Why Real Executive Presence is Not Only About Making Impressions

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Smartly dressed young women shaking hands in a business meeting at office desk

When it comes to possessing successful leadership behaviors, C-Suite females rate themselves virtually the same as male executives. But having what it takes to be a leader and being perceived equally as one are different things.

In a recent INSEAD article, Dr. Caroline Rook shared that an investigation of 1,167 female and male C-suite executives revealed “no meaningful differences between the way men and women rate themselves on twelve leadership behaviors attributed to successful global leaders.” In fact, Rook found that in some industries women were more likely to self-rate rate higher than men did on emotional intelligence and team-building.

An Elusive Bridge Between Ability and Success

Experts may advise on how to cultivate it or even be aware of what detracts from it, but executive presence remains elusive. Fast Company has called it “the intangible career trait that you need to succeed.” It’s easier to recognize than describe. It’s been approximated with the words “gravitas”, “charisma”, and the ability to “command a room.” It’s also been called the “workplace X factor”. Executive presence seems to be a Gestalt mosaic of qualities exuded by select leaders which, subjectively perceived, makes their whole greater than the sum of their parts.

Silvia Ann Hewlett, Ph.D., author of Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success, told Fast Company that executive presence is “a measure of image – a dynamic mix of gravitas, communication, and appearance.” According to Hewlett and many other experts in this space, executive presence is the bridge you build between your abilities and advancing – because merit alone is unlikely to get you there.

“Executive Presence” Brings Men to Mind

In their study, “Understanding Executive Presence: Perspectives of Business Professionals”, researchers Gavin Dagley and Caderyn Gaskin explored executive presence through in-depth interviews with 34 Australian business professionals with expertise in the effectiveness of organizational executives.

The researchers concluded that “a person with executive presence is someone who, by virtue of how he or she is perceived by audience members at any given point in time, exerts influence beyond that conferred through formal authority.”

Because executive presence is easier to perceive than describe, the researchers began with asking the participants to nominate four people who they thought of as having executive presence, and from that point they explored what executive presence was.

71% of participants brought up and described male examples, women doing so (75%) even more than men (65%). None only brought up female examples. Some participants realized during the interview they were speaking only about men, and self-corrected to include women, but their initial inclination was already clear.

Are the Characteristics of Executive Presence impossibly male?

The researchers found that executive presence is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. One person may perceive an executive to have substantial presence, while others may be less impressed.

They also found that executive presence is not entirely impression-based, something a leader exudes from the first impression. Rather they found that sustained perceptions of executive presence were a sum of initial contacts and evaluations over an extended time of more exposure.

Of the ten characteristics of executive presence they identified, five were based on impressions during brief contacts which we would argue are heavily gendered making it tricky for women to be measured with the same yardstick since historical notions of status are just so, well, male?

  • Status and Reputation – an “initial aura of presence” based upon strong reputation, impressive networks, senior roles held, and significant achievements – “reputation” is the key word
  • Physical Appearance – appearance (“looking the part”), stature, and non-verbal body language such as posture, eye contact, and walk
  • Projected Confidence – displaying outward calmness, composure, and a sense of self, emotional intelligence, dignity, elegance, style, a “sense of authority” or charisma
  • Communication Ability – ability to communicate messages simply, clearly, convincingly and appealingly; effective use of voice; ability to make themselves heard
  • Engagement Skills – ease and manner in which executives engaged with others, with skills such as “eagerness”, “charm”, “apparent sincerity”, “quiet wit”, and “friendliness”
  • The other five characteristics were more evaluation-based and built over time and exposure and are more gender neutral, based more in substance and integrity than status and style. They included, for example:
  • Interpersonal integrity – acknowledging others contributions, “being inclusive”, remembering the last conversation with someone, showing the “human touch”, relationship-based interpersonal sincerity
  • Values-In-Action – acting in accordance with personal values, showing integrity –being “genuine”, “authentic to her values,” “courageous – speaks from the heart,” “tough-minded,” “authentic with follow through,” and “trustworthy”
  • Intelligence and Expertise – quality task-focused thinking, observed as “impressive intellect,” “knowledge in areas of focus,”“considered when expressing views,”“long-term insightful thinker,” “excellent judgment,” and “quiet wisdom”
  • Outcome Delivery Ability – ability to deliver key outcomes, including solid decision-making, commitment, being flexible, being energetic and hard-working, and achieving delivery through others
  • In many ways, these characteristics are more important to leadership than the impression-based, gender-biased measurements that have become attached to executive presence short-hand.
Gender and “Executive Presence”

