Swift to WLG: Lead with confidence and empathy

As a former acting governor and business leader, Jane Swift has plenty of career tips to offer women: Use your power to improve people’s lives, lead with confidence, take credit for your wins, and support your female colleagues.

Also: Don’t wear heels when you’re pregnant.

Swift shared her insights during the June 22 meeting of Women Leading Government in Bridgewater. Recalling her experiences balancing the governorship while raising three small children, she said women must use their positions to help younger women succeed.

“We need more women in every level of government, and we need them when they get there to use power differently,” Swift said. “Embrace it, but then use it with empathy.”

Elected in 1990 as the state’s youngest senator at age 25, Swift became lieutenant governor in 1999, and acting governor in 2001, when then-Gov. Paul Cellucci left to serve as U.S. ambassador to Canada. She served nearly two years as acting governor, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to give birth while in that office. Since leaving Beacon Hill, Swift has worked in the business and nonprofit sectors, and founded the Cobble Hill Farm Education & Rescue Center in Williamstown.

Swift, who was pregnant with her first child while running for lieutenant governor and gave birth to twins as acting governor, faced intense scrutiny at a time when women in power, and certainly mothers of young children, were still much rarer in political life. She came under fire for her use of state resources while trying to balance work and family needs, and news coverage featured women questioning her ability to manage professional work, or motherhood, or both.

Referencing that period, Swift said she “made some of my worst mistakes when I was so worried about being perfect.” She tried to power through her workload, she said, even when she should have skipped a ribbon cutting to care for a sick family member.

“It got in my head,” Swift said. “I was so convinced that if I took a day off, called in and said I couldn’t go to an event, that I was going to let every current, future and yet-to-be-determined woman in the world down.”

But what might not have been apparent in those day-to-day struggles has emerged as a different story now — that Swift changed things for other women.

“Twenty years later, 15 years later, I have people who have their own children who say, ‘Do you know how much it meant to me to see a woman doing that job?’” Swift said.

Only 49 women have served as governor nationwide, Swift said, but 12 of them are in office now, including Gov. Maura Healey. And almost 2,500 women currently serve in state legislatures nationally, occupying a third of the seats, the highest percentage in history, she said. Massachusetts is “OK, but not great” at electing and appointing women, ranking 20th in the country in the percentage of women serving as municipal office holders, she said, while noting the number of women currently leading Massachusetts in statewide offices.

Swift urged more experienced women to seek out and mentor younger employees. She advised women to build teams, but not hide behind those teams when they’re afraid of taking credit for their work. She said they also should plan ahead for networking opportunities, identifying up to three goals for what they want to accomplish during an event. She added that women must surround themselves with trusted people who offer support and act as sounding boards.

Swift advised women to video record themselves speaking in order to find and eliminate “verbal tics,” such as “I’m sorry,” or “I believe,” that undermine what should be declarative statements, and to purge their emails of similar language.

Audience members shared their experiences leading in traditionally male-dominated settings. Carin Paulette, the first woman director of veterans’ services in Marshfield, said some people still minimize her military service even when she appears in full dress uniform. She urged women to stop saying “I’m sorry” for simply doing their jobs.

“Like you were saying, own what you do and own your accomplishments,” Paulette told Swift. “We need to be more forward in our conversations, instead of the questioning. We know our jobs. We know what we’re doing.”

The Massachusetts Municipal Management Association established the Women Leading Government Committee in 2018 to educate, mentor, encourage and support women in the local government profession.