of community and having the support, mentorship, and leadership of those who have the experience as well as the shared values of advocating for minoritized groups and communities.

How did you apply your MFP learnings to your life and your career?

The MFP experience showed me the importance of cultivating a pipeline, and the value of systematizing opportunities and pathways for minoritized scientists and scholars so that when I have the power to build opportunities, that I think in a much bigger way about sustainability and building generational and intergenerational pathways for minoritized groups and communities.

What's the best leadership advice you've ever received?

The best leadership advice I received was from two past APA presidents and LDI alumni, Melba (Vasquez) and Rosie (Phillips Bingham), who looked me in the eye and told me to take care of myself and prioritize self-care in social justice work.

What advice would you give to aspiring psychology leaders from underrepresented communities?

The advice I would give to aspiring psychology leaders from underrepresented communities is to keep doing work that is meaningful to you (and your community) even if it might be discouraged, dismissed, and even shamed by the larger society. Throughout my career, there has been a lot of judgment on what it means for me to focus on qualitative and mixed methods research, as well as questioning about my decision to specifically focus on the mental health experiences and needs of People of Color. These naysayers have not been members of underrepresented groups or communities, did not know how to do qualitative research, and judged my work, not because my focus was inferior, but because of their own ignorance.

What can you share with MFP alumni and prospective MFP participants about what you learned about yourself through the program?

I read an amazing quote the other day, on the front of card, and it said: "You are not meant to live like the others. You are meant to live as yourself." That resonates with me professionally in terms of how I have chosen to pursue my career, from the decisions I have made, to the priorities I have chosen. Stay true to you because you are the culmination of your ancestors and the voice of your community. You will know what's best. This is the confidence I have gained over the years to be unapologetic about the work that I do.

Don't Wait for a Seat at Someone Else's Table

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 20:53:21 GMT

Don't wait for a seat at someone else's table

Minority Fellowship Program Leader Spotlight

Tamicka Monson, MS, Ma

Owner, Tamicka Monson Counseling

Alumna, Services for Transition-Age Youth (STAY) Fellowship

What was your biggest takeaway from your MFP experience?

My greatest takeaway from my MFP experience was the lasting impact of the lifelong relationships I built, connections that continue to inspire, support, and shape both my personal and professional journey.

How did you apply your MFP learnings to your life and your career?

MFP taught me that I don’t have to wait for a seat at someone else’s table. I can build my own and lead from a place of strength, authenticity, and vision.

What's the best leadership advice you've ever received?

The best leadership advice I’ve ever received is to build bridges across disciplines, uplift others in their journeys, and stay actively engaged in advocacy. True leadership is rooted in collaboration, service, and purpose.

What advice would you give to aspiring psychology leaders from underrepresented communities?

I encourage aspiring psychology leaders from underrepresented communities to invest in meaningful relationships, seek mentorship and support, and prioritize rest, trusting in the strength, resilience, and wisdom they already carry.

What can you share with MFP alumni and prospective MFP participants about what you learned about yourself through the program?

I learned that the work I do truly matters, and that both micro-level support and macro-level change are powerful forms of advocacy and public policy in action.

Commit to Those Things That Are Meaningful

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 19:34:17 GMT

Commit to Those Things That Are Meaningful

LIWP Leader Spotlight

Debra Kawahara, PhD

APA President Elect, 2025

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, California School of Professional Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University

What was your biggest takeaway from LIWP?

The mentoring and networking are things I continue to use even now. I was in the first class and just the connection with women leaders that I have been able to make and the network I’ve been able to build has been valuable. Being able to reach out to that network for mentoring as I am making my own career trajectory, moving into different positions, and needing advice in certain situations has been important. I think that scaffolding mentoring, where you might get mentorship from people that are senior to you as well as from people that are at the same level, and trying to mentor and learn from those that are in an earlier stage of their careers, was really great because now I have this supportive network that I can reach out to. As an LIWP alum, I also feel like it would be easy for me to reach out to any of the LIWP Participant Leaders because we are all part of this institute. I’m always trying to recruit people that I think will be great for LIWP since I’ve learned so much from it and I feel it’s my way of giving back and moving it forward.

How did you apply your LIWP learning to your life and career?