Dagley and Gaskin found that “executive presence is located in the perceptions of audience members rather than being something inherent in the executive.” Executive presence might be the bridge to the executive office, but it’s also subjectively defined by who is present in it.

The research shows how women can more broadly build the bridge of their executive presence, how you can recognize existing strengths and fill in your own personal gaps. But how executive presence interacts with gender is embodied in the word. The most likely reason “executive presence” brings men to mind first is that men are over-represented in the corporate executive suite.

When will “executive presence” bring women right to mind?

When women have equal presence in executive roles.

That’s a bridge that requires collective organizational and cultural building.

By Aimee Hansen

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11 Ways Mentors Can Help You Succeed – And How To Get Their Help

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11 Ways MentorsMost successful women will tell you that mentors made a big difference in their careers. Their mentorship may not always translate into breaking through the glass ceiling, but mentors can help your work performance, help you achieve success in a company and also help you be more fulfilled in your work.

Here are 11 ways a mentor can help you during 4 general stages of your career:

Stage 1: Newbie: Your Mentors Help You Acclimate to a New Job or Work Environment:

1. Find Your Way and Learn the Rules: Bonnie Marcus, author of The Politics of Promotion, says, “The mentor can offer advice on how to best navigate in the new work environment and give information about the people and politics.” A mentor within your company can help you understand corporate expectations—both spoken and unspoken rules. They can point out mistakes if they see you in action. Your mentor can help you feel comfortable operating within that environment.

2. Identify your skill set and anything missing that you need to work on. In my second job out of business school, a mentor suggested I attend trainings in time management and organization, which helped me be more effective in my job.

3. Model what works: Ask your mentors to share their stories of what’s worked in their careers and what hasn’t. Learn from your mentors’ experience. Beth B. Kennedy, a Leadership Coach who has taught many Leaders how to begin a successful mentoring relationship, shares the success of a client whose mentor taught her “excellent delegation and time management strategies” that led to the client’s success and promotion.

Stage 2: Strategic: Your Mentors Help You Plan Where you are Going for a More Successful and Fulfilling Career:

4. Create a Vision: A mentor can help you think about where you want to go in the long run and what can help you get there. This type of mentor can be someone in your workplace, someone in your field, or more of a general business coach, perhaps even someone you hire.

5. Look for Resonance: A mentor or coach can help you assess how well your current environment fits your values, skills and interests. You will be happier with a job and environment that resonates.

6. Help you define success: Long term success is not only about what a company or environment defines as success. Says Amy Beilharz, former corporate executive turned serial entrepreneur and business coach shares that as women, group goals, our relationships and contribution to a larger cause are all important to feeling fulfilled in our careers.

Stage 3: Mobile: Your Mentors Help You At Key Decision Points

7. Solve Problems: You can turn to your mentors for feedback on any challenges you are experiencing, offering possible solutions to problems, as well as general strategies that have worked for them in similar situations.

8. Evaluate Job Offers: You may be offered a job within your own department, another part of your company or even your own company. Sometimes it’s hard to see all the ramifications of taking a particular job—both for short-term fit and also for its long term strategic value. A mentor can help you see all angles and evaluate the fit.

