Dr. Aprille Trupiano
That's a long conversation let me try and rein it in. I think that when we're talking about academia, if we're talking about that is the first step that is that's the training ground, that's the, that's the ground where we can fertilize it. And we can help young women to grow into the leaders we need for tomorrow, that we that we need for today and for tomorrow. But here's what's really important is we can also start to train young men to come up alongside these young women, for today and for tomorrow. And I think that's just as equally important. What we find in the world today in the workplace is we really need our male allies as much as we need the women who have gone before us to help pull us along. So, again, if I back up, and I say if we look at the academic institutions who are going or listening during this conference, what I would say is that we want to I would love to see mentorship programs, I would love to see conversations about advocacy, and even helping our young women to find advocates in the workforce. Because once they step off campus, once they've graduated, once they've thrown that cap in the air, and they've got that piece of paper, then the real challenges begin, and they would have such a head start, if they started off while they were still on campus with mentorship programs, advocacy.

And again, when I'm talking about advocacy, I want to include our male allies, having a male advocate for a young woman in her career, especially starting out is a huge game changer, because they have exactly what you said, because of the fact that there are so many more men in the boardrooms, so many more men in leadership positions. And so, for them to be there speaking on behalf of women and pulling them into the boardrooms, where otherwise they might not have access, or pulling them into opportunities or introducing them to opportunities that they might not otherwise have. That's the advocacy of which I speak. And so introducing them to those kinds of advocates, while they're still training and learning and grooming themselves for their career is huge. Giving them that mentorship so that matching them up with a woman who's already in business, or again, a male who is in business, but we'll pull her along and helping them to think ahead, look around the corner. Getting off campus and going into a job can be a huge shock. I remember that when I came out of school, I was so pleased with myself that I had on my credit I had enough credits for three degrees. I was so pleased with myself I felt intelligent, I felt well rounded, and I got holes in the world and the way things really work versus the foundational knowledge that we do need the skill sets and just the basic intelligence that we need to get out into the world. It's a it can be a rude awakening. And for a woman it can be a real shocker that the work world is not necessary out there listening to our cries of, I am woman hear me roar, they're just out there going. And, so I think having that that mentorship for women to actually ask the questions and be able to get answers from where real-world experience is really critical as well. And then the last thing I'll say is that, I think more focus on internships.

I know that there are opportunities, but there's been some back and forth over the years about the validity or the correctness of internships and, and things like that. But I will tell you that I find them invaluable. When you can shadow someone in their work, it gives you huge insight into what it's like to actually do that work boots on the ground. When I came out, again, out of the educational system, the higher educational system, one of the things that I saw was like, wow, I thought I knew what this work was going to be. Because when you're in college, and you're in higher education, you're focusing you're hyper focused on these knowledge areas. And these skills set areas when you get out into the real world, there's that and then some, and almost no one is teaching you how to be a leader, much less a female leader, because as a leader, as a female leader, you need to and look, I'd love to be I've seen it, I've seen the memes, I'd love to be one of those people that says, well, let's just cross off female and say I am a leader. And we are, but we do things differently. It's just, that's the way we are, it's in our genetic makeup. And that's a good thing, we bring a different perspective. So, by seeing a woman in leadership and actually shadowing her, and looking at how she deals with people boots on the ground, watching what she does, it's critical. It takes you from theoretical to practical and real. So, I think if we had more focus on those programs, it would go a long way.

Angelika Sharygina
And Dr. Aprille, this is invaluable for every student that is watching us right now, I can resonate on this completely. I was great four or five years ago. And I remember that moment when you finish the institution and you think that you're ready, because you've been so hyper focused and studying, and then you actually come in the reality you're in a reality that is very harsh. And the biggest problem is that there is so much pressure that you have to make it right. And that pressure of do not fail. You must choose the career that you have to do by until the end of your life. But this is not truth. Because many young women as leaders, they have been told different lives, different limitation beliefs.

And this is going to be my next question. Because as you are working so hard giving the example by being a female leader yourself for the generation of leaders that come from university environment for the students, what would be your advice? How do they actually crush those limiting beliefs that might come from academia, sometimes from their parents, from their siblings, whoever name it, there's so much stigma around female leaders? How do young women actually clash that?

