On Our Radar – Why Female Vision is Critical at the Top

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Closeup of a business woman laughing against a gray backgroundBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Why do companies need women in leadership? According to a new book by Sally Helgesen, Writer and Leadership Development Consultant, and Julie Johnson, Executive Leadership Coach, women bring a different kind of vision to leadership than men. The book, The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, reveals that women are privileged to a “broad scale notice” style of leadership, while men display a more pointed focus.

While it may at first seem like a ’90s style Men are from Mars Women are from Venus approach to gender diversity, as Johnson pointed out yesterday at a National Council for Research on Women event, the book is based on neuroscience, examining the differences between male and female brains, as well as interviews and surveys with thousands of individuals.

Helgesen explained, “Women tend to focus in a broader way. Our attention operates like radar,” taking into account context and nuance. “Men display a laser-like focus on one thing,” she added.

Kerrie Peraino, Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer at American Express, opened the event, explaining Helgesen and Johnson “are onto something. This is cutting edge work.” Peraino said that Amex is working to position itself as a “gender intelligent organization.”

She explained that means playing to “the competitive advantage that is created when you bring both brains to work. Not only is it a nice thing to do, but really is about creating the competitive advantage.”

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5 Ways to Engage Men in Gender Diversity Initiatives

Senior business man discussing project on laptop with staffBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Gender equality is still an issue at work, but it is not a women’s issue. Gender initiatives have traditionally focused on improving women’s participation in the workplace, but recently (in sociological terms, anyway) there has been a shift towards making ‘gender’ a gender-neutral problem.

We need men to be part of the conversation on diversity. “The preponderance of men in leadership means their efforts are necessary to advance change in the workplace,” says Ilene H. Lang, President & Chief Executive Officer of Catalyst, a nonprofit membership organisation working globally to build inclusive workplaces and expand opportunities for women and business. “Research continues to show that diversity well-managed yields more innovation and is tied to enhanced financial performance – factors good for all employees.”

While it’s great news that the human resources professionals are creating a sense of inclusiveness, that hasn’t quite filtered down to the Average Joe in the office. Or the Senior Joe, for that matter. There are many men who ‘get it’ but there are still plenty who don’t. So how do you bring men onboard with gender initiatives, and start tackling this issue together?

1. Help men recognise that gender bias exists

“Before individuals can support a change initiative, they must first be convinced that there is something wrong with the status quo,” write Jeanine Prime and Corinne A. Moss-Racusin in their report for Catalyst, Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need To Know. “For men to get behind their organisations’ gender initiatives they must first be persuaded that there is problematic gender bias in the workplace.” The research that Prime and Moss-Racusin carried out for their report shows that the higher men’s awareness of gender bias, the more likely men are to feel that achieving gender equality is important. The more aware the men in your workplace are, the more likely it is that they will support gender initiatives.

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Sponsors Needed: Leveling the Playing Field for Women

portrait of Buisnesswoman Working with her colleaguesBy Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)

A recent Harvard Business Review article, “Why Men Still Get More Promotions than Women,” reports on some of the challenges emerging women face in mentoring programs. It points out the difference between mentoring and sponsoring and says that men are better at finding career-building mentors than women.

Lauren Stiller Rikleen is the Executive Director at the Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success, which is an organization that helps businesses attract and retain female professionals. She stated that the article confirmed what has long been considered true – that informal relationships can be a source of dedicated commitment to help you succeed. She also distinguished the difference between sponsor and mentor relationships.

“Sponsorship is defined as the active engagement in someone else’s career development,” said Rikleen. “The mentor guides more, answers questions and is a shoulder for someone. Sponsorship is a more active form of mentorship.”

Rikleen explained that women need to get comfortable with seeking people out in a variety of ways.

“Women tend to be focused on the task at hand in the workplace while men focus on relationship building,” said Rikleen. “Women need to think more strategically about establishing relationships that will help them achieve that next level in their career.”

She also said that men are more comfortable at weaving their social and work relationships together to build on each other. In comparison, women compartmentalize and separate their social and work contacts.

“Think more holistically about all of your relationships,” she said. “You can be at a parent/teacher conference and sitting next to someone that runs a company.”

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Why Men Matter in the Work/Life Debate

Stock PhotoBy Melissa De Witte (New York City)

According to author and UC Hastings College of Law professor Joan Williams, the strongest form of discrimination in the workplace is against mothers. However, Williams goes on to assert that to shift this problem, national dialogue needs to move away from a maternal focus and address paternal responsibilities as well.

At a recent event organized by A Better Balance at Columbia Law School, Williams discussed material from her latest book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Williams argues that the conflict needs to be addressed not just from a mother’s perspective but from a father’s point of view as well. While the evidence against mothers in the workplace is overwhelming (according to Williams, moms are 79% less likely to get hired and when they are employed they earn $11,000 less than average), fathers face a unique set of problems and issues that must be taken into account if the work-life debate is going to be addressed.

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Voice of Experience: Gina Biondo, Tax Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Gina Lori Berkowitz FIMG_1765By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Don’t be afraid to make the hard call,” said Gina Biondo, Tax Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Stand behind the decisions you make, and get the right people behind you. You get to be a leader because you’re successful – and we need more highly visible women in leadership roles.”

She continued, “At some point, you have a responsibility as a woman to continue to help open doors for the women who will follow us.

Building a Career in Alternative Investments Tax

Biondo, a partner for 14 years, serves as the firm’s tax division lead. She is specialized in distressed debt and special opportunity hybrid classes, and works with business ranging in size from startups to established global firms.

“I’ve grown up in New York City. I started off in the New York City office of Coopers and Lybrand and I’ve been with PricewaterhouseCoopers since career start – just over 22 years.”

