Dear Women and Biz Readers,

We chose Leadership as the Women & Biz theme, thinking about those entrepreneurs who lead themselves and their companies toward success. Thank you to all columnists, guests, and women business owners for sharing experiences and contributing to Women & Biz Magazine.

We interviewed three true leaders and innovators, each in their own specific and unique fields. Our columnists and guests wrote about communication, overcoming challenges, being a good leader, and preparing for stressful internal problems or external forces. A leader needs to be proactive; he or she takes action to achieve her personal goal and business vision.

In my search for leadership information, and potential contributors to Women & Biz current issue, I read the book “Standing at the Crossroads, Next Steps for High Achieving Women” by Marian N. Ruderman and Patricia J. Ohlott from the Center for Creative Leadership. I found more that I could ever imagine. The book gives the results of the authors’ research, and shows interviews with women of various ages and backgrounds. It uses real examples to talk about real career and life challenges women face and steps they can take to overcome them. They talk about finding authenticity, making connections, taking control of one’s destiny, achieving wholeness, and gaining self-clarity. The book is full of insightful information, and I learned a lot about myself. I recommend this book to those who are facing some kind of life transition, as it is encouraging and clarifying.

I also had the opportunity to join a three-day intensive course, called Coaching Essentials, by I-Coach New York, which teaches Executive Coaching. The instructors are four Executive Coaches with different styles who came together to teach internal and external executive coaches and to help them develop their own style. Coaching Essentials is for those who have not started working in the field, and the second course is the Professional Coaching Program, with hands on coaching, and it helps each coach to develop his or her personal coaching model. Besides being an eye opener about one’s own personality and manner, it teaches the art of coaching, the inside secrets that you would not know until you have had years of experience in the field, and it gives you structure and confidence to use the knowledge towards one’s personal and professional career.

After including the course on my resume and cover letters, and also telling people I met that I had taken this course, it opened two opportunities. One was to work for a non-profit organization, the Women’s Business Resource Center, where I am working today, and the second one was a part time position to work as a business assessor and consultant.

Even if certain opportunities that come your way do not look like it would make any difference, join it, learn from it, and tell people you did it. The two opportunities I mentioned happened in the first quarter of 2004, due mostly to networking. We hope the Women & Biz articles inspire you to be out there, to take action today, and that you enjoy the changes that will come your way.

All the best,

Elisa Balabram, editor Women & Biz
editor@womenandbiz.com