Advice to crush limiting beliefs

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
That, I will tell you that is something that women of every age deal with. And I work with women across the spectrum, and most of the women with whom I work, are very successful have been in business for a long time. And they still deal with things like, I'm sure you've heard the term, imposter syndrome. And no matter how much success they achieve, no matter how much money they earn, no matter how much revenue they generate for their company, no matter how many people they employ, how many boards they sit on to serve in a philanthropic effort. There's always this nagging question, but is it real? Do I deserve it? Have I earned it? Or some form of those questions. And then there's the follow up question, which is, Can I do it again? Or is this a fluke? Is this a one-time thing being are people going to look at me and say, oh, see? She just got lucky that time. And I gotta tell you, it shocks me when I stand in front of a roomful of accomplished women. And I asked specific questions to kind of feel the feeling in the room and where everybody's mindset is, and so many hands go up to say, yes, that's me when I talk about this. So, I will say this, if I could say this to two young women coming through the academic period, I would say, really work on your self-confidence, work on believing in yourself. And I say work on it, because I can give you tips.

But everyone's different, everyone learns differently, everyone absorbs differently. And everyone really starts to take on these things differently. It depends on your, like you said, your family upbringing, your academic experience, your social experiences. And so, there are lots of resources out there. And I remember going through a program called brave hearts leadership, because even as a businesswoman, and even, even as someone who's done a lot, I'm always looking for ways to improve myself. I gotta tell you, that it was nothing but it was a six-month program of nothing but challenges. It was the exercise and I do this with, with clients a lot. And I will advise the young people listening, especially young women, to challenge yourself to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You've got to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and have it been okay. Because if you're not, you're always going to travel the safe path, you're always going to fly just under the radar, you're always going to accomplish just a little less than what you're fully capable of accomplishing. And you're always going to just do whatever it takes to get the pat on the back, but not actually have that sense of accomplishment, which fuels the confidence. When we get out there you said something key, which is how do we get them to break their limitations and go beyond those? It literally means break the limitations.

Somebody said something to me once about how do you what do you do when the unexpected happens? And how do you prepare for the unexpected? Sometimes you just build the plane, as you're as you're flying it? And I said, I think that the ultimate experience for that is when you jump out of the plane and your parachute doesn't open. I've literally jumped out of the plane, voluntarily. As an exercise and my chute didn't open. And when I went to grab the handle to try and untangle my, the ropes were tangled, and I there was no backup chute. And it was not tangled, I was by myself. And when I went to do that, the handles broke. And I found myself falling to the ground with a parachute that wasn't fully open, I handled that I couldn't reach. And there was no other option, right? Like nobody was coming. And in that moment, what I remembered was that the safety instructor had said the last words he said as we boarded the plane were just remember, you have more time than you think, remain calm and think it through. And I won't get into the details of how I got myself out of it. But obviously I did, right because I'm here. But I use that as a metaphor to say when we put ourselves in uncomfortable positions, we learn that skill, and I said if I'm, there's not a lot worse than falling out of the sky, and not knowing if you're gonna make it on the ground, if you're gonna land safely. So, everything else feels pretty much like I think I could figure this out somehow.

And whether you're in a startup that happens, if you're in a startup that happens on the daily, you got to figure things out. So, every opportunity that you can put yourself in before you get into the workplace while you're in university or in other kinds of higher education studies, maybe you got comfortable with being uncomfortable, allow yourself to go through that. And there is I want to address that attitude of theirs, failure is not allowed. I am an A type personality. So, I completely understand, and I have an absolute attitude of failure is not an option. What I have learned over the years, though, is that failure can be a learning experience. As long as it doesn't bottom you out, as long as you make sure that you fail and you fail with a safety net. And when you fail with a safety net, you may fail, but you won't crash and burn or explode when you hit the ground as I may have if my chute didn't open. And that's why I circle right back around to saying if we've been put in those situations and we've been having conversations with other female leaders or even male advocate leaders, who are showing us that nobody wants to fail, you don't strive to fail, you don't set out to fail. However, if something falls out, what's your plan B? Oh, and by the way, if that falls out, what's your plan C and if that doesn't work out what's your plan D? the revision I would put to that is, quitting is not an option. And that's what I've learned. Because sometimes you will fail and you will fail, and you will lose, or you will fail, and you will learn. But if you look at that phrase, and you just say, well, quitting is never an option. As I tried to figure out how to open my shoe, quitting was not an option, plus, I've just gonna give up on my life, right? So, you learn, you learn by getting uncomfortable, and you learn by looking to other leaders who have done it, and can hold your hand and pull you through it.

