Happy Labor Day and UK Bank Holiday!

Nicki GilmourHappy end of summer! We are taking a publishing break to recharge our editorial calendar for the rest of the year.

We have over 8000 career advice articles in our archives to read within that, over 3500 profiles of amazing women to inspire you.

We have been in existence for 13 years and have written about advancement strategies, gender equity at work, advice on how to navigate the system and how to think about planning your career path in many ways.

In 2020, we will be unveiling a new look and will be focusing on coaching and leadership development because we truly believe that women (and all people- we coach men, and gender non binary clients too) can walk the talk when individuals can understand themselves and how they operate in the specific cultural environment (country, firm, team, boss dynamics are all norms we live with and influence what we do and how we do it).

Enjoy some time off if you can and enjoy our hard work in all the amazing writing from theglasshammer writers and guest contributors here.

Sincerely,

Nicki Gilmour
CEO

P.S Book an exploratory session (free) with me to see if coaching is for you as we have space for 10 new coaching clients this September.

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Kristen Walters, Global Chief Operating Officer of Risk & Quantitative Analysis, BlackRock

Kristen WaltersWhen Kristen Walters, Managing Director at BlackRock, started her career, mentors in finance told her that she needed to learn accounting because it was the “language of business” at the time.

Studying accounting gave her an entry into finance with a technical skill that opened the door to a long career. “Today’s technical language is computer science and coding,” says Ms. Walters, advising young women to make sure their technical backgrounds include math and programming skills.

“What was true when I started my career remains applicable now. Women should consider technical fields where there is growth and a long runway.” While she believes it is imperative to study a discipline with broad applicability, Ms. Walters acknowledges that successful careers often include an element of luck, coupled with a strong work ethic and intellectual curiosity. She has also benefited from male and female mentors who have helped guide her career and give her opportunities to learn and grow.

Building a Solid Career in the Field of Risk

These principles have served Ms. Walters well. After graduating with a degree in accounting and economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she started her career as a financial analyst in Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

At the time, there was a significant banking crisis in the Northeast, and she was able to spend time “in the foxhole” and learn valuable risk management skills that are difficult to learn in normal market conditions. She spent more than five years at the Fed learning about interest rate, credit and liquidity risk in lending and securities portfolios, while earning her MBA in finance at Babson College. In 1993, she joined KPMG’s financial services consulting practice, where she focused on risk management engagements working for a PhD Economist who was Paul Volker’s right-hand man when he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

She eagerly embraced the opportunity to learn derivatives and spent the next several years working with cross-functional teams on risk assessments for large international banks with trading operations in the United States. She notes that in the mid-90s, risk management was not an established sector and she was lucky to find an opportunity to combine her quantitative skills with her ability to communicate and understand financial markets. “I worked closely with financial modelers who typically had advanced degrees in applied math. KPMG’s quants would explain complex models to me, and I would communicate how the models worked with traders, risk managers and boards of directors,” she says. “They needed someone to help translate complex valuation and risk concepts to clients, and even though I am not a mathematician, I am analytical with a grounding in stats and calculus, so I was able to learn how models worked with guidance from colleagues with technical expertise.”

Ms. Walters has been a risk manager ever since, including a challenging period helping to manage firm-wide market risk at Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis. “It was a ‘trial by fire’ time, where everyone had to stay composed under a tremendous amount of pressure,” she says, adding that she led the first Fed stress testing exercise for the market risk team.

Ms. Walters has worked at BlackRock for 10 years focusing on risk management and analytics. She is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the firm’s global risk management function, where her team leverages BlackRock’s Aladdin trading and risk management system. And, she is currently working with software developers and risk managers to enhance risk management capabilities in Aladdin. She has helped provide risk managers with tools to code in Python to build libraries to access data in Aladdin directly, a trend she has observed occurring across the industry. “It is very exciting because data and technology systems used to be prohibitively expensive with a big learning curve. The advent of big data and open source technology, along with increased computing power, has made data and technology cheaper and more accessible.”

Using Resources to Navigate the Business

Ms. Walters noted that over the years her development focus changed—in her 20s and 30s it was easier to advance with the right technical and communication skills, combined with tenacity. But the work environment becomes more complicated once you reach the age of 40 and above, because your influencing skills need to improve markedly when you start to take on leadership positions.