Stage 4: Successful: Your Mentors Help You Get Where You Want to Go:

9. Help You Network: Marcus says mentors can introduce mentees “to potential allies and champions.”

10. Get You Noticed: Beth B. Kennedy, a Leadership Coach who has taught many Leaders how to begin a successful mentoring relationship notes, “A current client of mine learned strategies from her mentor that led to her promotion. Her mentor taught her ways to raise her visibility in an authentic way.

11. Your Mentors Can Serve as Sponsors: Marcus points out that at the upper echelons, it’s not just about mentoring. To get promoted, women need sponsors who are willing to introduce their mentees to the right people and suggest them for promotion.

12. Look Outside Your Company: External mentors in your field can help you look beyond your company for opportunities. They may help you decide what you are looking for, introduce you to contacts of theirs, or even help you get into their own organizations.

Where to Find a Mentor? Cultivate mentors within your company and outside of it. Kennedy offers the possibility of someone “from a different department to add a more systemic and strategic perspective.” Your boss can also be a good mentor, depending on the person.

How to get mentored? Kennedy says that, “The best mentoring relationships take place when they’re not forced mentoring programs. A proactive way to get a mentor is to begin the process in a more unofficial way.”

How?

a) Identify someone who has been successful in your organization or field in a way that resonates with you or that has certain skills and relationships you’d like to emulate.

b) Get to know them. Kennedy suggests you ask for a brief meeting or coffee, nothing fancy.

c) Kennedy says, “Asses the synergy.” What does your gut tell you about the mentor? “Does the possible mentor have the time and energy to mentor?”

d) After a few casual meetings, Kennedy says you can then ask the person if they would be your mentor. “Share your expectations. Some of the best mentoring relationships my clients have shared with me are the relationships that meet once a month and the mentee brings questions and an agenda. The mentee needs to be proactive and discuss their needs.” It’s also a good idea to share articles on mentoring and “other best practices with your mentor.”

e) At some point you want to evaluate the effectiveness. Kennedy suggests an assessment six months or a year down the road. If it’s not working, you can thank your mentor and move on to someone new.

Don’t wait for someone to offer to mentor you. Start to think now about specific ways you want a mentor to help you and list people who might be of help. You can have more than one mentor at a time, too. Ask other women about their mentoring experiences, as well. And if your company has a mentoring program, find out how one gets chosen to participate. No one goes it along in the corporate world. The support of your mentors can be one of the most important determinants in your success.

Guest contribution by Lisa Tener

Lisa Tener is an author, trainer and four-time Stevie Award winner, including the Silver Stevie Award for Mentor/Coach of the Year 2014. Lisa serves on faculty at Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course  and blogs on topics like how to choose a literary agent. You can also find her posts on the Huffington Post. Follow Lisa on twitter @LisaTener and Facebook.

Guest advice and opinions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Why Working For a Good Company Makes a Big Difference

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happy man with womenI coach women across many firms, most in the financial services industry and most in a variety of roles and although there are very individual reasons why people come to me for coaching ranging from wanting to leave to wanting to stay and get a promotion and sometimes when they have been a casualty of a restructure. While the old adage “people leave managers not firms” is definitely true, I have to say that I more and more see people leaving companies due to the fact they just do not believe that they are getting the best ROI for their time and energy spent. For years, we were told that women do not ask for promotions and pay increases and this is frankly nonsense as they are asking in various ways but sometimes just not being heard due to systemic issues at companies that are less evolved.

In short, working for a progressive company makes all the difference as the water is provided for the fish of all types and no one is left grasping for basic air supply.

If you are looking to go further then consider getting a coach. Not all are created equal and I would recommend people with coaching certificates from good universities or else coaches with an organizational psychology background as they can help you spot the company’s good points and flaws on a systemic level so we are not just telling you to lean in. Isn’t it time that the companies leaned in?

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Is it time for a vacation?

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Beach-chairsAre you feeling overworked and not as productive as usual? Maybe it’s time for a vacation.

