Laura Glass-Hess is in her second term as a board member of Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference (PSMC). She is a member of the leadership team at Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz. She previously served as a youth sponsor at her church as well.

Do/did you have a woman leader as mentor? If so, how does/did she help you?

I don’t have any specific person that mentors me. However, I am fortunate to be surrounded by examples of women in leadership—women in PSMC churches who teach and provide vision—as well as my supervisor at work.

Are you mentoring a young woman who may be a potential church leader?

Although I have served as a youth sponsor in the past and continue to be involved with the youth, I do not currently serve as a formal mentor to any young women in the church.

What impediments have you faced in becoming a leader?

I am incredibly fortunate to be a part of a community, time and place in which I have never been told that I could not be a leader because of my gender. My mother spent much of her young adult life being told what she could not do because she was a woman. I have not faced that. There is still a real gender disparity in leadership positions in the church as a whole, which can impose a barrier in subtler ways by not providing examples of women leaders.

When you face challenges as leader, what encourages you?

Often I feel inadequate to the task of leadership. The thing that encourages me in those times is the trust that others have given me—the fact that wise and discerning people believed I could do it. That confidence from others is such a gift but also a responsibility.