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Never apologise for being a woman in business

In the last year and a half, I’ve gone from having an idea for a business to a full-time team of 46. We’ve iterated from an email form to a full platform. We’ve raised venture capital. We’ve partnered with some of the best companies in the country. And we’re now helping people from all over the world transform their lives through design. We have grown, changed, developed, laughed and cried, and it feels like it’s been much longer than 18 months.

Personally, even though it’s still early, this has been an incredible journey. As a former interior designer who never took a business course and didn’t know what Ruby on Rails was a year ago, it’s sometimes surreal when I hear words like “agile process” come out of my mouth.

Yet as soon as we closed our Series A funding round, I received requests to sit on panels and do interviews. I was flattered, but my company, Laurel & Wolf, was only six months old. Outside of some tactical advice on how to get an idea off the ground, I didn’t know what I had to contribute. Plus, many of these conversations were focussed around what it’s like to be a female entrepreneur. Do we make decisions differently? Were VCs harder to pitch to? Did I find it difficult to recruit?

I’ve always jokingly answered that the only difference in being a female CEO is that it takes me longer to get ready in the morning. However, that’s not actually true.

Also Read: Asian women outpacing men in joining billionaire ranks

Are you apologising too much?

While recapping potential hires with my new director of operations, she pointed out something I’d never noticed. She said, “Leura, I don’t know why you feel that you always have to apologise for being ‘tough’ and qualify it with the fact that you’re ‘fair.’ If you were a man, the fact that you hold high standards for your business and expect good work would never cross anyone’s mind to discuss.”

She’s 100 per cent right. I’ve worried about how I come across to people. I’ve unintentionally apologised for qualities that would not only never be discussed or questioned if I were a man, but would actually be celebrated. Great CEOs are strong leaders who have clear visions for their businesses. They move swiftly, decisively and expect the best from themselves as well as from those that they work with.

While there’s still a lot of work that society needs to do for women leaders to escape both other people’s biases and our own, we can make a difference too. Personally, I’m going to stop apologising for being “aggressive” or “tough” or “ambitious,” and am going to focus on what any good CEO would — building a great business. I will continue to apologise for being wrong, rude, stubborn or selfish, but I won’t apologise for being a focussed person who wants to aggressively grow a company. I won’t apologise for being ambitious and expecting the best. And I suggest other women do the same.

Also Read: Ollie to women in tech: Growth starts with the decision to try

How to embrace your executive self

There are a few practices I’ve found helpful for stopping the apologies and embracing my executive self. For instance, stay positive. For yourself and for your team, positive reinforcement is important. Nobody should get a gold star for simply showing up, but great work deserves to be rewarded.

Along those same lines, have some fun. Never underestimate how people actually read and understand energy. Fun is also infectious, so let your team know how much you love your job. It will catch on like wildfire.

“Normal” is only a setting on a washing machine, so take time to celebrate the traits that make you unique as a leader. Remember, it’s OK to be a regular person. Just because you’re an exec doesn’t mean that you are bulletproof. Be honest with yourself and with your team.

Lastly, learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward. There are going to be hard days or weeks, and you might feel as if you get it wrong half of the time. But I’ve found it critical to not dwell on the past.

I will keep moving forward and hope to continue this conversation so that, as a society, the discussion can shift from, “What is it like to be a female CEO?” to simply, “What is it like to be a CEO?”

Author Leura Fine was featured on Forbes’ 2016 30 Under 30 list, Leura Fine is the founder and CEO of leading online interior design service Laurel & Wolf. Driven by the desire to connect clients and designers through a digital platform, Leura launched Laurel & Wolf from her home kitchen in 2014. Less than two years later, she has a rapidly growing team of more than 50 employees and a marketplace of more than 700 interior designers.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organisation comprising the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship programme that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

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