In November the exchange was reversed, as the Egyptian women travelled to Copenhagen. During the two parts of the program, each participant had to hold a talk on a subject that is important to them in their lives. For Mayar, it was stepping up to the challenges in life.
“My job is very demanding. I’m always on the go and juggling a lot of things at the same time. It can be very overwhelming. My talk was about how despite it all you need to step up to these challenges, and just do your best. Don’t shy away from it out of fear of what will happen. You will eventually land further ahead than you expected. The more you try and the more you give of yourself, doors will open for you. I tend myself to forget this, and don’t look back at how far I have gone. It was very good for me to speak about it, and I felt it resonated with a lot of the other women,” says Mayar Darwish.
Mayar Darwish and her counterparts visited the municipality of Copenhagen to hear about Julie Lorentzen’s work during the network. Photo by Jakob Pagel Andersen
Imposter syndrome
A topic that came up frequent in their discussions was the ‘imposter syndrome’. Sometimes people in leadership positions have doubts about their own abilities and feel they don’t deserve what they have achieved. This was something that many of the participants had experienced.
“It doesn’t only happen to women leaders, but it is more obvious among females. Women too often feel they are not good enough. We need a lot of awareness to overcome it, and deal with the fact that the journey is endless. Our discussions offered a lot of support on this issue and ideas on how to get around it”.
What was some of these ideas?
“One of them was that it can be very useful to write down all the positive feedback you receive and your key achievements, and make it a habit once in a while to go back and reflect on how far you have come. It gives you a perspective on things”, Mayar Darwish explains.
She leads a team consisting entirely of women and want to pass on what she learned through the Women Take the Lead network to them.
“Being in this group of accomplished and ambitious women really made me feel that there is no glass ceiling for what we can achieve. I feel empowered, and I want to pass on that empowerment to the women I work with. My awareness has been heightened and this will make me more mindfull in all my interactions. I want to empower my team to speak up and step up to more challenges with confidence. And I want them to understand that it is up to ourselves if we let the glass ceiling confine us or if we smash it,” she says.
Mayar Darwish hopes that the Danish-Egyptian group will continue to meet and learn from each other.
“I really hope we keep it going. This should not just be a one off. We have created a community and we should keep it going”.
