All Women Should Be Millionaire Leaders With Madison Patton
We have a very special podcast episode launching this week! Madison Patton has blazed a trail in sales and now is the Senior Sales Manager at Peek. She serves as an empowering and empathetic leader in a predominately male sales environment. Madison also serves as an advisor to the Women in Leadership program at University of Tennessee Knoxville. Yet, to those of you who know me personally or have been following along for a while, then you already know that Madison is extremely special to me because she is my wife! While I am extremely blessed to get to learn from her every day I am extremely excited to share my top insights from this week's conversation with her:
All women should be millionaires. While everyone should be millionaires, women specifically tend to handle wealth differently than men. From the book “We Should All Be Millionaires” by Rachel Rodgers, we learned that millionaire men tend to invest their money in themselves while women historically will invest their millions back into their communities as well as other women. That reinvestment of wealth back into the community has the power to create massive systemic impact.
To create ethical and equitable teams you need to have set pay structures focused on equality. Greater pay transparency has been proven to improve wage discrimination. Additionally, removing large pay ranges and setting a base salary for each position has also been shown to make pay more equitable. I’m not saying that 100% open wages are practical for every company, but I am saying that theoretically, a perfect company would be able to share and justify everyone’s compensation. If you can’t, that might indicate a need to look at why.
Lacking accountability or communication can breed insecurity with your subordinates. By giving one person a “pass” to violate internal rules, you open up the door for politics, perceptions, and gossip to thrive. Your team deserves and wants to know how they are doing! If you schedule a surprise meeting without context it can create panic with your team members assuming the worst. Being transparent and consistent, even in difficult times creates trust and is crucial to the longevity of your team.
Madison said that being a good leader means that you are helping people achieve more than they could do on their own. If you agree with this then you need to listen to the full episode because there are a myriad of insights beyond what I am able to recap in this newsletter. So take a moment to empower yourself by listening to the full episode on the Leadership After Hours podcast!
-Sean Patton