Empowered Women, Empower Women
By Allison O’Connor, TRUST President
The quote “When one of us succeeds, we all succeed” is attributed to Kendra Spencer, and countless iterations exist. Oprah Winfrey expanded on this idea and said, “For every one of us that succeeds, it’s because there’s somebody there to show you the way out.”
Yes! I love both of those quotes because they speak to empowerment. As leaders, it’s our responsibility to bring others along and help raise them up. As women, it’s our responsibility to empower other women – to keep blazing that trail and show them the way forward.
The Women’s Health Leadership TRUST is here to help empower you! Together, we create opportunities to connect with other outstanding women in health care while offering networking, educational content and professional development programs. When we all work together, we can succeed as women, leaders and the health care industry.
What does empowerment mean to you? Perhaps you’re actively building upon women’s empowerment principles in the following ways:
- Treating all women and men fairly.
- Promoting professional development opportunities.
- Embracing change and championing it for others.
- Ensuring the health and well-being of your teams, colleagues and all relationships.
- Advocating for increased gender and diversity equity and inclusion in leadership.
- Listening rather than speaking all of the time.
- Celebrating the success of others.
- Seeing other women as equals rather than competition.
- Being brave, asking questions and going against societal norms.
- Helping other women live their full potential.
I firmly believe we all can succeed when one of us succeeds. Very few great things happen overnight, but we make progress when we empower one another. And progress, like April’s spring showers, clears away the remnants of old and adds up to something beautiful.
Allison O’Connor serves as the 2022 TRUST President and is Vice President of Strategy Execution at Lifespark. Allison has also held roles as Board Chair with the American College of Healthcare Executives Minnesota Chapter and Minnesota Rural Health Association, Vice-Chair with Cedar Riverside People’s Center and is a current Board member with American Red Cross North Central Blood Services North Region.