As a woman in technology, I was constantly reminded to know your value.
It was well-intentioned advice. Necessary advice. But over time, I realized it was also incomplete. Knowing your value is important, but it is not enough to sustain you when the pressure is real and the tradeoffs are subtle.
That clarity came during a leadership class I attended years ago.
We were given a list of more than one hundred virtues. Words like integrity, courage, fairness, humility, trust, kindness, accountability. The exercise seemed simple at first. Circle the ones you value.
Then the instructions changed.
Narrow it to ten.
Then five.
Then three.
Then one.
It was surprisingly hard.
Each round forced a reckoning. Letting go of virtues felt like letting go of parts of myself. I found myself justifying why one mattered more than another, negotiating internally, resisting the final cut.
When the exercise ended, one word remained, staring back at me.
Respect.
In that moment, something clicked.
Respect was not just another virtue on the list. It was the root. Fairness lived there. Trust lived there. Kindness lived there. Accountability lived there. When respect was present, so were they. When it was missing, everything else unraveled.
From that day forward, I had a clearer internal compass.
I could feel immediately when respect was out of alignment. In conversations. In decisions. In how people were treated when stakes were high or when power dynamics shifted. I stopped second-guessing myself in those moments. I named it. I called it out. I took action. that action was quiet. Sometimes it was firm. Someti Naming d
Sometimes that action was quiet. Sometimes it was firm. Sometimes it carried risk and sometimes it was awkward. Naming disrespect often means choosing integrity over comfort, even when it puts others on the spot. Putting myself out there to call out disrespect requires the ability to stand behind what is misaligned.
I remember in a senior leadership meeting when my comments were dismissed and found myself asking the room directly why? I said why did you invite me to this meeting when you obviously don’t care what I have to say? Called it out and braced myself for brutal feedback. The room went silent. Then someone spoke out and said I was right and apologized. The rest of the meeting was engaging and productive.
Leadership will test you in ways no title prepares you for. It will ask you to move fast, stay silent, compromise, or look the other way. If you have not done the work to identify what you truly value, those moments will decide for you.
For me, respect became non-negotiable. Not because it was easy. But because it made everything else possible.
Know what you value. Then honor it.