LIWP helped me build skills that I’ve continued to use in my career. Skills like negotiation, financial skills, and being able to navigate difficult, challenging, situations. LIWP allowed me to really look at myself and evaluate, professionally and personally, what skills I need to grow and expand. I realized I need the balance between my life and my career. I mean, look at this pandemic: People are having to really negotiate life and career, because they’re at home and less able to compartmentalize. Managing work-life balance is so important.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I think the best advice that I got was, “Just go for things.” Even if you think that you aren’t ready for them or don’t have all the skills, just go for it. And to expand and push yourself, which I really have taken on in terms of taking on leadership roles. I may not have known what the role entailed, but it resonated with me as something I wanted to do. Whether it’s being the lead coordinator for the National Multicultural Conference or the editor of Women in Therapy, where I have the chance to publish scholarship, feminist, and women issues that might not be published otherwise. Even serving on the LIWP Advisory Committee: As soon as I was asked, I knew I wanted to do it. I know you are supposed to sit back and think about it, but it was just something that I wanted to do in my heart, so it was like, “Yes, I will commit to this and invest my time.”

What advice would you give to other women who are midcareer leaders in psychology?

I think my advice is probably to figure out what you want to spend your time on. You can’t do everything. Try to figure out what that sweet spot is and commit to those things that are meaningful and will actually help you get to where you want to be.

What can you share with your LIWP alumna sisters about what you learned about yourself as a leader in the process?

The phrase “collaborative leader” comes up when I think about defining myself. Within that collaboration are very much the feminist values of empowerment and looking at power dynamics. As a leader, I most get excited when I’m working with a group of people towards a goal or vision. And when you get synergy from the group, I feel like that’s success. It’s about knowing that within those group relationships you’re moving toward something together. Both the outcome and relationships are important to me, and I infuse those values into my actions as a leader.

From LeadHERship , Vol. 5 (2021)

Leadership Comes in Different Styles

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 19:34:19 GMT

Leadership Comes in Different Styles

LIWP Leader Spotlight

Anita Thomas, PhD

Executive Vice President and Provost, St. Catherine University

What was your biggest takeaway from LIWP?

The most important piece for me was learning to move into myself as a leader. Ruth Fassinger was one of our faculty members and she talked about the difference between being an accidental leader and an intentional leader. The biggest thing for me that I learned is that leadership comes in different forms and styles. There is no such thing as a perfect leader, let alone a certain type of leadership traits or skills that a perfect leader must have. For me, it was about making the determination to be an intentional leader, and then seeking out leadership opportunities to hone my skills.

I’m definitely much more of a collective leader. There are a lot of African principles about understanding the roles of each member in the group and being able to strengthen each person, so the group functions effectively, as opposed to the solo leader and the followers. To maximize the success of the group, empower people so they focus on their resilience and work together as a team.

How did you apply your LIWP learning to your life and career?

Everything that we’ve learned in LIWP has real applications to my career. I accepted a dean position at the end of the second workshop, because I decided, “If I’m going to be a leader, I’m actually going to lead.” So, everything that we learned in terms of how organizations run, the importance of communication, the importance of transparency and flexibility, all of those served me well into the transition from the dean position to provost.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

To be an intentional leader. I think that as a person of color, we have stereotypes about what makes a good leader. And so, the idea that leadership comes in different styles, flavors, and approaches, and really owning that sense of leadership for myself, was probably the best advice that I’ve gotten. You can lead people based on your personality, your skills, your traits.

What advice would you give to other women who are midcareer leaders in psychology?

I would say two things: I think it’s really critical that people have a good sense of what their passion areas really are and that they develop their professional goals around that. One of the things that I think we get caught up in is the actual roles, tasks, and responsibilities that we have in our positions and lose what fuels us, what gets us out of bed every day, what we are most excited about. Without keeping that center it’s easy to get stagnant and really burned out. I have a mission statement that my dissertation advisor asked me to write. And everywhere I go—each job—it’s always hanging up on some bulletin board or somewhere, and I need to look at it to remember, “This is why you’re angry with this person,” or, “This has to get done and how can you get closer to that?” The second piece of advice really is that leadership comes in different styles. There isn’t a perfect leader and there’s flexibility needed to lead in different contexts. People laugh at me when I say this, but even Michelle Obama went to the White House with her mother and then she had aides and personal assistants. Even though I may identify with her as a leader, I remind myself that she still had a team of people, so it is important to remember that.

What can you share with your LIWP alumna sisters about what you learned about yourself as a leader in the process?

