Twitter VP KRISTINE STEWART ON WHAT COMES AFTER LEANING IN

Twitter VP KRISTINE STEWART ON WHAT COMES AFTER LEANING IN

By: Carol Toller

Twitter’s VP of media talks about her new book, supporting women in the C-suite, and why she has no plans to run for office

In 2013, Kristine Stewart made national headlines when she announced her departure from CBC, where she oversaw the network’s English-language operations, to join Twitter Canada. It was Stewart’s first venture away from traditional broadcast media, after a career that included stints at Alliance Atlantis and the Hallmark Channel. At Twitter, she’s applied her knack for connecting brands with audiences and, last year, was promoted to vice president of North American media. Her new book, Our Turn, explores the qualities she believes are important for leadership and how women are best suited to bring them to the C-suite.

You’ve worked at a number of places that could have provided fodder for a tell-all memoir, from Alliance Atlantis to CBC and now Twitter. What made you decide to write Our Turn, about what you see as the incredible potential for a new generation of female business leaders, instead?

I get invited a lot to make speeches to groups, and I’m always asked questions about being a woman trying to make things work today. Women always want to know, “How do you do it?” or “How did you get here?” as though there’s some kind of blueprint or secret. One of the questions I get asked the most is, “Can I have babies? What will that do to my career?” And I’ve always tried to explain that there is no one direct path. The best way to achieve success for yourself is to figure out what it means to you and work on things that actually match your strengths. So instead of being a prescriptive book that says, “Follow these steps and this will happen,” it’s more like, “Open your mind to the possibilities and the fact that there might be more opportunity today for a different kind of leadership than there was in the past.”

You describe these new essential traits of leadership as anticipating the needs of others, listening, collaborating, multi-tasking and being flexible and you point out that while women typically possess them, they’re often relegated to the role of value assistants and Girl Fridays. How do you see these skills, becoming more important?

Some of the traits that [women] may have been trying to hide or didn’t think were as valuable before are actually incredibly valuable today, given how the world has changed and how people expect companies to run with a much more open, understanding and outward-facing attitude. I think that presents opportunities for people women and men who hadn’t necessarily seen pathways to success before.

How does your book differentiate from, say, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In?

Lean on is fantastic for reminding women that they have to speak up and that it’s time for partners and families to do more to help a woman’s career. And I agree with all that. My book is more for women who say, “Well, how do I lean in, and what do you mean by that, and maybe I don’t feel confident enough to lean on.” What I’m saying is, I’ve been there too, and I don’t always know when to lean in either. And, I sometimes find it difficult, so here’s what I did to get myself to the place I needed to be to do what I do today. And I try to remind people that you don’t have to actually be CEO your success is where you want to find it and at whichever level you want to be.

Your notion of success hasn’t always been universally admired. You drew criticism for returning as president of Paragon International six weeks after your daughter was born.

Yeah, I think that showed a bit of my naiveté early in my career. I would do interviews and say, “Yes, I’ve come back to work full time six weeks after having the baby.” There were certain judgments made on that, which I wasn’t expecting. I think the harshest thing we do, as men or women, is presumed to know someone’s life and the rationale for their decisions. I was quite surprised by the “ambitious” label that got put to that choice. That decision was, in fact, one I had to make I went from major breadwinner to the sole breadwinner in my household at that time. And you know, 19 years later, as my daughter’s off in university, it all worked out OK. But it was interesting for me to see how quickly the narrative changed when I talked publicly about my decision. Criticisms about whether you have a child, don’t have a child, stay home, don’t stay home they’re your life choices, and people need to respect that.

As one of the handful of women in prominent positions in the Canadian business landscape, do you get tired of representing women?

I’m very conscious of representing the fact that women are important. What I worry about is the box people put me in. When I’m on a panel or in an event, have I checked off a certain box because I'm the woman? But I’m also hoping that it at least means my voice is being heard and maybe it encourages others to speak up. There’s a catch-22 around being a woman leader. But I think it’s important to let that be the thing that lifts you up and creates opportunity.

What about workplaces? What should they be doing to make sure women get their turn to lead?

Initiatives in workplaces are important. When I was at CBC, I made sure the diversity team reported directly to my office. Despite advancements, diversity is a muscle that needs constant flexing.

Do you believe in quotas or targets?

I definitely believe in benchmarking and seeing where the numbers are going. I don’t believe in saying, “We need to reach that quota by this year.” But I think watching how the trend is going up or down within the company is incredibly important.

How are you aiming to find a broader audience with Twitter, which is struggling these days to maintain its user numbers, never mind grow?

I think we’ve done an incredible job of partnering with a lot of media outlets and journalists. I think the next phase is finding the individual. We’ve seen the rise of the individual, whether it’s through Ferguson or the Arab Spring you can see the opportunities for individuals to be heard in a way they hadn’t before. I read that you were once told a surprising revelation by a fortune teller. What did they tell you? It’s true. I was in Hong Kong at an industry party, and on every floor, they had a different form of fortune teller. So I had my palm read, and he said,

You will be prime minister of your country someday.