Litmus Behind the Scenes: Our First Women’s Leadership Panel

A recap of my experience moderating the Women’s Leadership Panel at Litmus

Recently, I had the pleasure of moderating a Women’s Leadership Panel at Litmus. This is one of many exciting new initiatives that we have going as we continue to grow our company. Rapid growth is hard, and while there are challenges that we face as we expand our team and evolve our culture, there are incredible opportunities to shape the kind of company and kind of employer that we want to be. I’m fortunate to be at a company like Litmus where everyone has a voice—we have the channels in place that enable us to openly communicate about what is important to us and what we need to grow both individually and collectively as a team.

As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we invited female leaders from our own network to share their experiences and offer advice to our team through a panel discussion. Our panel included Stacey Epstein, CEO at Zinc and board member for Litmus, Davina Fournier, Senior Operations Engineer, and Katherine Boardman, VP of People Operations. There was so much great insight shared during the conversation—here are a few of my big takeaways:

• Your mentor doesn’t have to be the same gender as you or in the same field. How about that! I thought that was a great point coming out of a women’s leadership panel. There are many things to consider when establishing connections with people that can have a positive influence on your career. It’s important to have a diverse group of people that you can look up to and get advice from.
• Continue to do things that make you uncomfortable. When you are uncomfortable, you are growing. Continuing to push yourself is key to overcoming imposter syndrome and fear of failure.
• Preparation is key. If you are feeling nervous about doing something, over prepare. Knowing that you have invested time and energy into preparing will help you successfully navigate challenging tasks and situations.
• Don’t stop learning. There’s always more you can learn and areas you can grow. Being open to learning and exposing yourself to new things will continue to move you forward. There are so many ways to expand our skill sets: books, webinars, podcasts. Take the time to invest in yourself.
• Get to the truth of the matter. It’s easy to get carried away by emotions and assumptions, which can in turn lead to decisions that may not be the best. Getting to the truth of the matter will help you make decisions based on facts and not based on “noise.”
• Write down the wins. We are all moving so fast these days. It is easy to complete a project or task and quickly move onto the next initiative. It is important that we take time to reflect on how much we have accomplished already.

Those are just a few things that really stuck with me. I encourage you to look around and tap into your own network, perhaps even spearhead a panel discussion at your organization! It is amazing how much you can get out of hearing about the experiences of others!

If you are interested in learning more about Litmus and opportunities on our team, check our website and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.