What Happens When it Is Not Your Skill Level Holding You Back in Your Career?

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational PyschologistNicki Gilmour

Let’s be honest. What happens when you are a highly qualified professional but people just find you hard to work with or work for? This can be a real career staller and can create headaches of having to replace staff who leave you as a manager.

Your behaviors define you. How you show up is what people notice much more than your impressive list of qualifications or even your true competence level. There are many forms of behavior that can derail you, as no matter how nice you are it doesn’t matter if you are confusing people with any of the following traits- control freak, a perfectionist or an unclear communicator.

I pick these three as development points since they assume that you mean well and your intent is good, however your impact on the other person leaves them wondering just how to meet your standards and expectations. They may have tried several ways and are at a loss for words.

How do you find out if you are doing this to your team or direct reports? Well, a feedback tool such as a 360 rater survey is always a good way to see how people perceive you against how you see yourself. As a coach, we use these tools, as do many companies to help you get to stuff that a direct question might not work for. But, if you do have good relationships with peers, it cannot hurt to buy them a coffee and ask what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. If this feels too confrontational or you are not ready to hear it in this format, there are alternative ways to ask for feedback. Here are three ideas

1. Do an “after action review” on a project, unpacking what went well and what could have been done differently. This way the topic is the project but with a little deep questioning around how ideally you could have taken up your formal role, you can harvest gems.

2. Ask your colleague what he or she likes about your work style and what they feel they would like to see more of? Be brave and follow up with a last question along the lines of “what would you like to see less of?”

3. Think about how you show up and list any patterns in jobs or projects of how you think you acted or interacted and then talk it over with a coach to see what felt right and what felt a little odd to you. You will know as you build you EQ and SQ muscles around the accuracy of how people perceive you. However, on this note, we all have our baggage which creates lenses and views which can then distort how we do analyze our interactions. This stuff is crucial to unpack with someone who understands developmental coaching psychology as all executive coaches are not created equal on this front and 100% of the time.

When in doubt, put yourself in other people’s shoes and think about how it would feel to be on the receiving end of certain behaviors. We all have different pet peeves and likes and dislikes but this is still a good place to start!

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Breaking the Planning Fallacy: The How and Why of Being on Time

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Guest contributed by Katie McBeth

time

Image via Shutterstock

There are two types of people in this world:

“Punctuality is the politeness of kings.” – King Louis XVIII of France

“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.” – Author Evelyn Waugh

Yet, no matter where your personal opinion may lie on the spectrum, the business world has fully embraced the former of the two; be on time, no exceptions. Our world is dependent on schedules and time. Punctuality is a must, even if it’s personally impossible to achieve.

And there are genuinely good reasons why our culture has fully embraced punctuality. For one, showing up late is often seen as a sign of lack of dependability. It also wastes the time of those we are planning to meet up with. By being punctual we are also being respectful. Of course, much of this is cultural, and there are many legitimate reasons why people may often be late.

However, in a more business sense, being on time can be a real chore. Still, there are ways to trick yourself into staying on schedule. Timeliness is a necessity in relationships or business, and to really succeed it’s vital to get to grips with the importance of being on time.

If you struggle with punctuality, here’s how to fix it.

The Planning Fallacy  

Punctuality has been closely tied to human behavior, and psychologists have been studying time habits in humans for quite some time. In the late 1970’s, one psychologist was able to experience it first hand, and even gave it a name: the planning fallacy.

If you are someone that is perpetually late – no matter how hard you try to not be tardy – it could be that you are suffering from this common mental state of mind. As psychologists with the University of Southern California describe, our personal concept of time is biased, and can often skew our understanding of how long a task will take to complete. In reality, it can be easy to overcome, once we master the bias.

Researchers with USC state: “Individuals consistently assume their own tasks will get done sooner and be easier than they actually do or are. This is an optimism bias. On the other hand, a third-party observer assessing how long a task will take for another person will consistently provide a “low-ball” figure representing a pessimism bias – believing the task will take longer.”

Besides appearing disrespectful, the planning fallacy can also hurt financially. For large companies, it can cost hundreds of additional hours in labor as well as potentially far overshoot any budgets.

One giant example of this is the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. It took an extra ten years to complete the project, and had an estimated cost of about eight million dollars. The final cost? Over 102 million dollars.

Overcoming the Planning Fallacy  

Time management was created as the core solution to combating the planning fallacy. Whether traveling from point A to point B, or simply getting up in the morning, time management plays a role in all of it. Delegate your time wisely, and you’ll be able to work your way out of the fallacy.

For example, if you’re perpetually procrastinating on projects or homework, create an agenda and set exact start times for your projects. Find a way to minimize outside distractions, and simply buckle down. The sooner you start, the sooner you finish.

