What I Learned from Mom: Career Women Share Lessons of Leadership

As of late, the topic of being a mother while managing a career has been the source of political and social debate. For Mother’s Day, we decided to shift the discussion away from controversy to celebration. We interviewed women in leadership, in both business and in their community, to learn which lessons from mom continue to have an impacted on their success.

Overwhelmingly all the women praised their mother’s unexplainable, almost super-human, ability to juggle life seamlessly.

“She amazed me every day as she worked 10 to 12 hours at work and traveled all across the country, but never missed a dance recital or sporting event for me or my brother,” says Michelle Merriweather of her mother, Brenda. Merriweather is president of the Los Angeles Urban League Young Professionals and  business development manager for Starbucks. Both positions have allowed her to make a difference in the community. “My mother demonstrated every day that you [as a woman] can bring home

the bacon and fry it in the pan.” Merriweather says the most important thing she learned from her mother was that “no matter how far you are able to go in business, when family needs you, you drop everything else.”

As a first-time mother of 15-month old twins, Tami Jackson Bucker, the director of U.S. government affairs and corporate lobbyist for Kraft Foods in Washington, D.C., says she grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Miami. Her mom, Bernice, instilled in her that children are a gift from God. As the youngest of four children, Bucker says her mother poured everything into her children. “She wanted us to experience everything. We had to be a debutant, go to college and join a sorority — because she didn’t have the opportunity,” said Bucker. In her career, Buckner says her mother taught her about being confident, but not overzealous. “She taught us about having pride in who you are.”

“My mother was everything in our household growing up,” says Stephanie M. Gibney, owner of Accounting 4 DC. “For most of my childhood it was just the two of us and what’s strange to me thinking about it

now is I didn’t ever realize what a struggle it was.” Gibney’s mother was enlisted in the US Army, which required a lot of moving. While being a full time soldier and mother Gibney’s mother also managed to put herself through school obtaining two masters degrees by the time she was 35. “The thing is I just never saw the struggle, says Gibney of her mother. “She made it seem effortless, we had dinner every night after she got off work and I don’t remember her not being able to do it.” Today Stephanie’s accounting firm is the highest rated accounting firm in DC on Yelp.com, but deciding to start the business wasn’t easy. “My mother provided the best advice which was, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ You can just go get another job working for someone else, but I’ll tell you if you don’t take a chance on yourself then no one will.”

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Angel Livas, executive producer and director of Radio for AARP, oversees the production and distribution of four nationally syndicated radio programs credits her mother for building a strong work ethic and desire to take pride in what she owns.

Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, Livas’ mom stayed home to raise her and her two siblings. “My mom was always home when we got out of school, so we had to complete our daily chores, finish homework and help prepare dinner,” she says. She laughs remembering the days spent cleaning the baseboards and vacuuming “just to see lines in the carpet.” “As a child this drove me crazy, but, now as a homeowner I know it was just my mother taking pride in her property.”

As a youth, Livas says she felt her mom’s stay-at-home role initially made her resent the idea of marriage and children. “I felt as though my mother was losing a sense of herself because she was always catering to me, my siblings or our dad.” Today, after celebrating two years of marriage herself, Angel says she understands that her mom was fulfilled by taking care of her family.

Elaine Meryl Brown, founder and president, New World Image Group and

co-author of The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women (One World/Ballantine; $20), remembers at age 12 learning the lesson ‘Nothing worth having comes easy’ from her mother after her attempts to bake a cake fell flat. “We decided to put Mamaisms at the end of each chapter because we wanted the laws of leadership to resonate with women and to remind them that the sayings we grew up with were actually the seeds of leadership that were planted in many of us by our mothers, stepmothers, aunties, god mothers, grandmothers, Big Mamas, NaNas and any other female guardian that might have helped raise us,” Brown says.

Tell us about the lessons you learned from your mother. What seeds has your mother or other female guardians/mentors placed in you that still resonate today?

Maria D. James has been a contributing writer for national and regional publications including UPSCALE Magazine and Richmond Magazine. She is also a public relations practitioner at Ogilvy Public Relations. Known as the “Go Get IT Girl,” she shares her personal drive for success and encourages other women to pursue their goals on her blog.