Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Maureen: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf. I am the CEO and founder of the Innovative Leadership Institute. With me today is Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. Since 2013, Congresswoman Beatty has represented Ohio’s third congressional district in the US House of Representatives.

Welcome, Congresswoman Beatty.

Joyce: I’m so honored to be here today.

Maureen: I wanted to ask you to share your story. I know you’ve had some struggles and you grew up in a time different than today, so can you give us a little bit of background? Who are you?

Joyce: I like to look at it like this. I like to say to audiences and especially women, that I’m that little girl that grew up in the neighborhood.

I’m that little girl that was undecided about most things. But very focused. That there needed to be a change. I’m not always sure that at the moment I know what the [00:01:00] change is. Mm-hmm. But I fought hard to advance causes, like to be in my high school and to give the graduation speech when I was graduating from high school, because during the era of time that I grew up in.

High school was basically it for me, first generation to go to college. No one in my entire family had graduated from college at the time I entered college. I, I grew up, what I like to say in a regular family, you know, we went to church. Four times outta seven days a week because my mother’s a PK or preacher’s child, as we like to say.

So that grounded me. I grew up in the neighborhood, a neighborhood where you had to advocate and you had to fight and you had to be disciplined and you had to behave. And then I went off into this big World College graduate like most, looking for a job, looking for family and happiness. Were there [00:02:00] struggles along the way?

Absolutely. I grew up in an era of time when my mother would hold my hand so tight when we would go downtown because there would be water fountains that would say for whites only, and a lower water fountain that would say for colored. I said to her, I wanna drink out of the big water fountain. And my mother realized that I was a child.

That wouldn’t take no for an answer quietly, so she would hold my hand tightly because she knew there could be consequences. So at a early age, I learned that there are always consequences for your actions. I also learned coming from a family. That you had to listen a lot and you couldn’t express yourself as a child.

You did as you were told. But if you had a question, my father always taught me, you had to have resolve. So now I enter this big world, curious, eager, anxious [00:03:00] to make a change. So I had to figure out the resolve. Being an African American woman, there were many disadvantages for me that caused struggles, disadvantages that there weren’t a lot of women who looked like me in the room when I was growing up.

My supervisors and bosses for the most part were white men. Even though I grew up in an integrated neighborhood, went to integrated schools, I went to a historically black college and university, and I think it was there that I got grounded where I saw PhDs and black women teaching science and black women teaching math and strong black men telling me I could do anything I wanted to be.

So I’ve taken that grounding all the way from higher education at the Ohio. State University, not overly proud to say that I was the first female to be a senior vice president with a contract [00:04:00] reporting to the president of the University of one of the largest universities in the country. No other person of color in the room, in executive meetings, and certainly not a female.

But here’s the good news. I always like to say, don’t brag about being a first. If there’s not a second or a third. I can tell you there are women now who are senior vice presidents, and in the room there. If we go to politics, which consumes all of my life right now, and when I was in the State House, I was the first female to not only successfully get elected as the democratic leader, but I raised more money and delivered more seats than anyone had done prior to me.

Now. Let’s think about that prior to May. That means all men. That was a huge accomplishment because not only was I a female, I’m a black female, being that successful, delivering the majority, [00:05:00]something that had not been done when we didn’t draw the district line. So that was big. There were women. To follow me

Maureen: as I hear this, it sounds like you’re amazingly successful, and I know that to be true.

You had to go through a lot of soul searching and a lot of tough days and a lot of, if it were me, it’d be the days I wanted to go home and beat a pillow. How did you keep. Positive on the days that things didn’t seem fair, people were not kind, it wasn’t fair that you had to use the shorter water fountain.

It wasn’t fair on lots of counts, I imagine. And that had to be hurtful.

Joyce: Oh, I’m sure. I, I had a lot of those days as I was growing up and I still have them today. For me, it’s the discipline of understanding: When you have a victory, you don’t have to get even. I also realize that one of the things when people are against you, whether that is because of discrimination, if that’s [00:06:00] because of your gender or your ethnicity.

Then you have to stay more focused, and sometimes that’s difficult. But I think one of my strengths is that the energy that I possess to always have a movement within myself and that movement is to be victorious. And they’re not always big victories. It might be that I mentored someone and now I see them in an accomplished position.