“There is an element of needing to adapt to the team; I am outspoken and candid and that worked earlier in my career, but when you become more senior, particularly in a male-dominated space, you have to remember that what you say is not always as important as how you say it.” And, the bar is higher for women relative to technical skills, competency and communication and influencing skills.

Navigating male-dominated environments has presented challenges, but she appreciates groups like the Women’s Leadership Forum at BlackRock which provided leadership training and peer networks to add to her toolkit. She says that in the mid-90s, conscious bias against women was relatively common, although she rarely personally experienced it. She thinks this is because she was good at selecting companies and managers who were supportive and open-minded. Today, gender bias issues can be difficult to raise because most men are genuinely and consciously trying to develop diverse teams. And, they are often unaware of “unconscious” biases they are exhibiting.

Ms. Walters noted that many of her male colleagues are actively trying to foster diverse and inclusive teams. She has also found that establishing a strong network of women is critical to success in the finance sector. While not every company provides that type of support, she encourages younger women to establish their own networks. “Many women hesitate to ask, but they might be surprised how willing both men and women are to help,” she says, noting that when she has reached out to senior people, 90 percent of the time they have been happy to spend time and help—and she now does the same.

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How do you know if you are ready for a job change?

People leave jobs for many reasons.

Is it time to change jobs, change firms or leave the industry? (F)However, the more senior you are in the organization and the longer you have been there, the psychological grip on you to stay there is usually higher. You might tell yourself you are staying for practical reasons like bonuses or vested equity or deferred comp. All of these are valid for sure but really how much money are we talking and have you looked at how that money can be cashed in even if you do stay or leave?

Are you using that as an excuse to mask a deeper fear of the unknown? If you have been at a place for over ten years, it is totally normal to think about how could you possibly find a new job in a different firm and question what would that be like, culturally.

How do you know if you are ready for a change?

Hermina Ibarra provides an excellent survey in her amazing book “Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader” (I recommend it to my coaching clients regulary)

Have a go at answering the questions with a yes or a no.

  1. Have you been in the same job or career path for at least seven years?
  2. Do you find yourself restless professionally?
  3. Do you find your job more draining than energizing?
  4. Do you resent not having more time for outside interests or family?
  5. Do you have a changing family configuration that will allow you to explore other options?
  6. Are you admiring folks around you who are making big changes?
  7. Has your work lost some meaning for you?
  8. Do you find that your career ambitions are changing?
  9. Recent events have left me appraising what I really want?
  10. Do you find your enthusiasm has waned for your work projects?

If you got 6-10 yeses then you could already be deeply in a career-transitioning period. Make time to reflect on your goals and see if your life goals are evolving also.

If you got 3-5 yeses then you may be entering a career-transitioning period. Work to increase insights and “outsights” which are new horizons that appear from doing new things and meeting new people.

If you got 2 or less yeses then you are more likely to be in a career-building period in your current job so you are busy working on
developing within that role, team or firm.

If you would like to work with Nicki Gilmour as your coach, you can have a free complementary call to discuss what is on your mind and to see if there is a fit and see if coaching is for you. Book your preliminary meeting with Nicki here.

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Voice of Experience: Kathy Jordan, Chief Compliance Officer, US Consumer Banking, Citi

Kathy Jordan headshot
“When I look back on my career, I didn’t follow a linear path in one field because I was always open to opportunity when it knocked,” says Citi’s Kathy Jordan.

“If you’re willing to take a risk and give it a go, great things can happen.” That advice has followed her along the winding path from her first job as a Citibank teller, which helped pay for college, to her most recent promotion overseeing compliance for all of Citi’s U.S. consumer banking businesses.

The key is to take on growth opportunities as they arise, even if it’s not precisely within your field, Jordan says. “Opportunities are there,” she says. “Just remember that even when it doesn’t feel like it will be an easy or familiar road, it can still be a path to opportunity. Just set your sights on the goal, and give it all you have, without worrying that it might not be attainable.”

“Don’t limit yourself to one field if the chance arises to do something else that might be just as fulfilling,” she says, noting that this is increasingly true as you move into more senior level positions.

