Boosting Your Career and Personal Resilience

KateBullerContributed by Kate Buller, Executive Coach, The Executive Coaching Consultancy (London)

Resilience, or the ability to flex and bounce back from setbacks, is a central characteristic of business leadership and living full and challenging lives.  So what are some of the key psychological and physiological processes behind understanding and improving resilience?

Resilience in the face of significant challenge is an adaptive capacity. It is a process rather than a trait.  As human beings we’ve evolved to heal ourselves. It’s not only about self-confidence, as outward confidence can be disguising inner worries and anxieties. It’s more about optimism, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and keeping one’s head when under pressure.

The pace of change in organisations continues to accelerate. Coupled with this, studies such as one published in June by ForbesWoman and TheBump.com have found that 92% of working mothers felt overwhelmed by work, home and parenting responsibilities. Only about 15% of working parents now have a stay-at-home partner.

The rise of the dual career couple is here to stay, adding to the pressure on work, family life and relationships. We all feel squeezed. In the UK, for example, at any time around 20% of the British workforce reports being affected by stress, with 77% of these also reporting problems with relationships at home caused by stress at work.

Read more

/by

Women in Law Firms: Why is Progress So Slow?

,

iStock_000018130893XSmallBy Hua Wang (Chicago)

How do law firms distribute billing origination credit and how does the distribution affect compensation and the advancement of women lawyers to positions of real power and influence in their firms? What steps can law firms take to develop fair and equitable compensation, origination credit, and client succession policies that will help women lawyers to advance and succeed?

As women lawyers become more senior, they experience an increasing shortfall in income compared to male attorneys, and higher attrition rates. Despite the commitment by firms to advance women lawyers, women represent only 16% of equity partners nationwide. These lawyers hold an ownership interest in their firms and occupy the most prestigious, powerful and lucrative positions.

The under-representation of women among law firm equity partners means fewer women on the compensation committees. According to the 2010 American Bar Association survey study “New Millennium, Same Glass Ceiling” [PDF] of nearly 700 women law firm partners, about half of the respondents had one woman on the committee. One-fifth had none. Another fifth had two women. When women are not part of the dialogue and the decision-making body that charts the future direction of firms, the chances are greater that the policies and practices implemented will be less responsive to the career needs of women lawyers.

Read more

/by

Our Research Shows Women in Technology are Eager to Advance

WITfrontpage.tiffBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

The Glass Hammer is pleased to announce the publication of our first ever research paper, “Women in IT: Ambition and Advancement,” produced in conjunction with our sister site Evolved Employer. We polled readers who work on technology teams to find out how they feel about the next level. And not surprisingly, the vast majority of our respondents were actively planning to move to the next phase of their careers.

In fact, four out of five respondents (80.23%) agreed or strongly agreed that promotion is a top priority for them.

But what may surprise you is how fast they plan on moving ahead. Almost half (41.86%) said they intend to change jobs in the next year!

The study also revealed that while these women had big plans for advancement, many of seemed uncertain about the nuts and bolts on how to get there.

Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer, explained, “There are many moving parts when it comes to advancement, and it would be prudent for companies who want to best manage female talent in technology to ensure that programs are visible and appropriate to truly serve the purpose of creating opportunities for under-represented groups.”

To download a copy today, click here.

/by

Why Asking for Help Can Move Your Career Forward

Attractive Asian Businesswoman MeetingBy Stephanie Wilcox (Middlefield, CT)

When was the last time you asked for help at work? If you can’t recall, or if the answer is never, you may be very comfortable in your position and are confident in the work you produce. But there’s more to your career than being good at your job. Don’t be afraid of appearing incompetent or unqualified or putting others in an awkward position. If you haven’t sought out help regarding career progression, dealing with staff, dealing with managers, managing work-life issues, exploring career paths, or any other topic of importance, you’ll need to let that mindset go. Asking for and accepting help can mean career advancement. Here’s why.

1. Asking for help shows you want to do the best job possible.

If you have given a good shot on your own, but want to ask someone for their input on a challenging task, you’re just being thorough. It isn’t incompetence if you’ve already put in a solid effort. Good, insightful questions show you are paying attention and you are informed.

“I believe that, ultimately, career advancement comes from getting to a good answer, getting the work done, and getting the work done right and on time,” says Rhonda L. Lessard, FSA, MAAA, Head of Medical Cost Analytics at Aetna. “If you need to get help to do so, then it supports that goal. If avoiding help means that a poor answer results, or that the work is substandard or late, then failure to ask for help has indeed impeded your career.”