It might be that I took someone with. Very raw talents and hopefully by experience and mentoring, shape them into a new leader. So for me, it’s always thinking of how I can beat that person that’s against me. I’m highly competitive. Any of my friends listening and people who know me. I am extremely driven.

I’m highly competitive, and I only require about three hours sleep. So I have a lot of time [00:07:00] to think about what my day is going to be like and how to shape myself. And here’s the good thing, when you have grown up. In the world that I grew up in, I grew up with segregated neighborhoods. I grew up with cousins in the South in the sixties.

You have to remember who couldn’t vote. I grew up with Rosa Parks, my idol, and I grew up with a lot of strong national black women. Mm-hmm. Being interested in politics, not ever thinking I’d go to Congress or be elected, but I grew up with the Barbara Jordans and the Shirley Chisholm’s, and then I have enough of a black background to remember the struggles and the fights back to the Harriet Tugman and the Sojourner Truths.

I carry them in my soul. So on that day I kind of look up and I see the faces of Fannie Lou Hamer saying, arrest me. Fighting for civil [00:08:00] rights and equal rights for women. I’ve always been surrounded by women and very fortunate. I call my mother a quiet soldier, 95 years old, still living by herself, still managing her life, and still giving me instructions.

So I think I get some things quite natural.

Maureen: I had a client recently who recounted a story of being at a holiday party, young engineer, and someone I think gave her his coat and said, here, honey, go hang it up. And she was devastated. In those moments where we feel defeated that there are people who. We can look up to and recall because they had the same struggles that we can reach in ourselves

Both: and know that we have what it takes.

Absolutely, and I’m so glad you

Joyce: shared that story because one of the things I think is so important for especially young girls and women today to understand that we bring a [00:09:00] whole history of not only passion and anger, but we also bring emotion. We also bring our feelings to the table, and I don’t think we should ever suppress them.

See, it’s okay for us to be brilliant and strong and passionate and emotional and caring and enduring. That’s what also gets me through, do I have quiet moments at night where I don’t know which way I am going. Absolutely. But I take from those stories and the story like you heard, my story wasn’t recently, but I tell it today as if it happened yesterday.

My first huge job, I’m a county executive. I’m managing $50 million and 500 people. I’m getting ready for my. Big executive meeting to talk about a property tax. I’m standing at the door. I’m early, I’m prepared. The gentleman start to come in and a gentleman comes in and he looks at me and he says, girly. I take my coffee [00:10:00] black, put it up there at the table by my name.

Now, those that know Joyce Beatty know what went through my mind in nanosecond, but here’s how the story ended. I got the coffee, I looked at his name tag. I matched it up with the plate at the head table, and I sat the coffee there. My greatest moment came three minutes later when I took the seat at the head of the table, hit the gavel, and said, I will now call this meeting to order the look on his face.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being waitstaff. There’s nothing wrong at all with that. But the point was, I was the only female in the room and I was the only person of color. So assumptions are made. So for me, that story says that even today. Assumptions will be made, assumptions will be made because I’m black.

Assumptions will be made because I’m female, but we have to know who we are [00:11:00] and we have to build on who we are because you see, I am a black woman, but I’m also someone who is worked hard, someone who is still in the fight. Someone who mentors, someone who cares, someone who loves their grand babies. You don’t have to be just this militant person, or you don’t have to be just this person who’s compassionate.

I’d say to women embrace all those things because we are all those things.

Maureen: Thank you for being the role model who is changing people both globally as you are, the example, but also one by one for being positive and giving him his coffee.

Joyce: Yeah, and sometimes it’s difficult, you know when, when you look at the stats today.

While this interview is about me, it’s really not about Joyce Beatty. You could take my name out and put any female’s name in there [00:12:00] and there would be some overlay. Someone’s had a problem in the workplace. Someone’s had a problem in the studio. Someone’s had a problem in the church, the neighborhood, and we all have had some.

Type of obstacle to get over. It’s just that I tell my story because I’m more visible. Mm-hmm. But the numbers today are still. Frightening. The numbers today are still not enough for women in the board rooms for women on boards for women in Congress. When you look at our numbers, 535 of us. And only 104 women, and only 20 black women and fewer Latinos and Hispanic.