Windows of Opportunity

Jordan went to college with initial plans of becoming a doctor, but she soon shifted her focus to finance and became a banker, before attending law school and eventually working her way back into financial services and becoming a compliance officer.

She left her law firm to join the in-house counsel team with a former client, a boutique bank, where she focused mainly on mortgage issues. This led to an offer to take an in-house legal position at Citibank that gave her a chance to work more broadly across the entire consumer banking business. It was at Citi, in the early 2000s, that she made her biggest jump as changing regulations led banks to create dedicated compliance teams, separating roles that had previously been overseen by the in-house legal teams. “I wasn’t sure just what I was getting myself into, it wasn’t a clear path, but I saw an opportunity to make my mark in something new so I went for it,” she said.

In general, she suggests that you keep an eye out for new opportunities as industries shift. “You have to determine what is in demand and think more broadly about your career,” she says. “There’s no perfect answer to what jobs you should take along the way. The job you take at one moment might not be your dream job, but it may help you get there.”

Finding Advocates To Grow Your Career

“There are always people out there who can help you when you’re struggling—whether it’s with a specific problem or a career change,” says Jordan. She realizes the importance of finding those champions, and says she rarely makes a move without consulting with people who have her best interests at heart while bringing different perspectives. “Even when you’re starting out, it’s critical to find a circle of advisors who have more experience, whom you can call upon for input.”

It’s also incumbent upon women to share their successes, she says, adding that women don’t always speak as freely about their accomplishments as men. “I have had to work on owning my success,” Jordan says. “Modesty is important, but candor is better.”

She shares that recommendation with other women both at Citi and outside of the bank.

The retail bank has a robust program designed to reach minorities and people of color to motivate them toward larger roles.

Jordan looks back on the role her family played in her career with appreciation, and says she currently spends a lot of time with her parents. “I want to make sure they’re happy, as they sacrificed a lot for me,” she says. “Although neither of my parents had the opportunity to go to college, it was extremely important to them that I had the chance – and they structured everything to make my higher education a priority.”

Musically inclined, Jordan loves the opera and plays the organ in her spare time. “For many years I played in church congregations,” she says. “It is very soothing and helps melt away the stress of the day.”

This summer, Jordan was also named a member of the Banking Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association. This affiliation gives her an opportunity to step back and refresh her legal contacts, while becoming involved in discussions with senior lawyers across New York about cutting edge issues in banking law.

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Voice of Experience: Maddi Dessner, Managing Director, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Maddi Dessner featured“Don’t let society constrain your path,” she says, acknowledging that sometimes there is still a lack of support for women entering into the more male-dominated aspects of their industry.

“You have to express interest in new challenges, and remember that most good leaders want to hear what you want to do so they can help your career head the right direction. So be vocal about what you need, whether you’re looking for experience in leadership, global exposure in your firm or experience speaking in front of people.”

Finding Satisfaction in Helping Others

Dessner has spent 24 years with JP Morgan, starting on the floor trading FX options and emerging markets equities, then more recently moving into client-facing roles. Today she leads a group in charge of supporting asset management in the Americas.

“Given that I work in an investment team, my biggest professional achievement is helping people invest well and retire comfortably,” Dessner says, which includes working with them to develop an asset allocation that will deliver a secure retirement. “I am always thinking about the individual who is investing with us and focusing on delivering successful retirement outcomes.”

Given society’s changing demographics, Dessner finds that it’s even more important today than 10 to 15 years ago to help her clients maximize their savings, since many are not sufficiently prepared and need to understand that they can’t invest out of a savings gap.

Being Your Own Advocate For Career Success

Women don’t always raise their hands the same way that men do, notes Dessner. “I probably wasn’t as forceful as I could have been about guiding my career, and I’m lucky to be at an organization that understands how to help people grow a career. While I know I’ve been fortunate to have had that invisible hand guiding my path, that’s not always the case, and it’s crucial for women to advocate for themselves.”

To that end she advises that women build a network and make it part of their job to tend it, suggesting that women devote 10 to 15 percent of every week to ensure they are creating a broader network than just those inside their immediate team. “Keeping your internal and external relationships fresh will propel you forward.”