Science indicates that breaks help increase productivity and whilst short breaks during your working day may improve concentration, longer breaks and vacations can improve overall job performance. They help improve the state of our mental health by giving us better life perspective and making us more motivated to achieve our goals when we return to work.

So, my advice this week is to take more vacations, as recharging your batteries can make you more productive! On that note, whilst I’m on vacation in Florida, Career Tip will return next week.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Apples-to-Apples, the Gender Pay Gap Exists

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money money moneyThis week we hit “Equal Pay Day” on Tuesday, a day which symbolizes the extra days women must work to make the same salary as her male peers did last year.

According to the Demystifying The Gender Pay Gap survey by Glassdoor, the biggest myth about the gender pay gap is that it doesn’t exist at all, as 7 in 10 employees across seven countries assumed men and women received the same pay for the same work. But even when narrowed down to an apples-to-apples comparison within companies, researchers found a significant gender gap exists.

The Apples-to-Oranges Gap

Every time the gender pay gap comes up, it seems we have the apples-to-oranges data and the apples-to-apples data. Apples-to-oranges data compares men’s earnings to women’s earnings without breaking down the factors at play.

The recent Catalyst data summary of Women’s Earnings And Income reports that in the U.S. in 2014, women earned 79% as much as men in annual earnings. Based on Census data of median weekly earnings in 2015, full-time working women earned 81% as much as men, but only 72% as much within full-time management, professional, and related occupations.

Data has shown that female income tends to level off around age 35-40, as gendered workplace penalties reach full swing, while male income doesn’t level until 50-55 years old. The American Association of University Women reports that “women are typically paid about 90 percent of what men are paid until around the age of 35, at which point median earnings for women start to grow much more slowly than median earnings for men. From around age 35 through retirement, women are typically paid 75 to 80 percent of what men are paid.”

This difference has a significant impact on women’s lives, resulting in an average of $10,800 less in annual earnings, or nearly a half million dollars across a career, and a dramatically lower retirement security (44% less median income) for longer-living women, which ultimately spells an economy issue.

The Apples-to-Apples Gap

In their recent survey, Glassdoor created apples-to-apples salary comparisons by factoring in “differences in education, experience, age, location, job title, industry and even company.”

In the U.S, they found an apples-to-oranges 24% pay gap, or that women earned 76% as much as men. When they controlled for age, education, and years of experience, the gap was 19%.

When they looked at the same job title at the same employer at the same location, the highly “adjusted”apples-to-apples gap was still 5.4% – women earned 94.6 cents on the dollar of her male peer sitting next to her.

For a full-time working woman at median earnings, that’s a $2,140 loss per year. But for a woman who earns $100,000 a year, the loss is $5,400 annually.

The “adjusted gap”also increased with age – 6.2% at 35-44 years old, 9.5% at 45-54 years old, and 10.5% at 55-64 years old.

Among industries, the “adjusted”pay gap for insurance was among the biggest at 7.2% and finance was 6.4%. Among occupations, C-Suite professionals had one of the largest gender pay gaps (27.7%).

Apples-to-Oranges Is Still a Gender Bias Issue

Gender bias is still a significant driver of an apples and oranges comparison – it’s a big factor of the context that makes the difference exist at all.

According to Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor, “occupational sorting”explains 54% of the overall “unadjusted”pay gap – the sorting of men and women into different industries and different roles in the economy, through non-subtle and subtle societal influences.

Education and experience were minor factors of explanation (14%). In fact, an April Gender Pay Inequality report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee stated, “The typical woman with a graduate degree earns $5,000 less than the typical man with a bachelor’s degree,”and that “women’s median earnings are lower at every level of education.”

Sincerity Is Transparency

The gender pay gap has been stagnant for the last decade 2006 to 2015 (change was 20 times faster in the preceding decade) and is not except to close until 2059.

Recent executive proposals by President Obama to target the gender pay gap by having the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collect companies salary data has prompted reactions of government overreach, but the overall intention is to get targeted with a persistent problem.

