By Rachel Konieczny
Assistant News Editor
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
That’s the question Mike Fenlon, Global and U.S. Talent leader of the Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand (PwC), asked during the PwC women’s leadership series “Aspire to Lead,” a global webcast, held Friday, Feb. 27 in Walsh Auditorium.
Michael Kasperski, St. Bonaventure professor of accounting, introduced the webcast and invited his students, among others, to attend.
Fenlon, who acted as mediator, opened the webcast by asking the studio audience and thousands from nearly 100 countries who tuned in globally to think of a person in their lives who has not fulfilled his or her potential due to a lack of confidence. Bonaventure students watched the webcast that was broadcast live via the Internet. He further challenged the audience members to consider if they have the confidence to overcome barriers.
Speaking at the webcast were Eileen Naughton, Managing Director of Google UK and Ireland, and “The Confidence Code” authors Katty Kay, BBC World News America anchor and journalist Claire Shipman.
Naughton, Kay and Shipma discussed personal confidence barriers in their own occupations. Kay recalled an example of lacking confidence while attending a meeting on Middle Eastern politics with the National Security Council at the White House. She was one of two women at the meeting.
Kay said she was hesitant to speak up in front of the mainly Arabic and Farsi-speaking group.
“I almost had to force myself to put my hand in the air and get the question out,” Kay said. “I think what happened in the growth of confidence for me was that the next time I was in a very similar situation, I knew I had done it before.”
Naughton spoke of her own confidence barriers while hosting a first-ever webcast of a quarterly business plan at Time Warner. Prior to speaking, she received notice of her son’s disability. Although she felt that she was not as prepared as she planned to be, she said that she nailed the speech because she was able to put her fear of public speaking into perspective.
Naughton explained her willingness to tackle problems when others refused. While at Google UK, she successfully configured a plan to make the 2006 Google and YouTube merge more profitable.
“Some of my success has stemmed from being willing to take on really hard problems and solve them,” Naughton said. “Things that others shied away from, things that didn’t have a clear outcome, things that had uncertain potential.”
Shipman said it took her novel “The Confidence Code,” co-written with Kay, to realize her own lack of confidence.
“It was really through that project that I started to understand that I have lacked a lot of confidence in my career but I didn’t always recognize it as such,” Shipman said.
Kay and Shipman’s research found that women are less confident in the workplace than men.
According to Shipman, women have a tendency to underestimate their abilities.
“[Psychologists and neurologists] find that women will apply for a promotion when we feel we have roughly 100 percent of the qualifications for a job,” Shipman said. “Men will do the same at about 60 percent.”
Kay expanded on this research to include the finding that, according to psychologists, women tend to overthink things, or ruminate.
“Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action,” Kay said. “You need confidence to take action but you also get more confidence when you take action.”
This was the second global webcast for the leadership series. The webcast, broadcast from London, is available at http://pwcaspire.hosting.onetwofour.com. St. Bonaventure did not participate in the first webcast.
Chemka Tsaschikher, a graduate of the University of Denver moved to Denver, Colorado to begin a new life away from her native Mongolian birthplace. Tsaschikher also spoke at the webcast after winning the “Aspire to Lead” video contest.
“I was able to push myself to get out of my comfort zone and that made me more determined and more confident,” Tsaschikher said. “I would tell people to not be afraid of taking risks and just don’t be afraid of doing new things, trying new things. That’s how you will learn. Don’t be afraid of failing.”
Closing the webcast was advice from Shipman’s 9-year-old daughter, whom she described as “a rebel with some interesting ideas.”
Shipman encouraged her daughter to participate in her class at school. She recalled her daughter saying, “‘I’m raising my hand all the time, even when I don’t have anything to say.’”
Shipman said women should do the same.