She also suggests that women not shy away from being candid—that letting colleagues into your whole self while you’re at work is an important part of being a leader.

While she used to feel hesitant to share struggles, as she feared they could show weakness, Dessner now sees that acknowledgement as coming from a positon of strength, proving that you can navigate challenges in your life.

It also brings you closer to your team, she says. “They know there’s a human they can connect with, and people appreciate that. It’s not about oversharing but connecting to people authentically. Rather than keeping everything inside, own the steps in your journey that have brought you to where you are.”

In addition, Dessner recommends evolving your skill set to make sure you’re up on industry trends—and then make sure you ask for what you’re worth. Those are the kinds of skills that can be cultivated in networking groups and in the past, she has served as co-chair of JP Morgan’s Women on the Move program which helps aspiring professionals make connections globally.

Any spare time Dessner has is devoted to her family—boy and girl twins, age 12, and she has found they are at delightful ages to explore activities together, such as travel and philanthropy. They also engage in interesting discussions—such as a recent one where she astounded them by explaining that women didn’t always have the right to vote. “This is an exciting age to parent, where it’s less manual labor and more about helping with guidance and shaping.”

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Fixing The Broken Mentorship Model To Help Close The Leadership Gap

by Anna Robinson, CEO and co-founder of Ceresa

Walking into a Fortune 500 boardroom today, you’re more likely to find a CEO named John than a female CEO.mentors

In fact, only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 20% of board members are women, which has been the case for multiple generations, as reported by BCG.

Breaking the cycle – the continuing need for female mentors

As most people know, the number of women in the workforce has grown over the last century. However, the number of women in senior management roles has plateaued. According to the Women Ahead report, Women make up nearly half of the global workforce (49%), yet one-third of organizations don’t have any women in senior management roles. Why the disparity? A study by Bain & Co found that when women enter the workforce nearly 50% of them aspire to move to senior leadership, but within just five years this number drops to just 16%. This typically corresponds with the time when many women receive their first major promotion but before they are typically starting a family. The promotion to manager is where men have a higher promotion rate than women. McKinsey & Co’s Women in the Workplace report shows that , only 79 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men. Largely because of these gender gaps, men end up holding 62 percent of manager positions, while women hold only 38 percent. This is also the time when support for women in the workplace drops off – as found by both Bain and McKinsey’s studies. These are all critical junctures where mentorship can be most effective in helping women to set their aspirations, navigate these changes and excel in both their personal and professional lives.

Ceresa’s research of the first cohort of 50 mentees shows that the top five reasons women seek mentoring encompass questions of work-life balance and finding meaning, alongside professional development and tactical career planning. This is why the need for effective mentorship for women is greater than ever. Programs that offer support in only one of these crucial areas leave women drastically under-resourced. Companies offer programs geared toward traditional skill development. Yet, as pointed out in HBR, traditional mentoring for women typically ends up focused on operating style and psycho-social issues.

So, how do we fix the broken model?

The good news here is that there is an answer that can help both women and their companies. Mentoring, when done well, has a significant impact on companies and the women participating. One of the most comprehensive studies of mentoring impact found that formal mentoring programs can drive an increase in retention by 40-50% for mentees and mentors. Yet, we very rarely come across internal mentoring programs that have been set up to achieve meaningful, long-term impact.

63% of women have never had access to any formal mentoring, according to a 2012 DDI survey, and especially lack access to senior mentors. While some people argue that mentoring should be organic, in reality, these stats prove this is not working for women. With fewer women in leadership roles, women are missing mentorship that can help with gender-specific issues, and research even shows male mentors can be intimidating rather than helpful in empowering their female colleagues and mentees, as reported by the Huffington Post. This broken model also holds the belief that any senior leader can be a mentor – which is definitely not the case.

The new mentoring model needs to provide mentors training on the skills and attributes needed for successful, high-impact mentoring. And the skills required for quality mentoring are not necessarily synonymous with the qualities needed to be an effective leader. Deep listening, asking powerful questions and focusing on sharing experiences rather than giving advice are all critical to high impact mentorship but are not always required of senior leaders in the workplace. Formal mentoring programs need to coach mentors on these mindsets and skills.