You know what? This is going to sound hilarious. I think I’m brilliant. That’s something I’ve learned about myself in leadership and I will tell that to my faculty all the time. We’ll be in a meeting and I’ll be listening and then I’ll propose, “Okay, this is where I think we should go,” and people will respond, “That’s a great answer,” and I respond, “Yes, because I’m brilliant.” But in all seriousness, I have learned to trust myself. And I will say to myself, “Anita, you are brilliant. If you have an answer, go for it. You can change it later if it’s not right, it can be tweaked.” I have learned to trust myself and really feel that I have skills and that that is why I was hired.

From LeadHERship , Vol. 5 (2021)

Showing Up Authentically

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 12:41:35 GMT

Showing Up Authentically

LIWP Leader Spotlight

Sarah Burgamy, PhD

Clinical Psychologist and Founder of PhoenixRISE

What was your biggest takeaway from LIWP?

That is not very hard to answer: honestly, the connections. I think many of us in psychology are relational by nature. It truly is about making contact and because I participated in a year where it wasn’t a global pandemic, I had the opportunity to be in a room with so many wonderfully accomplished people. Not just accomplished, but driven, transparent, and honest about the things about which folks were insecure, challenges in the field, or just the personal and professional dovetailing together. There were folks from a lot of different backgrounds, and those connections have persisted to where, for example, during conventions (and in the case of last year’s virtual convention), I would find myself in sessions chatting with my LIWP alumna. It is a network of really amazing individuals. And you support each other as well, because many of you may be going through the same trajectory.

Yes, even looking back to the goals I had during LIWP, what I was articulating, and what I was up to. It’s interesting because since then I’ve met the goal I had set because I thought that’s where I was heading, and then I changed directions again. In some ways, being a part of LIWP and having an open conversation gave us a lot of permission to say, “You know, I set a goal, I achieve that goal, and I decide if that will be the be-all end-all or set a different goal.” And it doesn’t even have to be in the “field”. It can be a quality-of-life goal, which has come in handy in the past year.

How did you apply your LIWP learning to your life and career?

A little less tangibly than sitting down, setting a goal, and looking at that goal. I do think there’s a real power in setting goals and saying, “Why don’t you sit down, put some dates on the calendar, or set some expectations for yourself?” Because I will say that after getting out of grad school and having no one other than my clinical advisor look over my shoulder anymore, no one would tell me, “This is where you need to go and this is what you need to do.” I would then create goals in my head and set an intention of going in that direction, and if I miss it, it’s not a failure, it’s a checkpoint, which is what LIWP helped me with. I am a lifelong athlete (rugby and swimming) and with swimming it’s constantly achieving and doing my best, but I just stopped making those types of goals and somehow that did not translate into my professional life. So, there is some real power in setting an expectation and seeing where you go, where it takes you. The less tangible part is the permission to not know—learning that it’s okay to not know. It’s okay to have an idea that you think you’re aiming for and then to change your mind.

What’s is the best advice you’ve ever received?

I shared with you that I recently lost my 100-year-old grandmother, who was a big figure in the family. She was the most well-read individual I ever met. She had all of her kids and went back to school and was an all-but-dissertation English PhD. She won blue ribbons for her knitting. She had things that were your traditional grandma things, and then she also read my dissertation on gender identity and asked questions—mind you, she was born in the 1920s. So, I was reflecting on that, on the strong female presence in my life, and also on why I am so passionate about gender inequities, and I thought, “It’s no accident, I have these role models.” Not just my grandmother: My mother is a formidable person and emotionally was my compass for my whole life. It was really causing me to think that you don’t just show up in the world and or show up from the ether, you come from people that influence you positively or a mixture. But I was feeling a real grounding being there, in the plains of Texas for my grandmother’s funeral, which is not where I grew up, but sort of that sensibility of looking around thinking, “Gosh, my family has been in this land for a long time and now I’m not sure when I’ll be back and why,” and it was a really weird sensibility of, where do we anchor? And do we always anchor in places where we always stand? And I think the answer is no.

Even my involvement with LIWP, even though it was a year of involvement enrolled in the leadership program, I think of it as little anchors you throw out and your little anchors stay there, even if you’re not there. And I think that is why when I was asked to be part of the LIWP Advisory Committee it wasn’t hard to decide, because I had an anchor there, it wasn’t a new connection. And to me, whether that’s the plains of Texas, the Colorado mountains, or something like LIWP, I have a tendency to follow those lines back to where I’ve had something influential occur.

