Women IT leaders on their climb to the top

Her success in growing this team led to her being offered the CIO position.

McKay faced significant challenges starting three months into the role, when her team experienced a major file server outage, “putting the departments literally at a standstill,” followed by a citywide network outage three months later. As if that wasn’t enough, not long after that, Ft. Lauderdale experienced historic flooding, “rendering the entire city hall inaccessible.”

“I can truly say that I now accept and embrace what I bring to the table — that may be different than your typical CIO, who probably doesn’t look like me, probably doesn’t sound like me, and probably doesn’t think like me. But I realized that’s exactly what we need,” says McKay of her experience persevering through those early challenges.

USPTO’s Stephens notes that mentorship is vital both to supporting women in the technology industry and encouraging them to embark on the path to leadership. As she’s mentored other women in IT, Stephens has noticed a stark difference in how men and women perceive their qualifications for job openings.

The women she’s mentored often undervalue their own capabilities, shying away from job opportunities that might feel out of reach or require a few skills they don’t have on their resume. Whereas men often feel the opposite — quite confident about their qualifications for a role, and less likely to focus on the qualities they feel they lack. She advises women not to undersell their own abilities, and to “be confident in their ability to provide value.”

Stephens also regularly asks for feedback from her employees, checking in to gauge how her tone and communication style are received. She welcomes constructive criticism and is eager for “stretch moments” as a leader, seeing it as a chance to learn and grow to become an even stronger, more effective CIO.

Along with mentorship, sponsorship is important for paving a path to leadership for women in IT. McKay remembers a moment as a manager when, in a room full of CIOs and directors, she was asked to take notes. The CIO at the time stood up for her, denying the request and reminding others that McKay was not an administrative assistant. That moment has stuck with McKay, showing how important it can be for women and underrepresented groups in technology to have an advocate and sponsor in the room.

“That was a poignant moment for me where I realized it’s very important to have those advocates and sponsors to keep everybody in check. And again, it’s not that people are bad or ill-willed. I’m good at taking notes. I’m good at organization. I think it was just natural that he did that. But I wasn’t there for that — I was managing an enterprise infrastructure team, which was a key component to the initiative. We were moving forward. And that’s how I should have been viewed,” she says.

Authenticity and transparency in leadership

Stephens is sensitive to her employee’s lives outside of work — understanding that there’s a delicate balance and that women are often tasked with additional childcare, homecare, and eldercare responsibilities outside of work.

“I’m very conscious of our team members who are balancing family — so often that falls on the woman in the relationship,” she says. Despite progress in society, Stephens says she still finds that the women in her office are typically the ones to handle home-related duties and are often juggling extra responsibilities such as childcare and eldercare.

She encourages her employees to take breaks, whether it’s 5 minutes at the end of a 30-minute meeting or 10 minutes after an hour meeting. She also encourages her employees to take longer breaks during their days, and to get outside and pursue the things they love. Stephens herself sets that example for her team by taking 30 minutes to an hour during the day to practice her hobby of inline skating — it’s her time to get fresh air and exercise and to unplug from the workday for a bit.

As a leader, Cisco’s Horton makes it a point to normalize being a working mom, and “dispelling myths that executives have perfect lives,” devoid of children, family emergencies, or just home-lives in general. Horton tries to be transparent about the priorities in her life — her family being first, followed by her responsibilities as an executive.

She wants her employees to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work and doesn’t want employees to think they have to hide their personal lives. She has brought her children to conferences out-of-state, even bringing them along on work dinners. At a recent dinner in Norway, colleagues were welcomed to bring their children along, noting it was the first time many of them had done so.

Horton’s perspective is that if she’s asking people to take time away from their children and families — especially after work hours — it’s only fair to let them bring their families along. She says it helps “drive a higher level of empathy,” connecting with coworkers and their families, and helps put things like family emergencies into perspective when they crop up in the workplace.

“We’re really starting to change some of those norms — it’s not uncommon for my kids to interrupt in the middle of a meeting when they come home after school. And my team knows it’s going to be a five-minute disruption and they’re going to leave. As long as we’re not disrupting or stopping the flow of actual work, I think it’s perfectly fine. And we see it from other people on my team and we completely welcome it,” she says.