Biondo, who studied accounting and economics at Queens College and received her CPA and Master of Finance in taxation from Fordham, said, “I spent the first several years on the tax side on the general corporate team, working in corporate consulting. Then I moved to the financial services practice” for about the next ten years.

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Four Unfair Questions Still Nagging Women About Leadership

FrohlingerlowresContributed by Carol Frohlinger, Co-Author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success, available in paperback October 5. Carol will be a panelist at theglasshammer.com event on November 2, 2010. Click here to register.

Despite the fact that women hold 50 percent of middle management jobs, leadership roles still elude us. Why? After all, more collaborative organizational structures are “in” and archaic “command and control” hierarchies are “out.” That shift was expected to greatly advantage women — but it hasn’t. So what’s the problem?

My book, Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success first offered women in leadership roles practical advice about what they needed to negotiate in order to get and hold onto leadership roles – and in the 6 years since it was published, much as changed.

Carly Fiorina has abandoned business for politics. Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, who’d endorsed the book, died in 2006. Hillary Clinton ran for President. And, Sarah Palin, who’s not endorsed the book, resigned as governor of Alaska.

But a good deal hasn’t changed — questions about women and their suitability for leadership roles still dog women and their employers. What makes it even more complicated is that most of the time we aren’t even aware that these questions are in play.

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Gender Discrimination: We’re Having the Wrong Conversations

tannerkelly_6291_5x75-200x300By Kelly Tanner (New York City)

When it comes to gender discrimination in the workplace, we’re having the wrong conversations.

Three former employees of Goldman Sachs have filed individual and joint lawsuits alleging systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment that resulted in a loss of pay and promotion opportunities, as well as humiliation and inappropriate behavior from fellow employees. In coverage of the case, which prosecutors are attempting to convert to a class action suit, the “salacious” nature of the unwelcome sexual advances detailed in the claim make for good entertainment, and allow bloggers and commenters alike to play the home-game version of judge and jury.

“Wow, 1997 — that’s a long time ago”, says David Lat, implying that the claim is irrelevant years later, and setting up his commenters nicely to write off the former Goldman’s employees as “whiny bitches.” These articles nearly all list the full names and former titles of the accusers and no identifying information regarding the discriminatory managers and harassers who created a hostile work environment in the first place. While they serve for great water-cooler gossip fodder in the current climate of news-as-entertainment, the coverage does little to address the question of why companies such as Goldman Sachs, that have invested time, money, and energy in diversity initiatives and recruitment and retention plans for women professionals, are still seen as environments women describe as “untenable,” as stated in the most recent suit.

Given the backlash, career-ending repudiation, and heckling media circus that results in such high profile cases such as these, should women even pursue sexual discrimination complaints in the first place? I suspect we may get closer to the answers by shifting the focus.

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Are Lawsuits the Right Way to Achieve Gender Equality in the Workplace?

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

Theglasshammer.com is in Norway this week reporting on gender parity and how Norway  is working to achieve critical mass for women in leadership positions. Legislation resulting in quotas has furthered progress there, read us next week to see the full findings. Back on home turf, we have media speculation that a gender discrimination lawsuit against Goldman Sachs may become a class action suit stating that Goldman Sachs promotes all men over all women categorically.

I would like to point out that Goldman Sachs was the first company to back the launch of The Glass Hammer and was also the first large financial firm to create internal women’s advancement programs – including the Returnship and annual events like Brokering Change – Multicultural Women on Wall Street. Let’s not pick one bank to crucify, when it is the industry that needs to re-evaluate its appeal to female talent. Instead, let’s make sure that we give credit to companies who are making progress towards critical mass and fair systems to keep women in the game at a time when we are dwindling in numbers.

I believe that very little can be gained from litigation in the workplace and class action suits were surely invented for a different purpose (think Erin Brockovich). Does it actually change the treatment of women in the workplace? Does it advance the mission of creating a meritocracy? In my opinion, no, it achieves neither of these objectives.

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Fastest Way To Gender-Balanced Leadership – Appoint A Woman CEO

Lynn_24P2193_FBy Lynn Harris, author, Unwritten Rules: What Women Need To Know About Leading In Today’s Organizations

Corporations are now, in many ways, as powerful, or sometimes more powerful, than governments. It therefore matters a lot who sits on their boards and executive teams. These are the people who set strategy and make decisions that affect all of our lives.

Some of these companies are smart enough to understand the importance and the competitive advantage of gender-balanced leadership. Men and women working together, using complimentary thinking and behaviors to innovate, understand customers, prevent group-think and limit risk. Achieving gender balance also doubles the talent pool from which to draw our most talented leaders.

But many organizations, even those that set the strategic imperative to appoint more women leaders, struggle to make it happen.

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Voice of Experience: Marcy Engel, COO and General Counsel, Eton Park Capital Management

firstchoice-marcyBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“When I was fourteen, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I didn’t know what that meant – I didn’t know any lawyers,” Marcy Engel, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of Eton Park Capital Management, said with a laugh. Engel went on to attend the University of Michigan and then studied law at the University of Pennsylvania. “During law school, many of my friends were finding jobs with Wall Street law firms. It sounded good to me so I took a position with Sullivan & Cromwell,” she said.

Engel began working in the litigation department, and after three and a half years, she decided it was time to try something new. She explained, “Litigation meant dealing with people’s fights that were three, four, five, six years old. It was very backward looking. I wanted to advise people. I wanted to be forward looking.”

She began a job at Salomon Brothers advising the equity sales and trading groups. “At the time, this was a new area. I had to learn things from the ground up – I didn’t know what a short sale was!” she laughed.

Engel continued, “It was a time of increased regulation, and in terms of derivatives and futures – this was a time when it was really growing.”

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