万豪国际女高管：想绽放，勤换盆

    万豪国际(Marriott International)执行副总裁兼全球首席传讯与公共事务官凯瑟琳•马修斯每年都会在《财富》杂志(Fortune)-美国国务院的全球女性领袖辅导计划中对未来的女性领袖发表讲话。马修斯的讲话总是会赢得很多共鸣，但今年的讲话真正改变了来自尼日利亚一位商界女性的想法。

    聆听马修斯谈论领导力，尼日利亚Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Ltd.公司政府关系专员佛罗伦斯•奥佐被深深吸引，并由此走到台前，推动领导了一场寻找被博科圣地恐怖团体绑架的尼日利亚女孩的公众运动。上周一，奥佐在《财富》杂志Postcards专栏中刊登的嘉宾文章充满感情地讲述了她学习公众领导力的故事。

    马修斯告诉奥佐及其他22位《财富》杂志-美国国务院计划的参与者，任何领导人要想取得长期成功，要做的不只是抓住时机：你必须在整个职业生涯中不断适应，不断改变。马修斯在加入万豪前曾在哥伦比亚特区当了25年电视记者，她正是这样身体力行的。经她允许，我将她的经验写下来与读者分享。下面是马修斯给出的三个持续成功的基本准则：

    1.排除恐惧，为了不断成长，主动拥抱改变。太多女性以稳妥为重，不愿突破自己的舒适区。

    2.谁都不希望大材小用，变成一棵圉于某一个花盆的植物。要想绽放，就需要不断地“换花盆”。

    3.当你真的换到更大的花盆时，请一直关注你的接班人。这样，你就可以留下宝贵的财富，提供机会，做到薪火相传。

    我在干了电视新闻25年后，在50岁那年改变了职业轨迹，成了一家国际酒店公司的企业传讯和公关事务经理。这是我做过的最吓人的一件事，也是最明智的一件事。（财富中文网）

    Kathleen Matthews, the EVP & Chief Global Communications & Public Affairs Officer at Marriott International (MAR), speaks every year to the rising-star women in the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women's Mentoringprogram. Matthews' message always resonates, but this year it literally transformed the thinking of one businesswoman from Nigeria.

    Listening to Matthews talk about leadership, Florence Ozor, a government relations specialist at Nigeria's Rahamaniyya Oil and Gas Ltd., was riveted enough to come out of her shell and help lead the public campaign to find the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group. In a Guest Post on Postcards Monday, Ozor told her emotional story about learning to lead publicly.

    For any leader to succeed long-term, Matthews told Ozor and her 22 fellow mentees in theFortune-State Department program, you have to do more than seize the moment: You have to adapt and make changes throughout your career. Matthews, who spent 25 years as a TV reporter in Washington, DC., before she moved to Marriott, followed her own advice and allowed me to share it with you here. Here are Matthews' three basic rules for success that lasts:

    1. Push past fear and embrace change in order to keep growing. Too often women play it safe, rather than stretch past their comfort zone.

    2. You don't want to be a plant with a root system that has outgrown your pot. To flower and bloom, you need to keep "re-potting."

    3. Always be on the lookout for people to replace you when you do move into that bigger pot. This enables you to create a legacy, provide opportunity and pay it forward.

    After 25 years in TV news, I made a career change at age 50 to a corporate communications and public affairs role at a global hospitality company. It was the scariest thing I ever did, and the smartest.