Five Easy Steps to Market Your Personal Brand

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

In these times when each of us is a knowledge worker and global economies are in turmoil, if we want to have greater control over our careers it’s critical that we define our personal brands.  I often work with my executive coaching clients to help them create their personal leadership brand.  They identify purpose, the strengths they bring, and their core values. The stumbling block that we come to often is “You mean I have to actually promote myself? That just feels so fake!”

For a lot of us, it’s easy to brag about others or fight for a cause we believe in.  Promoting ourselves is tougher, so we don’t do it.  Yet, having a great personal brand without marketing it is sort of like if Apple designed a great product and no one knew about it. Like product brands, personal brands create great value for us when we market them well.  So here are five steps to market your personal brand, applying some of the principles I used as a former chief marketing officer.

Read more

/by

Perceived Macho Cultures Influence the Career Choices of Women MBAs

Group of businesspeople having a meeting.By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A recent study suggests that women’s career choices are influenced by industry stereotypes – which could be the reason that women are less likely to enter fields like finance or consulting, which carry the perception of being male dominated.

The study is presented in the journal Organization Science. The researchers, Roxana Barbulescu, McGill University, and Matthew Bidwell, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, found that female MBAs are deterred from applying for jobs that they perceive as culturally unwelcoming. Women MBAs also believe they are less likely to receive an offer for finance or consulting jobs – but in reality, this was not the case. Companies in these industries were just as likely to offer jobs to the women who applied as they were to the men.

It is troubling that even highly educated, highly competitive women are avoiding these high paying jobs because they don’t identify with them culturally. And it’s equally troubling that these women anticipate they won’t get hired because of a perceived cultural gender gap.

Read more

/by

Ambition to Lead: Exercise Your Power

Friendly businesswoman standing with her colleaguesBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

On this election day, Tiffany Dufu, President of The White House Project, has a message for women. “You are the most powerful change agent in your own journey. Exercise your power. Vote.”

Dufu’s words come as a reminder that the prevalence of women in leadership has not existed for long. Throughout history, there have indeed been notable women in positions of power – but they were rare. The era we live in is unlike any before, in terms of the power women can wield in the public space.

That’s not to say that women have, by any stretch of the imagination, attained equality of representation – either in politics or in business. This is a detriment to everyone – study after study has shown that a diverse group of people at the top produces a stronger result. Diverse groups reach conclusions that are at the same time more innovative and more considered.

“We need women leaders,” Dufu said. “We don’t have enough women in leadership in business or in politics. We have, in fact, people at the highest levels of business and politics who impact every single one of us. And until this group is truly a diversity of voices, the biggest crisis we have is a crisis of leadership.”

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Hanna Derry, Managing Director, Technology, Blackrock

hannaderryBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Be visible,” advised Hanna Derry, Managing Director of Technology at Blackrock.

Derry, who is a COO for one of Blackrock’s global software development divisions, encouraged senior women in financial services technology to recognize their capability for leadership. By talking about their own story, she explained, women can illuminate new pathways for young people advancing their careers.

“Be a visible female leader to set an example for younger women – as well as younger men,” she said. “Be available to mentor so people can hear your story. People want to know your story.”

Read more

/by

Yes…Extroverts and Introverts Can Lead Brilliantly!

DevoraZackContributed by Devora Zack

There is not one single way to lead. Don’t get me started. Nothing irritates me more than hearing from so-called experts that, in their boundless benevolence, they are bestowing on us mere mortals the five laws of management or seven rules of success or three indisputable truisms of leadership.

In reality, as you have already recognized, everyone is unique. Given this basic fact of human nature, how could there possibly be one set of rules on how to manage effectively? There can’t and there isn’t.

The singular method towards being a stellar manager is by channeling yourself.

Yet, many of us expend much time and energy telling ourselves what we should do to be a successful manager. The root of this buzz-kill is the false, damaging belief that we inherently lack some secret management juice that enables ‘real’ leaders to charismatically inspire the masses to do their bidding. Do yourself a favor. Notice when you think to yourself that you ‘should’ engage in some behavior to lead effectively. Replace the ‘should’ with a ‘shouldn’t.’ Because when you work too hard to convince yourself you should do something to succeed, it almost always means you shouldn’t. The key to being the best manager you can possibly be working with – rather than fighting against – your natural strengths.

Read more

/by

Empowering the World’s Women Would Fuel Economic Growth

,

iStock_000021795969XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, the World Economic Forum released its Global Gender Gap report for 2012. As usual, Nordic countries dominated the top of the index, which ranks countries on how close they are to minimizing the gap between male and female equality.

In the report, the WEF also highlights a large group of countries, like Japan, Quatar, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, that have made investments in women’s health and education, but have not removed barriers to women’s participation in the workforce. The study authors, Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University; Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley; and Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum, believe that by removing the barriers to women’s workforce participation in these countries, the global economy would grow significantly.

“The index continues to track the strong correlation between a country’s gender gap and its national competitiveness, income and development. A country’s competitiveness depends on its human talent – the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. Because women account for one-half of a country’s potential talent base, a nation’s competitiveness in the long term depends significantly on how it educates and utilizes its women.”

Focusing on women’s health and education are only two steps toward equality. Empowering the world’s women at work would fuel economic growth in their own countries and around the globe.

Read more

/by

Do We ‘Think Crisis—Think Female’?

GlasscliffBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Erin Callan, Zoe Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Patrica Russo: these are the names of women who have been put forth as victims of the notorious glass cliff in the recent past.

The glass cliff, it has been theorized, is when women take on the mantle of leadership during a time of crisis. The position is highly visible and comes with a lot of potential power – but the risk of failure is high; so high in fact, that the board or management committee decides it’s time to try something completely new and different to try and get it right: put a woman in charge.

Often the person peering over this glass precipice is charged with an impossible task, lacks the resources or training to overcome the challenge, or is simply scapegoated for circumstances beyond their control. That’s why it’s called a glass cliff – it’s a gender-based assignment at a very high level, for which failure is eminent.

Glass cliff skeptics suggest that women in such situation select these roles for themselves – if they fail, it’s their own fault and gender bias has nothing to do with it, they argue. On the other side of the coin, the glass cliff theory runs a dangerous risk of treating women as passive puppets – assuming they had no choice or agency in taking on the task.

A new study in the journal Psychological Science refutes both claims – and examines how women and men judge perilous jobs differently, while at the same time corporate management may have a role to play in the unusually high ratio of women to men in these risky roles.

Read more

/by