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"Sen. Barbara Mikulski, right, with Fortune&amp;#8217;s Nina Easton\nFORTUNE &amp;#8212; If 76-year old Barbara Mikulski could time travel and chat with her 20-year old self, her advice would be simple: It doesn\u2019t matter that you\u2019re not 5\u20194\u201D. These sorts of quips\u2014Mikulski\u2019s stature falls just short of five-feet\u2014are key ingredients to the Maryland Senator\u2019s tell-it-like-it-is reputation. They popped up throughout her conversation Wednesday evening with Fortune senior editor Nina Easton, garnering laughs and helping the politician charm her way into the hearts of the 27 emerging global leaders listening to her every word.\nThis year\u2019s Most Powerful Women dinner in the State Department\u2019s Benjamin Franklin Room gathered a wide range of high-powered guests, from U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin and Deb Fischer, to Ernst &amp;amp; Young\u2019s Beth Brooke, to CEOs like Guardian Life\u2019s Deanna Mulligan, and Solera Capital\u2019s Molly Ashby. The event celebrated the launch of the Eighth Annual Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women&amp;#8217;s Mentoring Partnership, a public-private program that pairs rock-star global businesswomen with mentors at U.S. companies for five weeks; the 2013 class of mentees hail from 17 different countries and are working with women at companies like IBM \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t, Goldman Sachs \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t, SPANX, and Pepperidge Farm \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t. As the longest-serving female in U.S. Congress and the current chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mikulski welcomed the mentees to America by sharing her own personal leadership story and her take on the importance of mentorship.\nGrowing up, Mikulski never expected to land on Capitol Hill. Raised in the Highlandtown neighborhood of East Baltimore, Md., she does not have the Ivy League resume so many of her Congressional colleagues boast. Mikulski attended Mount Saint Agnes College, then received her masters in social work from University of Maryland\u2014and fell into politics after urban planner Robert Moses attempted to build a freeway through two Baltimore neighborhoods. Her friends were intimated by the corporate bigwigs, and weren\u2019t sure how to formulate a successful argument against the project. With her social education as an obvious bonus, Mikulski stepped up and crafted a plan, which began with thinking of a cool, militant-esque name. \u201CWe had to create the illusion of power,\u201D she laughed. The crew then entered a local bar, only to leave calling themselves SCAR: Southeast Council Against the Road. The freeway was never built, but the foundation for Mikulski\u2019s political career was.\nMikulski credits her initial DC success with timing, and a little bit of history. She entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1977 as a Democrat from Maryland\u2019s 3rd district, right on the heels of Congresswomen Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Jane Harman and Bella Abzug. They were the first wave of female Reps riding the second wave of the feminist movement. The women had to be twice as good as the Congressmen, and work twice as hard to get jobs done, Mikulski recalled. There was also a celebrity-like interest in their personalities. \u201CAre you Bella without the hat?\u201D Mikulski would get asked early on in her career. \u201CI don\u2019t need the hat,\u201D she replied, remaining true to herself to forge her own identity.\nThough those women carved a path that Mikulski gladly followed, it was her relationship with then-Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, that opened her eyes to the beauty of bipartisan friendship. When Hutchison entered the Senate in 1993, Mikulski had been there for several years\u2014and their fiscal views could not have been more different. \u201CPeople thought we\u2019d never be friends,\u201D said Mikulski. But Hutchison approached her regarding an IRA policy for stay-at-home moms, and the two concocted legislation that created tax opportunities for homemakers. Hutchison then suggested they have monthly dinners, which turned into lifetime friendship. (Mikulski once traveled to Houston to attend an event for Hutchison\u2019s brother, who has multiple myeloma. Hutchison suggested they enter the Astrodome on horses. Mikulski was appalled at first\u2014Me, on a horse?\u2014but rode side-by-side with her Republican friend. For the rest of the day, her nickname was Buckboard Barb.)\nThe relationship with Hutchison inspired Mikulski\u2019s lifelong philosophy of creating meaningful relationships with her colleagues, which she says creates better results. Though she doesn\u2019t see eye-to-eye with every one of the 19 other women Senators, there\u2019s a general respect amongst the group that Mikulski\u2019s experience seems to have instilled. \u201CWe talk about macro issues and macaroni and cheese issues,\u201D Mikulski said, mentioning that they often view economic conversations by thinking about how certain policies help or hurt American families. \u201CWe don\u2019t judge each other,\u201D she says about the women. \u201CIf it\u2019s not today on this issue, then tomorrow.\u201D\nTwo of Mikulski\u2019s friends, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, also shared their breakthrough leadership tales with the crowd at the Fortune dinner. Ayotte discussed a pivotal moment just after she graduated from law school, when she asked to be put on a difficult homicide case. \u201CMy client had more trial experience than me,\u201D she laughed. Her risk paid off\u2014and enabled her to pursue a career in murder prosecution. Shaheen, who is the only U.S. woman to be elected both a Governor and a Senator, told the story of a post-win cartoon that depicted her with a pickaxe and shattered glass all around. Speaking to the women in the room, she said that the glass had obviously shattered for them. But it\u2019s important to remember, she added, \u201CIt\u2019s not shattered for all women.\u201D\nIt\u2019s no secret the MPW community hopes to see more women in senior leadership roles. Mikulski\u2019s favorite quote, told to her by the nuns who ran her high school, rang loud in the audience&amp;#8217;s ears. \u201CIt\u2019s better to light one candle than curse the darkness.\u201D Each mentor is sharing her flame with a global mentee. And each mentee plans to take that flame and pay it forward in her home country. One can only hope that soon enough, there will be little darkness to curse."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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