Gloria Feldt - Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyones) Good

Intentioning

Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take the Lead for (Everyones) Good

Gloria Feldt

Worth

From the woman who has spent her life shifting our relationship to power, now Glorias giving us a master class on how to channel that power and maximize the impact that is so deeply needed today, with intention! Disruption without intention is chaos, and inside the pages of Intentioning, you will find the hard-earned roadmap to help us all, no matter our gender, get to where our ancestors wildest dreams imagined wed someday arrive.

Nathalie Molina Nio, managing director, Known Holdings, and author of Leapfrog

Many books tell women what to do to succeed. Intentioning takes a fresh approach by helping women be more authentically who we are and appreciating our unique powers of intention. The 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools are golden nuggets of actionable skills and tips you can use right away. More important, they provide new ways of thinking that will stand you in good stead throughout your life and career.

May Busch, CEO of Career Mastery and former COO of Morgan Stanley Europe

We need this book now. This pandemic has disproportionately negatively impacted women, and we not only have ground to make up, but we must take our rightful place as more equitable partners in leadership across all sectors. Our intentions, individual and collective, will drive our actions which, in turn, will manifest outcomes.

Jacki Zehner, founder, ShePlace; cofounder, Women Moving Millions; former partner and managing director, Goldman Sachs

Few books on womens leadership include intersectionality and racial justice; few books on racial justice include womens leadership. Yet the two must go forward together or neither is likely to succeed. In Intentioning, Gloria Feldt weaves together the case and provides examples of diverse womens experiences of intentioning: Intend it. See it. It will happen.

Lily D. McNair, Ph.D., eighth president and first woman president of Tuskegee University

Gloria Feldt masterfully weaves her Lead Like a Woman framework into 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools. Intentionings actionable best practices deliberately position women leaders to create an equitable and more productive workplace that allows everyone to thrive. The must-read for every leader who is serious about positioning their organization for success in the twenty-first century!

Dr. David G. Smith, co-author, Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women and Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace

Gloria is the Meryl Streep of leadership: pitch perfect in her essaying of her destined role to inspire and energize women worldwide. Ringing with purpose and power, her words set you free to embrace your ambition, love your struggling self, and touch your deepest core within.

Dr. Harbeen Arora, founder, G100, Women Economic Forum (WEF), and Bioayurveda

If youre ready to leave the past behind and lead with intention, this is not only a must-read but also a must-follow book. Gloria is the go-to expert on taking the lead and this guide further highlights her knowledge and expertise as well as amplifies stories of women whove battled back, and succeeded, with intention.

Cate Luzio, founder and CEO, Luminary

Never has there been a better time to rethink leadership after a period of intense disruption that heightened the intense challenges already faced by women and minorities. Gloria Feldts book Intentioning is a fresh and liberating approach to rethinking and reaching gender parity in leadership and life.

Juliet Scott-Croxford, CEO of Worth Media

For the frontline essential workers who gave so selflessly during the pandemic.

Intentioning

Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take the Lead for (Everyones) Good

2021 Gloria Feldt

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, and photographic, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Published by Worth Books.

Cover Design by Bruce Gore, Gore Studio Inc.

Jacket design: Bruce Gore | Gore Studio, Inc.

Jacket Photography: Karianne Munstedt

ISBN: 978-1-63763-015-0 print

ISBN: 978-1-63763-016-7 e-book

D o you recall the first time you felt powerful in your life? Although this may seem like a simple question on the surface, the revelations this query stirred in my soul inspired me to write a childrens book, Step into Your Power. Despite being force-fed a media and cultural narrative that promotes a limited definition of who we are as women, I always felt an intrinsic right to claim my power even if others werent ready for it yet.

I grew up wondering whether the link between power and purpose is about a state of being or more of an active movement. The one thing I didnt question was the core and the heart of what always drove me back to my power: a sense of intention driven by values and passion. Although I remain curious about how we can all evolve our relationship with honoring our own authority, the only thing Ive ever known for sure is that it lives within us in its most authentic and sacred form.

I thought about this lifelong exploration when I participated in Gloria Feldts 2020 Take The Lead conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, over two decades after I first embraced my own sense of powerfulness. As I approached the podium in tailored business attire with a laptop in hand, I flashed back to the first time I recited poetry at a church conference in South Carolina. Although my pigtailed and white pinafore-clad self was much smaller in physical size then, I embraced an innate feeling of immense strength. I gasped in the moment with the recognition that our power and intention to make ripples and even waves in this world are our birthright. I didnt have to or need to ask permission to be enough to make changeand neither do you.

My first early brush with embracing my truth and trusting my instincts paved the way for me to trust that my ideas and my voice mattered then and now. As I looked upon a room full of intentional leaders, I realized that each of us already possesses the power to make discernments that could advance progress, yet somehow along the way, we likely encountered derailments and distractions.

More than likely, I thought, we had also received messages that conditioned us to question or contradict one anothers truths and perspectives as women in a society without full political, social, and economic parity and justice for all.