Being Real: Interview with Hadassah Lieberman

I recently went one on one with Hadassah Lieberman. Hadassah is the author of the new memoir Hadassah: An American Story.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your story and your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. What is something about you that would surprise people?

Hadassah: The first thing that comes to mind is that I had as much trouble balancing work and family as anyone else.

I went through divorce and remarriage. After I married Joe Lieberman, our youngest daughter was born in March, and then we were off to the Senate that January. So moving to Washington with a baby, and Joe’s new political role, and blending our family had to happen simultaneously.

I asked a neighbor who happened to be a psychiatrist how long it takes to blend a family. He said five years. I thought he was crazy, but in the end he was right. It took time, but we did it. One key to that, I think, is that we don’t use the word “step.” There are just daughters and sons. They’re all the children we share.

Adjusting to life in Washington was tricky. The Senate schedule was something I’d never experienced and it was quite difficult with kids, both our older ones or our younger ones. I had all the responsibilities of work and was also pulling food together for the family and hosting dinners. Even just scheduling dinner parties was hard because I never knew what would happen on any given night. My husband’s availability, and that of all of the other senators, was determined by sudden meetings and sudden votes. Everything was last minute. On more than one occasion, all the spouses I’d invited were there but the senators were off voting.

When you divorce and remarry and blend a family with another family, flexibility and patience are required. I also had to have patience to adjust to the Senate schedule. We’d race back to Connecticut on Fridays so we could observe the Sabbath there, but there was more than one time when Joe would call me at the last minute to say the votes were still going on and he wasn’t sure he could get out in time.

Adam: How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Hadassah: When Joe became a senator, we started footing the costs of two homes—one in D.C., one in Connecticut. To afford that, I had to work.

At Boston University, I majored in political science and international relations—and drama. I was fascinated by theater, and didn’t know at the time that the theater skills would serve me well. I went on to work at Lehman Brothers and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in New York City. Then, when Joe was running for attorney general, I worked at St. Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven. They asked me to look into nursing. Back then it didn’t have the status that it has now. Nurses desperately needed a pay raise. They had an over-abundance of responsibilities. I did policy things for them, from an office in a nunnery located next to the hospital. It taught me a lot about what people need from their jobs in order to be able to live.

After Joe won his Senate campaign and we took off to Washington, D.C., I worked in education, focusing on the importance of math and science education, because corporations wanted to hire students who were good at computers. It was clear that’s where the jobs would be. When Joe’s political career became national, I went around the country campaigning in my own vehicle and raising money.

Then I started working at the Susan G. Komen Foundation as an ambassador. We pulled together different countries to talk about international efforts on behalf on women’s health. It would take me to Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, where I oversaw the Jerusalem race for the cure. It was all an amazing experience.

I was always working simultaneous to the demands and pressures of raising a family. That’s something businesses need to understand better—that childcare has to be handled well and affordably, because women can work more effectively if they know their children are ok. We’re seeing this need even more today as people go back to working outside the home after the pandemic.

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book?

Hadassah: That you can emerge out of the darkness of antisemitism, out of all the darkness of what happened to people of my Jewish faith, and still allow the sparks of light to enter as you move forward. That, when it comes to immigration, we must remember who we are and what we are—a welcoming country, a country built on immigrants just like my Czechoslovakian parents, both of whom were Holocaust survivors. We have to take care with the rules and regulations—the requirements for entering these shores. But at the same time we have to remember that what we as a country have been able to do so far is in large part because of immigrants.

Adam: What are the best lessons you learned from your years on the campaign trail and involvement in national politics? And what are your sharpest memories and best lessons learned from the 2000 presidential campaign in particular?

Hadassah: I mostly just remember the feeling of bonding with people all across the country. It was phenomenal. I was deeply touched as I went from state to state with my husband or by myself. What I learned is that people don’t have to be your skin color or speak your language from birth. They can still really enjoy meeting you, and you can still really enjoy meeting them. There were times I had no idea whether the people I was meeting were Democrat or Republican or Independent. I just knew they were coming up to me to say they admired my husband because he is a religious man. Or they came up and said, “You’re honest people, we like you, we trust you.”