If you are producing good work in a timely manner, it will advance the department and your career development. Consider the alternative: not asking for help when you should be “can be very unfortunate when it stands in the way of producing good work,” says Lessard, who oversees a staff of nearly 100 and answers many career-related questions on a regular basis. “We can’t all know everything, but we all know something and have certain skills that can be, in essence, traded with those around us for the knowledge and skills that they have.”

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Elle Kaplan, CEO & Founding Partner, Lexion Capital Management

ellekaplanBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Elle Kaplan moved to New York City with no job, no apartment, and $200 in savings. She is now the CEO and Founding Partner of a leading independent private bank, Lexion Capital Management. “It has been a fun and often unpredictable journey,” Kaplan said.

With a background in English literature and chemistry, Kaplan’s entrance into the finance industry was not automatic. She began her career by temping, applying to every financial firm that she could think of. But she had missed the recruiting cycle and was initially rejected by every bank she tried. “I contacted headhunters, and they looked at my English and chemistry degrees and said I would never get a job on Wall Street,” Kaplan said. “However, I always think of a ‘no’ as someone’s opinion, nothing more. So the rejections did not alter my plans.”

Kaplan’s big break came during an interview to be a receptionist at a private equity firm. During the interview, the team noted her ‘A’ average and expressed concern that she would be bored answering phones. Kaplan agreed and asked whether there were any openings for analysts. Four days later, she had landed an analyst job. “That was my biggest ‘sale!’” Kaplan said.

During her career, Kaplan has worked as a private banker at JP Morgan Chase, as a derivatives specialist at a British investment bank, and as a Vice-President and financial advisor at Bernstein Global Wealth Management. Along the way, she earned an Executive MBA from Columbia University. She recommends the degree to those who work full-time.

“One great thing about getting an Executive MBA is you put your classroom management lessons into action right away versus waiting until you graduate,” Kaplan said. “You can also advance faster in your career choice because you don’t have to take off time for school. Instead you are doing it all at once.”

Read more

/by

Leadership Redefined: Discover Your Inner Leader Inside and Outside the Workplace

ValiaGlytsisContributed by Valia Glytsis

Leadership today demands a very different type of leader. As women, we have been indoctrinated to lead from a place of traditional masculinity – power, aggression, and agenda. Particularly in male-dominated fields, there has been little room for the nuances of a female leader. This is not a judgment of “better” or “worse” – it is simply a fact of how things have been in traditional business scopes and how the Zeitgeist of leadership is under major (and I would argue – necessary) upheaval. What was once sustained by targets, technology, and bottom lines now demands an entirely new leadership toolkit: consciousness, strength management, and intuition.

I want to clarify something of utmost importance. When I say “leadership”, I mean it in the most raw and unfiltered denotation of the word.

Whether you are a CEO leading hundreds or a woman wanting to better lead her own life, leadership is not something external. It is the quintessential essence of you. Living leadership is showing up each day in the world aligned with your purpose and passion. It is coming back to the most authentic part of you where nothing can sway you. When you lead your life and others from this place, change is not only possible, it is guaranteed. A deep shift in you creates a ripple effect that then affects all of the lives that your touch. Idealistic? Maybe. True? Absolutely. Necessary? An undeniable and resounding YES. How? Let’s begin:

Read more

/by

Strategies for Dealing with an Unsupportive Coworker

Strategies for Dealing“I once worked with a boss who yelled at everyone in her office – she used words that were demeaning and dismissive,” recalls Kathi Elster, co-author of Working with You Is Killing Me and Working for You Isn’t Working for Me and the soon to be released Who Does She Think She Is? Elster continues: “She might yell at you for talking too much then the next day she might yell at you for not talking enough. There was no way to please her, she was an angry person who took her frustrations out on her staff. She did not seem to know that she was yelling or being a bully. When I confronted her she would say that she wasn’t that bad. Needless to say she had a 100% turnover every year.”

Elster isn’t the only woman who has encountered such horror stories about negative behaviors in the workplace. Quite the contrary; queen bees, idea-thieves, and other co-workers that just don’t play nice are common. So much so that, for some, they are becoming an undesired yet integral part of the day-to-day office experience.  This makes strategies for dealing with them indispensable.