As long as the persistent gender gap belongs to everyone, it belongs to nobody, and that’s why transparency matters. 70% of employees feel salary transparency is good for employee satisfaction and for business.

Certainly, a pointed finger sparks transparency, especially if it’s being pointed publicly or by shareholders, and especially if there’s nothing to hide. With the recent Glassdoor finding that female computer programmers experience one of the highest “adjusted”occupation pay gaps at 28.3%, the big names in Tech have been coming out to champion their equal pay.

On Monday, both Facebook and Microsoft announced publicly that men and women earn equally at their companies. Amazon and Apple have publicly stated similar findings based on employee pay surveys, prompted by shareholder proposals requesting disclosure of pay equity assessments, filed or co-filed by Pax World. Intel also shared their equal pay findings recently.

Now what if companies began to feel the same external pressure to disclose their C-Suite pay findings around that whopping 27.7% discrepancy?

When it comes to the gender pay gap, it seems the only real language of sincerity is indeed transparency, and companies have the chance now to use it.

By Aimee Hansen

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Are Investors the key to increasing the number of women leaders?

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Elegant leaderThere are many ways to create change and arguably one of the most effective ways to get people on board with any concept, including gender equality, is to show them that doing the right thing can also be the most profitable path also.

For nine years theglasshammer has reported on the stagnant numbers of women on boards and in senior management. Yet there is an ever growing body of research the latest of which comes from McKinsey in January 2015 that shows that companies which commit to diverse leadership are more likely to have financial returns as much as 35 percent above their national industry median.

So, why is there still a disconnect? What can give companies the carrot or the stick that they need to do better beyond fluffy aspirational goals and lip service when it comes to promoting women?

One group that can help create change are investors. State Street’s newly launched ETF index fund – the SSGA SPDR SHE Gender Diversity ETF as well as the Sallie Krawcheck endorsed fund – the PAX Ellevate Fund allows for options when as an investor you want to see companies hire and promote women into senior leadership.

So what has changed?

Simply put, there are three things that are changing the game:

Firstly, data for who is on boards and in senior management team has only been relatively newly available. BoardEX and MSCI have dedicated teams to produce independent data on the gender breakdown of large companies’ executive teams.

Secondly, the continued bifurcation of the market is providing more choice for investors. ETFs and other passively managed and more commoditized products are in direct conjunction with more actively managed fund approaches and is certainly driving down costs and increasing transparency.

Thirdly, investors want to live their values and are more aware of what their values are

We aren’t just talking about a handful of aware women putting a few dollars into their pension plan. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) announced its initial investment of $250 million in the SSGA Gender Diversity Index, a large- cap U.S. stock index primarily tilted toward companies with a greater than usual number of women in senior leadership positions.

CalSTRS Chief Investment Officer Christopher J. Ailman. “We are entering a new era of impact investing — one based on looking for values or purpose that generate investment returns based on diversity of thoughts and perspectives, while also creating change with our capital. I believe it’s time to change the face of Wall Street and corporate America.”

What is the SHE index?

The SHE index itself is an index which is based on a methodology involving measuring the number of women at senior management levels in the largest firms.
The resulting product is an ETF that tracks a newly created, proprietary gender diversity index comprised of the largest companies in the US with senior women leaders relative to other firms within their sector. Rather than wait for companies to take action themselves or rely on legislation to be enacted, SHE provides a way for people to fight the gender gap directly by investing in companies that put a premium on women in leadership positions.

Jennifer Bender, Managing Director and creator of the SHE index explained to theglasshammer.com that prior to launching this ETF product, Statestreet has been working with rule based large data sets on the institutional side of the business. She comments that it seemed like a natural transition to provide retail investors with the same ability. She comments,

“If investors want to vote with their feet plus get the long term equity return they are looking for then this product allows them to do this.”

