Huffington Posts

My first taste if leadership came in a situation in which I was blissfully ignorant outsider. It was in college, when I became president of the Cambridge Union debating society. Since I had grown up in Greece, I had never heard of the Cambridge Union or the Oxford Union, and didn't know about their place in English culture, so I wasn't weighed gown with the kinds of overwhelming notions that may have stopped British girls from even thinking about trying for such a position. ... In this way, it was a blessing that I started my career outside my home environment. It had its own problems in that I was ridiculed for my accent and was demeaned as someone who spoke in a funny way. But it also taught me that it is easier to overcome people's judgment than to overcome our own self-judgment, the fear we internalize.