Lessons We Have Learned

Newsweek, December, 2006

Ruth Simmons President, Brown University So often in the workplace, women assume that they have to be just like everybody else and downplay whatever is unique about them. I think it's just the opposite. Whatever I've accomplished in my life, I've done it precisely because I have been different. I have expressed different opinions, and I have been outspoken.

I don't have any regrets about what remained unsaid. The regrets I have are about decisions that I didn't take because I thought somebody else knew better. I think women always have a little twinge of thinking that maybe somebody else is smarter, somebody else has the secret formula for reaching the right decision. I have to fight against that sometimes. If you come to a leadership role on the basis of your experience,...

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