However, it’s also important to consider the amount of work needed to complete the task. If you’re researching a topic, then you might need a few more hours of time than if you’re, say, writing an article on the benefits of dog walking.

This is where time delegation can really help. View the task pessimistically, and set up exact times dedicated to researching, compiling notes, and writing your project. Don’t wait for your superior to tell you what to do and when to do it. Instead, show your ability as a self-starter and work to build up your personal confidence and time management skills.

Another important part to breaking the fallacy is to avoid multitasking. Although many feel like they function better when multitasking, the truth is it can end up wasting more time simply by switching mindsets between projects. Zeroing in on the project at hand can help you complete a task on time.

If you’re a perpetually late person – as in physically always late to work or meet ups with friends – then you need to take a different approach. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into tasks when you know you need to be somewhere else, and instead try to get into a routine. Especially for non-morning people: set yourself up for success by creating and cultivating a strong morning routine. You will rarely be late to work if you’re already alert and awake within an hour or so of you needing to leave.

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Breaking the planning fallacy can be difficult. It will take time to teach yourself how to manage time. However, once you’ve mastered it, you’ll have a whole new confidence in your ability to get work done, and you’ll be able to easily impress those that are relying on you.

Punctuality may be mandatory in our society, but it certainly has its benefits. Don’t let time and tardiness get the better of you.

Katie McBeth is a researcher and writer out of Boise, ID, with experience in marketing for small businesses and management. Her favorite subject of study is millennials, and she has been featured on Fortune Magazine, Glassdoor, and the Quiet Revolution. You can follow her writing adventures on Instagram or Twitter: @ktmcbeth.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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5 Questions to Ask At Every Networking Event

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Guest contributed by Jessica Thiefels

networking

Image via Shutterstock

People love talking about themselves, and this is key to making the most of your next networking event. Instead of talking about yourself, ask questions and listen intently. If you can get someone talking about their work, business and goals, that’s half the battle—and it makes you look good because it shows that you’re not in a hurry to ask for something.

Keep these questions in your back pocket for your next networking event.

How Did You Hear About This Event?

This may seem like a cliché icebreaker, but the arbitrary question gives you, and whoever you’re talking to, a jumping off point. After you’ve made your initial introductions, ask your fellow attendee how they know the host or heard about the event.

If he or she knows the host personally, they may be able to share an anecdote or give you some additional insight about the person or organization. If they learned about the event from a peer or social network, you can see if you’re in any of the same online groups or talk about common professional interests. “The hardest part is breaking the ice,” according to Loraine Burger from Smart Meetings. “Conversation will, for the most part, flow naturally after that first painstaking ‘hello.’”

What do you love about what you do?

This is a more open-ended version and a better conversation starter than the usual, “So, what do you do?” When you ask someone what he or she loves about their job or role, it gives them the opportunity to talk about their passions and talents. If you’re trying to transition into a new field or a similar line of work, you’ll get an interesting perspective on the work. If you already work in a similar field, it gives you new insight into what someone else loves about the profession.

You may find some common ground or you may discover a new perspective. Either way, this question will excite the person more than simply asking their title or role.

Did you always know you wanted to get into this field?

Everyone has their own unique story about how they came to be in their current position. This question gives you insight into the path this individual took to get where they are now. Maybe they always knew they wanted to be in business or marketing, or maybe they started in a different field and transitioned into their current role because of a colleague or mentor.

Whatever their story, the questions allows you to learn from someone else’s experience. “This gives your new contact a chance to tell a story and people love telling stories, especially when the story is about themselves,” advises Thomas Camarda, networking expert.

Listen to what he or she says, they may tell you about mistakes they made that lead to a career change or resources they used to improve job-related skills. You may be able to relate or you may get some fresh ideas you can use in your own career. Not everyone has a straight career trajectory, and you can learn from steps others have taken.

What did you do to set yourself apart from other candidates?

It’s no secret that the job market is competitive. With so many applicants for any given position, you either need to do something special to stand out or know someone who can help you. Whether you’re talking to someone in a similar position or someone more advanced in their career (where you’d like to be), this question can help you learn what tactics have worked for other people and what it takes to get ahead. If you’re lucky, you’ll learn strategies that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.

What can I do for you?

Finally, rather than asking for a favor, provide your new connection with the opportunity for your help as the conversation is ending. “When first meeting someone you think could be helpful, offer your services first,” says Ted Rollins, global ecopreneur recognized by Inc. 500.