And this has been shared many times before, that AC members want to give back because LIWP has given them so much.

I think of some of the folks that started LIWP before it was LIWP—for example, Helen Coons is one of the first people I met when I joined APA Council as the Colorado representative. I was seated at the table with Helen, and I didn’t know her, but after I got to know her, she kept putting things in front of me. The experience I’ve had with this is that the person sees something in you but doesn’t tell you, they just put things in front of you and ask, “What do you think of this?” That’s how I ended up in Council as the president of my state association, because someone asked, “Don’t you think you should run?” The fact that somebody else says it’s possible—it matters. Sometimes we blaze trails where we aren’t “supposed to,” but a lot of times, someone just tells us, “Do you want to go in that direction? You should go in that direction; I’m not blazing the trail for you but I can walk with you.” I don’t know what prompts people to do that, but it’s not a job. To me, the part where I joined the AC, it was not only this giving up, but it was this sense of that same experience repeated. You must see something and maybe I feel it too, and even if I don’t know what exactly it is that I’m bringing with me, let’s find out.

What advice would you give to other women who are midcareer in psychology?

What I find tricky about giving advice is that there is such a self-reference component: I go back to something that’s been helpful to me that may not be helpful to the next person. Because I’m so focused on my own life, on how to remember that I don’t have to have a unidimensional life, that my life doesn’t have to be majority career or majority family, really anything. I think sometimes, being on an achieving track, I put blinders on the sides of my face and look ahead and forget to walk the dog just because I like walking the dog, not because the dog needs to be walked. So, right now I’m in this reflective part of my midcareer where I think, “Okay, well here I am,” and I guess the advice I’d give is, it’s okay to give inventory. I catch myself saying to my clients a lot, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

What can you share about your LIWP alumna sisters about what you learned about yourself in the process?

What got reinforced for me was showing up authentically—and it’s not just valuable, it’s been “the thing” that’s really informed my notion of leadership. Especially as somebody that is gender nonconforming or androgynous, where I identify as a woman but my experience with gender is not always quite so binary and simple. Growing up, that was challenging: There is this sort of permission to be yourself up to a point and then people say, “Okay….” It’s a weird hourglass, where it starts wide and we let kids be rambunctious and expansive, and then we do this thing where we pinch the middle and go, “Now you have to figure out what the rules are, what you’re supposed to do, what you’re supposed to be.” I think there is value in that to a degree because there’s a certain level of learning how to do that in a way that allows you to walk comfortably in different spaces and navigate, and it also teaches you how to get into those spaces and expand again. And I think that that’s been the most important thing I’ve learned about myself, having both competencies, of authenticity and expansiveness, but also having the competency of knowing and reading what’s happening in this space. When you put the two together you have more options. And I’m surprised at times that by doing that, people listen. It’s an interesting thing where you join any cultural environment, if you’re able to take inventory and ask, “Where am I?” then you can find a way to show up in that space in a way that people think, “Oh you sort of understand where you are and who you are. You’re able to do both pieces.” I don’t think that’s always easy or possible. I think I have a lot of arenas of personal identity where I have a lot of privilege and a lot of leverage. And then I think it’s maximizing those areas of privilege to bring the other parts of myself to make space for other people who may not have the same access.

Any other advice for your LIWP sisters?

The only thing I would add is that the usage of negotiating language is sort of a challenge where I want to reference the language of “women” and “woman,” and at the same time I want to move away from it, so I live in this tension. Because I think we’re living in a very interesting time, not just in LIWP but in general, and what’s exciting about it is that we’re having these very complicated and meaningful conversations: What does it mean to be a Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology? What do we mean by that and who do we mean? And I think we’re navigating that now; it’ll be just interesting to see where we go.

From LeadHERship , Vol. 5 (2021)

Don’t Hesitate to Look for Diverse Mentoring

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 18:45:50 GMT

Don't Hesitate to look for Diverse Mentoring

LIWP Leader Spotlight

Michi Fu, PhD

California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University

What was your biggest takeaway from LIWP?

The biggest thing is that there are different leadership styles and different leadership methods for various stages of one’s career. And that, even though I did not have a lot of role models in my own life, there are a lot of folks that are willing to extend themselves to give me information. So, opening myself up to being mentored by different folks, and by peer mentors as well, can actually be much more helpful than trying to work within one’s own system and trying to find the answers within one’s own university, because that may not get you as far as this network of other women who’ve already gone through the steps.

