12 Leaders on Life Lessons

I think I'm a better leader in my job because I'm a parent. I am a lower-stress person, more organized and have learned how to set priorities because of my children. I think that sometimes women more than men try to do everything--more so than men. Men are more willing to assign tasks and direct people, and say, "Do this and report back to me." Women who want to do it all themselves sometimes get burned out. I can't be a micromanager because I don't have time. When I'm home and my kids are awake, I spend time with them. I only sleep five to six hours every night during the week because once I put my kids to bed, I still have to study the space-shuttle systems. On the weekend I'll get eight hours of sleep if I'm lucky. That's probably not very healthy but I have a lot of energy. I run 30 minutes two or three times a week and my kids will go with me on their bicycles and that's a way we can spend time together.

THELMA GOLDEN

Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem You need a support circle. If it doesn't exist, then you have to create it. When I began at the Whitney Museum, I was very young. I hear about young people or people of color going places where nobody is pulling for them. I had the opposite experience. One of the many people who were helpful to me was the Whitney's librarian and archivist. Here I was, the first black curator at the Whitney. I knew there was a whole lot of history around issues of race at this institution. She led me, literally, into the files that charted it. I needed to know that in order to do my job. Also, all of my curatorial colleagues would just come when I was hanging a show and say, "Hm, you really want to put that there?" They were teaching me how to do it.

The biggest mistake I've ever made was in the early 1990s when I was beginning my career at the Whitney. I didn't realize that what I did was going to be seen by hundreds of people and that everything I said was going to be dissected by people. I didn't understand the psychic weight of this. My biggest mistake was literally responding to my critics. It's a battle I can't win. I do a lot of public speaking now and when someone approaches me with a critique, I acknowledge that I have made a show and that is my idea or my thoughts on these particular artists or the idea, depending on the exhibition. I'm open to other opinions and I take it as that, just another opinion. I've always had these great institutional positions that have really given me the opportunity to really go out on a limb, and I would never want to stop doing that simply because I was afraid I was going to get a bad review. Then I would never do anything.

JUDITH RODIN

President, The Rockefeller Foundation When I was a graduate student, I remember once looking at my watch as I was talking to my adviser and he looked at me and said, "Well, if you have to go home and make dinner for your husband, don't let me keep you." That kind of attitude made me even more determined and really eager to show what I could do. Even in my first year as president of the University of Pennsylvania, I was always referred to as "the new woman president." I told my colleagues that I know I've succeeded when I'm just called the president--which ultimately happened!