Rollins continues,

“Ask: What do you need help with right now? What do you see yourself needing the most support with in the future? Being authentic with connections. Always trying to provide greater value makes them more likely to do the same for you. This sets the foundation for a strong network that is instrumental for everyone involved.”

If you know, based on their answers to your questions that you can help in a specific way, offer that. I.E. “I’d love to introduce you to John Smith, he was just promoted to CFO at Business Emporium; I bet he’d have a lot of great insight for you.” This shows you listened to them, heard what they need, and are willing to provide a solution or help.

Whether you’re talking to a peer or someone in a higher position, remember to be sincere. Don’t come right out and ask for a job or favor. You’re building relationships that may be able to help you in the future, but your goal shouldn’t be personal gain at your initial meeting. In many cases, the most valuable advantages you can gain from a networking relationship are insight and knowledge. Try these questions at your next event. You may find that they help the conversation flow more freely and make it easier to develop lasting professional relationships.

BIO: Jessica Thiefels has been writing for more than 10 years and is currently a full-time writer, content marketing consultant and business owner. She’s been featured in Forbes and Business Insider and has written for Manta, LeadPages, Salesforce and more. Follow her on Twitter @Jlsander07 and connect LinkedIn.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of the glasshammer.com

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The “New Rules” and You: How to Thrive in the Organization of the Future

By Lisa Iarkowski

Image via Shutterstock

The digital age is upon us, for better and for worse. As anyone with a smart phone can attest, technology is advancing faster than ever. At the touch of a button, we skype with family overseas, share information with coworkers, check in with our kids, and track our daily steps. As individuals, we are adapting relatively quickly but many businesses are having a hard time keeping up with the rapid pace of technology and are struggling to redesign their organizations to remain competitive. Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report suggests businesses around the globe are ill-prepared to build the organization of the future. In their survey of 10,000 organizations across 140 countries in a broad cross section of industries, Deloitte reports that 88% of businesses say that building the organization of the future is important or very important, but only 11% of businesses say they are prepared to do so. Deloitte shares trends and “new rules” organizations need to follow to redesign their organizations for the future.

The New Rules

Organization 21—Designed with You in Mind

The organization built for the future will be organized for learning, innovation, and customer impact. What can we expect?

Employee experience at the center. Successful organizations will prioritize and reshape the employee experience by creating a more holistic, work-life balanced, end-to-end recruitment-to-retirement experience that their employees are seeking. Employees can expect more help with balancing personal and professional demands, compensation, financial and nonfinancial benefits (such as meals, leaves, vacation, fitness, wellness programs), and rewards and recognition designed to make people’s lives better.

How we work together. The traditional hierarchical structures will give way to agile networks and small, project teams empowered by team leaders and fueled by collaboration and knowledge sharing. Employees will have greater support for risk-taking, creativity, and innovation. There will be more opportunities for greater input, influence, and leadership. In the future organization, leadership is a role anyone can play.

Who we work with and the skills we need. Teams will be more diverse. The traditional workforce will continue to be augmented with contingent workers, contractors, and crowds. Essential human skills will be augmented by technology (robotics, artificial intelligence) to perform nonessential tasks. Research by Deloitte in the United Kingdom finds that the future workforce will require a “balance of technical skills and more general purpose skills such as problem solving skills, creativity, social skills, and emotional intelligence.”

How leaders lead. Still crucial, leadership will align with the future organization’s focus on learning, innovation, and customer impact. Effective leaders of the future are agile, collaborative and team-based. A leader’s success will be measured less by their expertise or judgement in a given area, and more by their agility and creativity, their ability to build and lead teams, and to utilize resources such as client teams and crowds to solve new business challenges.

How we grow our careers. Careers for employees and leaders will be built on advancement through many assignments and diverse, multi-functional experiences, as opposed to a linear, hierarchical progression up the ranks. Employees will see growth opportunities through increased training and support on the job, continuous feedback on goals and performance, and more access to continuous learning through flexible, mobile, on demand content.

Get Ready for the Future – Now

How can we survive the shift and prepare ourselves to thrive in the future organization? Here are some suggestions:

Build your change muscles. You can get more comfortable with change. In fact, your happiness at work depends on it, as change is not going away, ever. Knowledge is your super power here. The more information you have, the more you understand the change, why it’s happening, and what it means to you personally, the easier change is to roll with. If you find yourself feeling resistant, ask yourself “what else do I need to know about this?” Armed with information, ask yourself “where’s my opportunity?” Focus on your opportunity. Of course, if a change still seems like a bad idea, then bring forward the risks and provide alternative solutions. Super Power Booster: Step it up a notch and become a change leader in your organization. Volunteer to be part of a team or lead on a change that is meaningful to you. Offer to mentor others struggling to adapt, or offer to mentor a senior leader who needs to know how changes are affecting employees.