When asked about how the companies are picked for the index, Jenn Bender explains that top firms are picked to meet specific criteria using independent research. She explains,

“We want the index to be sector constrained so that we have similar sector weights as the US large cap universe which ensures we have a diverse group of industries represented. The companies in our index have the highest ratios of female senior managers in their sector. “

Walking the talk

Allison Quirk, executive vice president and chief human resources and citizenship officerat State Street believes that it is another way to tackle gender equality work.

When asked about the new SHE index, she sees the importance of reflecting the work State Street continues to do the inside to create that pipeline of female leaders with an external commercial product that aligns with the State Street culture. She comments,

“It is good for business to ensure women have what they need to navigate – it is our responsibility to engage the entire talent pool to ensure a sustainable pipeline of female leaders. We have eighteen female EVPs now who each sponsor other women just below them, this effort along with our male colleagues taking the lead also on mentoring and sponsoring women, means that we really believe we will see the rewards of paying it forward. “

With 27% of their SVP’s and 23% of their EVP’s being women, it seems that this firm is taking gender parity seriously.

State Street’s SHE fund also has an innovative charitable component to it that focuses on the next generation of women leaders. The company will take a portion of revenues and direct them to the newly created Donor Advised Fund, which will in turn support organizations that inspire and equip girls to be future business leaders – particularly in industries where women have low representation today, such as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Pipeline at all levels is what more firms need to think about.

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Power – How Do You Feel About This Word?

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POWER featuredI often run psychometric tests on my coaching clients to find out with some hard data how they are motivated and driven at work. More often than not, my clients come back with varying levels of ambition and varying levels of the need for power.

Power is sometimes seen as a dirty word for women and many will tell you that they do not want it (even if their data says otherwise), yet power is really just another word for authority and control over what you are responsible for delivering. You should want some power, as otherwise you might find you lack the resources to follow through on your remit.

Own your personal power as you see fit, but at work it is equally important to ensure your authority to execute on a task is aligned with the level of responsibility you have to see it all get done!

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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4 Tips to Calm Yourself and Your Stressed Team

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women stressedFemale professionals in the financial services industry are no strangers to stress. Whether the pressure stems from a full plate of distractions, such as those introduced by an unsteady economy, or from a steady flow of work-oriented communications, there is a constant balancing act to find a suitable strategy for getting the job done. How can you stay focused? How can you help your team successfully accomplish a challenging objective without becoming overwhelmed?

Tip 1: Stop Multitasking

Women in financial services are resolute multi-taskers with a high probability for getting stressed out to the max. A Stanford study revealed the cognitive dangers to media multitasking. Scientists have theorized that humans simply cannot adequately process a conglomeration of various free flowing information at one time. However, that fact has not stopped female professionals from trying. Without a doubt, individuals who have mastered multi-tasking positions have acquired an invaluable skill. This, however, is a double-edged sword. Their perceived gift is stress-inducing, which means it comes with a high price. Multiple tests showed that heavy multitaskers not only consistently underperformed light multitaskers, but the flood of tasks was actually detrimental to their cognitive control. On the other hand, workers who prioritize and give individual projects full attention are actually more productive.

Tip 2: Understand the macro-environment

Financial services is a particularly stressful industry because of widespread restructuring, increased competition, and globalization. Immense changes in the economy have had a significant impact on professionals in the industry. The stress resulting from work-related irascibilities in the financial industry should not be ignored or minimized. Massive acquisitions and mergers have made headlines for years.

Women in financial services are resolute multi-taskers with a high probability for getting stressed out to the max.

New developments in technology require finance professionals to acquire and utilize more technical expertise, and to perform increasingly difficult tasks with a broader skill set. Additionally, domestic and international competition has raised the bar as to what is expected of financial services. Toss in a lack of meaningful communication and a loss of teamfocus, and you have the recipe for exacerbated tension and frustration in the workplace.

