Ten years ago an amazing man asked me a question that changed my life. No, it wasn’t my husband proposing to me—though it was a proposal of sorts. Ten years ago I was asked by a man I admire and respect if I would work with him. He specifically said that he wanted me to work with him, not for him. It was important to him that distinction was made. I had been working in finance for the previous ten years and was open to a new challenge. He worked in financial advising and wanted to recruit me to his team. I think he was as surprised as I was when I took the leap and said yes.
True to his word I was always treated as an equal by
him. The trust and responsibility he
gave to me made me feel smart and capable. I thrived as a member of his team
because I was empowered to think for myself. He believed deeply in putting family
first. We worked hard but he always
encouraged me to take time for my family.
He taught me the value of going to the game, being a chaperone, and
leaving my laptop at home when I was on vacation (that’s what teams are for, he’d
remind me). I always knew he meant what
he said when it came to family first because I watched how he prioritized his
wife and children. He taught me by
example how to balance (as much as one can) home life with work life.
Two years after working on his team, his partner who wasn’t so
crazy about having an opinionated strong woman on his team gave my partner an
ultimatum: him or me. I think his former partner was just as
shocked as I was when he let him know that he was going to be his former
partner. After the split my then boss
asked me to become his partner. It still
chokes me up (truth time: I’m not choked
up I am literally crying as I am writing this) that my partner took such a
chance on me. He gave me a life-changing
opportunity. He took a chance on a
newbie to the field that was beyond generous and quite frankly not typical
(only 20% of financial advisors are women).
Our partnership since then has been a flat out success. And we’ve grown our team in a way that
reflects our values. When our client
associate’s mother was dying we told her she could work out of state remotely
while she took care of her mom. When a
new financial advisor we hired, showed up for his very first day of work my
partner and I sent him home immediately after we found out his wife was in the hospital
with pregnancy complications (baby and mom are fine, not to worry). My partner and I didn’t even have to look at
each other, we both told made it clear that he needed to be at the hospital supporting
his wife.
When I told my partner that I was going to write about him
being the best boss ever had he said that was fine as long as I didn’t call him
my boss. I want to scrape his skin cells
and clone him. But at the very least I’d
like him to write a book teaching other bosses the right way to support working
mothers. Because more bosses need to
recognize that by supporting working mothers they are creating an army of
devoted employees. I’d take a bullet for
my partner. And the tradeoff of utter
devotion must be worth giving us moms some flexibility, understanding and the
occasional day off to chaperone the field trip to the zoo.
For laughter and inspiration read my book The Working Mommy's Manual, available on Amazon.
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