Grace Murray Hopper is one of the most important people in the history of computers. During her lifetime she had tremendous academic achievements, a distinguished Naval career and was seen as a remarkable female leader in the field of software development .
I chose to write about Grace Hopper for two reasons: First, as a woman she made an enormous contribution to the world of computing and second, because she worked a long and productive life in the emerging world of computers until her death at 85.
Grace Brewster Murray was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City. In 1928 she graduated from Vassar College with a BA in mathematics and physics and joined the Vassar faculty. She then went on to Yale University receiving an MA in 1930 and a PhD in 1934. She was one of four women in a doctoral program of ten students, and her doctorate in mathematics was a rare accomplishment in its day. In 1930 Grace Murray married Vincent Foster Hopper.
After the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Grace decided to join the Navy. She went on to have a distinguished career in the Navy and in 1985 was the first woman to achieve the rank of rear admiral. She was credited with bringing the Navy into the computer age.
A warship, The USS Hopper, was launched in 1996 and was the Navy’s second warship to be named in honor of a woman. During her career, she was known as the “Grand Lady of Software,” “Amazing Grace” and “Grandma Cobol” after co-inventing COBOL (common business-oriented language). COBOL made it possible for computers to respond to words instead of just numbers enabling computers to “talk to each other.” At age 79 she was hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, a position she retained until her death at age 85.
What leadership characteristics did Grace Hopper exhibit that still inspire women today. Here are six:
On leadership
As she famously said: “You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership.”
Successful managers, directors, VP’s and those in the C-Suite have the learned the difference between being a manager and of being a leader. Leadership and management must go hand in hand. A successful business person needs to be both a strong leader and manager to get their team on board to follow them towards their vision of success. Leadership is about getting people to understand and believe in your vision and to work with you to achieve your goals. Managing is more about administering and making sure the day-to-day activities occur as they should.
Competence
Grace was known to be resourceful, inquisitive and extremely competent. From one of her famous quotes, her competence was evident: “In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one ox couldn’t budge a log, they didn’t try to grow a larger ox. We shouldn’t be trying for bigger computers, but for more systems of computers.” She was already thinking about Cloud computing.
Be an expert in your field and continue to learn is important in any field of work. Competence indicates sufficiency of knowledge and skills that enables you to act in a wide variety of situations. To be sufficiently competent is to know enough to make good decisions, set intelligent priorities, and offer useful guidance.
Innovation
Grace believed in not being tied to old ways of doing things: “The most damaging phrase in the English language is: ‘We’ve always done it this way.’ I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise. I always promise during my talks that if anyone in the audience says during the next 12 months, ‘But we’ve always done it that way,’ I will immediately materialize beside him and haunt him for the next 24 hours and see if I could get him to take a second look.”
Her message to all was to innovate and not be tied to the old or customary ways of doing things. In today’s organizations, factors such as globalization and outsourcing, increase the push to improve efficiency and effectiveness of organizations. Organizations need more than good products to survive; they require innovative processes and management that can drive down costs and improve productivity. This can only be done through innovative leadership.
Courage
“Dare and Do”, Grace Hopper was frequently quoted using this phrase when giving advice. The phrase captures the spirit of Grace Hopper in her quest for pushing the limits of conventional thinking and looking beyond the norm for innovative solutions and approaches to problem solving.
Vision
“I’ve always been more interested in the future than in the past….Our young people are the future. We must provide for them. We must give them the positive leadership they’re looking for…The most important thing I’ve accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, ‘Do you think we can do this?’ I say, ‘Try it.’ And I back ’em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir ’em up at intervals so they don’t forget to take chances.”
As a leader, an important role is to develop future leaders. Keep an eye on what’s going on in the company beyond your immediate job responsibilities, identify potential high fliers and work with them to develop career planning goals and skills.
Diversity and Inclusion
“I seem to do a lot of retiring,” said Admiral Hopper. She was first told she was “too old” for something forty years ago, when she retired from the Navy for the first time in 1966. In 1967 she was recalled to active duty with the Navy, and when she retired again from the Navy in August 1986, she was the nation’s oldest active duty officer. She then went on to consult for Digital Electronic Company at 79.
She had skills that were valuable for working in a male dominated military that enabled her to overcome barriers of gender and then her age. These were her strength of character, energy, and competence that assured her continued relevance and respect. Not only was she a woman working in a male dominated field, at the end of her career she was at an age most people had long ago retired. Grace proved that one can stay active and respected well into our later years.
During this Women’s History Month, let’s reflect on the skill, determination and tenacity of women like “Amazing Grace” Hopper. Admiral Frank B. Kelso at Grace’s funeral said: “She is a visionary in every sense of the word…We will be forever grateful for the depth of her vision, her commitment to excellence and her boundless energy.”
We are grateful for the character, courage and commitment to improving the world through science, technology, engineering and mathematics that she made possible for future generations of women.
What are your leadership strengths? What do you want your leadership legacy to be? Let The Executive Presence Group work with you to define your strengths for future leadership.
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