Marcy’s story: Fortune favors the bold

Abstract

As the shortest kid in my class throughout elementary school, my teachers would always select me first when the class lined up to go anywhere and always positioned me in front in any class picture. I think perhaps I got used to the view from the front! I was quiet, some would say shy, and an astute observer of things around me. I remember on more than one occasion witnessing some injustice or inequity being visited on a classmate and speaking up on that person’s behalf. I remember feeling deep unfairness in the way my best friend in junior high school was treated because she was tracked into a different ability group than mine. These experiences had a profound effect on my nascent conceptions of leadership. When you are small and shy, then to be out front you had to be bold.