Are You Playing Someone Else’s Game?
Sometimes I think we can make things much more complicated than they really are. We analyze and dissect and re-analyze our behavior and the implications of our behavior until we forget our original intention.
I could be wrong here, but I think we, as women, especially professional women, expend a great deal of energy second guessing ourselves. Do you find that’s true for you? Why can’t we just be our authentic selves and act accordingly? Why don’t we believe that if we act authentically it’s enough to be successful?
I recently read a great article by Margaret Heffernan about “What’s the True Test of a Tough Leader?” Margaret tells the story from her own experience of trying to be tough and prove to everyone that she had what it took to lead a company. The article describes a dinner she had with a union boss where she ate the duck’s tongues, chicken’s feet and gizzards he had ordered, to prove to him that she could be tough on negotiating new contracts. Of course, she later realized how foolish she had been. Being tough in this case could have meant being true to herself and signaling the waiter to order something else. Which behavior would have been easier for her to “swallow”? :>)
Margaret’s article speaks to the issue of women trying to play someone else’s game; trying to prove themselves as tough leaders. I think we all fall into traps occasionally when we play someone else’s game in business because we think that we “should” act a certain way to be respected or noticed or promoted. I have read countless books and articles on female leadership, for instance, that speak about what it takes to make it in business, that call for women to learn behavior that is not in alignment with their authentic selves. Will we ever really be successful this way?
The more reading we do; the more advice we receive; the more confused we become and the more we begin to second guess ourselves. First and foremost, we need to believe in ourselves and have the confidence to trust our instincts. Without that foundation of trust, we can be influenced and pulled in so many directions that we lose the focus of where we’re going. Armed with a strong belief in self and a strong sense of our identity, we can then evaluate the advice that bombards us every day and decide whether it works for us. Isn’t this better than turning ourselves inside out to try to change in a way that will never really work for us in the long term?
So how do women in business succeed? How do we become successful in a male dominated culture and still be our authentic selves? First of all, we need to recognize what value we bring to an organization or situation and be confident that our talent and experience benefits the company in a variety of ways. Then we need to think strategically about how to best communicate our value and to whom. One of the major issues I see with my coaching clients is the inability to see what value they bring to the table, either in their job or with their own business. How can you “sell” yourself to others when you don’t understand this?
Connect with who you are and what value you bring and from that position of strength and confidence, evaluate the advice you receive. Don’t play someone else’s game. We can be “tough” by making a connection to our own power and we don’t need to eat duck’s tongues to prove it!
Women Leaders Are In Style
A recent report, Tearing Up the Rule Book: A New Generation of Leaders for 2010, from Aspire and Customer Interpreter measures Leadership Intelligence. This measurement assesses what is important today for leadership success. The results of the research are impressive. What has been traditionally classified as more “feminine” traits emerged as the preferable leadership style to take us into the future.
The study, which surveyed 300 global business leaders from 30 countries, cited that,
transformational behaviors such as thinking long term, teamwork, empowerment and effective community, are now highly valued.
This “softer” side of leadership has often been downplayed in the past and even considered detrimental to a woman’s career, and women have struggled with how to adopt the more “male” leadership style of “command and control” in order to be successful in business.
The report states:
Based on the research, the best leaders tend to be female and they tend to improve with age and business or parenting experience.
Isn’t this a breath of fresh air? Women have worked for years to advance their careers in male dominated industries and have met with resistance time and again. We have been told that in order to succeed, we had to be more aggressive and “male” in our approach to management and office politics, and this behavior never felt quite right.
According to the report, a successful leader must:
- have excellent communication skills
- be flexible
- create a vision for their team even if it doesn’t exist at the corporate level
- empower their teams
- operate at the highest integrity
- prioritize their family and personal life
In my recent radio interview with Dede Henley, we also discussed the New Brand of Women Leaders, as those women who are embracing their femininity and using it as part of their leadership strategy.