What starts out as irritation from miscommunication or fatigue from a heavy workload, often leads to more serious difficulties such as burn out, anger eruptions, physical illness, loss of self-confidence, workplace violence, and insufficient staffing. Understand the reason is sometimes bigger than you and that there are certain factors in the macro-environment that cannot be overlooked.

Tip 3: Identify the source of the stress

It is unreasonable to think that one can revolutionize the entire financial services industry and make the workplace stress free. However, with expert advice, you can change the environment of your own workplace in order to reduce your stress level and the stress level of your teammates. How do you bring about a more positive atmosphere? It’s crucial to first identify the source of the stress. Is a particular project weighing everyone down? Has there been a lot of overtime? Is new technology causing stress in the office? Once you identify the stress, then you can begin the process of alleviating it.

Leaders don’t wait for staff to come up with something to make the workplace healthier. Take the initiative by providing team support and by giving each worker clear training and goals. Instead of having the type of staff meeting that allows for endless rambling, set a clear agenda that conveys a constructive tone, one that prevents individuals from monopolizing valuable time. Meetings that are productive and focused create a true haven for support rather than add to the team’s boatload of stress.

Tip 4: Think ahead

A proactive leader thinks ahead. Don’t wait until everyone is at the breaking point before you decide to act. When your team is assigned a project, use insight to determine what the team needs to deal with the challenges associated with the project. If certain tasks, changes, or clients are likely to impose extra stress on your team, then have a clear stress management plan ready. Keep the lines of communication open, and encourage feedback and team engagement. Obviously, you are not going to eliminate or even reduce to an innocuous level every source of stress in the financial services industry. However, it is both insightful and pragmatic to take advantage of every available resource and opportunity to minimize personal stress and the stress of your team. To start with there are always some simple, practical, common-sense things a good leader can do to stay on top of or avert a potential problem: When conflicts arise, settle them quickly; give the needed attention to individuals on your team; listen actively to them when they make suggestions or face difficulties; institute a strategy that will make it easy for them to transition from one project to the next; give them constant feedback and make them feel respected and valued.

Even though female professionals face highly stressful circumstances in the financial services industry, they can manage pressure by keeping the workplace positive. Multi-tasking and aimless staff meetings are not the solution, but part of the problem. Workers need to know that they are valued as team players, and they need to have clear goals on which to focus, and toward which to work. By honing their exceptional communication skills, women leaders avail themselves of yet another useful skill in managing stress.

By Kathleen Delaney

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Always Number Two At Work? How To Be The Boss

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Smartly dressed yyoung women shaking hands in a business meeting at office deskMany women tell me that they are always number two to a male CEO and yet basically do more than their fair share of work and do much of his too. Does this sound familiar? You are not on your own but the good news is that you can do something about it. It is your choice to stand in the shadows for the next 3 projects or to assert your confidence in showing people your capabilities. Apply for the project lead role- what is stopping you?

Reflect upon gender roles- maybe you were told to be a “nice girl” when you were little, while your brother was told to “go get ‘em tiger”.

Recommended reading “Nice girls dont get the corner office”.

If you can do it, why aren’t you doing it?

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Stoking Your Intrapreneurial Spirit

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thought-leadershipHow can you make a sideways step within your job yet still move your career ahead? The opportunity, even demand, is intrapreneurship.

Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurship, but within the context of a larger organization. An intrapreneur is “an employee of an established organization with an entrepreneurial mindset,” who thinks more like a start-up owner.

Alyson Krueger writes in Fast Company, “Obviously there have always been go-getters in companies who try to move the needle forward and push the status quo. But never before has there been such a push for employees to take ownership of their own corner of a company.”

Asserted in Entrepreneur, “intrapreneurship is the new entrepreneurship.”

Satisfaction and Engagement Meets Innovation and Leadership

A survey from University of Phoenix School of Business found people who are satisfied in their job are nearly twice as likely to report having the opportunity for intrapreneurship (61%) compared to those who are not satisfied (33%). It’s logical that organizations are being advised to foster entrepreneurial cultures as a way of attracting talent as well as increasing employee engagement.

