Perfect Your Personal Brand – Without Coming Across Like a Narcissist

iStock_000015511340XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times – you need to work on your “personal brand.” You need to be sure you are broadcasting the real you – your authentic self and the professional skills that you want to be famous for – in a way that gets you noticed, networked, and needed.

But that’s not all. Somewhere along the line, the concept of personal branding – introduced in the early ’80s and then made popular by Inc. Magazine writer Tom Peters in 1997 – began to include the internet. The rise of social networking in the past decade means you can’t just brand yourself in the office, amongst your colleagues and clients. Personal branding means putting yourself out there in the digital space for all the world to see and search. And networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and now Google+ make it easy to set down the stakes in your personal brand – empowering you to make sure the world knows why your commitments, your best skills, and your passions make you indispensable.

That’s the good news. The bad news, though, is what many of us already know about social networking: it can be a slippery slope to narcissism. The very ease of publishing photos of ourselves, links about our interests, and questions about our curiosities means we do. And we do it a lot. Rather than being a platform to sell our strengths and abilities, social networking can be simply become a showcase for them.

Here’s how to make sure your efforts toward personal branding are actionable, effective, and authentic – rather than narcissistic, solipsistic, or gratingly, unabashedly self-absorbed.

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Overcoming Roadblocks to the Executive Level: What Steps Can You Take?

AnnaMarieValerioContributed by Anna Marie Valerio, Ph.D.

Have you ever heard any of these statements in the course of your career?

  • “You need one more job assignment in the field before we can promote you to the next level.”
  • “A lot of decision-makers in the succession-planning session just did not know your work or even know you very well. Other candidates had more people who could vouch for them.”
  • “You need to exude more executive presence.”
  • “You have been in staff roles in your career, so no one knows how you perform with Profit & Loss responsibility.”

If any of the above statements have been said to you, then you probably need to figure out how to overcome roadblocks to the executive level. Although many companies have learned that including women at the top is just good business, there have been many obstacles for women in the path to the executive suite. In my book, Developing Women Leaders: A Guide for Men and Women in Organizations (Wiley/Blackwell, 2009), I suggest that there are strategies and tips that organizations, managers and women can apply to women’s leadership development. Before explaining how you can be proactive in your own leadership development, it helps to understand the challenges in your path.

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Women: The Next Emerging Industry

iStock_000017021125XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

What’s the next emerging industry? Women, according to the panelists at last week’s New York Women of ALPFA Summit held at Goldman Sachs.

In a discussion that spanned small businesses, emerging economies, sustainability, alternative investments, and more, the panelists explained how women are the key to unlocking greater economic growth.

Moderated by Theresa Torres, Director for Diversity and Employee Experience for Verizon Communications, the panel included Elizabeth I. Diep, CPA, Senior Manager at PwC; Erika Karp, MD and Head of Global Sector Research at UBS Investment Bank; Heather M. Kellett, Global Director of Operations at KPMG; Silvina Nunez, Senior Business Manager at JPMorgan Chase; and Maria Otero, Esq., Founder and President of the Women’s Venture Fund.

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Voice of Experience: Birgit Neu, COO, Corporate Development, Global Banking and Markets, HSBC

BirgitNeuBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“All things are possible,” said Birgit Neu, COO, Corporate Development, Global Banking and Markets, HSBC. “This industry can be challenging, but if women really want it, it’s theirs to take if they grab it with both hands.”

Neu’s career path has led her through various industries and environments – from working with “blue-haired, mohawked” creatives to the more traditional financial industry. She is passionate about the importance of getting every part of an organization motivated toward gender equality – including the men.

“We need to have everybody take part in the conversation about gender equality,” she explained, “because everybody can make an impact.”

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Five People You Need On Your Personal Board of Directors

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Personal Board of Directors

Direction and guidance are two things that are always helpful in the business world, whether you’re a seasoned professional with years of experience under your belt – or you’re working your first major job out of college. Many women are under the impression that obtaining leadership assistance requires intervention from their company in the form of a mentor or sponsorship, but there are options that fall outside of a company’s official capacity, and some would argue they are better than anything your company could offer.