One of the things that moved me most was when immigrants came up to me saying they liked that I was an immigrant, too—that they feel it meant I could understand them better. They had never seen anyone with my background there. Women would pull up their sleeves to show me their Auschwitz tattoo.

We are traditional Jews, so Friday night we stayed in the hotel and had our dinner and went to services the next morning. We’d walk to synagogue. Sometimes people would come out onto the street to meet us as we were walking. I was tremendously honored by that.

But I suppose the best lesson I learned from the campaign, even though it was the hardest one, is that you can work very hard and you can get more votes, but still be behind in the electoral college. I remember we had to wait for the Supreme Court to check it out. I remember it was a Friday and we didn’t know what would happen, and Al Gore called and said “We’ll see.” He and Joe hung up and then the phone rang again, and Al said “Why don’t you and Hadassah come over here for Shabbat dinner.” So I put my candles and food in a bag and we went and had Friday night dinner with the Gores, and then we walked home with the secret service people. From the experience of losing that race, I learned how important leaders are in how they act and what they say. They have to understand that they show lessons to people all over the world.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Hadassah: As a leader, you have to make people proud of you. That’s rule number one. But I also think leaders have to be open to feedback. They have to listen to people—they have to get to know the people whose lives their decisions or legislation will affect.

And of course leaders need to respect others’ views. People with whom you disagree might still be able to give you advice you need to listen to. Today, opposing sides don’t even sit down at the table and talk with each other. We’re missing out on critical segments of experience. It’s true in politics and in business. Business leaders must foster an environment where people feel like they can communicate their opposing views. There may be a granule of something in that view that others should take to heart. You have to bring that process in, whether it’s in your business or your community or your government. We have to listen to each other. That’s the way we move forward.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Hadassah: To entrepreneurs, I say we’ve learned so many lessons from the pandemic. There were people who made big money and people who went bankrupt. There are businesses that have grown and businesses that have shut down. We’re all changing. For some it has been a new adventure, for others an awful new chapter. To the latter I say keep trying, keep working.

Civic leaders must understand that sometimes they have views that may seem a thousand percent correct to them but ring hollow with a segment of the population. The civic leaders should ask “What can we do to make what I’m proposing ok for you, or feasible for you?”

Executives have to look at things from above at the same time they stay close to their employees. You may find people who shouldn’t be employed by you, or experiences you don’t want continuing in the same fashion. But you may also find that you employ people who can represent you, maybe even more effectively than you can represent yourself. Keep an eye out for members of your team who may have ways of communicating that you do not.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Hadassah: I’ve had a lot of great advice from my family, my husband, and my friends over the years. But the advice that has meant the most to me has been to be myself—to speak as myself about the things I care about most. I find that people are most responsive to me when I’m honest with them about what I believe and what I feel is important. I’ve found that that’s my greatest strength: just being real.

Adam: What is one thing everyone should do to pay it forward?

Hadassah: We live in a very different world than when I started out. Back then, very few women were working outside the home. I was unusual in that way. Then, after a few months of maternity leave, I went back to work. That was unusual, too. In order for women to grow in the business world they need to have an employer who understands what it takes for some of us to manage our lives at the same time we manage our careers. Women can excel as much as men in every single field—I’m convinced of that. But to make a mark in a corporation you have to be willing, able, and industrious. You have to be open to learning from every and anyone, and you have to be brave enough to move forward. You won’t even know what you need to learn until you get there, and that’s normal—so embrace it. And please be patient with your colleagues as they learn, too. It’ll be interesting to see if the pandemic has made us more sensitive to each other in the workplace. I hope so.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Hadassah: My chief concern at this point and time is that we maintain a strong democracy and not be fooled. We need it for ourselves and we need it for the world. We have to elect people who will work together.

Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

Follow Adam on Instagram and Twitter at @adammendler and listen and subscribe to Thirty Minute Mentors on your favorite podcasting app.

Adam MendlerJune 9, 2021