14 Powerful Women Reveal Their Superpower at Work—From Sleep to Strength

Emma HinchliffeBy Emma HinchliffeMost Powerful Women Editor
Emma HinchliffeMost Powerful Women Editor

Emma Hinchliffe is Fortune’s Most Powerful Women editor, overseeing editorial for the longstanding franchise. As a senior writer at Fortune, Emma has covered women in business and gender-lens news across business, politics, and culture. She is the lead author of the Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter (formerly the Broadsheet), Fortune’s daily missive for and about the women leading the business world.

What counts as a superpower for powerful women in business? Mind reading? Invisibility? Or maybe just something as basic—yet elusive—as the ability to clock eight hours of sleep.

This International Women’s Day, Fortune asked more than a dozen executives what they consider to be their superpower (or the superpower they wish they had) at work.

The eclectic answers cover the gamut: the skill of falling asleep at a moment’s notice would be a dream superpower, says Zola founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma. Seeing into the future—and thereby avoiding work-related mistakes—would be the ability of choice for OKCupid chief marketing officer Melissa Hobley.

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But some business leaders are satisfied with the superpowers they already have.

“Being willing to speak up,” is what Waymo chief external officer Tekedra Mawakana calls her superpower. “It sounds easy, and it’s actually really challenging.”

“My superpower would be strength,” adds Gregg Renfrew, Beautycounter’s founder and CEO. “Women are so often told not to be strong that they cower away from strength, but strength, if used properly, can be an incredibly positive thing.”

Watch the video to hear all 14 women share their superpower, and check out the rest of Fortune‘s International Women’s Day Superwomen series here.

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