Traditional models also lack structure and accountability. If both parties fail to have mutual and clear expectations, the relationship often fizzles out because one or both parties become discouraged or uninterested. The new model solves for this by encouraging each party to dedicate time and effort in fostering the mentorship relationship – with a clear cadence and schedule upfront. Critically, mentees need to be prepared and intentional about their goals – including submitting a specific agenda ahead of time to their mentor.

We’ve also seen that in status-quo mentoring models, the feedback women receive focuses on psycho-social issues or is based around their work style rather than true career development and professional success, as referred to in the HBR article. The new model must incorporate hard career development and goals while incorporating broader health, wellness and personal issues. This also requires mentees to be prepared before they begin working with a mentor so they can identify the areas in their lives where they need the most help, and define their vision and specific goals.

Finally, to ensure a deep impact from mentorship, the engagement, participation, and impact of the program should be tracked. Collecting feedback and outlining the impact for the company and the individual is critical. This might include tracking satisfaction and sense of empowerment from the program, as well as measuring promotion and pay grade changes. Companies can also track improvements in brand loyalty and retention, using measures such as Net Promoter Score.

The future is female (mentorship)

While working to solve the gender leadership gap through mentorship, we are doing more than just addressing inequality for inequality’s sake. We are also opening the doors to leverage all women to improve business and societal outcomes. As seen, mentoring can improve retention by 40-50% for mentors and mentees. Furthermore, Women Ahead found that 75% of executives claim mentoring was critical to their success. Now is the time to accelerate the rate at which women achieve and thrive in leadership positions, and better mentorship is one tactical step to reaching this goal. But companies need to do more than offer lip-service to mentoring. They need to take the effort to structure the program, help mentees be prepared and intentional, offer specific coaching and support to mentors, provide more sophisticated methodologies in matching mentees and mentors – and then measure impact. If you can’t measure it, it cannot be improved upon – and will rarely be sustained as a business imperative.

About the Author

Anna Robinson is CEO and Founder of Ceresa, a tech-enabled and research based mentorship platform for aspiring women leaders. Anna launched Ceresa in 2018, with the mission of closing the global leadership gap for women. Anna dedicates her time to shaping the company’s vision and strategy, driving consistent high-quality programming, building a world-class team and culture, and shaping a sustainable social impact business model. Prior to launching Ceresa, Anna was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she led strategy and transformation work for US and global health systems, as well as leading several women’s initiatives. Anna was also COO at an early-stage tech company. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, MPhil, and BA from the University of Oxford in England. She currently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three daughters.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

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Voice of Experience: Kathy Matsui, Vice Chair, Global Investment Research, Goldman Sachs

Kathy MatsuiIn the years since she was first profiled by The Glass Hammer in 2013, Matsui’s role at Goldman Sachs has evolved – while she continues to focus on Japan portfolio strategy, she also serves as vice chair of Goldman Sachs Japan.

Her responsibilities in this role include representing the firm in various external activities, including serving on government advisory committees and speaking at conferences, where she is regularly asked to comment on Japan’s stock market and macro economy. However, Matsui notes that “the main core of my job hasn’t changed – I still publish research and meet with clients regularly.”

During her undergraduate years at Harvard, Matsui developed an interest in international affairs and government policy, and initially planned to pursue a career in the foreign service. After her first internship experience within the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department, she earned a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, spent time in Japan where she met her husband, then worked for several years at Barclays de Zoete Wedd in investment research before joining Goldman Sachs in 1994. Commenting on the arc of her career to date, Matsui says: “Despite giving up on the foreign service, my career as a research analyst has ironically allowed me to make a contribution to the gender diversity movement in Japan and help drive change in this important space.”

The Worst Advice I’ve Ever Received

As a junior analyst, Matsui was told to ‘work hard, keep your head down, and you will go far.’ Today, she says: “This was the worst advice I could have been given as a woman just beginning her career, but when I first began working the idea that an ‘invisible hand’ would simply promote you was widespread.”

Matsui recommends that junior women focus on doing their job well, but also engage in networking in order to educate senior stakeholders on their role. “Aside from excelling in one’s job, women need to also identify mentors, connect with others across their organization, and share their accomplishments.”

