My background is such that if you saw it in writing, you would say,
"Well, nothing great can happen to this kid." I come from parents who
dropped out of school before finishing the tenth grade, who married
when they were 16 and 18. I was born the very next year. My parents saw
that education was important, since they did not have it themselves.
And they said, "You get it, Lorraine!" And I did.

I happened to be lucky enough to go to schools in central Harlem that
identified talented children at an early age. In third grade, I ran for
secretary of the student council and won. In fourth grade, I learned
about Robert's Rules of Order, which are used to make sure meetings,
conventions and debates run smoothly and fairly. In fourth grade!
Extraordinary! By junior high, I had seen foreign films and could speak
Spanish (somewhat). I learned to love nineteenth-century British novels
and to recite Shakespeare. And I got to go to the theater to see
Shakespeare's plays. So there was no turning around, no going back for
me. In high school, I was voted class president and the girl most
likely to succeed. Then it was on to Hunter College.

I became the first person in my family to graduate from college, the
first person to have a career. One important and memorable position was
being the principal of what was then known as the Frederick Douglass
School, in central Harlem. It was a school with a great deal of
violence and a large number of children with failing grades. I made it
a school that required uniforms and discipline. I renamed it Frederick
Douglass Academy (FDA) and made sure that the focus of instruction was
on achieving excellence. In five years, FDA went from being a school
with some of the city's worst test scores to a school with some of the
city's best test scores. We sent most of our graduates off to college,
including Ivy League colleges, on scholarships.

Another big job I held was deputy chancellor of the New York City
public high schools, in charge of curriculum instruction for more than
a million schoolchildren. At present I am the president and CEO of the
Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute, where I am translating my job
experiences into principles that help educators in this and other
countries to be effective school leaders. I am also the author of two
books, including Nothing's Impossible: Leadership Lessons From Inside
and Outside the Classroom.

If you are a woman like me, you are never satisfied with where you
are in life. Evolving—moving on to the next thing—keeps us young,
doesn't it? Every day we should be doing something to advance our
dreams. So I'd like to pass on to you some of the great things I know
(just as you need to pass along the great things you know). We need to
mentor each other. Here is my list for you:

2)
Don't hesitate to delegate to other people in your family. Either do
that, or else train yourself to turn a blind eye to everything that
doesn't look right around the house.

3)
Have a bank account that is in your name only. My mother taught me
that—after my father and his mistress drained all the money she had
saved.

4) Don't dust. It doesn't make any sense. Just put good food on the table, and nobody will care what the place looks like.

5) Don't hop in and out of the shower to get on with life. Go in the bathroom and stay there!

6) Don't let anybody in your car unless she is as upbeat as you are.

7) Don't eat lunch with drainers, either. That's the worst. Why share the middle of your day with people who constantly complain?

8) Make
up appointments. I say: "That appointment, it took so long! They said
it was going to be over at three o'clock, but it went to five." No one
needs to be the wiser.

9)
Think about the move you want to make—the exit strategies toward that
next thing you want to do. You can help yourself do this by reading
books, going to conferences, taking mini courses and talking to women
you admire about how they got to where they are right now.

10)
Identify, encourage and sponsor other women in the workplace. I don't
mean just the vice president of the company. I mean the clerk, the
woman who cleans the restroom. She might have a dream of doing other
work, and if you were to say a comforting or uplifting word, her life
could be changed. She is more than the rag in her hand.

11)
Have lunch with some of these women. Tell them what your path has been
and how their path could change, too. Part of our responsibility when
we become leaders is to identify other women who show promise and push
them.

12) Don't
feel you always have to make yourself available to everyone all the
time. You need to have thinking time and downtime if you are going to
make a dream of yours come true.

13) Do good work you aren't paid for. How about adopting a school or a group of girls?
How about taking them away from their communities to help them see something different?

14) Miss the bus intentionally. It might buy you 20 or 30 minutes to read a book or a magazine.

15) Get rid of what ain't working. This idea applies to people, too. Get rid of who ain't working!