Take small bites, chew thoroughly. Change can feel overwhelming because there is just so much of it. It can help to break down changes into smaller pieces and do one of thing at a time. Multitasking is not your friend here. While it feels like you are doing more, you end up more stressed and not as productive as when you focus on one thing at a time. This approach can also help you build capacity to try new things and take risks (which are both future organization skills you’ll need). Super Power Booster: Work with your team to select one change you want to make on a project—just one. Pilot that change, set two milestones to assess how it’s going, and make changes as needed. Set the expectations upfront that the team should expect to tweak how things are working based on their feedback.

Make Friends with Tech

Admit it, often we’re drowning in email, tweets, texts, and meetings. As teams become increasingly global and augmented, we need help simplifying and organizing how we communicate, share information, and meet. Collaboration tools like Workplace, Slack, Basecamp, Asana, Trello, and Workboard may be options. Investigate tools your organization uses now or is planning to implement. As your organization continues to bring new technology solutions online, be open to training and learning. Super Power Booster: Experiment or pilot one collaboration tool to simplify how your team communicates and works together on one project. Assess how it’s working.

Build Your Essential Skillset, Continuously

More and more, essential human skills will be augmented by technology to perform nonessential tasks. Essential human skills for the future workforce include project management, listening, and moral and ethical decision making, empathy, communication, persuasion, personal service, and strategic decision making. Managers who can coach and develop staff will be in demand, as will leaders who demonstrate agility, collaboration, resilience, and systems thinking. Invest in your own training and learning in these essential skills. Leverage your organization’s training programs or create your own through external resources like Udacity, Udemy, Coursera, NovoEd, and edX which offer accessible, low-no cost high quality-learning. Deloitte reports that skills are becoming obsolete at an accelerating rate, with learned skills having a half-life of only 5 years. Expect that keeping your skills fresh will be an ongoing process of growth that will help you stay competitive. Adopt a continuous learning mindset, where your learning is “always on.”. Power Booster: Create a learning plan with milestones to grow and practice your skills in areas that are crucial to your continued development and success. To increase your knowledge about other functional areas, reach out to colleagues or consider asking to work on a short-term project in another functional group.

Own Your Career

More career development help is a promise of the future organization. But no one cares more about your career more than you, and this is a good time to revisit or create your career development plan. As organizations shift into matrix or lateral structures, how you can advance within the organization will change. Your plan should consider how organizations of the future will create advancement opportunities, and can include assessing what is meaningful to you, your professional and personal goals, and how you want to invest in your own learning and training, as well as how you can balance your personal and professional demands. Check with your HR rep: your organization may already have career development tools that they use or recommend. Another thing to keep in mind is that talent recruiters are relying more on social media beyond just LinkedIn, with Twitter, Facebook, Glassdoor, Pinterest, and Quora. Consider pushing your professional presence beyond LinkedIn; get active on social media to create a dynamic professional presence. Super Power Booster: Work with a career or executive coach to help you create a career development plan. Find a mentor or sponsor in your organization who can guide and promote you in creating advancement opportunities to grow your career.

Many of you are already doing these habits and actions. You are the future!

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Carving Out Your Time – Simplifying for Success

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Guest contributed by Daria Rippingale, CEO, BillPro

simplifying

Image via Shutterstock

Recently I was having a drink with a friend of mine and she was telling me about her newest obsession, the New York Times best seller The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. In it she describes a method of decluttering your home that, according to Kondo, refocuses your mind and your life on the things that “spark joy” for you. Essentially, all of the items in your home should bring you some level of joy, while not adding to your stress, so that you can focus on the most important elements of your life.

The end goal is having a home that is clutter free and creates a relaxing environment. Each possession that takes up space should be meaningful – every piece of clothing, every book, every trinket is chosen with purpose and conviction. Anything that gets in the way of the end goal, anything that isn’t regularly used or doesn’t bring happiness, gets tossed.

I left that conversation thinking about clearing out the clutter in our personal lives and how that applies to our work lives, too. We hear the phrase “Do more with less” all the time, but I cringe at the idea of what that traditionally means – longer hours, the same amount of work done by fewer people and usually a drop in quality as a result.

I know from my own experience that with a little practice and some creative ideas, you can streamline your days, making every minute of your work-life meaningful and therefore less stressful and more effective. De-cluttering your work and even your company will allow you to live the true spirit of “doing more with less”.

Below are a few of my essential strategies:

Hone in on your objectives
Firstly, be clear about your goals and objectives, both for you and for your company. Having the destination in mind will make the trip a lot quicker. To continue the travel analogy, your goals are like your True North on a compass. True North is the objective to which all your projects should lead.