So we have to take those numbers, tell our stories, but we have to open the door to make other women want to join us. And you could overlap that with [00:13:00] many professions. The good news is. You see young students in STEM, science and technology and engineering and math because of technology. I have little girls who actually dress up and put on little red dresses or blue suits and white pearls at the age of eight and nine years old, and they have gone to a microphone and said.

I’m going to be like Congresswoman Joyce Beatty when I grow up. That is the best Once upon a time story that I could leave for young girls that they too can be a Joyce Beatty, a Marine Metcalf. They can be. Whomever they want to be.

Maureen: I teach leadership at the Ohio State University occasionally in the engineering program, and it’s wonderful to see the increase in number of young women in that program that women really are moving into STEM roles.

Joyce: Absolutely,

Maureen: and my. Partner [00:14:00] runs Junior Achievement of Central Ohio and he tells a story of a young girl who they have a day long running businesses and a girl says, I wanna come back and do it over again. Why? Because I wanna be the CEO this time. Our CEO didn’t listen to me, but I didn’t think I could be that role.

Absolutely. Now I know I can be that role. And

Both: those are the

Joyce: stories that we have to tell, and that’s one of the reasons I like telling my story because young girls hear it. Then they think I too can do that. I mean, I grew up in an era of time that I never thought in my lifetime I would see a black man being president of the United States, nor would I see a female coming so close to being nominated and becoming the president of the United States.

But now. We know anything is possible if you prepare yourself, if you work hard and if you believe, and sometimes because of the obstacles that have confronted [00:15:00] you, you want a do over like that student and that do over is to be the CEO.

Maureen: That was part of the message I wanted people to here is it is gonna be hard.

As soon as I lose hope, I don’t get a do over. I pull myself out. And staying in the game, in in life in that compelling and difficult spot is the only way that we get to make that impact.

Joyce: Absolutely. And I think that’s one of the reasons that I like talking about the positives. I like focusing on how do we get to the next step.

You know, when you think about. All of the things we quote we read, there is so much knowledge in taking those little sound bites and turning them into real thoughts and real processes. You know, I quote Martin Luther King a lot because he’s a good bridge for little girls and little boys because he talks about the character of his [00:16:00] children.

Mm-hmm. Two boys and two girls. He talks about it is not where you stand when things are convenient and comfortable, but he comes back with, it’s the actions that you take during times of challenges. And controversy. Mm-hmm. My whole life has been full of challenges and controversies and a lot of stuff hasn’t been easy or convenient, but yet here I am and remember here I am that little girl that grew up like every little girl growing up today, and probably with a lot less than what some of the little girls have today.

So it, it’s not really about where you started. It’s where you end up and we’re gonna have all kinds of hurdles and obstacles to get over, but I just tell young women and young girls, we just have to continue the movement and that movement [00:17:00] will get us to where so many of us are fighting to lead us.

Maureen: When I talked to Dominic, he told me a story about President Obama writing a State of the Union address.

Can you tell us that story?

Joyce: It’s really interesting when I think of my life and all of the incredible opportunities that I’ve had, like sitting on the United States house floor and having a president stop and not only shake your hand or hug you, and I would be less than truthful if I didn’t say when I got to Congress and I got to serve with President Barack Obama. That was one of the greatest highlights, and so I remember it like yesterday, I get a phone call and our leader asked me if I would like to be in the room with a small group of women to review. The script that the president of the United States is going to read before the nation.

I mean, I don’t even think she got all of the words out and I said, yes, I’m all in. [00:18:00] And I was so excited. I was a freshman. I’m sitting in the room with some of the most powerful women in the. Country and the speech comes over, slid across in front of me. I think I took 30 seconds just to look at his name and the title on it.

And then as I started going across it line by line, word by word, I realized into page three, my colleagues had slid their speech copy back across the table. Now remember, I’m competitive. I’m excited, and I thought. Wait a minute. So, you know, I’m like raising my hand in this small big boardroom and I’m saying I wasn’t finished yet.

I was looking for words like powerful women, you know? I wanted to make sure that the president with strong daughters and a wife, and he had always talked about women that I saw that word in there. I got that look that your mother gives you when enough is enough. Well, the competitive genes kicked in. So [00:19:00] what did I do?

