She Doesn’t Call Them Failures. They Are ‘Opportunities for Learning.’

My guest on this month’s podcast and I share a special bond as military brats. My dad was in the Coast Guard, so I grew up in 14 states and three countries. Pennsylvania is where I live now, but when people ask where home is in my heart, I say Boston, because it was the most influential place for me growing up.

My podcast guest, Lavonne Monroe, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition, Performance Enablement and L&D at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, had to move every three years growing up in a U.S. Army family.

The shared experience of making new friends and going to a new school, only to do it over and over again, breeds a certain degree of adaptability, flexibility, and resilience — all foundational skills in business. Change is a given, so adaptability is a must-have skill in a leader’s repertoire. 

When we acknowledge that nothing stays the same, it opens up new opportunities to grow personally and professionally.

To hear how Monroe thrived in an environment of uncertainty to become an HR executive in tech, watch the full podcast, listen on Spotify, or keep reading for the big takeaways.

Becoming a chameleon

One of Monroe’s earliest survival tactics was learning how to blend in with everyone else, which is quite a feat when you’re a black woman in corporate America. But she excelled at doing what it took to become one in the crowd.

“My mentor early on told me that the only way to survive corporate America as a black woman was to blend in,” she said. “You didn’t want to be known.”

That was then, of course. Times have changed, and so has Monroe’s attitude about sacrificing who she is to appease others. “I walk into a room and I own who I am,” she said.

That is quite a statement of confidence when women, in general, and black women in particular, are few and far between in leadership positions at America’s biggest companies. A 2024 McKinsey study found that just seven percent of black women occupy C-suite positions compared to white women (22%). 

Setting others up for success

Despite those odds, Monroe persevered through it all. And part of her winning formula is her selfless attitude. Putting others’ needs before her own actually helped her get to where she is today.

She met her husband in high school when he was a junior and she was a sophomore. They started a family early, and decided at the time that she would put him through college. “Back then, he could graduate and make more money as a man than I could as a woman,” she said. “I was supposed to go back (to college) but I never went back.”

That decision not to return to school worked in her favor, because at the age of 21, she jumped right into management, leading a call center team comprised of people much older than her. Still, the obstacles came. A colleague once tried to fight her at work. She was passed over numerous times for jobs. But the hard times only steeled her resolve.

“In my mind there isn’t a ‘no.’ I just have to figure out how to get there differently.”

“I’ve had some of the worst bosses”

Monroe described herself as a pragmatic, sympathetic, and fair leader of her talent acquisition team. “I can’t be here without them,” she said. Perhaps the intentionality stemmed from the fact that those courtesies were not always extended to her by past bosses.

She recalled the time as a young mom in her 20s when a child was sick and she was forced to choose between her job and taking care of an ill son. “I’ve had some of the worst bosses,” she recalled. “I didn’t have empathetic leaders at that time, and that really drives the way that I lead now.”

That’s a good takeaway lesson for all leaders reading this blog. Show compassion to your direct reports. Empathy has long been recognized as a vital ingredient for building trust. Research shows, however, that many leaders don’t always show a softer, caring side toward their teams, indicating room for improvement.

The fact remains that a good leader would instinctively know that personal lives can be messy, and it often spills over into the workplace. Be there for your people, because that trust, once broken, will be difficult to reinstate.