Take time to muse over what those goals and objectives might be. Try setting aside time, once a week, to get away from the rush of the office and just think. It probably sounds counter-intuitive to saving time, but the results can be astonishing. Take a walk, sit with a notepad in a quiet room, or do anything where you won’t have too many distractions, allowing you to fully focus on your thoughts. Stepping back from the daily grind, even for 15 minutes, lets you focus on what is really important.

Once you’re clear on where you’re going, it becomes easier to look at your current and upcoming projects and use your compass to guide you towards True North. Focus on the projects that will move you towards your destination. The others are just “busy work” and will only act as barriers to achieving the important things that do “spark joy”. Merely being busy isn’t the same as being productive. Activity doesn’t necessarily equal results.

Ensure that your team is clear on what their objectives are too. Communicate with them as to how their individual projects will lead to the desired destination. Empower them to identify “busy work” and to ask questions about processes and projects that don’t seem to fit with what the organization is trying to achieve.

Simplify Your Work Day

Clearing the decks of focus-stealing “busy work” will recover lost time at the macro level. Simplifying your day-to-day work stream will recover that time at the micro level. Start by eliminating the two biggest hindrances to your productivity – emergencies (that rarely are) and interruptions.

Start each day by looking at your to-do list and calendar, not your email. This sets your mind in motion on what needs to be done instead of what has already happened. Take a few minutes to order your task list for the day. Be sure to tag tasks that are high value and focus towards True North, not just urgent. Completing the high value tasks will return greater rewards on the time you invest in them.

The next time thief to tackle is interruptions, and the biggest culprit here is email. Email is like a spoiled child who wants your attention, and they want it now.

Start minimizing the impact email has on your day by turning off email alerts. If you’re like me, you know there is a never ending stream of messages, so there really is no need to be constantly reminded. Allow yourself 15-20 minutes for checking in and responding to your emails in between larger tasks, making it a welcome distraction rather than an annoyance.

When you’re ready to corral your email even more, consider the advice of Tim Ferriss from The 4-Hour Work Week. He suggests only checking your email twice a day and using an auto responder stating the times you intend to review messages. For emergencies, they can always call.

Lastly, take 30 minutes before you finish up to reflect on the day. Examine what you accomplished, and what the value of those tasks were. Check your calendar for upcoming meetings and deadlines. This keeps you in that proactive state of mind instead of reactive, and prevents you from feeling anxious about the next day’s tasks.

If you want to do more with the time available to you, start by taking the time to focus on your True North – what’s important to your own goals and to the company. Use this as a compass to guide everything you do. Remove those projects that are simply “busy work” and concentrate on the tasks that move you forward. I believe that focusing on objectives and on simplifying everything has truly been integral to my success in leading the BillPro team on the journey of rapid growth. Certainly, without a sharp focus on the destination, we would not be in this position today.

BillPro CEO Daria Rippingale is considered a global authority on merchant processing. As an industry leader in e-commerce innovation, her fresh thinking regarding international payments and risk reduction has brought thousands of previously unserved merchants into the global marketplace. Follow on Twitter @BillProPayments

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8 Common Errors That Will Damage Your Career

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errors

Image via Shutterstock

Guest contributed by Jennifer Tait

From time to time, most of us see or hear about some crazy behaviour at work. Whether it’s a full-blown argument, a dramatic resignation or gross misconduct, you know that irreparable damage has been done to that person’s career.

However, it isn’t just the crazy moments like these that damage a career. There are actually a number of behaviours (and relatively common ones too) that cause your colleagues to view you in a negative light.

Here are 8 behaviours that you should avoid at work if you don’t want to damage your career.

  1. Boasting

Bragging about your achievements is a sure-fire way to make your colleagues dislike you. Generally speaking we simply don’t like people who boast about themselves and appear big-headed. Plus, if you’re shouting about your successes this makes others think that success isn’t a common thing for you, hence when you get it you have to shout about it.

On the one hand, it is important for you to promote yourself and your skills at work, however, you should always ensure that it is in a way that doesn’t come across as boasting.

  1. Taking credit for someone else’s work

It’s never a good feeling when someone steals your idea and naturally, it stirs up feelings of resentment. You should never take credit for someone else’s work as it shows that you have no regard for your team. It will cause significant damage to your working relationships and therefore also your career.

  1. Gossiping

We all love a bit of juicy gossip, but it’s important not to get caught up in it at work. If you get carried away chatting about your colleagues’ mistakes then the only person who is going to look bad is you. What you say about others may easily find its way back to them, so don’t be the gossip who spreads negativity.

