Lead Like You

INTRODUCTION

I sat in my corner office on the top floor of one of the most beautiful office buildings in Sydney, staring out over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. My assistant handed me a stunning black lace Collette Dinnigan cocktail dress and strappy Jimmy Choo shoes to change into.

I rode down the lift and slid into a black limousine that was waiting for me and was whisked off to Bondi Beach. There, I was welcomed into James Packer's magnificent beachfront apartment, where I joined my male colleagues for a cocktail party. James sat on the board of our company, and at the time, he and Kerry Packer were major shareholders in the business I worked for, as well as one of the wealthiest families in Australia.

I was thirty-two years old, the youngest on the team by some years, and the only female on the executive leadership team. We were a top 200–listed financial services company in the middle of a merger. I had spent the afternoon arguing with investment bankers and lawyers about how we were going to communicate the merger to our staff, shareholders and clients. I had some good wins and was feeling pumped.

It was a heady experience being surrounded by so much masculine intellectual horsepower. I had always been both attracted to and intimidated by intellect — especially intellectual men. And with that, I often underestimated and undervalued my own skills, talents and intellectual capacity. The men I was working with were, unquestionably, some of the brightest ...