Bethany Causey

I attribute my success to my dad. He's a hard worker with a lot of drive, and watching him be successful and make decisions shaped who I wanted to be in my career. He's always been a very fast, efficient decision maker, and that was exemplified in me all growing up. I'm very competitive, and I wanted to be him and then be better than him. What really impacted me was watching him after my parents' messy divorce when we lost everything - we were broke, I went to 3 different high schools, and there was a custody battle. I watched him go from making great money and owning a huge technical company to absolutely nothing, living in a basement. But he picked up the pieces and rebuilt his whole life and retirement without complaining and without giving up, just really persevering through everything. He went on to have an amazing second marriage, extended family with stepkids, a fantastic federal career in the cybersecurity space, and he prioritized time with family while also prioritizing education later in his life. He really set me up mentally and emotionally to want to be able to do that - to persevere and succeed no matter what challenges come my way.

I've received two pieces of career advice that really stick out to me. The first came early in my career during an interview when someone asked me if I was comfortable in the uncomfortable. At first I didn't know what that even meant, but the older I've gotten and the further I've gone down the leadership route, I've realized it's about being able to have difficult conversations, navigate tough situations, bring emotion when you need emotion, and be stable when you need to be stable. That question really turned into a philosophy for me in how I handle all of my business relationships. The second piece of advice came from someone at one of the technical companies I worked for. I was interviewing someone and was unsure about them, going back and forth, and he said, 'Bethany, if you're not a hell yes, you're a hell no.' I was taken back at first, but that has shaped my entire interview process since then. If you see something in a candidate that you're questioning and you can't make that go away, they're probably not the right fit for that position. That advice has saved me so many times, especially as someone who wants to see the best in everybody and loves to give opportunities to young people and women trying to make it back into the workforce after taking time off with their kids. It's saved me time, energy, and team dynamics.

Stick through it and prove your worth through your work, not through your words or emotions. I've been fortunate to work under leadership of mostly older males who have been incredibly supportive and have actually stepped in and course-corrected people who were mistreating me and disrespecting me because I'm a young female. But not everybody has that, and I've been in many other environments where it's been a struggle, especially in the technical sector where people look down on you because you're female or think you might not understand what they're talking about. So stick with it and show your worth through your work. Sometimes less is more - I've learned that my silence in meetings can mean so much more than me talking and giving my opinion. Even though I always have something to say and always have an opinion, I've learned that taking a minute to digest and come back to it later, or maybe letting that one thing go, has gone so far and helped build so much more respect over the years. Now when I talk, when I give an opinion, when I throw the hammer down on a decision that needs to be made, people listen. I don't get eyes rolled at me or people not acknowledging me because I'm a woman. Find the space, control your words, and talk when it's important - not just talking to talk. And don't give up. I always knew I wanted to be in a leadership position, and there were a lot of times where I felt like I couldn't do it or wasn't good enough, or that somebody else was better than me because they were older or a man or carried themselves differently. But I kept pushing, and I have yet to have a door shut in my face. The more experience you get, the more you learn, and the more you're willing to take a risk, the better outcome you're going to end up having.

Working for state government is very different than the private sector, and we face different types of obstacles. There's the financial obstacle - money does fix a lot of problems in the business world, and it's a constant challenge of not having enough funds to fix all the problems we find. But the biggest challenge I've faced is dealing with people who don't want change. Coming from the private sector where people just work more and are constantly seeking new opportunities and growth in the technical space, I've found that in state government you have some people wired like that, but then you have others who have been in their position for 30 years and really don't like change. That's been really tough to navigate as someone who was hired to come and change things - they hired me to find problems and fix them. You have a lot of people who want things to stay the same and think everything is fine. That's been the biggest obstacle, constantly trying to create and reinforce different types of change, whether it's a technological system, a policy change, or holding people accountable for their work. What I've noticed is the people hired over the past few years are really happy and love the change and embrace it, regardless of age. But the people who have been around for a very long time get very negative about it and become kind of poisoned apples in different environments. It creates a really tough culture and morale within those different teams or departments to try to navigate, negate, and fix.

Honesty and transparency are incredibly important to me. I'm actually working on my dissertation right now on retention in the technical sector, and I've been interviewing people of all different career levels asking them what's important to them. I can't even tell you how many people have said honesty and transparency, because if you feel like you know what's going on, you're more likely to stay even if things in your organization aren't going the way you want or expect - you don't feel this level of uncertainty. When I'm working with employees who are struggling or having challenges, and we're trying to figure out if they're the best fit for the team long-term, if you're honest with them and just talk through it, you're probably going to get a better response than if you're trying to sugarcoat things or go around things in a roundabout way. Empathy is also a really big value that I have, and it's something I have to really think about because an emotional reaction isn't typically my first response. So I have to be very aware of who I'm talking to and how they're talking, and I really try to learn the people I'm working with or even customers who have been escalated to me. I try to learn how they're communicating so I can communicate back to them properly and empathize properly, because when people feel heard and they feel understood, they respond to you so much better and you can usually get a lot more done.