  1. Going over someone’s head

While it’s not uncommon to go over someone’s head in an attempt to avoid conflict, this can come across as backstabbing. This tends to be a cause of even more conflict as soon as your colleague bears the brunt of your actions.

Going over a colleague’s head always makes them look bad whatever your intentions so do everything you can to resolve problems without getting others involved.

  1. Saying you hate your job

We all have our down days at work where things just don’t go our way. However, no one wants to hear about how much you hate your job. Being negative has an impact on everyone else’s mood in the office and good managers are quick to address anyone who is bringing the team down.

If you really need to vent, save it for when you get home.

  1. Having an emotional outburst

Being able to control your emotions is a skill that is central to your professionalism at work and the success of your career. An outburst of anger demonstrates that you have low emotional intelligence and will make your colleagues question whether you can be trusted to keep it together when it counts.

Emotional outbursts are a quick way to win yourself a lot of negative attention and in extreme cases to get fired. Keep your emotions in check and never make others feels that you are intimidating and unapproachable.

  1. Lying

Most people don’t intentionally tell lies at work. You may tell a small white lie in order to protect yourself or somebody else in your team, however if you’re found out it could be very damaging for your career.

Being caught in a lie will cause others to distrust you. Also, lying can be exhausting and is likely to cause you more stress and worry in the long term. If you can’t be honest and genuine in your workplace then you are unlikely to be happy there.

  1. Burning bridges

Your business connections and working relationships are so important to the success of your career. No matter how you feel about people, you should aim to never burn bridges as you never know when a connection will prove useful to you in the future (a broken connection can also prove quite harmful).

Quitting your job and leaving without notice, for example, will not only cause a lot of problems for your boss but also your colleagues who will have to take on your workload.

Bringing it all together

None of these common errors are particularly surprising, but they are something that many people forget about and dabble in from time to time. If you can avoid behaviours like these, you’ll have a better chance of maintaining strong working relationships that are key to career success.

About the Author

Bridgewater Resources UK work with market-leading businesses across the UK and Ireland, connecting top talent with outstanding opportunities. They offer roles within wholesale, distribution and manufacturing industries, recruiting highly skilled individuals at all levels.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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What Skills Differentiate Women Who Make It To The Top?

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top

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Guest contributed by Steven Stein

What does it really take for women leaders to make it to the top in the business world? Over the past 20 years, we’ve compiled the world’s largest database of testing results on emotional intelligence—approximately 2 million people worldwide. The Emotional Quotients Inventory (EQ-i 2.0) is the first and most widely used emotional intelligence test in the world. One of the areas we look at is the relationship between emotional intelligence and success at work. In addition, we’ve looked at the role gender plays in how these emotional skills are expressed.

We were the first to document the differences between men and women’s emotional intelligence profiles. Interestingly, the results were consistent around the world. And while there’s no significant difference in overall emotional intelligence scores, there were differences in the types of emotional intelligence. Men scored higher in independence, stress tolerance and problem solving. Women, however, scored higher in emotional self-awareness, emotional expression and empathy.

Building on women’s strengths

In the early days of reporting on my organization’s emotional intelligence and organizational success research, I was challenged by a number of businesswomen. They told me that to be successful in the male corporate environment, such as in financial institutions and the tech industry, it was important to be tough. They thought that they had to be tougher than the men in order to succeed. Being aggressive, they said, was rewarded and the way to get ahead.

I thought differently. I suggested that women were generally better in interpersonal skills, empathy and emotional expression, and they should leverage these skills. While the traditionally male-dominant traits of stress tolerance, independence and using appropriate emotions in solving problems were important qualities for leaders, women’s skills in these areas did not lag behind the men’s. And to get ahead of the curve in leadership, the skills women already excelled in were the ones to focus on improving even more.

Women are moving the needle on defining leadership traits

One of our current research samples includes 280 executives who are about to be or are currently on boards of directors. These high-level executives, most of whom have worked their way up the organizational ladder, have acquired the skills one needs to make it to the top. The sample shows that women have essentially closed the gap in the areas where men traditionally score higher—independence, stress tolerance and problem solving. They have had to deal with stress throughout their careers and, at this stage, are more balanced in dealing with difficult situations. Also, they’ve been at a decision-making level for a significant amount of time and can manage the decision-making process well.

But the data also shows that women who make it to the level of senior executives moving onto boards bring some extra skills with them to the boardroom. These women outscore their male counterparts in emotional self-awareness, emotional expression and empathy. These skills have now emerged as defining future leaders.

