Build your village. The hardest challenges in my life were met with the strength of my entire village, not just me. Pour energy into the friends and the communities that lift you up, push you to be better, and will have your back when you need it.
How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.
As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nisha Anand. CEO of Dream.Org, Nisha Anand is an activist, mom of two teenagers, and a boundary-busting national leader for social and racial justice. Named one of the 30 Nonprofit Leaders Who Will Impact the World in 2024, Nisha works at the intersection of criminal justice reform, climate action, and tech equity, with the goal to create a better future for all. Her viral TED talk, “The Radical Act of Choosing Common Ground,” resonated with millions, igniting critical conversations amidst today’s divisive climate.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
Absolutely. So, I grew up a misfit — in every sense of the word. As a first-generation Indian-American growing up in Atlanta in the eighties, which was much more racially segregated at the time, I didn’t fit into the existing binary of Black and white. I was a Brown girl living with my immigrant father in the South and that was a very lonely identity to wrap my head around as a child. But being a misfit ended up giving me the reverse — I actually started to realize I could fit in anywhere. I spent much of my childhood navigating the terrain of all my different worlds. I was, on the one hand, a good Indian daughter: straight A’s, captain of the debate team. But I was also a punk rock kid, an activist for any cause, and an outspoken rabble rouser at my Catholic High School. As a translator of cultures (both literally and figuratively) for my family, I learned to find my niche within the racial binary and become a bridge between cultures.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
From a young age, I had a very clear sense of what was expected of me as an Indian girl. Rigid gender roles were the norm for my Indian-born father, and I rebelled. The limits of making good tea, marrying in my caste, and being pretty were not enough for me. My own feelings of being left out and left behind mixed with my desire to fight for the underdog and led me to activism. Through acts of rebellion — from rallying my fellow female classmates to stop shaving their legs when I was told I must shave mine, to throwing fake blood on the White House to protest war — I began to use my power to make change and create pathways for other kids like me.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
There are two stories that connect together. In 1998, I responded to a call from Myanmar’s leaders to help restore the democracy that had been repeatedly overthrown by a military regime. I snuck into the country with 18 other international activists and handed out pro-democracy leaflets that simply said, “We are your friends from around the world. We support your hopes for human rights and democracy.” All 18 of us were arrested and sentenced to five years of hard labor by the military junta. Although I was only 21 years old, I had a deep belief in the power and beauty of a true democratic system, and I was ready to put my life on the line to defend it.
After a week of imprisonment and a sham trial, Representative Chris Smith, a Republican Congressman from New Jersey, flew to Myanmar to help secure the release of me and the other American prisoners. I was a righteous young activist back then, so I planned to spend the ride home debating the Congressman on issues where we disagreed. But something quite different happened. While Congressman Smith held beliefs very different from my own, there was also a lot we could agree on — the most important of them being 1) human rights deserve defending and 2) democracy transcends partisanship. This experience has given rise to my lifelong mantra and approach to advocacy — advancing radical common ground.
There is a direct link between that arrest in Myanmar and the passage of the First Step Act in 2018, a historic criminal justice reform bill that my organization, Dream.Org, helped make possible. Facing a Trump administration and a Republican Congress, we could have given up on criminal justice reform. But I had learned, over time, how to find common ground. We even ended up working with Newt Gingrich, who I had loathed as my Congressman when I was younger. With these unlikely allies, the bill passed 87–12 (not a little bipartisanship, a lot of bipartisanship). Because we were willing to work across the aisle, more than 30,000 people are home from federal prison today.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Looking back, I would say optimism, empathy, and an immigrant mentality.
I am a natural-born, glass-half-full optimist. This character trait has helped me find hope in dark times and act when things are hard. But years of experience has honed my optimism into a particularly pragmatic variety. We create the future. I have such strong hope because I have such strong belief in our abilities. As my baseball family says, “If you build it, they will come.”
Empathy is equally important. Growing up a multi-cultural misfit is a superpower. My ability to move between worlds gave me a deep sense of empathy for others. Empathy is the key ingredient to building bridges and finding common ground. Bridge-building is not about overcoming a vast divide that separates us, but rather, realizing that our bridge has to span a far-smaller divide than we ever knew. As a CEO, being empathetic has made me a better manager, a better negotiator, and a better decision maker. In my career, the ability to find common ground has underscored nearly all of my big wins to date.
