“I tell my team all the time, ‘If you’re not taking risks and you’re not failing, you’re not innovating.’” - Anna Maria Chávez
Leadership is not always about knowing all the answers. It's learning from your mistakes so you can pass on these lessons to others. If you aren't trying new things and breaking barriers, you will never learn anything new. Anna was taught at an early age that life is short and precious. It may not always be easy but you must try your best to help others and create better solutions for communities. Working with girls, Anna saw that we culturally encourage girls to ensure that everything is perfect before they demonstrate a talent or skill. However, this mantra can make girls risk averse and weary of taking leadership roles. "Better done than perfect" is a quote Anna believes everyone should learn from in addition to getting used to failing so that we can learn from hard-fought lessons.
"As a leader, you can’t get isolated. You have to surround yourself with people who have opposing viewpoints on issues so at the end of the day you take all those data points and ultimately [can make] the best decisions." - Anna Maria Chávez