Overcoming Unimaginable Obstacles

A year after making partner at Goldman Sachs, Matsui was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36. “I had no symptoms, and I was in denial that I was sick – with two young children at home,” she says. “I took eight months off work for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and during this period my family and I felt the full support of the firm. This level of support is one of the reasons why I’ve been at Goldman Sachs for 25 years.”

Empowering Other Women to Succeed

In addition to the research she conducts tied to women in the workforce, Matsui is a board member of the Asian University for Women (AUW) Support Foundation. The Foundation provides funding to AUW, a liberal arts, women-only university in Bangladesh that educates individuals that are the first to attend college in their family.

“Working with the AUW ties into my personal passion for women’s empowerment, and the key to empowerment is education,” she notes. “If you want to effect change and take on a leadership role in your community, you really need to have a tertiary education beyond secondary school – and this university is helping empower women around the world.”

Evolving Role, Evolving Research

Matsui, who was ranked number one in Japan Equity Strategy by Institutional Investor multiple times, initially became interested in examining the demographic challenges Japan’s economy faced after seeing many of her peers remain at home after having children. “Japan has faced acute challenges because there are widespread unconscious biases and gender role stereotypes throughout the country,” explains Matsui. “I experienced this firsthand when a lot of my Japanese friends who were new moms did not return to work in the same way I did due to various factors.”

Matsui thus began to delve deep into the “structural challenges” that were affecting the Japanese economy, including identifying potential solutions that could be enacted by the government to spur greater female representation in the workplace. In the initial 1999 Womenomics report, Matsui and her team recommended the government institute enhanced labor laws, expand childcare facilities, and revise the tax structure, while corporations should provide additional childcare support and clear maternity leave policies. In addition, Matsui called on ‘male champions’ and other women to make it more “socially acceptable to participate in the workforce while having a family.”

In Womenomics 5.0, Matsui revisits the progress that has been made in the last 20 years to boost female workplace participation in Japan, noting that the participation rate has increased to 71 percent, surpassing that of the US (66 percent). In the report, Matsui again makes recommendations for the public and private sectors, as well as society overall:

  • Government policy: more flexible labor contracts, gender pay gap disclosures, tax reforms, parliamentary gender quotas, promotion of female entrepreneurship and looser immigration rules.
  • Corporations: proactive career management, more flexible work environments, performance-based evaluations, gender target-setting and male diversity champions.
  • Societal shifts: avoid gender role stereotypes in the media and promote more women in STEM.

Reflecting on the progress made in Japan in the last 20 years, Matsui says: “There have been definite areas of progress, but there is still significant work to do to elevate women into leadership positions.”

Learn more by listening to an Exchanges at Goldman Sachs podcast featuring Kathy Matsui: “Is Womenomics Working?”

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Got laid off? What to do next.

Nicki GilmourCompanies downsize and restructure, and if you are reading this from a seat in the financial services industry then you know that this cycle is probably about to start soon if you haven’t already seen some movement on this already.

If your company is downsizing and you got a tap on the shoulder informing you that your team is being consolidated and there is no place for you or, in a more extreme fashion, they even marched you out of the building, then what should you do? Recover.

You are faced with choices, albeit unconscious sometimes, of how to recover and to move on and up to bigger and better. This is an opportunity. Frame it that way, do not take it personally.

Yes, there are many emotions and thoughts involved with this type of situation. The best thing you can do is let go of any negative emotion (anger, bitterness, etc.) and list what you enjoyed most and what you enjoyed least about both the job itself and the company culture. This will help you figure out what is next for you, professionally!

If you have any kind of financial cushion, make a promise to yourself that you will not make rash decisions and instead take the time to reflect on what you really want to do next.

What do you really want? More satisfaction, more time, more flexibility, more money, a different title, a different industry? What do you want less of? What is on your “should” list?  Defining that is a great way to purge what you think you have to do, as opposed to want you actually want to do.

These are all elements that you can now think about as maybe it is time to go up the ladder or take a lateral move?  Either way, now is ultimately an ideal time to figure out what you want and what works for you at this juncture as last time you interviewed for a job, you might have been in a different place in your life. Not least, you have a chance to think about your enhanced skillset since that last time around.

