Yesterday as I reflected on my Grandma’s life, I learned that new technologies take longer than we think to make it to market, if at all, or to become popularized and cashed-in on their commercial value.

I’m sure you’ve heard the adage: Is there really anything new under sun?

I’m sticking with Grandma’s leadership this week: old wisdom is the new wisdom. She always said, hold onto your clothes long enough and they will come back in style. I have to admit I have some of her hats and coats from the 40s that I have worn recently!  I also wished I’d kept my fry boots – they’d be back in style and worth a fortune! Yet they were my sole present for Christmas one year when I was in high school, as my parents struggled to make ends meet raising six kids.

It’s all about perspective. Innovation is not about invention. It’s about taking an invention and making it useful, repurposing it and/or commercializing it.

So, I ask you – what exists right in front of you that you could view differently – whether it is a product, a problem, an employee, or your relationship with a family member? What is something that you can change about your life or business that would give you more money in the bank, greater productivity or satisfaction? These are different faces of the same coin. They are all about changing the energy of your current situation.

If you want your business or life to be different – The ultimate question is, how do you take what you have and make it different or conceive of it differently? This is innovation grandma-style – transform the old into the present for future wear-ability and endurance.

© Copyright 2011 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved. www.sagelead.com

Many believe that a woman has to exhibit behavioral characteristics of a man to be effective in a “man’s world” of leading. And if you are visibly pregnant – forget it, you aren’t in the game. Depending upon your culture, this is “non-negotiable.”

My twelve year old daughter is a fan of Project Runway, a fashion design competition reality show. We watched the last segment together and I was pleasantly surprised they had four women judges who are currently or had been pregnant before, and all accomplished professionals in the fashion industry. The assignment was to make an outfit for Rebecca Romijn, a model and actress, who was carrying twins. She wanted it to be form fitting, allowing her to feel feminine and sexy with an expanding body.

Have we arrived? Despite the hype of reality TV, my daughter was given some positive messages: You can be creative, successful, sexy, a skillful businesswoman and be a mother. You don’t necessarily have to choose, hide or subvert one for the other. Let’s not gloss over this because it’s fashion and it’s easier ”to be” this way. It’s still serious business – an industry that rakes in over $250 billion a year.

Yes, you can show your curves, your nurturing ability and make smart, saavy decisions in the board room depending on, or perhaps despite your chosen industry.

My daughter is growing up in a different world than my mother and me – and thank God. My mother was mandated to stop working when she was visibly pregnant. As a single parent of a toddler, occasionally I had comments insinuating I wasn’t that focused on my career because “how could I be?” When is a man confronted with this dualism: Life OR Career?

Hat’s off to Heidi Klum for celebrating her womanhood all while being an accomplished model, entertainer, artist, wife, mother and businesswoman with a firm presence. Our brains don’t dissolve just because we have smaller people we also care for… we can “make it work.”

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC      www.sagelead.com

The majority says Yes!

Even though the “Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court, ” says Obama, there are a number of people who don’t think so – all Republican. It’s not helpful to set up a Democratic/Republican split – and yet if there weren’t so many Democrats in office, one wonders if she would have been elected.  People tune out with these labels and don’t inquire or hear the reasons why a yes or no vote is cast. I found it fascinating to read WHY the Republicans voted the way they did – yes AND no reasons are equally enlightening.

How Republicans Voted For Sotomayor check out the comments to the right of the voting record.

I find it ironic that those who said no did so because they didn’t believe she could uphold the letter of the law and the constitution and/or would try to legislate from the bench – And yet some who said yes did so because they believed the exact opposite.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who voted yes, cited how valuable this process has been – “requiring us to return to inquiring deeply about the qualifications of the nominees and accepting the consequences.”

As with any leader, time will tell how accurate all these assessments are – and it goes to show you two people can be given the same facts, hear the same answers and interpret them in a polar opposite fashion drawing very different conclusions. While the law and this position aspire one to be as objective as possible in decision-making, is being COMPLETELY bias-free a POSSIBLE reality or an ASPIRATION that we can never stop striving for? We only have ourselves to keep each other in check.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC         www.sagelead.com

Ms. Sotomayor, the Supreme Court Justice nominee, and women in leadership, are lightening rods for expressing our collective hopes and fears about potential biases regarding race or gender effecting just decisions.

What wrong with Obama’s criteria for this position? Can’t we have someone who has a “rigorous intellect” AND recognizes the limits of the judicial role …someone who can apply the law with a sense of “understanding how the world works and how ordinary people live?” Every great leader knows they have to work concerns across different constituencies and apply judgment with an understanding of what is going to work “in the real world.” To me, this is blending head and heart in an integrated way – which is what the complexity of our times calls for.

It’s no news that we need more women and minority leadership everywhere, and especially in our highest courts in the U.S., to better reflect the diversity of this country. The fact that Obama’s choice manifests itself as a hispanic woman … matters and doesn’t matter.

It matters at the first level of selection – a hispanic woman – because otherwise there would already have been someone in the role with her race and gender. At the next level, it better not matter. Beyond these first level of differences from the majority, she needs to exercise the kind of complex, fair judgment required for the job. As with any ceo jobs, the assessment process needs to make sure the best qualified candidate is selected, REGARDLESS of race and gender. So, yes we are dealing with complexity and paradox.

To paraphrase Cristina Rodríguez, a professor at N.Y.U. Law School and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the “critical evaluation of her long record as a judge and her judicial philosophy and views on the issues the Court will face in coming years” are ultimately what matter in this assessement process.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC       www.sagelead.com