Laura Reid

I think building the teams leaves the most lasting mark of my career. I maintain strong relationships and create high-performing teams. The proof of that is when I took the early retirement buyout during the Doge downsizing effort, I was retired for about 8 months before being asked to come back and support that same team as a contractor. The team was very excited that I said yes and came back to help them. Now I'm in a different role, working for the team that I used to supervise and develop, and I get to sit in the passenger seat and watch to see if what I built actually continues to work. It's like a proud parent moment - I get to watch the team that I trained step up and see them go beyond their potential. For me personally, it's really the people and the connections that I have made over the life of my 38-year career across different organizations within the Army, the Navy, and Homeland Security. The doors that opened for me weren't about how good I was at this or how much I knew about that - it was the potential that my supervisors saw in me to lead me to that next big step.

It's not about what you think you're qualified for or what your resume says on paper right now. It's not about the skills that you have that you bring to the table - it's really about your potential. The doors that opened for me weren't about how good I was at this or how much I knew about that. It was the potential that my supervisors saw in me to lead me to that next big step. You can't let that lack of awareness hold you back. One of the things that was holding me back from accepting promotions or offers was thinking, well, I don't know how to do that. And the answer is, you don't know how to do that yet. You have the potential to know how to do that and how to learn. When I first became a budget officer, I was a first-time supervisor leading a team of people who were older than me, and I was a little intimidated by that. I didn't know the day-in and day-out tasks - I knew the big picture and how to think strategically, but I didn't know how to cut a purchase request. I was coming in from a position at the top and then having to learn how the bottom-up actually worked and operated. Every day, one of my 8 team members would come to me at the end of the day and say, okay, Laura, I'm here for your lesson, and they'd spend a half hour teaching me from the bottom up. You don't let yourself be intimidated by what you think you don't know. If somebody has placed the trust in you because they see your potential, then jump on that opportunity, because you've proven in other ways that you can learn and you do have that potential to get where you want to go.