Angelika Sharygina
This is brilliant. From mentorship to your personal experience, this is actually how every live situation has to be dealt with. Quitting is not an option. But this culture, we still do not have a culture where we, in academia or in the community where we celebrate failures as they are actually the amazing things that happened to us, because this is the way we know that this okay, this didn't work. This is the only way how we can learn. And through failures, we evolve and grow.
And my next question would be about academia. And as we have so many academics, faculty staff, Dean's watching us right now, this will be crucial for them. So, what can academic institutions do to prepare women for a successful working career?

Role of academic institutions in women success

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
I've thought about this, and I do believe that we need more curriculum that focuses on these areas of allowing young women leaders or leaders in the making, rising stars as I like to call them. And really, this applies for men as well, young man, but really focusing here on the women, that we focus more on the soft skills, we underestimate the importance of the soft skills, we spend a lot of time on the practical skills, but we don't spend as much time on really helping people develop young people, and young women develop the things like confidence, develop things like leadership, and when I'm talking about leadership it's not the old school leadership of the buck stops here, and failure is not an option, and if it's gonna get done, it's going to be me. And those things worked in the past, and they work because the world was different. But the world is different. And now what we find is that a different form of leadership exists, and it's needed. And we need to cultivate that. And we talk about authenticity, a lot. People use that word, and I gotta be honest, and it drives me crazy, because nobody really knows what it means. It's kind of it's just used a lot. But are we talking about what it really is, it really means being your true self. And who we are as women, our true selves are women who yes, we want to get things done.

And by the way, I work with business owners, a lot of them women, but a lot of them are men. And what we find is that the women in the industries in which I work, tend to outperform when it comes to achieving their goals, way higher than the males, the percentage of reaching their goals and exceeding their goals is higher, because we do get things done. But what we understand is that there's a leadership style that includes collaboration, there's a leadership style that includes compassion, and flexibility and empathy. And using our intuition, and using our own personality and our own personal style, that we don't have to be cookie cutter, and we don't have to be like our male allies. So, I think that if we would really start to focus on those kinds of training and education and teach young women, what it's like to be your true self, and be a leader, bringing yourself to it, bringing who you really are and what you value to it. A lot of times, shockingly, I work with business owners that I have to bring them back down and dial it back and say, look, you don't have to be like that. You just have to be you. Let's pull out the best of you. And then lift that up, train it up, develop it, coach it, whatever it is, whatever it takes, and lift you up, let's not make you into somebody else. Let's just make you into a stronger, higher performing you. That's the kind of stuff we need. That's my opinion, I'd love to see that I'd love to see women coming out and saying, I know who I am. I know what I'm capable of. And I know what I bring to the table, that kind of confidence.

Angelika Sharygina
This is extraordinarily important for everyone who's listening to us right now. Because it's not only that female success will depend on that our society in general, our community in general, our world, in general will depend on women leaders. And as unfortunately, we see worse, that's are started by men, because they didn't listen sometimes to the voice of the women. Because many cases, most of the women that are full of compassion, empathy, and dedication to solve problems within the peaceful regulation are neglected. And that's why female leadership is so important for every aspect of life that we have, and the for the world in general.
And my next question would be about actually higher education institutions. What are the areas that organizations like academic organizations need to focus on? What are those main areas that will work that institutions need to focus on to really prepare women so that they win it after graduation?

