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One Tough Cookie: Girl Scouts CEO Kathy Cloninger On Selling Women's Leadership

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On the cusp of its 100-year anniversary, the Girl Scouts now counts 10 million members in 144 countries and a growing alumnae network of 50 million women. It’s also big business. The annual cookie sale exceeds $700 million and, for many girls, serves as a first introduction to business basics.

At the head of its largest division, Kathy Cloninger, CEO of the Girls Scouts of the U.S., has spent the last eight years revamping the organization to focus on “girl-centered leadership.” She threw out the old handbooks and irrelevant badges and redesigned them. She merged regional offices, turning 300 into 100. And now, in her new book Tough Cookies: Leadership Lessons from 100 Years of the Girl Scouts, Cloninger demands more attention on female leadership, saying it could be the path to a revived America.

Goudreau: You say in your new book, Tough Cookies, that many underestimate the scope of the cookie sale—a $700 million operation. What don’t people know?

Cloninger: It is the biggest financial literacy and entrepreneurial, business and sales training program for girls in America. Where else can 8- and 9-year-old girls run their own businesses, learn how to set goals, develop customer relations skills and invest money over time? It’s an amazing learning experience.

For many girls, the cookie sale is their first experience in business. What lessons does it teach them?

The first thing that girls ask is: What do I want to accomplish in my cookie sale? They set a big goal and then break it down into daily and weekly tasks. In business, being able to set a goal and then figuring out how to execute on it is a big skill, and 9-year-olds are learning it and doing it in ways that are sometimes better than their adult counterparts.

Girl Scouts will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary. How are you trying to keep it relevant for today’s girls?

For the last eight years we have been transforming our movement. We took a really deep look, and we’ve been completely redesigning the program model based on girl-centered leadership. We threw out the old handbooks, dramatically redesigned them, and overhauled the badges. One reason why we are turning 100 and are still the largest organization for girls in the country is because we have changed over time. Our founder Juliette [Gordon] was a revolutionary in her day. She was putting girls front and center when women didn’t even have the right to vote.

How have the skill sets and badges evolved over time?

The very first badge book included a badge for aviation. That was cutting edge at the time. Today many of the old badges that are not relevant for girls are gone. There are some

like cooking that we call ‘legacy badges.’ Being able to cook well is still a relevant skill, but in the new book we call it ‘dinner party’ for high-school girls. Instead of just cooking, they think through how to put an event together, which serves them well in their adult and professional lives. We also added a lot of math, science, technology and financial literacy badges. They are in sync with the issues that girls care about and what the country needs them to learn.

Attracting girls to STEM fields remains an issue. Do you feel that’s important and will these badges help?

Women are underrepresented in the sciences, and Girl Scouts is taking that very seriously. We have partnerships with NASA, the Society of Women Engineers, and lots more. We try to bring astronaut women in places where girls can meet them, so they can see women scientists achieving. One group of girl scouts in Iowa called the Flying Monkeys learned of a young girl who was an immigrant to the U.S. and didn’t have a hand. They got together as a science group and invented a prosthetic arm, which later received a patent. These girls are serious about helping but also stepping up and being part of this new generation of scientists that we need so badly.

Clearly, you’re making an effort to groom girls for leadership, but women are still lacking at the top, with just over 3% serving as CEOs of the nation’s major corporations. What unique leadership challenges do women face today?

That’s the hot button for us. We’re very concerned that when you look across any industry in America, less than 20% of people at the top are women. In finance, it’s only about 7%. We are leaving out half the talent pool. Women are half of the workforce and mid-management, but they get stalled there.

Part of it is because women themselves don’t see leadership as a real track for them. They don’t have the confidence to say, ‘Yes I can take that job and the next job, and I need to fight for it.’ And the culture is not open to them. We define leadership in this country with a pretty narrow, masculine lens: strong, powerful, top-down, decisive, tough. In our research, girls and women are saying leadership is more collaborative and is striving to make a difference in the greater world while we’re also serving the company.

What do you do? Do you change the culture? The girls?

Do everything. In Girls Scouts we’re focusing on helping girls start out from the beginning believing in themselves and developing strong confidence, life skills, integrity and values. We can do a lot to help girls, but at some point the rest of the world has to step up and help.

In your book, you write about the crisis of self-confidence that occurs when girls are young. Why do they not believe in themselves as strongly as boys?

Little girls, ages 5 to 7, start out thinking they can conquer and do anything they want. And then they begin to get beaten down in later elementary and early middle schools. Part of it is what they see around them--subtle and not-so-subtle cues--from watching who is in the leadership roles to messages they get on the playground. Also girls don’t encourage each other, and get jealous when one steps into leadership and the other doesn’t.

As a female leader, what has contributed to your success and what advice would you give to girls coming up behind you?

Being open to opportunities. Early in my career, I was running a very small council of girl scouts and thought, Am I ready to move to the next big job? I wasn’t. It took some time to find my confidence and someone to tell me, ‘You’re ready.’ I was also able to be mobile, and mobility is both an opportunity and a barrier for some. I was able to move from Colorado to Texas to Tennessee and now here I am in New York. Mostly, what keeps me moving up in my career is doing something that I absolutely love. I am passionate about girls and women. I know we will be more secure, more financially healthy and will solve our problems more effectively as a nation when we have women and men leading together.

There are over 50 million alumnae of the Girl Scouts. Where are they now?

In Congress, 17% of our elected officials are women, and 70% of those women are former girl scouts. That tracks across industries. 100% of female astronauts are former girls scouts. It’s amazing.

Follow me @Jenna_Goudreau.

Readers: How can organizations like the Girls Scouts help better prepare women for leadership?