Ayanna Presley, Sylvania Garcia, Veronica Escobar, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Deb Haaland, Sharice Davids, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, and Lauren Underwood.
These are names you may not recognize now. But you will. They are some of the more than 100 women elected to the House of Representatives on November 6th. Women have never held more than 84 of the 435 house seats according to a November 8th Washington Post article by Mary Jordan – Record number of women heading to Congress.
Ayanna Presley is the first black congressperson elected from Massachusetts. Sylvania Garcia and Veronica Escobar are both from Texas and the first Latino women elected to the House of Representatives. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are the first Muslim women elected to the House. Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids are the first Native American women elected to the House; Sharice is the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in Kansas. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is the youngest woman ever elected to the House at the age of 29.
Lauren Underwood is a 30-year-old nurse who will be the youngest black woman in Congress. In a district that is 86% white, she beat six men in the primary and unseated a four-term incumbent. Her campaign focused on healthcare.
Another woman to watch is Kyrsten Sinema. She now has a slight lead in the Arizona Senate race but it is still too close to call at the time of this writing. If she wins, she will be the first bisexual person elected to Congress.
Now that’s what I call a diverse group of determined women representing the next generation of leaders in Washington.
Many of them are under 40 years old and they are a diverse group. Our government officials need to look more like our country – younger and more diverse.
While I have highlighted a small set of women who ran for office and were elected, there were hundreds more across the country. There were 277 women running for either Congress or governor this year. They included women of all ages who had never run for office but were motivated and inspired to create change. This is a trend that organizations everywhere should make note of – think about the untapped talent out there.
I am inspired by what I’ve seen and heard from these women and more hopeful overall than I’ve been since the day before the 2016 presidential election. As the stories of each of these women are shared beyond their districts, we may all be inspired.
I am committed to developing next generation leaders in health IT and have had a focus on young women. I’m currently working with a colleague on a series of coaching offerings targeted to women in health IT at different stages of their career. I’ve got some ideas for an offering aimed at women in the early stage of their career that I’m excited to try out.
A CIO who I coached last year recently sent me a book titled “Wisdom @ Work” by Chip Conley. The subtitle is “The Making of a Modern Elder”. I had not heard of the book before but when I read the inside jacket cover, I was intrigued. It’s about using your wisdom and experience to help develop the next generation and learn from them at the same time. One of the early chapters is titled Am I a “Mentern”? – a play on being both a mentor and an intern.
I look forward to reading the book in the coming weeks and watching all these new leaders make their mark. The national story is not over – votes are still being counted and close races are still being called.
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