Lastly, I’ve mentioned that I am the daughter of immigrants. Growing up with immigrant parents and never quite fitting in, I witnessed their efforts to find their way and I watched my father grow a sizable engineering business. Growing up in a diaspora community gave me real, lived experience with an “it’s us against the world” and “no one is going to do it for you” mentality. Every successful business leader has hustle that stems from somewhere. My hustle comes from my parents, and knowing that if I want something, I have to create it. I keep fighting because it has paid off throughout my life.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?
Entrenched systems are resistant to change. They were built that way, and they have been around a long time. I challenged what was expected of me as a child in the same way that strong women challenge patriarchal norms every day. If the mold doesn’t fit, we break it. The backlash we are currently experiencing — most clearly seen with stunning the rollback of reproductive rights across the US — is in many ways a backlash to strong women who break that constricting mold. We are losing power over our own bodies and legislators are purported to be capable of making better decisions about our health. For some people, keeping strong women down maintains their own power; for others, it is just habit. As a result, we’re going to see a lot of “two steps forward, one step back” kind of progress.
Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?
I walk into a business meeting and someone takes me aside to make sure I belong at the table.
I pitch a brilliant program and the people I am working with vet it two or three times more than they would if the idea came from a man. How is it possible that I have an idea that good?
Interviewers ask me about the male mentors I have had and probe me with questions about how they are the reason I have succeeded.
In a professional organization I am asked if I meet the standards for entry — assuming I am a diversity hire or just sit in the room to fill a quota.
All of these have all happened to me — repeatedly. You will hear similar stories. These are stories that you hear often from powerful business women. And although we tend to think of these kinds of interactions as something that happens to women early in their careers, I can say that all of these occurred in the last year.
What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?
Don’t think of it as a war zone. Think of it as people who are, however secretly, uneasy and afraid of the change you represent. We all know the feeling of being uneasy because we don’t understand something, or having fear of the unknown. So the most important thing to bring into an uncomfortable room is grace. The best antidote to fear of the unknown is to make it known. I always make sure to show up as authentically as I can in hopes that it will encourage other people to show up exactly as who they are. When I show up vulnerably, even in places that may at first feel hostile, I can disarm that fear and perhaps make the world one step closer to accepting powerful women.
What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?
Shame, ridicule and divisiveness are having a moment right now. In a climate where people are scared to speak up, it is hard to make progress around any type of bias or prejudice. The authentic connections that help break down divides are limited. The healing that comes from getting to know people who are different from you is difficult when that very type of relationship is so widely discouraged.
For me, showing up as authentically myself helps broaden the definition of “powerful woman.” So many achievements end up being overlooked, or even negated, because a typical definition of “power” does not include women, especially women who look like me. We come across as the exception, not the rule. We can change that by owning our own accomplishments. The more we can simply show up fully in our power, the more we normalize celebrating the power and accomplishments of women at work, at home, in Congress, in activism, in space, and so much more.
In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?
My boss once called me into his office to talk about one of my male co-workers who was underperforming. He asked me to start managing this coworker closely to keep him on track and accountable. This would have been a welcome opportunity if I was his actual manager — I was not. Nor was I being offered any promotion to do so. In fact, this particular co-worker was getting paid more than I was and was more senior to me. I have heard so many similar anecdotes from countless women. We know that women still make .72 cents for every dollar their male counterpart makes, but this is especially true in companies without pay transparency. I think one thing that every leader can do is make salaries transparent and create explicit criteria for what is expected at every pay grade.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Internalized imposter syndrome. Women encounter men (and other women!) who doubt them far more than they do men. Despite countless hard-earned wins and shattered glass ceilings, women are still subject to an undercurrent of apprehension that has nothing to do with their credentials. Whether others put feelings of doubt on us, or we do it to ourselves, we end up dealing with them constantly. And that doubt can easily blossom into confidence-shaking questions: Should I be here? Have I earned this? Can I do this? The answer to all three is “yes.” It’s all about shaking off the imposter syndrome and reckoning with your strength. Believing in yourself is how you face the biggest challenges as a leader.
Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?
All of the pressures from my youth came back as soon as I had children. I loved motherhood from the start and wanted to spend every possible moment with my children. But I also loved my burgeoning career and knew that my life’s work was not over. On top of the common mom-life/work-life struggle in this country, I also faced cultural expectations that I would stay home with the kids and make raising them my new career. I was once again facing a mold and desperate to break it. For me, finding the right next step in my career was important. I did not want to rush into opportunities as I did when I was young and hungry, I wanted to make sure that in the limited time I had away from my kids, I was making the biggest impact possible. The decision to go back to work also coincided with my decision to go from local organizing to national organizing. I embraced a new set of tools and started working on state and federal advocacy, where I believed my time could create social impact at scale. For me it was about recognizing that I had multiple important things in my life, and figuring out how to maximize impact with the time I had to devote to each.
What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?
I actually did end up marrying well. By that I mean I married a feminist man who has always supported me. My husband was a high school teacher and spent twenty years as a classroom teacher in mostly underperforming schools. About the time he was ready for a break, my career was taking off. He became the stay-at-home parent. I think it is important to always tell folks that I am not doing this alone and would not have found an equilibrium without the great privilege of help. Although there were many moments that allowed me to grow, without my husband taking care of so many of the duties of family life, it would have been a much harder struggle. And although I could not have predicted it, having a husband who loves to cook and who also taught high school was a gigantic help during the pandemic when my teenagers were out of the classroom and I was a new CEO leading in unprecedented times — all within the confines of our tiny Berkeley home.
Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?”
1. Unlearn the stories that restrict you.
We are all shaped by the experiences we’ve had, the cultures we are a part of, the time period in which we live. From each part of our life, we learn beautiful stories about who we are and we learn the tools we need to make it in life. For powerful women, these tools helped us achieve a lot. But these stories can have a shadow side, and a lot of the coping mechanisms that helped in the past don’t work in our current circumstances. I often ask my female staff, “where did you learn that?” when we are having a conversation with undercurrents of self-doubt or imposter syndrome. We learned it somewhere and now we can unlearn it. We can be the teachers of our future and fill each moment up with a story that takes us to the next level.
2. Know your core values.
As someone who seeks common ground in my professional life, I am often accused of compromising or “selling out.” But because I have spent years exploring my own core values and what they mean to me in practice, I don’t see it that way. I can walk into unlikely partnerships fully embodying my own values, and simply strive to understand those around me. I can honor who they are, we can have honest conversations about what is most important, and we can find a solution that honors all of our values — because I know clearly who I am and what I believe. Compromising on the nuts and bolts of a deal doesn’t mean anyone abandoned their values. This is how democracy works and how we bring our country back together.
3. Build your village.
The hardest challenges in my life were met with the strength of my entire village, not just me. Pour energy into the friends and the communities that lift you up, push you to be better, and will have your back when you need it.
4. Accept the unfair game
We live in a racist, classist, patriarchal society. That is the hand we have been dealt. I wish the hand was different, but it is not. Don’t let it rob you of optimism or willpower. While it is incredibly important to understand the inequities that are always present, it is impossible to change history. I learned to accept that it is unfair, and then figure out how to win anyway. This does not mean I always win. But I have had more success with this mentality than when I stew in the injustice of it all.
5. Don’t be afraid to lead
To lead means to go first — taking risks, getting uncomfortable moving people away from a broken status quo. Going first is hard. I count as one of my greatest achievements being part of the team that passed criminal justice reform legislation, the First Step Act, by working with the Trump administration. We received great ridicule and the effort was threatened by criticism from the left and the right. Leading means being willing to step forward even if people don’t buy your ideas or believe in what you’re doing, initially. Of course it is risky to forge a new path, but we must take that on as leaders in order to make our dreams a reality and pave the way for the future leaders behind us.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Mindy Kaling. She has also navigated being Indian-American in balance with living so authentically as herself. Her success and the characters she brings to life have created a completely different world for my daughter to grow up in than the one I did.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
This article was published by Authority Magazine on June 28, 2024. You can read the online article here.
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