Welcome to your own personal board of directors.

By definition, a board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company. In this case, not only are you the company, but you’re also the chairman of the board and it’s up to you to handpick each board member according to your needs. How’s that for power?

According to Caroline Dowd-Higgins, a career coach and author of the book This is Not the Career I Ordered, the idea behind creating your own board is a spin on the “it takes a village” philosophy and it encourages women to gather a group of trusted confidantes that can empower her, motivate her, and give her a nudge in the right direction to help her meet her goals. Dowd-Higgins explored the board concept in her column, which outlined seven functions prospective board members can be accountable for, including motivation, connecting, and training.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, you have to pick your board members… here’s how.

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Thought Leaders: Prioritizing Risk Management

thought-leadershipFor those financial institutions which have yet to grasp the importance of identifying, measuring, managing, and monitoring risks on a comprehensive basis, time may not be on their side. Regulators and litigators alike are forcing change.

There are countless individuals who want better information from their service providers about risk and are prepared to vote with their feet if they don’t get good answers. After all, these institutional investors themselves are confronted with a bevy of new mandates that require transparency. The good news is that change opens the door to business opportunities. Enlightened organizations that have good processes in place and have nothing to hide can differentiate themselves from competitors. Providing clients with education and data tools offers yet another way for asset managers, consultants, banks, and advisors to forge stronger relationships with their pension, endowment, foundation and family office clients. On the flip side, those who are reluctant to explain how they manage their financial, operational and legal risks may lose clients or worse yet, could end up as defendants in a lawsuit.

Pay to play conflicts, questions about hidden fees, state and federal legislation and new accounting rules are a few of the forces at work to ensure that trillions of institutional dollars are in good hands. Effective investment stewardship is no longer a luxury. Recent surveys confirm that buy side decision-makers continue to emphasize governance and risk management for their organizations as well as providers of products and services. Institutional investors can ill afford to lose money after a tumultuous few years. Investment committee members who give short shrift to fiduciary duties could end up being investigated by regulators or sued. According to federal court data, the number of ERISA lawsuits is going up. Factor in investment arbitrations, enforcement actions and “piggyback” securities litigation allegations and it is clear that unhappy investors are not going to accept the status quo.

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Movers and Shakers: Maria Coyne, Executive Vice President, Business Banking Segment Group, Key Bank

MariaCoyne2By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I wanted to be a banker my whole life,” said Maria Coyne, Executive Vice President, Business Banking Segment Group at Key Bank. Coyne graduated with a degree in finance from Notre Dame in 1982, and besides a three year foray into the non profit sector, has spent her 25 year career in banking. While she has worked in just about every part of the bank, she said, she’s always come back to small business.

“It’s where my heart was,” she said. “Particularly the women’s business sector.”

Among her proudest achievements, Coyne includes the work she’s done with the Key4Women program – Key’s program for female business owners, providing financial solutions, networking opportunities, and education. She explained that, going back to the late ’90s, Key Bank was studying the needs of women business owners. “We saw that they just weren’t applying for loans.”

“We identified it as a need and wanted to make it real.” She said the program has gone a long way in helping understand the economic value in women-owned businesses. “This is not just a “feel good” project,” she said. “These women have sophisticated business needs.”

She continued, “The most thrilling thing for me has been to see these companies grow and expand through the program.”

In 2005, Key Bank has committed to lending $1 billion over the next three years, and accomplished that goal early in 2007. “So we said, ‘Let’s double it.’” That goal, she said, was achieved in 2009. The bank is on track to achieve its next goal of 3 billion by 2012.

On the horizon, Coyne said, is a program for non profit entities similar to Key4Women. “We want to help non profits find financial solutions. We’re very excited about it.” Additionally, Coyne said, so many of the bank’s employees sit on non profit boards that the program is energizing the entire leadership team. “We’re well suited to serve non profits,” she added.

Coyne is particularly excited about the financial education portion of the two programs.

