Learning to Lead: A Fellow Shares ‘Wisdom from the Future’ with Her Younger Self

Editor's note: Leadership is a perennial topic of discussion among Activate Fellows, and we weave it through our fellowship curriculum. In the process of making critical business and hiring decisions, fellows start to set their personal leadership styles. Of course, leadership is a practice, and with the help of mentors, advisors, and guest speakers who have walked in their shoes, fellows do the work of defining—and sometimes just being comfortable with—themselves as leaders.

For Cohort 2020 fellow Elise Strobach, this has been a transformative experience. In the following letter to her younger self, she writes about the hard work of overcoming self-doubt and confronting her early perceptions of what makes a strong leader. 

Dear Elise,

It's time to start being honest with yourself: you're a leader.

Elise Strobach at 18

There's immense power in allowing yourself to own that truth, but it will be hard-won. You have a pile of examples that define a leader as greedy and manipulative, a villain twirling his mustache as he bulldozes an orphanage.

At 18, you've already decided to reject any role where "success" requires behaviors that devalue and dehumanize people. Still, it's important to realize that the examples of leadership you've been exposed to have left a lot to be desired.

Remember...

...driving home on a cold, bitter night and listening to mom recount how her boss had stolen credit for a successful program she developed and deployed, spending countless personal hours on evenings and weekends? He thanked her by mail with an Olive Garden gift card.

...watching your freshly-fired brother unpack his jumbled box of office belongings after a sudden and dramatic dismissal. His boss gave him no explanation and only five minutes to clear his desk before marching him out?

...being told, "I'm especially hard on you to prepare you for how harsh the real world is going to be for a woman," by your internship supervisor while receiving a devastating performance review that held you to a higher standard than your peers?

Even now, 10+ years beyond these memories, I have to ask: aren't you tired yet? Aren't you tired of waiting for others to create a working environment where you can thrive? Tired of being told how you can achieve success? Tired of watching people act out in fear instead of with love?

Those poor leaders are going to affect every decision you make as you build toward a career. You will lean into your aptitude for science and technology, hoping that will insulate you from toxic leadership and also give you options to avoid having to "climb the ladder." 

But eventually, you'll find that the doors worth unlocking require interaction with many different types of leaders. New examples of leadership styles will outshine your negative experiences, and a fresh definition will emerge. You'll appreciate how your unique life experience, aspirations, and education are tools to better connect and build great things with others.

Elise Strobach, CEO and co-founder of AeroShield, in the lab. Photo: Matt Andrew

In fact, you'll start a company based on your graduate thesis and insist on being CEO because you know in your heart that you are the best person to bring your technology—and its potential for positive impact—out of the lab and into the real world. Wise business persons will show you endless charts and case studies of failure, and you will feel your hackles rise to defend an inner voice that says, "That's why you need me to do it."

You'll join a great community at Activate, where you'll learn from other budding science entrepreneurs and overcome your misconceptions about leadership. More importantly, your peers and mentors will set examples of how to examine without judgment, explore without bias, and trail-blaze without conceit. 

You will…

…learn that good leaders help others create their own opportunities for success and share in the rewards when your graduate advisor patiently helps you prepare for a formal mid-grant review.

...realize the power of compassion when your internship manager helps you find your next career step in a moment when you are unsure how to find or ask for what you need.

...understand the role of empathy in leadership when a respected leader, understanding your challenges and perspectives, offers you her experiences and shares with you tools for combating gender bias in investor meetings. 

Yet, despite all the help from your community, it will be hard work for you to get from where you are to where you really want to be, but I can share some wisdom from the future:

Cohort 2020 fellows and AeroShield co-founders Elise Strobach and Kyle Wilke. Photo: Matt Andrew

Find and face the truth. You won't regret experiences you learn from, even the painful ones. If you grow the courage and wisdom to understand yourself, these experiences become tools you will use toward your goals. Start by practicing honesty and vulnerability with yourself, encouraging your inner curiosity to probe out the "Why?" in thoughts and actions. Conversations with yourself and others you trust can help you find your way, as can journaling, philosophy, meditation, psychology, and artwork. 

Put it into practice. Really digging for answers within yourself, like anything else, gets easier with time and repetition. It becomes a balance of living in the moment and allowing yourself to act on beliefs and then looking at those instinctive reactions to gauge your inner thoughts and feelings. Through practice, you will learn to push past shame and fear to understand yourself objectively. For example, you will learn from those really low moments in your early career—like a horrible interview with a dismissive prospective employer—and realize the power of empathy in the most confrontational or uncomfortable situations. Even giving a negative performance review, negotiating a contract, or ending a collaboration will present themselves as opportunities to lead to a better outcome.

Use your determination. Prior experiences, even the extreme highs and lows, become a drive to carve a better path for those that follow. Understanding yourself will let you view past and present experiences objectively, analyze the data, and propose better outcomes for the future. You'll grow more confident and determined to lead because you'll understand that leadership is a tool to turn negative situations into positive ones.

Sitting here in 2021, I promise that it will be awesome! It won't be easy or fast, but the truly awe-inspiring part will be waking up with the feeling of trust in your team and community, feeling empowered to do what's right, and knowing that you are pursuing your purpose to its fullest. You will lead by example with the confidence that moments of doubt create opportunities to ask for help and to grow stronger.

So it's time to start being honest with yourself: you're a leader.

Congrats,

Elise

From renewable energy to building efficiency, Elise Strobach has always been motivated by the economic and environmental impact of removing the real-world adoption barriers of pivotal technologies. This passion led her to co-found AeroShield Materials with CTO Kyle Wilke in 2019.  

AeroShield Materials is providing the next generation of energy-efficient and cost-effective materials for building windows, bringing us one step closer to a low-carbon future. This technology is based on Strobach’s doctoral work in mechanical engineering at MIT, where she earned her Ph.D. in early 2020. She also has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.