A leadership lesson I learned in the fight for my son's life

It’s 1995. My son is less than a year old, and he has already been hospitalized countless times for pneumonia.

Now, he has a Clostridium bacteria infection, which is life-threatening for an infant. No medicine is helping him, and the hospital staff is preparing me for a potential loss of life.

To distract myself from this painful possibility, I found myself flipping through a magazine, when a tiny column caught my attention. It was a story about combatting Clostridium in cows by using a fecal transplant and suggested that, perhaps one day, this could be a promising treatment for humans.

I called Benjamin’s pediatrician. “There is research on a solution! They take poop from a healthy cow, mix it with salt water, and flush it up the you-know-where! Let’s do this on Benjamin!”

The pediatrician was shocked. “Mrs. Hausken, we are not going to do that under any circumstances. I understand that this is a difficult situation, but this is a crazy, reckless idea, and it cannot be done.”

Immediately, there were two voices in my head. One was smaller. It was my intuition, and it needed no further evidence or convincing. The other was doubt. It tempted me to keep quiet: They’re doctors, Rita. They would have known if this were possible. You will look like a nutcase. Who are you to know what’s best?

Who are you NOT to know?

Does this battle between two voices sound familiar?

I hear about it all the time from the fierce, visionary leaders that I coach. Brilliant women who, time and time again, shut down their most powerful creative forces: intuition and instinct

The most dangerous gatekeeper isn’t any person outside of us. It’s that voice in our head that tells us that our ideas are irrelevant and other people know more than we do.

What could be possible if you spoke up?

While Benjamin’s pediatrician was hesitant at first, he ultimately listened to me. Why? Because I spoke up.

“Doctor, please. I just ask that you do one thing before you make your decision. Contact this professor, tell him what’s happening with Benjamin, and ask him what he thinks about testing this treatment on my son. If for no other reason than to comfort me so I can know we exhausted all options, please consider it.”

I could understand his perspective. In a field where getting it right is truly life or death, he had fear of looking like an idiot. But, in the end, he made the call and, with the help of the professor, decided there was nothing to lose and everything to gain.

So we did the procedure and, in a matter of hours, Benjamin was cured. Twenty years later, this procedure is recognized as an effective treatment for this contagious bacterium.

Why does this matter for your leadership?

In our missions to transform our lives and the world, there will always be gatekeepers that we need to win over, convince, or persuade, whether it’s our boss, colleague, partner, or our own perception of ourselves in the world.

What holds us back from real, meaningful change is our resistance to dealing with these gatekeepers.

To notice that, acknowledge it, and do something about it takes immense courage. It takes a deep dive into your gut feeling, getting clear on your core values, and living with clear intentions.

To challenge limiting world views through fierce conversations and innovative ideas can be challenging. However, it can save your and others’ lives.

Personal responsibility

Check in with yourself. Where are you stuck because you’re holding yourself back? “How am I creating this situation?” without judgment or blame, only fierce curiosity, is the most effective and efficient path to reclaiming agency.

I believe the primal power we access when we fight for our children and those we love is the same intuitive clarity that we need to bring to our leadership everywhere else in the world, especially to our most urgent global problems.

That primal power brings out a fierceness and an innovativeness that are often buried behind limiting beliefs like, “I’m not good enough.”

My work is to help you dare to lean in and speak up because the world truly depends on it.

Keeping your thoughts and ideas to yourself does not serve our future — or your personal success.

No one person on this planet has all of the right answers. But collectively, we are more likely to find them.