She said, “I think financial education is so important in virtually every aspect of our industry. On the consumer side, particularly in the “unbanked,” there is heightened awareness around people better managing their finances. One of the good things that came out of this bad cycle is that we are building the tools to help people manage their finances better.”

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Ask-a-Career-Coach: Is “Excessive Subjectivity” Sabotaging Your Career?

AnnDalyHighRes-2Contributed by executive coach Ann Daly, PhD

Once upon a time, when managers made implicitly gender-biased judgments about which staff got the pay raises and the promotions, we called a spade a spade: gender discrimination. When Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Betty Dukes et al. was recently heard by the Supreme Court, we gained a new euphemism for structural sexism in the workplace: “excessive subjectivity.”

This phenomenon is no news to most women: When a company fails to establish objective criteria for its managers to decide on pay raises and promotions, then personal, subjective, unexamined biases kick in. And if you’re operating in a male-dominated environment, you can bet that those cultural biases ain’t gonna benefit the women. If the workplace lacks a rational process for making a decision (it’s called a “policy”), then bosses fall back on the most primitive assumptions, including sexist ones.

The result? In the case of Wal-Mart: Women fill 70% of the hourly jobs but make up only 33% of management employees. Women working in the company’s stores are paid less than men in every region, and the salary gap widens over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time.

Lawyers for the female employees argued that local managers exercise their discretion over pay and promotions disproportionately in favor of men, which has an unlawful disparate impact on female employees, and that Wal-Mart’s refusal to restrain its managers’ authority amounts to disparate treatment.

While the Supreme Court minority opinion, including all three female justices, found that excessive subjectivity was sufficient grounds to proceed with the class action suit, the majority did not. For reasons both technical and ideological, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s opinion that the women of Wal-Mart constitute a legitimate class with a common complaint. Women employees at Wal-Mart can move forward with gender discrimination suits, but on a smaller scale rather than as a single class.

As you can imagine, women’s advocates are dissatisfied with this diminished legal protection against gender discrimination in the workplace.

But not to despair! If you find yourself facing the invisible hand of excessive subjectivity, you are far from powerless.

Remember “subliminal advertising”? Take a page from that playbook and launch a subliminal counter-campaign of your own. Here are four simple, on-the-ground tactics to protect yourself from excessive subjectivity. These tactics will enable you to transform it into an objective framework for conversation, evaluation, and decision-making:

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A “Winner” Company or a “Zero”? Ranking System to Bring More Women to Boards

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pauladipernaContributed by Paula DiPerna

There’s nothing wrong with using the stage when you have it, and Diana Taylor, the former New York State Superintendent of Banks, did just that when she was recently honored for her leadership role by the Women’s Forum of New York City, a conclave of influential executive women.

Deftly, she worked into her remarks a clarion recruitment pitch. She looked out into the vast ornate ballroom of the Plaza Hotel and simply invited any interested party there to send her a CV to be considered for a seat on a Board in which she is involved. That is called casting the net widely, I thought—there were hundreds of qualified candidates in that room, and she was looking to recruit a woman for the position. This was an efficient use of a wide pool at hand.

But that was a “seize the day” appeal, the proverbial golden opportunity. Improving the representation of women on Boards appears to be one of those interminable journeys that needs permanent attention. Despite much discussion, we face stagnation in the ranks of women on Boards in the U.S. with the percentages sticking at just 11 percent for Fortune 1000 companies, according to Catalyst, which collects data on women in business.

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The Future of Work Life Fit

iStock_000006413523XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“One of the things that surprised me was how significantly fear related to flex has gone down,” began Cali Yost, CEO and Founder of Work+Life Fit, Inc. Since 2006, Yost and her team have been studying attitudes toward work/life fit and flexible work schedules. This year, Yost said, the results were encouraging – not only is flex scheduling more the norm, but fewer people are concerned that it may harm their chances for higher pay or promotion.

That’s a good thing, Yost explained. “Flex is no longer a thing only a few people have and many are afraid of. Most of us have it in a different form. Now we need to move to the next step – how we can make it work.”

She added, “We have to make it as good as it can be.”

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