Areas to focus on by academic organizations

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
Yes. I'll reiterate, I think the leadership really developing leadership, it's, it's a challenging, it's a challenge to define leadership, everyone has a different definition. But leadership really is about a state of character, it's a way of being, it's not a job, it's not a doing. And to help them understand that. I think the other thing that that they can focus on, is helping them as I said, to really do some matching, and to help them see when we talk about being your true, authentic self, one of the things that we do when we enter college is not always, I think it goes one of two that two ways. When I see that you either enter college, you enter university, and you either think, well, I'm just going to try this out and kind of do what I love. And it either works out or it doesn't, and you switch your studies a few times, and then you come out and go, well, now what do I do with all this? Or you go in, and you just go on your strengths, right? Maybe I'm really good at math, maybe I'm really good at literature, maybe I'm good at poetry and writing, or maybe I'm good at art, or technology. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if we're looking at it from a leadership perspective, I think what we're also missing is really spending some time for the students to lead them through discovering who they are, and what's important to them, and really looking at what's the whole picture here.

I don't want to come I don't want to sound like I'm coming, coming up against academia, because it's so important, isn't it? Obviously, I think it is. I've spent a lot of years in academia and learning and going through higher education. I just think that when we're hyper focused on the skill sets, which are important, I'm not saying we leave those out. And we neglect the development of young people's character, young women's character, when we neglect the development of helping them find their place in the world and discover who they are. I think we're not we're doing them a disservice, we're doing them a disservice, because we're sending them out. And the only thing they have to go on is what they see around them. And what they see around them is more male centered than it is female centered, or it is an old school, because I'm gonna call this out. There's an old school, women in leadership environment, that we're gradually we're gradually getting rid of, I'm happy to say we're gradually diminishing this. But there's also that old school type of females in leadership that in the past, it was there aren't that many positions here. So, I'm going to work really hard to keep my position and I'm not going to necessarily open doors for anyone coming in because I don't want to lose my position. And I have seen it wherever I've been in the world. I have traveled in many different countries. I have worked with business owners. I have worked with government organizations and I see it a lot because of the historical integration, or lack of integration of women into the workforce and the historical pressure on women to keep their jobs and it'd be good enough to keep their jobs.

So, I think it's important that we keep training them and developing them in this style of leadership, in this style of work, where it's collaborative, because the female leadership that we're seeing in the workforce today is changing, and it is more welcoming. And now we're seeing women who are saying, come on up, the view is great up here, come on up into the boardroom, come on up the ladder, come up into management, the view is great, and the life is great. And we welcome you with open arms. And I just met last week with the president of a very large financial institution. And it's a woman and they are thriving, because she just keeps promoting women, and matching them with her male allies. And so, when it comes to circle back around here, when it comes to the academic institutions, and the leadership of those institutions, I'd say, get them out there, expose them to the world have them see and really encourage them to discover who they are, discover how they fit into the working world. And like I said, just have them be really sure, work with them to be really sure of who they are, what they stand for, and what they want out of life, and what they bring to the table, because it's a very, it can be a very intimidating experience to be the only woman at the table. And I tell you that because I hear that from a lot of women, and I, myself have been the only woman at the table. Many times. And we've got to hold our own. So, you got to be confident enough to hold your own. If you're the only or you're one of the few, we ought to teach them.

Angelika Sharygina
Dr. Aprille, this is fascinating. It's extremely inspiring, because your energy is really contagious. And I believe that everyone is watching us right now that I spelled this already.

But my next question would be a little bit different. I see a lot of women leaders changing their style of leadership to male leadership, this is a massive problem. And this is a problem where women are afraid of their femininity, or they're afraid of being so called weak by their male colleagues, there is some stigma around it. And it's changing, yes. But in certain countries, it's still dominant, where women when they enter a career path, or any senior position, they are trying to act as men, and how can women create successful senior position Korea sea level exactly become sea level executives, or entrepreneurs, without actually getting into male, stereotypical leadership style, where they're not authentic anymore, they kind of killed their authenticity. And I see this a lot, because this is how women are mimicking the model that is still called, like, at least model of the modal that society thinks are normal. What do you think should be done here?