What difference does it make having females on the board of directors?  The New York Times reported on a study by Credit Suisse looking at gender differences of board members. They examined almost 2,400 global corporations from 2005 to 2011, including the years directly preceding and following the financial crisis, and found that large-cap companies with at least one woman on their boards outperformed comparable companies with all-male boards by 26 percent.

The report continued, “Some might assume that there was a cost to this as well, that boards with women must have been excessively cautious before the financial crisis of 2008… Not so. From 2005 to 2007, Credit Suisse also found, the stock performance of companies with women on their boards essentially matched performance of companies with all-male boards. Nothing lost, but much gained.” Unfortunately, the number of women getting to the boardroom is still much lower than men.

Increase your emotional intelligence

Whatever your emotional intelligence strengths, you can develop and enhance the three specific traits exhibited strongly by women in leadership roles.

  1. Cultivate self-awareness. Practice can help you become more emotionally self-aware. Through activities like meditation and mindfulness, you can learn to focus more on what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling that way. Knowing yourself better will help you become more balanced and centered when dealing with stressful situations and people.
  2. Find the balance for emotional expression. Being emotionally expressive comes naturally for many people. There’s nothing wrong with letting others know when something is bothering you or when you’re pleased with someone’s work. Be honest and authentic. Expressing your feelings can make you more real and likeable as a person, especially when you learn to manage it well. On the other hand, being overly expressive or under expressive can lead to trouble.
  3. Make empathy your secret strength. Great leaders are empathic. They are able to listen to others and understand where they’re coming from. But don’t mistake empathy for believing you must give in to everyone’s wants and needs. Understanding another person’s situation helps you make better decisions about what feels right for you.

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Steven Stein, Ph.D., is a leading expert on psychological assessment and emotional intelligence. He is the founder and CEO of Multi-Health Systems, a leading publisher of scientifically validated assessments. Dr. Steven Stein is the author and coauthor of several books on emotional intelligence, including his new book, The EQ Leader: Instilling Passion, Creating Shared Goals, and Building Meaningful Organizations through Emotional Intelligence

Disclaimer: The views and advice given by our Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Women Leaders as Agenda Movers: Leveling the Playing Field

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female leaderGuest Contributed By Samuel B. Bacharach

Recently I was asked to give a talk to a forum attended by fifty women executives. The topic was based on my new book and was titled, “The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough.” Two days before the talk, two invitees objected, or at least questioned, my legitimacy, and pointedly asked the organizers “What does a man know about women and leadership?”

My response was that, indeed, I had no expertise that was unique to the challenges of being or aspiring to be a woman leader. My expertise is in the micro-political skills that any leader—no matter what their personality, background, age, gender—needs in order to move their ideas, their agendas, and their change efforts forward.

I am the first to admit that every leader brings to their agenda mover challenges their unique voice, their unique skills, and their unique narrative. Leaders face different burdens. While, for some, due to societal expectations and pressures, the burdens are greater, the core skills of leadership are ubiquitous.

If you want to succeed in an organization, if you want to move your idea forward, if you want to drive your career—to lead any effort, you need to have mastered political competence. That is, you must acquire and develop the micro-skills overcome resistance, mobilize support, and go the distance. Leaders of all stripes need to understand that a good idea is simply not enough. As a leader, you need the skills of political competence.

Having trained leaders at all levels of numerous organizations, I have determined that there are four fundamental agenda-moving skills:

1. Anticipate. When innovating and creating change, your idea is inevitably going to impact others. You have to anticipate how others will react to your idea. You need to know whom you’re dealing with, interpret their intentions, gauge their resistance, and expect the arguments that they will make against your idea.

Successful leaders spend as much time formulating their plan as they do mapping the political terrain and working out how they will present and justify their ideas to others. They expect resistance, and have made plans to overcome the naysayers.

2. Mobilize. You can’t do it alone. To achieve results, you have to work with a coalition of supporters who share your goals. Coalitions not only lighten the workload, but they reinforce your credibility and protect you—and your team—against unexpected setbacks.

To mobilize others, you must be careful to focus your message, be smart about timing the release of your messaging, astute about language, and perceptive about your audience. Support can be weak or strong, or middling, and politically competent leaders know when lukewarm support is enough to get their agenda accomplished, and when they have to press harder for a greater degree backing.

3. Negotiate. You have to negotiate support. You have to show others that there is little risk in joining you in your effort. Give a sense that you are fine without them, but it would be nice to have them along on the effort. Show prospective coalition members what they can gain from aligning their interests with yours. Getting the buy-in is about shifting your focus from your passion to really seriously thinking about where others are coming from, and what would motivate them to join your effort.

4. Sustain. You have to keep working after your coalition is in place. It falls on your shoulders as the leader to maintain traction, create short-term wins, create short-term victories, supply resources, and reinforce an optimistic outlook.