The shift to embrace more feminine styles of leadership is definitely happening now. Perhaps this shift is due to recent financial and political events. However, the message is clear that it is time for us to connect with, and not deny, our innate qualities of leadership, self confidence and power to not only advance our own careers, but those of our female peers.
Advancing Women’s Leadership
For those of you who follow my radio show, Head Over Heels: Women’s Business Radio (formerly Women Mean Business), you know that I am passionate about women advancing their careers and assuming more leadership positions. The weekly show, which is broadcast every Tuesday, 2-3pm EST on VoiceAmerica Business channel, features interviews with thought leaders and subject matter experts that provide valuable information for professional women to meet and overcome their challenges in the current business environment.
It is from this fabulous content that I have created my first ebook, Advancing Women’s Leadership. The book features my interviews with Marie Wilson, President and Founder of The White House Project, Alice Eagly, co-author of Through The Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, and Alison Maitland, co-author of Why Women Mean Business.
This ebook is available to you FREE!
Here is an excerpt from the introduction of the book:
“The subject of women’s leadership in America and around the globe has been the focus on many new conversations, news articles, and books. What is becoming very clear from recent research is that having more women in leadership positions is no longer a gender issue. It is now a business issue. Diversity on corporate boards and in executive suites contributes to profitability. Although there may still be some debate as to why this is so, the fact remains: research shows that when leadership positions are inclusive of both men and women, businesses thrive.
Women are certainly up to the task. Women are now the more educated sex and now have the credentials to assume leadership positions. Although the glass ceiling metaphor has become outdated, some barriers to women assuming leadership positions, some subtle and some perhaps not so subtle, still exist in American businesses today.”
Click here to get your free ebook and send along your ideas for topics and guests for the ongoing show.
Love Your Colleagues
Women have the reputation of being great nurturers. After all, we have always been primary caregivers for our family and children. It is our history. It’s in our DNA.
Here’s my question this week for professional women: Why doesn’t that love and nurturing carry over more into the workplace?
What happens to women in a work environment that holds them back from nurturing and supporting each other?
I know that women make excellent managers. We often take great care to nurture our staff, and sometimes, in fact, we take on too much work ourselves to protect our team. But how much support do we give our female peers?
In a recent radio interview I did with Gail Evans on Women Mean Business Radio, this topic surfaced. Gail spoke about how women don’t seem to help each other be successful in a corporate environment. During the interview, she told the story of one instance in her tenure as Executive Vice President at CNN that a female colleague exhibited some behavior during a meeting that Gail felt would eventually sabotage her career. After the meeting, Gail asked this woman to join her in the ladies room, and she gave her some honest feedback about what took place during the meeting and how she might approach the situation differently in the future. Gail was nurturing her. She cared enough to help her female colleague be successful. Gail’s philosophy is that if one woman succeeds, we all succeed.
How many times have you taken a female colleague/peer aside for the purpose of helping them advance their career?
It’s Valentine’s Day week. Maybe it’s time to love and nurture our female colleagues.
I would love to hear from you about specific examples you might have when you “nurtured” a female co-worker and spread the love.
Womenomics
Recent research studies indicate a very strong correlation exists between corporate performance and gender balanced leadership; the more diverse the leadership team, the better financial performance of the organization.
Focus on the diversity of corporate boards has been viewed as an important step to a more gender balanced leadership. The intent of initiatives to increase female representation on boards followed the assumption that this would lead to the promotion of more female leaders within a company.
Now there is a new study – Womenomics 101, that focuses on the representation of women on the executive committee. This survey, done by 20-first, is designed to take a serious look at which companies are truly embracing gender balance.
The United States came up on top with 89% of companies having at least one women on their executive committee. However, when the study investigated further, they found that the women who are promoted to the executive committee are often in a support role like legal, HR, communications. Often these roles, do not have profit and loss responsibility.
According to Avivah Wittenberg-Cox of 20-first and co-author of Why Women Mean Business, “Companies that only manage to promote women into leadership through staff roles demonstrate that they have not yet worked out how to gender balance their leadership development systems and their talent pipelines”.
