What is "leadership" to you? Debra Bell, vice president of product engineering at Micron Technologies, who leads a multinational team that she believes can be taught, also spoke with participants at GWIS about being a newcomer to the workplace and being a "gender minority."
Women fans of the 5th Global Forum on Women's Influence (GWIS) gathered five themes, including this one, "Leadership - Science and Technology Leadership and Women's Initiatives".
Leadership refers to exerting influence, stimulating the potential of others, and achieving the team's "respect" and "trust" as it moves toward its goals, an element that applies not only to the team, but also to individuals, and when we respect and trust ourselves, we are our own leaders, capable of influencing others and creating better societies.
The keynote speaker on this topic is Debra Bell, Vice President of Product Engineering at Micron Technologies DRAM. Debra joined Metso in 2000 and leads a global team to develop the latest memory solutions, with more than 60 U.S. patents for Debra alone.
She is also an important ambassador for innovation, diversity, equality and inclusion, and is a key figure in many employee resource groups, as well as a member of the Global Semiconductor Alliance's Women's Leadership Committee.
Photo debra Bell| vice president of product engineering at Micron Technologies.
Host of this forum, we invited the speaker of Ted Talk, Camila Sáenz. Camila is also the founder and CEO of TUTEEMI's Foreign Tutors. It will be up to her to help us all ask about Debra through the lively conversation.
Debra's experience has shown that she not only uses her abilities and expertise, but also puts her influence into the company and looks forward to working well with her employees - have she had any difficulties in the process over the years? How did she overcome and achieve amazing results?
As the two confident speakers took to the stage and looked around the black-pressed audience below, Camila couldn't help but lament how wonderful a weekend it had been to get together for a common goal, before smiling and asking Debra, "So how are we going to celebrate this weekend?"
Debra looked at the crowd, turned around, took out his cell phone, smiled and said, "I have a request, let's take a selfie together!"
So this wonderful conversation, in the lively laughter and self-portrait, opened the curtain.
Photo | TuteeMI's founder and CHIEF Executive Camila Sáenz (left), and Debra Bell (right), vice president of product engineering at Micron Technologies.
Because of diversity, the cohesion of forces from all sides
Debra first introduced herself to Micron Technologies, a semiconductor/memory manufacturer that is Taiwan's largest foreign company with a turnover of more than $27 billion last year, contributed a large portion of the taiwan region, and has more than 9,000 employees in Taiwan, where she is proud of her work partners and has created world-leading technology.
But Met's achievements are not limited to the semiconductor industry, which has long been committed to the spirit of Diversity, Equality and INCLUSION, which women's fans value.
Debra uses a large, projection on-stage briefing to present clear numbers, such as the number of seats on the board, which has improved from 86:14 in 2018 to 62.5: 37.5 in 2020, with a small cry below.
Although the ratio of men to women among employees remains at 70% and 30%, the increasing proportion of women speaking out on boards also means that Meiguang is willing to take practical action to fight for more equal work rights in this company for women who are treated more unequally in general society.
Debra specifically mentions that every year, Melco gathers information about vulnerable groups and publishes them openly and transparently, confirming that these under-recognized communities have sufficient opportunities to be praised and compensated, and that all people can voluntarily participate in and initiate ERGs.
An ERG team led by any work partner can qualify for these DEIs, and Mets provide resources, not just financial help, but also vice president-level sponsors, mentors, and CEOs who can discuss the team's needs directly with them, get resources at different levels, and make changes happen.
After all the amazing numbers, Debra said, "We are powerful because we are diverse." The we are a good example of how we can achieve a win-win situation by making different voices heard and without losing employees from diverse backgrounds because of discrimination.
Develop leadership, starting with the person who is the most wrong
After listening to Perfect Light's commitment to the practice of "diversity and integration," Camila kicked back to the topic of "Leadership" today, asking: Is there any strategy for training herself to be a "leader"? Is there any difficulty in this?
"Humility, humor, and listening are all important qualities of leadership," Debra says, admitting that he learns about "leadership" from many perspectives, from mentors, books and seminars, to a continuous learning process with new leadership concepts to learn each year.
"For example, the concept that I like very much these time, leadership, is actually a "service team" and you become a "servant" of the team, and you say vision, communicate consensus, and then don't stop them from developing their talents and help the team members remove obstacles that arise midway through."
As a leader, your job is not to be the best person in the world, but to serve your team partners to help them overcome difficulties and make contributions together.
"For example, if you're a great salesper, your goal will be to improve your business capabilities, but if you're the leader of the business team today, the goal is not to be the best salesman you can be, your job is not to be the best, most successful, most productive person in the business, but to make each salespone the best salesman and turn the whole team into the best business team, and I hope I understand that earlier."
In addition, Debra believes that skills about "leadership" can be taught, taught, learned, and developed.
"Leadership" can be taught to be a leader as long as anyone is interested and willing to learn.
Gender minorities in the workplace have a better chance of being seen as outstanding
If we were a minority of the sex in the workplace. . . Camila knew the curiosity in the reader's mind and asked Debra, who had worked in the tech industry for more than two decades: How did gender affect you? Positive, negative, or neutral?
Instead of using her gender as a "disadvantage," Debra explains to everyone how she views her gender's "advantages":
"When I was in the early days of my career, I thought my gender was great! Because if you're one of the few or 'unique' people in that group, that means you're more likely to be seen," Debra said of the new man story from more than two decades ago.
Debra has been one of the few women in many work environments in the past, which can be a negative effect, but her transition has helped her become more visible.
When she's a rookie in the workplace, she does a lot of hard work to give herself a chance to show up, and she's more positive, "because I want to be a more helpful role for the team."
When debra attends a meeting, she writes down notes, sorts out a few pages of highlights, and sends them to people who feel interested in the topic, while receiving as much feedback as possible, giving her a chance to interact well with colleagues she doesn't normally have the opportunity to interact with, and to actively let others know her.
"Two or three times a week, I would stand up and walk around the office, interact with people in different departments, learn about information that everyone might need, and when I see that in the future, send it to the people who need it and show themselves in a positive way."
If your gender is a "minority" of those around you, you are more likely to be seen as "outstanding".
The ability to make mistakes without fear allows the team and themselves to "try again"
At the end of the conversation, Debra whispers to Camila, "I'm telling you, I have a superpower." Her playfulness also sparked a jubilant atmosphere, and everyone wondered what Debra's "superpower" meant.
She replied with a smile that her ability was not afraid to make mistakes.
No matter how well prepared you are, she explains, things don't necessarily go well, there's always something out of the plan, and there's rarely the first time we try to do the right thing.
She gave a familiar example: the inventor Thomas. Edison. He had tried tens of thousands of times, but failed; Edison just answered, I managed to learn tens of thousands of times not to do the right thing.
With that in mind, she always gives herself the chance to "try again" and not give up lightly;
Give your team the chance to make mistakes, and that's how to unlock your "leadership skills."
Camila nodded with solidarity, echoing this spirit:
Don't be afraid of failure, when you make mistakes, when you study.
And that's a precious gift Debra wants to take away for the participants on the ground, and for future children of any gender.
The applause was thunderous, and we saw a brilliant female leader standing on stage, confidently sharing his work life as he walked to lead a large multinational team, and we expected that it wouldn't take long for the people below us to take the stage to listen.
But whenever that day comes, the magnesium light about "leadership" has hit the stage in everyone's heart.