Sometimes agenda movers make the mistake of front-loading their effort on the coalition creation stage, and slack off once the coalition is formed. You can’t let your enthusiasm flag as you head toward the finish line. Make sure your coalition becomes a focused, agile, coordinated, forward-moving team.

After my talk, one attendee came up to me and said that the agenda moving skills were something that she learned late in life. She also mentioned that young men are taught the ropes of the political games well before young women. Isn’t that the sad truth?

Considering the challenges that women face, mastering the skills of an agenda mover is just but one more step to leveling the playing field.

About the author

Samuel B. Bacharach is the author of THE AGENDA MOVER: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough (Cornell University Press, 2016). He is also co-founder of the Bacharach Leadership Group, which focuses on training leaders in the skills of the Agenda Mover, and is the McKelvey-Grant Professor at Cornell University.

Disclaimer: Views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Is It Possible to Be an Entrepreneur within a Corporate Structure?

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Business meeting with women and menGuest Contributed by Meg Schmitz

At some point in everyone’s career we begin to take inventory of what want in a job, what we seek for our professional growth and what brings us joy. In an ideal world, we’d all have jobs that don’t feel like work, pull a huge paycheck and allow us to achieve our goals. However, the reality is that many people, for reasons often beyond their control, leave work every day feeling unfulfilled – often, this is due to underutilizing a key skill set or feeling that potential is being left untapped.

For individuals who are drawn to entrepreneurship but don’t yet own a business, there’s a middle ground – the less-talked-about intrapreneurship. In a nutshell, intrapreneurs bring the entrepreneurial spirit to their corporate structure. This translates to freedom of thought, out-of-the-box problem solving, flexible brainstorming and long-range thinking that can be lost in the day-to-day grind. Intrapreneurs have the advantage of paycheck security and other benefits, all while being able to explore new avenues to sell a product or service in a role they already have familiarity with.

Another important component of intrapreneurship is the level of focus that intrapreneurs possess. An entrepreneur should view his or her company as a vision from starting point to end, but an intrapreneur works within the company to focus directly on a specific problem. Intrapreneurs, therefore, should have more directly applicable skills for a specific task. An intrapreneur takes risks, but those risks fall within the context of his or her job in the existing company. So, rather than focusing on the whole company, intrapreneurs hone in on the processes within it.

In this same vein, intrapreneurs are the primary forces of innovation within their companies. Like entrepreneurs, they look to provide solutions to unique, often market-driven problems. They focus on policies, technologies and applications that solve a specific problem, often resulting in productivity issues. In the same way that an entrepreneur starts a company to provide a service or product, an intrapreneur takes on a task within the company to strengthen it as a whole.

This sounds great, right? Somehow being able to balance your entrepreneurial ambitions with job security? Well, it’s not that easy – the first step is finding a company that’s open to intrapreneurs and their big ideas. When you’re looking for a job, make a point to find a corporate culture that supports your innovation, and actively interview for a culture that matches your values, goals and personality. Flexibility should be encouraged instead of suppressed, and the company should be comfortable with out-of-the-box thinking. It’s also worth considering exploring if the company has the budget – and internal capacity – to make the changes you might bring. Flexibility is key, but the space for implementation of your new ideas is what will actually allow intrapreneurs to fully realize their ideas.

What do intrapreneurs look like? They’re often independent, willingly autonomous individuals who like to thoroughly investigate every facet of a problem they’re presented with. They don’t respond well to micromanagement as they feel it stifles the experimental and creative processes. They’re free thinkers, but appreciate the overarching structure of a company that they feel aligns well with their values, goals and career direction. They’re the building blocks of their company’s executive teams and are a driving force behind innovation and forward motion.

If you see yourself in the description of an intrapreneur, you’re not alone – women make great intrapreneurs. We’re better equipped to challenge the status quo – we’ve been doing it as long as we’ve been alive! Fighting is in our blood, and we have great ideas that are well thought out and adaptable. Young women, in particular, have shown increasingly entrepreneurial ambitions, but many lack the experience or resources to pursue their own business at this time – however, entrepreneurially minded women may find that bringing a spirit of intrapreneurship to their corporate jobs gets them quite far. In fact, most businesses celebrate having women in higher-level positions, so why not harness this positive energy and look at ways to challenge the status quo further with big ideas, long-range thinking and out-of-the-box problem solving?

Meg Schmitz is an independent consultant of FranChoice based in Morton Grove, Ill. Her free services aid individuals along their path to professional independence, while developing a plan to achieve personal lifestyle goals through franchise investments. Contact Meg at MegSchmitz@FranChoice.com.

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