Elisabeth Kidane

I attribute my success to my mentors along the way. I've had many, and they've always encouraged me and challenged me. I think the people around me, you know, none of us can do this alone, especially in my industry. If you try to go it alone, you will fail, and you shouldn't have to try to go it alone. I think collaboration is the biggest part, so you have to trust the people that you're working with, you have to build those relationships. You have to be open to criticism, be open to advice, and take it all in, because you're always learning. The learning doesn't stop. I always tell people, don't think that you've figured it out. Once you figure it out, something changes. So, you know, appreciate that journey of things changing. The only constant in life is change, as we say. Just be open and enjoy the journey of learning.

The best career advice I've ever received is that you know, don't think that everybody has it figured out. Everybody's kind of figuring it out as they go. I think that helped me just kind of calm down, take a step back, and once I understood that you don't have to know it all, mistakes are part of the journey, and not being afraid to make mistakes. I think that has influenced a lot of how I approach things. It's, you know, learn from it. Just make mistakes, but make sure you learn from it and adapt, and never make that again, and just keep going, because everybody's figuring it out as we go, and together, there's nothing that we can't achieve. That has kind of been my career advice I got some time ago, and that's what I tell people too. Just do it, you know, go. Once you start putting your foot in it and start doing it, there's really nothing you can't figure out. That first step is always the hardest, but once you start continuing, you'll always persevere. And if you fail, you learn, and you do it again.

My advice is don't be afraid. I think my theme is, if anybody else can do it, you can do it too. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't. The hardest thing to do is the start. Once you get in, there's always women out there that are supporting one another. You just have to find them, you have to talk, you have to open up, and you have to put yourself out there. If you don't, then you get left behind. And I think that communication, that transparency, don't be afraid to show who you are and what you can bring to the table, because that's where you show your value. I think a lot of women in this industry are very timid, so I tell them to break that and say, you know, just be yourself. If men can do it, we can do it. It's as simple as that.

I think the challenges are always, you know, being a woman, you tend to get overlooked. Not that I have personally been, but it is a very male-dominated industry, so opportunities tend to go to the men. But that itself is, I think, also an opportunity, because that motivates you to do better, to show that you can be better than the best. And I think that drives me to work smarter, not necessarily harder, but learn faster, so I can show that I can do this better than anybody else, but also in a smarter way, in a shorter time period. There's a soft touch, I think, that women bring into the office. We can multitask, we can do multiple things at once. But also, a lot of people say women are emotional, but I find that that's the opposite. I think women are very intentional and approach things very carefully. So I find things move along better when I'm working with women, there's less conflict than when I'm working with men. It's not so ego-driven. We bring that extra touch. So efficiency, multitasking, pushing things along, negotiations, I think those are the skills that women can use in this industry to really get ahead.

In my work, honesty and integrity are the two most important values. You have to be honest about everything that you're doing. Integrity is so important because everything that we do, especially in my industry, has implications to other people. The construction work that we touch, being really approaching everything with integrity, there's so much at stake because you have the safety of people in your hands. And honesty, especially as a project manager, I want to know if you're not going to make this deadline, tell me. Maybe we'll work through it, but don't hide it from me, because that's where we fail. So it's like that trust, I need that trust and honesty. That's the way we get that trust. That's a non-negotiable for me. When I talk to my team, there's nothing you can tell me that is worse than you not telling me at all. At home, I guess it's loyalty to family. Making sure family's taken care of, family's the most important thing.