Perspective on mimicking male leadership model

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
Well, I think my first answer is stop it. That's really what I thought was just stop it. We've got to stop now. But I understand there's a lot of pressure, and there's pressure to keep up, I will say this, you've got to be strong willed, you've got to be strong in, you taking a stand. When I say taking a stand for something, this is how it was put to me one time, like there is a rod that goes through you from your head to your toes, and it is anchored into the center of the Earth, and nothing can move you. When you are willing to be your true self authentic as people would call it, when you're willing to be true to yourself. And when you're not willing to accept anything less. And you take a stand for yourself and you take a stand for the people on your team, you take a stand for the things that you believe in that moment, then then nothing can move you and what I don't want to encourage is a sense of entitlement as in well, I’m a woman and I deserve it and you've never given men these opportunities. So, it's mine, now I'm not talking about that.

I'm not talking about entitlement that is that is senseless or empty. I'm saying I know who I am. And I know what I stand for and what I bring to the table. I've mentioned this I really want young women to hear this, we've got to understand our own value. So many times, when women don't know what their value is, and what it is that they have to contribute, because we are contributors at heart we want to, we're caregivers, we're contributors, we're collaborators, we're relationship builders, if we're not firm, and what that is, we're going to wobble. And when we wobble, the only thing that will stabilize us is someone else's anchor, don't hang on someone else's anchor, you've got to have your own anchor, you've got to have your own firm rod that you hang on to and knowing that what you bring to the table is just as valuable even when you bring it differently. So if I come to the table, and my style of communication is a little different, as long as it is respectful, and it's obviously, appropriate, but there's me, and I talk with my hands, and I smile, and I laugh, and I make jokes and my laugh is loud, if I can't be myself, and I'm trying to be this, put me in a box and be like every other person, especially the man, or the young man, or the guy sitting next to me, that's stressful. It's this is where impostor syndrome starts. It starts with, well, if I want to be successful, I have to be that and if I'm not that I must not be good enough, I must not have what it takes, I must not be successful. When I work in the world of finances.

And if there's at your finances, banking, look around the world. And you will not see many people that look like you and me in that world, around the globe. And there aren't many role models. And so, this is the stuff that I talk about all the time with women, I say you got to know what you bring to the table, do not underestimate your skills, and your unique combination of skill sets, talents, experiences, and the things that you value, bring that in, and don't let anyone move you off that needle. When you sit at the table, and there's a bunch of men that, again, no disrespect to us to our men in the world. But there are a bunch of men who are pretty much thinking the same way, talking the same way saying the same things. And let's just say it, sometimes even all kinds of look alike. And then here comes us, that doesn't mean that we're the odd person out, it means that we're the unique person who brings a unique perspective. Seize that opportunity to just be who you are, and bring who you are to the table.

Angelika Sharygina
This is absolutely true. And your words deeply touched me.
What I want to ask you, the next question is, what is your recommendation of two organizations, let's just talk a little bit about corporates. Because academia, they are doing a lot. But corporate world as well is responsible for nurturing the next generation of leaders. What needs to be done from their perspective, to create that sustainable change?

Role of corporates to create change

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
Is a lot. This is why, I'm sure you've heard me this is this is kind of my soapbox, right? This is my passion. And I'll tell you, the way that it came about is that when people I've always worked for myself, so I really didn't realize how prevalent these issues still were in today's world. And when I was being asked to speak on the topic of women and leadership, and some of that was also because I've been a woman leader, a female leader, and but some of that was also because I think that people, thought that well, she has a perspective that looking from the outside in the thing that I didn't have looking from the outside in was that I didn't have those experiences that they were telling me they were having. And so, I literally went out and I personally did a survey. And I got on the phone with many and dozens of women. I conducted this study over a period of time. And I had conversations, not just a survey, I had conversations with women. And when I uncovered what was still going on, I thought holy cow did I just land in a time warp? How are these things still happening? Things like pay discrepancies, opportunity, disparities, things like that. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And so, I started talking about this what can we do and the first thing I tell them, there are five things that you can do. And the first one is I'll go through these quickly. But I really encourage organizations to create a culture for women to rise to the top, we've got to create the culture. See, what I'm seeing here is that for the past several decades, while we've been talking about feminism and female empowerment, and women rule the world, or girls rule the world, we've been talking about it, we've been writing songs about it, probably even making movies about it, but we're not doing it in the corporate environment. There's a lot of yammering, but not a lot of changing. And so, the first thing that really has to happen is we have to have some open discourse, we have to dispel the myths of what it means to be a woman in leadership. And for my, for our young women. I see I already took ownership for our young women listening as the older female here in the conversation, but for our young women listening, listen up for this, okay? Because this is the very least that you should be expecting and asking for when you walk into a company. And if it's not there, make a demand for it. Okay, there should be open discourse, there should be conversations going on to dispel the myths of what it means to be a woman in leadership, and what it means to work with women in leadership. Because as I started to mention earlier, I kind of touched on this, there are women holding other women back in the corporate world. And I was in such disbelief, I'm sure that my jaw was on my desk when I heard it on the phone.