How did you apply your LIWP learning to your life and career?

Well, I managed to apply for a promotion and I managed to successfully apply for sabbatical as well, and it completely changed my life. Because of that, I now can consider myself an international psychologist because I’ve spent a year at another university [in Taiwan] teaching in another language. Before that, I dabbled and did one workshop, but that didn’t count as anything. I couldn’t just jump over to a relaxation getaway and say I’m an international psychologist now. But after spending a year taking Mandarin lessons and working through interpreters, I can now be in another setting and still use psychology to help other populations. It really did transform my personal life because it enabled me to have a whole new life I didn’t think of. Because of sabbatical I applied for citizenship in another country and got it, and I was able to start an improv group and a bunch of other things. But it was really because LIWP encouraged me to apply for promotion, even though no one in the past had tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You should apply for sabbatical because that’s one of the perks of being on faculty.” Because other people gave me the permission, I thought it was something I should look into.

Do you still do you still go back and visit Taiwan?

I do. I chose Taiwan because I could have sabbatical anywhere in the world. At home, I could have just been writing my book. But I chose Taiwan because my mother retired there and it actually worked out very well because before the pandemic hit, I would think, “Well, I already have a U.S. citizenship, why should I bother to apply?” But having the Taiwanese citizenship has been the only way I can travel now.

Maybe LIWP did not give me all these things, but had they not pushed me, I would have quit academia. I was very discouraged by our administration, which was making a lot of decisions that made it more difficult to justify being there. They went from being a nonprofit to a benefits court. So, I started an exit plan and when LIWP came into my life, I was in the middle of a lot of career transitions. I thought, “Why the heck not? All these mentors are telling me you need to go explore, be unapologetic.” I carved out my plan and decided to take the sabbatical and if I came back to my administration and it remained the same, I would leave. The encouragement made me feel like I had options.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I was a student and the president of the Asian American Psychological Association was female. I was a student board member, so I think it was in my early or maybe mid-20s and basically I knew nothing. Therefore, anytime someone asked if anyone wanted to work on a project, I would say yes. And Gayle Iwamasa, who would later on be in LIWP cohort seven with me and at the time was president, taught me an important lesson. I distinctly remember when I jumped in to volunteer for something and she interjected and said, “Absolutely not.” She said, “We need to protect this woman because she’s still a student: She doesn’t know how to say no yet.”

She taught me how to protect my time. One of the best pieces of advice that I’ve ever received happens to have been from an LIWP sister, but it was really to learn how to say no, and to be very discriminatory about how we spend our energy.

What advice would you give to other women who are midcareer leaders in psychology?

I suppose a plug that I can genuinely give is, join LIWP. Maybe for some it’s not feasible due to childcare, finances, and what-have-you, so don’t hesitate to look for mentoring and diverse mentoring too: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. But if you can attend LIWP, it is the most efficient way of trying to get your career to move in another direction. There are other leadership or mentoring kinds of programs that I also have been involved in that have done a lot for my career too. For example, current APA president, Dr. Jennifer Kelly, ran one for the diversity delegates. If you can’t join LIWP, diversity of delegates was funded my year so that makes a difference for some folks. I know for early career psychologists there’s a Leadership Development Institute from the Council of National Psychology Associations for the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Interests. There are all these other pathways but if you’re looking specifically for intersectionality of gender plus another identity, LIWP is a really great pathway.

What can you share with your LIWP alumna sisters about what you learned about yourself as a leader in the process?

I had an answer here and it is still true: Embrace different leadership styles and know when to use them for different settings. That’s been tremendous. Another one is having an elevator speech and knowing when to customize that elevator speech for the various contexts that we kind of flow in and out of. This was especially important because during the evening reception on day one, I remember them saying, “Everybody gets one minute.” They were not kidding around: They literally yanked the microphone out of someone’s hand. And that is how it is in the real world. So, being able to distill a very brief bio and deliver to various audiences was a skill that I didn’t realize would serve me so well in various contexts.

Okay, so those are the two on paper, and it’s also helpful, I think, to have an attitude of humility. Being a leader who’s curious and willing to learn has been very helpful to me. In the past, I felt like there’s no room to not know, you just had to do it; now I realize you can give yourself some grace and you can say out loud that you’re just as scared and clueless as everyone else. Maybe I have the project management skills, I just don’t have the actual content skills to drive a project. I realized being humble means being curious, as well as being able to ask for help. So, being able to collaborate with others that complement our styles seems to be a better way to operate as a leader.

