In 2019, Nicole Lynn sat in the NFL draft green room beside Quinnen Williams, the player who would become the third overall pick. Her mind went straight to everything that could go wrong.
Her client had already made his judgment. He chose her. Lynn had done the work. Still, no Black woman agent had ever sat in that room representing a top-three pick.
Lynn did not lack confidence. She lacked precedent.
Four years later, as president of football at Klutch Sports Group, Lynn negotiated Jalen Hurts’ record-setting $255 million deal. When she joined me for a recent Women Leading Ed fireside conversation, she named what carried her there: “Excellence is your greatest currency.”
I have spent years studying who gets chosen to lead the country’s largest school systems and coaching women through the decisions that shape those careers. Lynn’s words landed because women are routinely overcoached on confidence and under-supported on access.
Our latest analysis at ILO Group found that women held 170 of the superintendent jobs in the nation’s 500 largest school districts–just 34%– as of July 1, 2026.
Our 2026 data also show that 35% of women currently leading Top 500 districts initially served as or are currently serving as interim superintendent, compared with 25% of men. I have watched too many women perform the top job and still face another debate about whether they are ready to hold it permanently.
The lesson is not that women need one more assignment. It is that great work does not always speak for itself. I left my conversation with Lynn with three lessons for making sure no one misses what your work proves.
1. Make excellence your currency
There is no substitute for mastery. Preparation matters. Results are the ticket into the room. But the ticket does not control what happens once you arrive.
Know where your work creates value. Which decisions improved the organization? Which risks did you absorb? Which outcomes changed because of your judgment?
A title records where you sat. It does not show what changed because you were there.
When describing their leadership, too many leaders point to the size of a budget, team or portfolio and stop there. A stronger account answers three questions: What was broken? What did I decide? What moved?
Name the revenue generated, cost avoided, risk reduced, capacity built or result improved. Credit the team fully, but do not erase the judgment and leadership that made the result possible.
A résumé is chronology. A leadership narrative is an argument for readiness.
The strongest executives can explain the through-line of their careers: the problems they are built to solve, the conditions in which they perform best and the impact they create repeatedly.
Women are already bringing the receipts. The answer cannot be another demand that they prove themselves. Selection systems need to recognize the evidence they already have and apply the same standard to everyone.
2. Mentors advise. Sponsors act.
“Mentors are your teachers. Sponsors have skin in the game and help change the trajectory of your career,” Lynn told me.
A mentor helps you think. A sponsor acts when you are not in the room.
The 2025 Women in the Workplace study found that employees with sponsors had been promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without them over the prior two years, 65% compared with 35%. Women at every level were less likely than men to report having a sponsor.
Ask a direct question: Who says my name in rooms I cannot enter? Then turn it around: Whose name am I carrying into rooms they cannot enter?
Sponsorship is not a perk to collect. It is power to use.
We should stop telling women to find a sponsor as though a lack of advocacy is another deficiency they need to fix. Sponsorship is an obligation of people who already hold power.
3. Learn to lose in public
“If you want to win in public, you’ve got to be okay losing in public,” Lynn said.
A lost search, failed deal or rejected proposal can feel like a public ruling on capacity. It is not. The decision may contain useful feedback. It may reflect politics. Another candidate may simply have prevailed. Extract the signal. Do not accept a verdict that one loss has erased years of evidence.
Some losses reveal a gap. Others reveal politics or bias. Women should not be asked to convert every unfair outcome into a personal growth lesson.
Resilience does not excuse a biased decision. Boards and executives should give candidates specific feedback, examine who repeatedly reaches the final round without getting the role and stop treating potential as sufficient for some while requiring another audition from others.
Quinnen Williams did not need the industry to recognize Lynn before he chose her. He had seen the work. The rest of football caught up.
A disciplined narrative gives shape to a career. Sponsors carry it into rooms you cannot enter. Resilience keeps one public loss from becoming the final judgment.
Women should not have to produce a record beyond dispute before institutions trust them with authority.
Until that standard changes, leaders must claim the full measure of what they have accomplished. And those with power must stop looking past what is already clear.
Great work creates the evidence. Becoming undeniable means no one gets to erase your role in it.