But I heard it over and over. And I said “what the what?” So, I'm really having these conversations about that and addressing those issues, and also addressing the stereotypes of women in the workplace. And I could go on and on about those, I'm sure you can imagine them, right, like a woman can't work as much as she should be home with the kids. Or if she has children, and she's married, well, she's not going to be able to do her job as well. She'll be distracted all these things, which are simply not the truth, right? So having those conversations in an open format, with no reprimand, no judgment. And then the next thing is to promote advocacy. And I've touched on that, because I've said that I believe that in academia, they should start, start doing that. In fact, the workforce, I recommend that as well. I go into organizations, and I'll tell them, look, we need to set up an advocacy program. We don't just need women's special interest groups calm six, we don't just need those because then you've got a lot of women in the room, who are yes, doing great things. However, you got a lot of women nodding in the room going yes, we know this is a problem. We know we need to fix this; we know what's going on. But the people who really need to fix the problem are the ones that aren't in the room. So, we need to get that cross over, that cross conversation by creating advocacy within the company, between the women who are rising stars, and women who are who are coming up the ladder of success, and the people at the top. And the next thing is to define a direction, because women want to know where they're going. We do have a lot of things going on, some women are married with children, some women are not married, or but they have aging parents, whatever situation they have.

And they need to be able to plan they need to be able to focus, how long will it take me to make the next get into the next position? What am I going to need as far as skill set? Who's going to mentor me? What's the opportunity? How often does that job open-up in this company, they need to know these things, and then need to set them on that path. I always tell people, it's one thing to hire women, it's another thing to position them for success. And these are the things that actually position them for success. Because otherwise, you're just checking off a box, you're giving lip service.
The next step is to foster development because women do want to grow. We value growth and development. And we want to always do our best and do better and do more. Once we have the capacity, once we've increased our capacity to do things, we want to keep rising, right? And that doesn't mean letting work take over everything in our life. But that does mean changing the kinds of responsibilities, the kinds of projects on which we work, the kinds of promotional opportunities we have.

So, there's that fostering development to get us there. And then the last thing is to encourage and inspire. Because women like to celebrate. Women like to celebrate, but they want to help, they want what's the word toot their own horn. They won't pat themselves on the back very much. Men tend to do that very easily and very well. Women are taught to be a little more and more were taught to not be arrogant or self-centered. But when we start to as women and male allies together when we start to celebrate other women, and they're not the ones that have to pat themselves on the back, now we start to enjoy, we feel the joy and the joy of that, that accomplishment for ourselves. But the really important thing is that we start to inspire others, we inspire other women into what's possible. Wow, if she did that, that I could do that, too. Wow. If she did that, I wonder if I could do that and more. Wow, if she did this, huh, I wonder what's possible for me.

Angelika Sharygina
I think this is exactly what our audience is thinking right now watching you. If Dr. Aprille, did it that, why I can do that. This is absolutely extraordinarily because today, we have the most incredible insights from a someone who has achieved really the biggest heights out there, and still going forward and forward and making impossible possible. What I wanted to ask you, and I know that time, I couldn't believe it. It's been almost the way our interviews about it have been like three minutes, it's been so empowering and exciting. As we have academic audience watching us right now, and these is the audience that is capable of making the change in the system, changing the way women are perceived in the world of academia. And not only for students also for staff, we can actually help them shift this.