From LeadHERship , Vol. 5 (2021)

Access is Critical

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 12:52:59 GMT

Access is Crital

LIWP Leader Spotlight

Dolores Cimini, PhD

New York State licensed psychologist and director of the Center for Behavioral Health Promotion and Applied Research at the University at Albany, State University of New York

What made you decide to accept the invitation to serve on the LIWP Advisory Committee?

I have always believed in the mission of the LIWP and when I participated in Cohort 5, I learned a great deal. It has made a significant difference in my own career development, and I believe in paying it forward to other women. When I received the opportunity to consider this role, I accepted it immediately.

Can you speak a bit about the importance of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in leadership?

Yes; equity, diversity, and inclusion are critical to keep in mind for all leaders, particularly for women. It has been very challenging when we look at issues in society, both past and more recent, with regard to achieving equity, particularly for women and populations that have been historically marginalized. It's really critical, in my view, to do whatever we can to help place everyone, particularly those who have been historically marginalized, on an equal playing field. You know, that means that what those in leadership need to do is to take any opportunity we have to open doors for other women and other underrepresented people whose identities have been historically marginalized. I would also add, with regard to equity, diversity, and inclusion, “access.” Because, when we talk about equity, we also need to consider access. Do individuals and society have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that exist? As a person with a disability myself, access is very critical in leveling the playing field. I would ultimately recommend, in addition to equity, diversity, and inclusion, to add access as a fourth element.

How have your own intersectionalities affected your experiences in leadership roles?

So, as I mentioned, I'm a person with a visual disability. When I trained in graduate school back in the 1980s, the environment for women with disabilities was very different than it is right now. I was not encouraged to pursue advanced studies and the technology, in terms of accommodations around computers and other technologies to help do research, was not as advanced, so there were a lot of challenges. As a person with a disability, I had to do a lot early in my career to catch up and keep up with those who may not have been challenged with disabilities. As years have passed, technology has improved. There has been more access to opportunities for people with disabilities as a function of new laws and new doors being opened. We see more women with disabilities in leadership positions, and even though a lot of work needs to be done, it's really important to know that there has been some progress. When I think of my own intersectionality as a woman, and as someone with a disability, it's really a dual set of issues that I face, and I have committed to doing whatever I can to do in small ways to help advance the opportunities for women with disabilities. In fact, I have been acknowledged by the White House and President Obama for the work that I've done in mentoring young women with disabilities. I am still doing that, right now, and I plan to continue to engage in that work for the rest of my career.

What would you say is the most important thing you’ve learned about yourself as a leader?

The most important thing that I've learned about myself as a leader is that it's important for me when I face new opportunities and new potential challenges, to just jump in there and not be afraid. Sometimes, when we receive new opportunities or experience new challenges there's an avoidance conflict approach that happens, at least for me, and it's really easy to potentially decide not to move forward, but it's at those very times when most challenges exist that it's really important to step forward and to try new opportunities. I've learned that after I have taken those big steps forward, it has not only benefited my own career development but I've also been placed into spaces in which I could help and mentor and help others move forward.

What is the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received?

The best piece of leadership advice that I have ever received is to persist. Sometimes leadership is very difficult, it's very complicated, it's very challenging. We can face a lot of resistance from those around us to what we want to accomplish, so it's important first and foremost to persist. To work with others creatively to address any potential challenges that may be in the way and to address any potential barriers that we encounter. We need to approach leadership not only with persistence but with some courage. The courage to move forward, the courage to make changes, and the courage to fail to make mistakes. We all make mistakes as we lead, and so what I say is “we need to fail forward.” Okay? So as we move forward, we fail, we learn, and then we get up and move on and always remember that we, in our lives and in leadership have choices and it's through our choices that we pave the way not only for our own futures but for that of other women and with our voices that we can actually realize that change that we wish to make in our immediate environments and in broader society.”

What advice would you give to our LIWP Leaders and Affiliates?

During our journeys and leadership, do not be afraid to fail forward. As we engage in new opportunities, we may face new barriers as well, and we need to. We need to work with our allies, we need to work with our fellow women leaders to help address those barriers. Begin small and figure out new and creative ways to move forward, to move beyond those barriers, and to help all of us individually and collectively make progress.

From LeadHERship , Vol. 6 (2022)