Wittenberg-Cox suggests that companies still don’t get it. They don’t get “womenomics”. It is mostly women who are purchasing their products and having more women in leadership positions is the key to understanding and tapping into this growing market.
Listen to my interview this Tuesday, December 15th 2-3pm EDT, with Why Women Mean Business co-author Alison Maitland as we discuss the next economic revolution: womenomics.
Listen live or download mp3.
http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=43110
Are Professional Women’s Networks Passe?
What do you accomplish when you put a group of professional women together in a room? a valid question and now a controversial topic of discussion.
Professional women’s networks have recently come under fire for perpetuating the ideology that women need to be “fixed” in order to be successful in the workplace. These professional groups were for the most part originally formed for women to network and listen to senior women for mentorship and role modelling.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, co-author of Why Women Mean Business”, was recently quoted as saying, “We have to stop bringing groups of women together to talk about what we know is going wrong.” “We have to convince our companies to stop fixing women.”
Separating women for personal development does not seem to fit with the current line of thinking that “women’s” issues are now business issues and that advancing women’s leadership is of great benefit to an organization. If that is so, what is the best approach for supporting women’s leadership initiatives?
Many women believe that the support from a women’s network is vital to their success, but maybe the overall purpose of these groups is more about sharing and strategizing to change the overall company culture than it is to “fix” women.
Professional women’s groups offer wonderful opportunities for collaboration and support from other women. This remains important. However, in order to shift company cultures, perhaps these networks should also collaborate with mixed gender groups both internally and externaly.
Women’s groups can take the lead on shifting the attitudes and beliefs of companies by shifting their own agenda from how difficult it is to be a woman to creating better opportunities for talent management.
What are your thoughts?
Why Me, Why Now?
Looking back at my own corporate career, I can see clearly some of my mistakes, and mis-steps, as well as successes. Hindsight is always 20/20, right? But one thing is really clear to me and that is I would have benefited greatly from reading Her Place at the Table by Deborah Kolb, Judith Williams, and Carol Frohlinger before I accepted some of the promotions offered to me along the way.
My recent radio interview with Deborah Kolb, PhD. was an eye-opener for me and I immediately recognized some of the mistakes and missed opportunities in my own career.
Deborah pointed out that when you are promoted to a new position, you must negotiate the conditions for your success. I admit that I succumbed to one of the basic blunders of being so flattered that I was blind to the potential challenges and obstacles. Can you relate to this?
The key question to ask yourself first is “why me, why now?” Look objectively at the situation and not only assess why you were offered the job at this point in time, but where are you most vulnerable? Why didn’t others get the job? Taking stock of the situation is vital to your ongoing success in your new position.
Determine where you are vulnerable. What resources do you need to be successful and negotiate for those resources upfront.
Make strategic alliances to support your efforts. Who are the key people in the organization or specifically on your team who need to better understand your value and what you bring to the new position? Identify these people and create a strategic plan to promote your credibility either directly or indirectly.
The lesson here is that a promotion does not speak for itself. People don’t automatically accept you in the new role. Support doesn’t necessarily line up behind you simply because you were promoted and perhaps have the endorsement of senior management.
Assess the situation and determine what you need to be successful and before you accept the promotion, negotiate for what you need.
Dress for Success
When I am asked whether or not a women’s appearance is important for business and leadership success, I always hesitate before responding. My gut reaction is that women should be in touch with their authenticity and wear what they feel is appropriate and professional.
My recent radio interview with Marie Wilson, president and founder of The White House Project and long time advocate for women’s leadership, reminded me, however, that women do not yet have the luxury of ignoring the basic fact that it is much more important how they, as women, present themselves then it is for men. Plain and simple; women are not judged in the same way.
The White House Project, in fact, did a media study in 1998 that addressed this very issue. They analyzed six political campaigns and found that journalists were more likely to focus on the personal characteristics of female candidates and less likely to focus on the issues.
