Doubling Down on Inclusion + Belonging
We, at Founder to Leader, wanted to make clear that we are more committed than ever to our inclusion and belonging curriculum and practices.
There are a lot of reasons why I started Founder to Leader but there’s one reason that I haven’t shared publicly: Founder to Leader was a survival strategy for me. Here’s the real story:
I was the only full-time working mother on a small team when I had a young child. I did not realize how many weekend and evening events I was expected to attend and I was struggling to navigate being the primary caregiver for my son - and also limiting how much exposure risk I brought home to him while he was in a vulnerable health situation.
When I asked for accommodations and some minor adjustments to be made to make it possible for me to participate in some of the in-person organizational activities, I was told “No.” I think they believed they were being supportive by telling me “You do you,” giving me permission to stay home and do what I had to do for my family. But it definitely didn’t feel supportive as the only remote employee on a team uninterested in acting as a hybrid team.
Most team meetings, they forgot to add a Zoom link and I would send Slack messages to try to get them to quickly add me in. It felt like the opposite of “Inclusion and Belonging.” I did not feel welcome in the day-to-day team dynamics.
The company went on a multi-day retreat to Vermont and took a team photo. I wasn’t there so they photoshopped my head - without my consent - onto an intern’s body. This photo ended up being the cover shot for their annual report. There is so much wrong about this I don’t even know where to start.
Fast forward several months later and the final kicker for me was when my boss told me - after I delivered a huge project: “You do exceptional work, but no one here likes you.”
I was horrified by this feedback for a range of reasons. Not only was it wildly unprofessional and unconstructive feedback - but they did not see that, by systematically excluding me from company culture, no one got to know me in the organization. No one got to understand me and build trust. I felt like I was being critiqued, judged, and evaluated unfairly because they had not made it safe and inclusive for me to participate in anything other than my own individual contributions. From home.
The day that I got that feedback from my boss, I knew I had to leave. I was done working my tail off for organizations that do not share the same values I have about how you lead and manage others.
A week later, I gave my notice. I decided it was time to start my own company. I yearned to find my own way to do meaningful impact work that mattered to me - in a way that would work for me as the primary caregiver for my son. I convinced myself that I could do it; I could pull it off to go out on my own. After all, I was a serial intrapreneur. I knew how to launch and build and scale. I had just never done these things before for my own company - I’d always had a safety net of innovating within an organization - or had the benefit of being the first employee at a startup.
After a ton of brainstorming, I concluded that coaching was my strongest monetizable skill - and the thing I was most passionate about. I’ve always been driven by impact. I’ve always cared most about doing good in this world. Supporting tough tech founders is the highest leverage impact I believe I can have with my skillset and experiences.
I had no idea if I could financially survive by coaching technical founders, but I needed to try. I told myself I’d give it my all and if I didn’t get a positive signal by the end of six months, I’d go find another “real” job. I spent one week making myself a website and then posted on LinkedIn that I was open for business.
That is the true origin story of Founder to Leader. Honestly, I am grateful for disrespect that I experienced. It became the kick in the pants I needed to take the leap and go out on my own.
I ended up deciding to make Founder to Leader an all-women's team because I wanted to create a safe-haven for some of the most intelligent and competent women that I respect. I aimed to create an environment for ambitious women in which high-value work actually works for them, too. We have become a sisterhood of support, doing our best work to support founders and leaders and living by our personal values.
I share our origins story with you so that you understand that our values are not just words for us - they are deeply rooted in our own lived experiences. Inclusion is in our DNA. We truly mean it when we say we aim to create a safe and nonjudgemental environment for you to learn and grow. We know firsthand that, without psychological safety, we can not access our creative and innovative selves. Without a deep culture of respect and belonging you cannot build high-functioning teams.
The thing I love most about Founder to Leader is how our impact is multi-layered. What I mean is that, with great coaching, technical founders evolve into effective managers and leaders. When technical visionaries grow into their roles as leaders and managers, their ideas get their best shot to become real-world solutions.
If we do our jobs well at Founder to Leader, we have not only helped technology save the day - we’ve also helped founders become extraordinary leaders; we’ve given them the frameworks and tools to be able to shape these organizations into healthy human organizations. Organizations that are scalable, profitable, impactful – and ones in which individuals can grow and thrive. We love working with early stage teams because we can help them build strong roots and a positive and productive flywheel as they grow quickly.
There is a lot of rapid change happening right now in our government. There are strong messages being sent from our most powerful representatives about who is welcome and how we engage about our differences.
Our message has not changed. At Founder to Leader we will continue to hold strong to our beliefs that the healthiest organizations are diverse organizations. We need a wide range of perspectives and experiences on startups to build cross-disciplinary solutions to the world’s most daunting challenges. And, the only way to get a group of diverse people to work productively together is to invest in making everyone feel welcome and safe. Everyone.