If you need a coach to help you navigate what is next, we offer coaching services and you can have a free exploratory call to see if coaching is for you with Nicki Gilmour, head of theglasshammer and certified coach by booking a time here. 

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Women, Men, and the Two Sides of Confidence

,
Professional Women

Guest Contributed by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Even when our assessment of other people’s competence is wrong, their self-confidence can still have self-fulfilling effects, opening doors and opportunities to those who simply seem more confident.

This is one of the reasons that so many well-intentioned people have advised women to be more confident to get ahead at work and in their careers. There are several problems with this kind of advice.

First, it fails to recognize that confidence has two sides. Although confidence is an internal belief, it also has an external side, which concerns how assertive you seem in the eyes of others. This external side of confidence is the most consequential because it is often mistaken for real competence.

The bottom line: regardless of how confident we feel internally, when we come across as confident to others, they will often assume that we are competent, at least until we prove them wrong.

This link between perceived confidence and competence is important. Although women are assumed to be less confident than men and some studies have shown that women appear to be less confident, a closer look at the research shows that women are internally confident. In fact, men and women are both overconfident—even if men are still more overconfident than women.
As Harvard Business School’s Robin Ely and Georgetown’s Catherine Tinsley write in the Harvard Business Review, the idea that women lack confidence is a “fallacy”:

That assertion is commonly invoked to explain why women speak up less in meetings and do not put themselves forward for promotions unless they are 100% certain they meet all the job requirements. But research does not corroborate the idea that women are less confident than men. Analyzing more than 200 studies, Kristen Kling and colleagues concluded that the only noticeable differences occurred during adolescence; starting at age 23, differences become negligible.

A team of European academics studied hundreds of engineers and replicated Kling’s finding, reporting that women do feel confident in general.21 But the researchers also noted that women’s confidence wasn’t always recognized by others. Although both women and men reported feeling confident, men were much more likely to be rated by other people as appearing confident. Women’s self-reports of confidence had no correlation with how others saw their confidence.

To make matters worse, for the female engineers, appearing confident had no leadership benefits at all. For the men, seeming confident translated into having influence, but for women, appearing confident did not have the same effect. To have any impact in the organization, the women had to be seen as confident, competent, and caring; all three traits were inseparable. For men, confidence alone translated into greater organizational clout, whereas a caring attitude had no effect on people’s perception of leadership potential.

We are, it seems, less likely to tolerate high confidence in women than we are in men. This bias creates a lose-lose situation for women. Since women are seen as less confident than men and since we see confidence as pivotal to leadership, we demand extra displays of confidence in women to consider them worthy of leadership positions. However, when a woman does seem as confident as, or more confident than, men, we are put off by her because high confidence does not fit our gender stereotypes.

If women don’t lack confidence, then why do we see differences in how men and women behave? Why are women less likely to apply to jobs or to request a promotion unless they’re 100 percent qualified? Why else would women speak less in meetings and be more likely to hedge their bets when making recommendations?

If the answer is not how women feel internally, it must be how they are perceived externally. In other words, differences in behavior arise not because of differences in how men and women are, but in how men and women are treated. This is what the evidence shows: women are less likely to get useful feedback, their mistakes are judged more harshly and remembered longer, their behavior is scrutinized more carefully, and their colleagues are less likely to share vital information with them. When women speak, they’re more likely to be interrupted or ignored.

In this context, it makes sense that even an extremely confident women would behave differently from a man. As Ely and Tinsley observed at a biotech company, the female research scientists were far less likely to speak up in meetings, even though in one-on-one interactions, they shared a lot of useful information. Leaders attributed this difference to a lack of confidence: “What these leaders had failed to see was that when women did speak in meetings, their ideas tended to be either ignored until a man restated them or shot down quickly if they contained even the slightest flaw. In contrast, when men’s ideas were flawed, the meritorious elements were salvaged. Women therefore felt they needed to be 110 percent sure of their ideas before they would venture to share them. In a context in which being smart was the coin of the realm, it seemed better to remain silent than to have one’s ideas repeatedly dismissed.” Thus, because we choose leaders by how confident they appear rather than by how confident or competent they are, we not only end up choosing more men to lead us but ultimately choose more-incompetent men.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of business psychology at University College London and at Columbia University, and an associate at Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He has published nine books and over 130 scientific papers. His most recent book is Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It)?