More recently, in her book Closing the Leadership Gap, Marie Wilson states, “After the first Democratic presidential debate in 2007, MSNBC host Chris Matthews focused obsessively on the appearance of Clinton and Michelle Obama to the point and chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell reminded him that they are Yale and Harvard educated lawyers, respectively.”
When the subject of appropriate dress came up in my interview with Marie Wilson, she shared her opinion that women need to be aware of the intense scrutiny they are under as business and political leaders and if they are interested in achieving their career goals, they must dress for success.
What is appropriate attire in your business environment?
Be aware that clothing that is too frilly, too sexy, and perhaps even too masculine may not project the professional image required to succeed in that company culture.
Quite honestly, I think this may be our present reality but it still remains tough to swallow. I believe that as more women assume leadership roles, this will change.
The Double Bind Challenge: Bitch or Bimbo
The common belief that leaders should be competent and assertive (typically traits associated with the male gender) often presents a challenge for women in leadership positions. The double bind challenge is that when in leadership roles, women must not only be competent and assertive, but they must also demonstrate that they are nurturing and selfless. Why? Because they are women.
On the one hand, if women are assertive, they are considered pushy: the bitch, and their like-ability factor is low. When they show their softer feminine qualities, they are labeled a bimbo and their competence is questioned.
Case in point: Carly Fiorina experienced this when she was CEO of Hewlett Packard. “In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived and until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as a “bimbo”, or a “bitch” – too soft or too hard, and presumptuous, besides.”
Dominance and assertiveness is accepted in men, less so in women, and so, the challenge for women leaders is that the doubts about their competence or about their perceived warmth lead to a resistance to their leadership authority.
How do we deal with this double bind? We, as women, need to embrace a leadership style that shows not only our competence and strength, but also our warmth and caring nature. We need to be aware of how we communicate and consciously modify our message to the target audience and/or culture of our organization.
What is the culture of your organization and what does the culture support in terms of leadership style?
How do you effectively promote yourself in your organization?
Sometimes it is appropriate to step up and take credit. In other instances, the best way to increase your credibility is to spread the word through other key people in your organization. Build strategic networks and feed information to your network contacts. Win over the skeptics and do the strategic behind the scenes work to promote your credibility.
Movin’ on Up
In 1986, an article in The Wall Street Journal by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt first introduced the term Glass Ceiling. The illustration that accompanied the article showed a woman in a business suit pushing up against a glass barrier. After that article, the term Glass Ceiling caught on quickly as the metaphor for an impenetrable blockade that women face when seeking leadership positions that have previously been occupied by men.
Since then, there has been considerable progress in the number of women in managerial roles, but little progress in executive leadership. Catalysts’ research in 2005 found that women occupy 16 percent of executive positions in Fortune 500 companies, up from 9 percent ten years earlier.
The reasons for the lack of more significant progress are varied and this remains a complicated issue that has been and continues to be the subject of much discussion. The term Glass Ceiling is no longer an accurate descriptor as many women have successfully risen to the top; have shattered the barrier and attained executive and board level positions in organizations.
I believe there is much to learn from the women who have achieved executive status. Their stories need to be evaluated not only on their unique skill sets, but also the cultural environment of their company at the time of their promotion or appointment. Every success story has a special lesson.
Now and again, there is a prominent success story that grabs our attention and this week it was the appointment of Diane Sawyer as the second woman solo-anchor of a network evening news broadcast. There will now be two women solo-anchors (Katie Couric being the first) on the networks’ flagship programs.
Connie Chung is quoted as saying:
This signifies that the age of dinosaur behavior in the news industry is over. The network-news flagship program has been the last vestige of the dark ages. The anchor has always been traditionally a male – a white male.
So yes. There is progress. Women are reaching top positions. When we see the progress, we need to not only celebrate each success, but we should also seek to learn what we can about each woman’s journey to help us in our own quest to climb the ladder.
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