And what will be your one thing, one advice that you would recommend academic organizations do to do to move the needle and gain this momentum where it concerns giving women leaders, student leaders staff more power and helping them unleash their leadership potential?

Advice to academic organizations

Dr. Aprille Trupiano
That's a great question. And I can tell you that if I, really think about it, I think the first thing to do is the first thing in those five steps I gave. And that is to create focus groups. Because the one thing that I've seen over and over is that most times, we'll give them what we think they need, right? Whether it's women or men or anybody, it could be an employee, could be a friend. We give people what we think they need, or we give them what we would want, but we don't know what they want. And there has to be that's part of that open discourse. And so, I highly encourage you, even if you have some kind of women leadership program, which most, the majority don't and I don't even know if any do to be quite frank, which is why I have now five Institutes for leadership. But I would say that having those focus groups and asking them things like, what do you need? What do you fear most about going into the workplace? Now you got to create a safe environment for that. You have to create an environment where they know that whatever is said within that conversation doesn't go anywhere else, but in that conversation. And you've got to give them the safe space to know that there's no judgement. We're just trying to help. We want to give you resources, but you do want to ask, what keeps you up at night about graduating from university and going out into the world? What do you need from us to overcome that? What kind of resources would you like?

If you were to have a mentor? What would you want to learn from that mentor? What would you want to gain from that relationship with a mentor? Do I create I've worked with women in insurance and financial services and been on their national mentorship team as a leader for both mentors and protegees. And it's one of the most invaluable experiences there could ever be. Women just clamor for it. And yet every relationship is different. And every person every protegees, needs are a little bit different. Yes, there are similarities and commonalities, but everyone's needs are different. And so, we have to open up the conversation. If you were going to have a mentor, what would you what would you want to know? What would you want to learn so you can go help them find that mentor, teach them how to find a mentor. I would also say in those focus groups, bring in some female students, and even maybe some male students who have been an advocate for someone in the workforce. And especially though the women that have gone out in the workforce. I remember one of the rudest awakenings I had and the most valuable conversations I had was with women who had gone out into the world and done the work that I was studying to do.

And it gave me a lot of insight as to what to expect, it helps set expectations. And it can also help your young students, your female students especially start to plan for, okay, if this is what I'm going to be facing out there, this is what I'm going to have to be armed with, when I walk in the door. We fear the unknown, but if we know we can prepare for it, and we can really create a strategy around it. Instead of having our head in the sand or crossing our fingers, I always say the half method is not a good business strategy. It's also not a good career strategy. And the half method as I have coined it is hope and pray, don't hope and pray that you get what you want. Don't hope and pray that everything works out. Don't hope and pray that what the students need. Ask, for the students, say what you need for the academics, ask what they need. And then for the students, when you get out into the world, ask for what you need. And then I would also say one last thing is that make sure that when you're having these, these focus groups include male students, include male academia, if you're having female academia come into the room, because we want both perspectives, and we want them to hear us. And to understand that what we're asking is not that much. It's really not that far off from what you think, right? And we're not trying to take over the world, although that would be fun, wouldn't it? But when I tried to take over the world, we just want to work alongside. We're going to work alongside, we're collaborative. So that first step would be create focus groups, make it happen, ask the questions, find out and then give them what they need.

Final Considerations

Angelika Sharygina
This is brilliant. And this is a great summary of our today's discussion. Dr. Aprille, it was my greatest honor and pleasure to interview you today. It's been extremely insightful, really empowering and really inspiring for me and for our audience. And what I wanted to tell is that we have a chat box here and I know that you've everyone has noticed this so please do not forget to submit your question and Dr. Aprille will be happy to answer the question. I know that this discussion has generated incredible interest and I really hope that male academics, still male students, are listening to this right now because it's not about women talking to each other. It's about men acting on it. Thank you so much Dr. Aprille and it was my pleasure to host today thank you.