Murray Newlands writes in Inc., “Intrapreneurs will become the building blocks of a company’s executive teams and leaders. They are the driving force that moves a company forward and they will inevitably rise to the top of the company as they understand the company from all levels. Starting from the bottom, they will see the company as a set of processes in which every process must evolve.”

Intrapreneurs shake up the ladder, which is one way to change the gender status quo. They do not obey traditional career paths, but creates new ones, while changing how things work from the inside-out. There are many articles that advise on the skills to be effective as an intrapreneur. But the first word that comes to mind when we hear entrepreneurial is spirit.

Here are five qualities that seem across the board inherent to stoking your intrapreneurial spirit.

Quality 1: Relentless Curiosity.

Intrapreneurs see the opportunity for something that is not yet there, which takes curiosity, perceptiveness, intuition, and being attuned to seeing trends before others. They also have to be able to question and “challenge current business practices,” not simply fall in line or put their heads-down and get on with it. Intrapreneurs don’t stay in the box. They question the box. Coming up with ideas is a mindset, and it’s value does not hinge on the success or failure of one idea.

According to Claudia Chan, founder of S.H.E. Globl Media, in Fast Company, intrepreneurial employees are asking questions such as,“What do I want to create that is going to fill a white space? What doesn’t exist that needs to exist? There is a hole and they want to fill it. There is a problem, and they want to solve it.”

Quality 2: Risk-Taking Creativity.

Chan writes, “If you’re not uncomfortable or scared, you’re not driving innovation.”

Intrapreneurs bring creativity where it did not exist before, in the form of ideas, processes, and solutions, and they embrace a spirit of uncertainty. As a visionary, you cannot know exactly what you’re doing, because what you’re doing has not been done before. It’s very important to be knowledgeable and leverage your strengths, but also find the right point to make the leap.

Susan Folley of Corporate Entrepreneurs, LLC writes, “This is the great divide between traditional leaders and intrapreneurs – the known and unknown. It is the difference between playing it safe or taking a risk, relying on past experience or experimentation, needing detailed information to decide or leveraging what you know, minimizing risks or maximizing value, asking for what you need or leveraging what you’ve got. They see what is possible. It’s a mindset, a way of operating that is foreign to many of us.”

Quality 3: Daring and Vocal Courage.

Intrapreneurship takes a willingness to step up with your ideas and be vocal, even finding a way to visualize them so they become more accessible to others.

As shared in her book Daring Greatly, researcher Brené Brown asked Kevin Surace what the biggest obstacle to creativity and innovation was, and he replied that it is the fear of even putting your ideas out there due to worries about ridicule or being belittled, yet “innovative ideas often sound crazy and failure and learning are a part of revolution.”

So it’s necessary to stoke your courage, but according to Brown the culture matters. Ask if the culture you’re in is also rewarding the value of creative courage. If you’re a woman of intrapreneurial spirit full of ideas, be in an environment in which you and your ideas will flourish.

Quality 4: Passionate & Adaptable Resilience.

Once you’ve put yourself out there, it’s important not to let your ideas die upon rejection of one articulation, but foster resilience and passion towards getting to the best work, just as a writer may have to find the real story one hundred pages into her first draft.

Rich Maloof writes in Forbes, “find a granular element of the concept that is undeniably of value.” You can always find the new simplified starting point and with iterative progress, your Plan D may be ten times better than Plan A started out.

Quality 5: Contagious Collaboration.

A large part of intrapreneurship is being able to “assemble” the right team around an idea and foster an enthusiastic start-up mentality – all hands-in, less silos and more shared accountability. If intraprenership requires a learn-by-doing approach, you’re going to need a passionate team willing to learn and relearn with you. You must be able to make a personal vision a team vision.

Intrapreneurial women will not be the first up the ladder. Instead, they’ll invent a new platform to stand on, from which the view looks different for everyone.

By Aimee Hansen

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