People's life experiences shape their views, their values and

Hear, O listener, the words of Neera Tanden, who proclaimed a truth that rises from the deep well of human history: “People’s life experiences shape their views, their values and, ultimately, their decisions. So it’s no surprise that when we study women’s leadership, we know women leaders help women.” These words are both observation and summons, reminding us that the soul is forged in the fire of experience, and that leadership is never born in a vacuum. The trials, burdens, and joys of life become the teacher that molds the heart, and from that heart spring the choices that shape the world.

The ancients themselves knew this truth. Was not Moses formed by the hardship of exile before he led his people to freedom? Did not Queen Esther, by her own peril in the court of Persia, learn compassion for her people and risk her life to save them? Life’s experiences are not ornaments but crucibles, and the leader who has walked through suffering will govern with eyes unclouded to the needs of others. So too with women who rise into power: their battles, their silences, their endurance against barriers form within them a special wisdom—one that sees and lifts those who share in that struggle.

Consider the story of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States. Once a timid and self-doubting young woman, she grew through hardship—losing parents early, enduring betrayal in marriage, and navigating the shadows of politics. Yet those very experiences became the ground of her greatness. She became a fierce advocate for human rights, for children, for the poor, for women. She did not lead with arrogance but with empathy born of suffering, proving the eternal law that leaders shaped by hardship turn their scars into blessings for others. Neera Tanden’s words breathe the same truth: when women lead, their decisions often spring from the soil of lived struggle, and thus they lift women who walk the same path.

This does not mean that men cannot be just, or that women are bound only to one another, but it reminds us that values flow from perspective, and perspective is born of lived reality. A woman who has known exclusion will see exclusion more keenly; a woman who has felt the sting of being silenced will fight more fiercely for voices to be heard. And when such a woman leads, she does not merely lift herself—she builds ladders for others. This is no surprise, but a fulfillment of the law of experience: we act out of what we have endured.

Yet the lesson is not only for women, but for all who would lead. Whatever your station, your trials, your victories, your wounds—these are the seeds from which your decisions will grow. Do not despise them. Do not seek to erase them. Instead, shape them into wisdom. The poor man who rises must remember the poor. The stranger who finds a home must defend the outcast. The woman who breaks through must open the gate for those behind her. Leadership that forgets experience becomes tyranny; leadership that honors it becomes blessing.

Therefore, O listener, let this teaching guide your path: live awake to your own experiences, and when you are given authority, let them shape your values not for selfishness but for service. Seek out leaders who understand the weight of suffering, for they will not govern with indifference. And if you are blessed to rise, remember always to extend your hand to those still climbing, for true leadership is not measured by how high one ascends, but by how many are lifted upward.

Thus, let Neera Tanden’s words be etched into memory: life experiences shape not only the individual but the destiny of communities. Women’s leadership, born from struggle and insight, becomes a light to other women, and by extension, a gift to all humanity. And so the wisdom stands eternal: your wounds may yet become another’s healing, your journey another’s bridge, your leadership another’s freedom.