I said it louder. I said, we ought to have something about women in there. We had just vetted and researched this phrase, when women succeed, America succeeds. So what do I do with silence? I keep talking. So then I said, somebody should write this down. When Women succeeds, America succeeds. At that point, the meeting was over, and so I slid my script across.

I said, thank you, and we laughed. The next day, I’m sitting on the house floor surrounded by cameras. The US house floor is packed. The president enters the chambers. All of America is watching him and one of my colleagues shouts across to me. Look at the top of page 11, I believe it was. We get the script moments before the President starts talking, and by the time I’m turning to look at it, can you imagine the president of the United [00:20:00] States?

Reads, when women succeed, America succeeds. I’d leaped for joy. My heart beat double. And here’s the good news. It didn’t matter if anyone knew this story but me, but the next day, newspapers across the country said Joyce Beatty had asked the president of the United States to say, when women succeed, America succeeds.

The most compelling part of that is for little girls to know, work hard, believe in yourself, because sometimes just that one ounce of courage over a few words can change the world. And for me and for women to have the president say that and for the chamber to stand up and applaud him, we now say so often.

When women succeed, America succeeds, and [00:21:00] that’s the story.

Maureen: Can you talk about the OMLI legislation?

Joyce: When I think about how I advocate for women and how I advocate for minorities, people often wanna pick one piece of legislation and talk about it. I believe in inclusion. And I believe if we don’t fight hard as women, as people of color for what we believe in, whether it’s writing legislation, whether it’s testifying, whether it’s standing on the house floor, as I’ve done with this piece of legislation, all our work goes out in vain.

So I, I got this idea one day. I serve on the Powerful Financial Services Committee, and I believe when we talk about our world and women, we can’t talk about it. Absent of economic development, which means banking and financing and financial literacy or healthcare or education. And so I try to [00:22:00]think about how do I advance young women who are going to college, who are graduating and wanting to have a powerful place at the board or at the table.

So I started looking at where are we with minorities, with the Federal Reserve banks? Where are we with people who are. In the room. Because see, I believe if you are a black woman in the room, you change the conversation. If you are a white woman in the room, you change the conversation. And if you are a Jewish woman or Asian or Hispanic, so you understand where I’m going, you bring your emotions, your culture, you bring your life to the room.

And I realized we weren’t in the room. So I started talking about it. I decided every question I would ask that someone who came before me, I would ask them about women and minorities. How many do you have, period. How many do you have at the executive level? How many are on your board? And then I would say, don’t [00:23:00] come back unless you can tell me something differently because the numbers were on my side.

And so. I created something after football. The Rooney rule, we created the Beatty rule. What happens in sports? You can’t have a quarterback if they’re not in the room. So once they started saying for coaches that they had to make sure that they were in the interview pool. Mm-hmm. So I wrote a piece of legislation that said if you were interviewing and looking for a president of the Federal Reserve.

Then you had to have women or black people on the list to be considered. And I’m proud to say now that in Atlanta, that we now have a black man who is president of the Federal Reserve. We have only six women. Not enough. But we still only have one African American. So I continue to fight for that. But it, it’s beyond that.

It’s [00:24:00] saving our children, promoting, saving our children. I’ve been a big advocate against human trafficking. Too many of our young girls are there. So it’s pushing and it’s also being an avid against those things that hurt. Us. So I could probably talk about legislation and things I’m fighting for, whether it’s our veterans, and that includes women who are veterans, whether it’s fighting for our educational system and most importantly our health system.

Maureen: Thank you so much for what you do and who you are. There are lots of people who do good work and you look at their personal lives and they’re a train wreck. Being both a person that I personally wanna emulate and doing the work you do makes you just an exceptional role model. I

Joyce: like to still say I am just that little girl from the neighborhood.

But it’s also having strong women like you who [00:25:00] people listen to and hear your voice. I think it takes a lot of courage and confidence to come on the, and talk about tough issues and bring people to the microphone. Let them tell their story. So I want people to know that tackling the tough issues, being out there for us, I want them to tune in a little more because I have just enjoyed being here, listening to you.

I think it’s just amazing because if we don’t promote one another, if we don’t get excited about telling our stories and having a movement, why do we do what we do?

Maureen: What an honor to have you join us today. Thank you.