“Most problems that drive people crazy in the workplace are not egregious, shocking events. It is the passive-aggressive, subversive personalities that are the real horror stories for people,” explains Stephanie Somanchi, MBA PhD and Executive Life Coach. Elster adds: “Women can be very competitive, and many women participate in covert competition. So instead of letting another women know that she is going to compete with her to win an account or to win a job promotion, she might go behind her back and bad mouth her to erode her reputation (covert competition). Men do this also, but usually they are much more upfront about their competitiveness towards another.”

Being able to resolve such negative behaviors diplomatically and productively is a skill to acquire. Deb Spicer, a 25-year senior level executive, consultant and author of the new book Power Teams, proposes the following five techniques, which she believes are gender neutral.

Read more

/by

Movers and Shakers: Deborah Farrington, Co-Founder and General Partner of StarVest Partners

deborahfarringtonBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Deborah Farrington, Co-Founder and General Partner of StarVest Partners, said one of her key career themes has been an ability to take risks at the appropriate time and seize opportunities as they presented themselves.

She encouraged women to be more open to taking on new challenges when they arise – to walk through doorways when they are opened. “Don’t shy away from things. I think you’ll be surprised at how well you can do them,” she said.

Farrington is now a leading venture capitalist, and as one of only two women named on the Forbes Midas List of top tech investors this year, she is enthusiastic about getting more women into the field.

Read more

/by

New Women’s Mentoring Initiative Kicks Off Across New York

iStock_000012710122XSmallBy Jacey Fortin (New York City)

Jeanine Conley is on the fast track to a senior position in the legal field. After practicing law for only nine years, she’s already a junior partner at Baker Hostetler, a firm with offices all over the country. And she’s not stopping now—Conley has ambitious goals for continued advancement.

Now, thanks to an initiative by New York’s U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, she’s getting some extra help along the way.
In October of this year at the first annual Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit in New York City, Gillibrand stood with Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, and Chloe Drew, the executive director of the Council for Urban Professionals (CUP), to kick off a new state-wide mentorship program. She asked the Partnership to find 100 senior executives who were willing to share their time and expertise with up-and-coming professionals, and she asked CUP to find 100 young women looking for career guidance.

The recruiting efforts progressed without a hitch. “The Partnership for New York City has a network of civically engaged business executives,” said Wylde. “We reached out and simply asked who would be willing to become a mentor. From our membership in the city, we got 80 volunteers from a very senior-level group. The rest are coming from upstate organizations, which are reaching out to their communities to make this a state-wide effort.”
Drew was also able to drum up participants quickly. “CUP has a broader network of about 15,000 people,” she said. “We sent invitations out to the community via social networking, emails, Facebook and Twitter. Applicants sent in resumes and letters of interest, explaining why this was important to them. People could nominate either themselves or other young women.”

Conley nominated herself for the program. “I think mentorship at every stage of your career is critical,” she said. “When I learned that the program would pair women who are junior in their career with more senior women, I knew it would be a huge benefit.”

To date, all of 200 the mentees and mentors have been found and matched up. Now, it’s up to Conley and her peers to be proactive about maintaining their new relationships.

“We tell mentees that it’s their job to do the outreach,” explained Drew. “The relationship has to be driven by the mentees, not the mentors. The goal is that they will meet once a quarter this year, and we’ll check in with them along the way.”

Read more

/by

Three Questions You Must Ask Yourself to Be an Inspirational Leader

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

I had a client recently share with me her desire to be a more inspirational leader in her organization. I asked her why this was important to her. She said she wanted to have greater impact and greater engagement within her teams. Shoulders slumped, she quickly confessed she was not really sure how to do that. What would you do to be a more inspiring leader?

Most people believe they can be more inspirational by watching others who are inspirational and then doing what they do. There are certainly lots of books and tapes we can buy to read about how we can be inspirational leaders. Earlier in my career, I enviously observed my boss’s boss. He was a large man with a commanding presence – at least 6ft 2 inches, 230+ pounds. One time I saw him palpably excite a roomful of 400+ people with his booming voice and speech, ending in a standing ovation. But here’s the problem. I am 5ft 2 on a good day and hard as I try, the booming voice is hard to emulate.

So, here’s what I have learned on my journey to be more inspirational as a leader. The most important first step in being an inspirational leader is being INSPIRED ourselves. So the right question to ask is not who we need to emulate and how we become an inspirational leader. The right question to ask ourselves is WHAT INSPIRES US?

Read more

/by