Jennifer Nethers, MS, MBA

I think my success has been a lot of self-drive, honestly. I didn't come from a very supportive family, so it was important for me to kind of break free from that, be a support to myself, and then be able to be a support for others. That's kind of spurred a lot of my schooling - I went and got my bachelor's degree, and then I got my master's, and then I got my MBA, and I'm completing my doctorate. Being able to take myself through that journey meant that I could also give back. I've also had some amazing leaders, both men and women. I had one leader who really took me under as my mentor, and she was the same one who told me to be authentic - that I don't have to emulate the men in the field to advance, I can be who I am and still advance as that person. Having somebody kind of in my court, supporting me as me, was huge. From there I kind of learned, oh, I do have these capabilities, oh, I am smart, I can do these things. So it's been a combination of self-motivation and having amazing mentors who believed in me.

To be authentic. I think when I started off, I really tried to kind of emulate the men in my working professional environment, and that was how I felt - that's the way to advance. I have to be a certain way. But I really didn't align with that, it didn't align with who I was, and I felt that I was doing myself a disservice. Somebody gave me the very real advice of just be yourself, be authentic. That's how you're really going to advance and be different from everybody else. We want you, not this version that you think you should be. When I switched to being more of who I was, and what felt right to me, and really worked with my own value system, my career really advanced. I felt a lot better about the work I was doing, and I was really excited to come to work every day. I also love meeting people and I've been a people leader for a very long time, so being authentic really stepped up my leadership. I can't thank that person enough for just nudging me and being like, just be you.

I would say it really is about being yourself. We all have such unique strengths, and we come from such different backgrounds. Even if it's somebody that we've known a long time, you can't possibly know everything about them and how their experiences have shaped them. That personal aspect of things, especially in healthcare, I think is so important, because it does lay that framework of understanding and that authenticity that when you're speaking with patients or people in the community, they feel that. If you're putting on a front, they feel that too. If you can dig in from your own personal experiences and you can make something great of that, then I think you can succeed in healthcare. Definitely not to follow into the men's footsteps - we need to be ourselves and bring our unique perspectives to the field.

The biggest thing that I see is just the systemic historical racism, quite honestly, that is causing a challenge when we're trying to support very specific populations. One of the biggest ones right now that I'm working on is trying to reduce disparities in our Black maternal health population. Especially in the state of New Jersey, the death rates of both mom and child in the Black community are much higher than their white counterparts, and a lot of that does have to do with historical racism within the healthcare setting. It's very difficult because you can roll out programs, but it doesn't address that underlying root issue that's been there for so long, so trying to erode that is very difficult but so important, and the focus has to be there. With all of the changes that have been happening federally as it relates to healthcare, it puts even more of a damper on the work that we're trying to do. That's definitely a challenge. I think it probably will be a challenge for a very long time. We've got a lot of work to do as a country and as a society, and until that gets fixed, I don't think healthcare can be fully fixed. It really does throw up a lot of barriers to really advancing in a way that helps everybody.

I have 3 kids and I'm always teaching them about how to just basically be a good person, how to be an upstander. If you see something that doesn't feel right, doesn't look right, step in and check in with that person - is everything okay? How can I help? Or hey, I saw that, are you okay? So really just being aware of what's going on, being that good support system. We have enough in our own lives - stressors, things going on - that if we can offer a space for somebody, that's really important to me. That's how I lead my team. It's always from a people-first standpoint. If I have somebody come to me and they're telling me I've got X, Y, and Z going on at home, I know they're not mentally here, they're not mentally working, they need to go take care of that thing. So I let them know, hey, I'm gonna take off your plate, your items for today, so that you're not worried. Please go take care of what you need to take care of. I think that goes a really long way for individuals feeling like they can be their authentic selves, which is something else that is very important to me.