NEWSWEEK: In Annual Series, Newsweek Speaks to Women in Leadership Roles About How They Achieved Success, Obstacles Overcome and Lessons Learned

NEW YORK (Map) - NEW YORK, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Barbara Walters, co-host and co-executive producer of ABC's "The View," tells Newsweek that in her early years at NBC's "Today" show, she was a writer, but only on so-called women's features. Hugh Downs put her on the air, but his replacement, Frank McGee, didn't want her to participate in his "hard news" interviews. He insisted on doing them alone. "Now there is a difference between whining and standing up for what you feel you must, and that was one of the times when I did. I protested loudly and strongly, and so the big compromise was that

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Walters joined ABC's "20/20" in 1979 and has done hundreds of interviews since. Now if a young woman comes up to her and says she's in journalism because of her, "I think that is my reward. I never had a mentor, and I am both grateful and so proud that I can be that for someone else."

Walters is one of 17 women who talk about pursuing their passions and achieving their success in the fourth installment of Newsweek's "Women & Leadership" series, which appears in the October 13 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 6).

Talk-show host and producer Tyra Banks says that after her successful modeling career, which started when she was in high school, she decided to leave the industry. "I never lost the dream of being in TV. When I hit 32, I said, 'Let me leave this industry before it leaves me' ... I wanted to leave on top."

Now, she's living out her dream of working in television. "If you have entrepreneurial dreams, you have to live it and breathe it. You have to treat the idea like a baby, like your child. You don't sleep when you have a new baby. I didn't sleep. I didn't have weekends. I worked nonstop. You wouldn't let just anybody baby-sit your child. When I hire someone, I have to feel that I connect with them as a person. I'm looking for honest people. I'm looking for loyalty. I'm looking for people who respect people at all levels, from the people who clean the building to the people who own the building. Those are the values that my mother instilled in me."

Rosario Dawson, actor and political activist, says she never had any walls up or had any particular idea of what success should look like. Now, "I think in both parts of my life, acting and my activism, I'm starting to focus more. I really want to be doing meaningful things. I think that comes with being 29. That's a natural progression. I was walking in marches with my mom when I was 10, back when Al Sharpton still wore sweatsuits."

She says it took a long time for her realize "how to commit that celebrity value to something that I really believed in. I don't want to just be the spokesperson for something; I want to be affected by it as well." She got involved in the Lower Eastside Girls Club. "I didn't have a place like that to go to when I was younger. There's such a huge dropout rate, a huge teen-pregnancy rate, and people weren't addressing that. It's about recognizing and developing the community around you; you have the power to do that. I always tell people: use your passion ... If you have something that makes you filled up, that you're already caring about, that you're already talking about, then you'll actually see progress. You're just feeding off that energy."

For Olympian Dara Torres, who's been in five Olympic Games in 24 years, when people tell her how she's inspired them, "that's a much more rewarding feeling than bringing home medals. People think they are too old to do something. Others put off doing something or don't think they could balance being a parent and doing their work, so I guess they like my story. I feel like I'm going out there and doing my thing and loving what I'm doing. I didn't do it to try to show that a 41-year-old could do this. It just ended up that way.

Also in the Women & Leadership package: Anna Sui, designer; Cynthia Nixon, actor and activist; Helene Gayle, CEO, CARE; Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook; Lisa Price, founder, Carol's Daughter Bath and Body Works; Kimberly Peirce, director; Nancy Andrews, dean, Duke Medical School; Jonelle Procope, CEO, Apollo Theater Foundation; Alexandra Patsavas, owner, Chop Shop Music Supervision; Lauren Zalaznick, president, Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, NBC Universal; Lisa Dennison, Executive VP, Sotheby's North America; Carla Christofferson, attorney and co-owner, L.A. Sparks; Julie Hembrock Daum, Practice Leader, Spencer Stuart.