This article is adapted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How to Fix It)? by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic Copyright 2019 Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. All rights reserved.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

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Voice of Experience: Mariana Bush, Research Director, Wells Fargo Investment Institute

Mariana BushOver the years, Mariana Bush has been proud of the clarity she’s been able to provide to advisors around the complex issues in the funds she covers.

It was a lesson learned the hard way in the early-‘90s, when she realized that sophisticated investors didn’t fully understand leveraged closed-end funds.

When short- and long-term interest rates unexpectedly rose, and these fund buyers had never experienced the negative aspect of leverage, she “was ready to move to another city, change jobs and career,” she says, with a laugh in hindsight. She moved to Washington DC, but the experience instead colored everything she’s done since, which means she is more careful than ever to make sure that people understand the risks they are getting into.

“While most investment options are unique and offer benefits, potential investors also need to understand the risks and carefully consider whether they can tolerate what can happen in a worst-case scenario,” Bush says, adding that not even 2008 felt as painful as 1994. “And now I have the confidence that I’ve been through several cycles of closed-end fund stress periods and can identify when closed-end fund investors have probably overreacted creating an opportunity for investors, but only if they can handle the accompanying risks.”

She finds that lesson extends to work life in general; in fact, sometimes investors aren’t sure which questions they should be asking, she says. Having answered thousands of inquiries on closed-end funds from financial advisers over the years, sometimes she clarifies for them what they should be asking for. She finds that women are often more likely to ask for explanations, rather than being afraid to ask questions in a meeting or conference call.

One Firm, Many Names and Many Experiences

Bush’s career path has been straightforward, yet never boring. She has specialized in research since graduating from college 30 years ago, and with the exception of the first two years of her career has been with the same company, albeit with multiple names.

“I wish I had kept my business cards because while I have been at the same firm since 1991, my business cards have gone through six firm names,” she says. The most recent move was from Wells Fargo Advisors to the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, and while she says her team is still adapting to their new home, she’s excited about the strengths that will be realized by combining the benefits of the team’s new and old “homes.” “We’re combining them to create a 1+1=3 situation,” Bush says.

Describing the many transitions as a “whirlwind,” she says she has learned a lot from everyone, including that there was likely to be another one each time one was complete—even when joining Wells Fargo, one of the largest financial institutions in the world.

“The lesson learned is that there is always change and will continue to be, and during each transition you just need to focus on what you know you need to do,” Bush says. “Rather than wasting time fretting, we have to focus on what we can control and just do what we need to do every day. And if you always put the client first, ultimately that will take you in the right direction.”

Bush also has found that her curiosity has taken her interesting places; for example as she is from Peru, early in her career she would often ask about Latin American closed-end funds, and one day the Director of Research asked her to cover closed-end funds, not only those with a Latin America exposure. “It was hard—much like being thrown into the lion’s den— and I had to learn about them solo.” A few years later, the financial advisers started asking her about exchange-traded funds (ETFs) because they assumed she would know about those relatively new vehicles for the simple reason that they traded on an exchange, just like the closed-end funds that she was already familiar with. But as she started asking questions about these ETFs, she realized the only people who knew about them were a few traders, so she took it upon herself to learn more about this vehicle that has become a disruptive technology in the investment world, realizing that the more knowledge you gain, the more valuable you are to the team.

Setting a Good Example

While she sees that women usually continue to take over the heavier burden for family care, Bush believes things are changing and hopes the pace accelerates. “My husband is progressive, and I expect that our daughters’ spouses will be even more so,” she notes.

She advises that women make time for themselves, both physically and mentally, as we need steady energy to keep us going. “Whatever your grandmother told you still matters: Eat nutritiously, get enough sleep, and exercise,” Bush says.

As a board member and currently chair of the finance committee of her daughters’ all-girls school, the National Cathedral School, she finds the appointment gives her energy as she applies the skills she’s learned at work to the school, and is also able to take best practices from school back to her work. “It’s been so inspirational to see what these young women accomplish, and often I benefit from their wise advice,” Bush says.

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