Women In Tech: Why Tech Is Increasingly Desperate For Women

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women in techThe lack of sufficient representation of women in tech at all levels is hailed as a “crisis” for the global economy. Yet the accelerating tech industry, while in massive need of highly skilled talent, is still fumbling to both bring women back to and keep them in an industry that they, for the large part, pioneered.

Global Acceleration of Tech Transformation

In 2019 and 2020, technology compromised 10% and 10.5% of US GDP, nothing compared to where it will go. The 2020 McKinsey Global Survey of executives reports how much COVID-19 has accelerated the global tech revolution: speeding up digital customer interactions by three years and digital products/services by seven years.

Whereas executives had envisioned shifts such as remote working capabilities and increased used of advanced technologies in business strategy to take 454 and 635 days respectively, these shifts happened in real time in just 10.5 and 25 day in 2020.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that tech and computer related occupations will grow by 13% from 2020 to 2030. Tech occupations have a median annual wage that are 117% more than median annual wage for all occupations.

The Dice Tech Job Report shows that after a dip in 2020, tech job postings were up by 30% in Q2 of 2021 versus a year ago, creating “one of the hottest market since the dot-com era.”

Shortage of Tech Talent Is Most Acute in U.S. Financial Services

Meanwhile, a shortage of tech talent is considered the top restraining factor for adopting 64% of new technologies, and Korn Ferry is forecasting that by 2030, 85 million jobs could go unfulfilled globally, resulting in a $8.5 trillion talent shorted.

The U.S. financial services sector is anticipated to be most affected by the talent shortage, resulting in a $435.69 billion shortfall forecast, a third of the global sector total, and is anticipated to be in acute deficit within the financial services sector. India is the only country projected to have a surplus of highly skilled finance and business services tech talent by 2030, with current surplus countries such as China, Russia and UK losing that footing.

“Global financial services players are already experiencing skilled-talent shortages and are set to face the greatest talent gap of any industry sector in the next decade,” states Michael Franzino, President of Global Financial Services at Korn Ferry. “Financial services leaders need to act now or they will forfeit substantial growth opportunity.”

Women’s Representation in Tech Industry

According to the Anita B report, 2021 Top Companies for Women Technologists, women’s participation in tech (among their wide sample of firms with 100+ tech employees) slid by 2.1% from March 2020 to January 2021, to just 26.7%, a backslide after five years of progress. (Tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Google did not participate, where women make up about 25% of tech positions.) 18% fewer women were brought into tech positions due to hiring freezes in 2020 with a rebound in January 2021, women representing 31% of new hires that month. The share of women being promoted remained steady.

Among the participating companies, women as tech CEOs jumped from 3.9% in 2020 to 10.0% in 2021. While white women were represented from entry level (13.1%) to executive leadership (15.3%) at similar levels, representation for women of color declines as the ladder goes up. And while Asian women begin almost in parity to white women at 12.6%, they only comprise 3.7% of executive seats.

In the UK, The Guardian notes that despite the decade long agenda of boosting female representation in technology, “the percentage of women employed in tech in the UK has barely moved from 15.7% in 2009 to 17% today. And women hold just 10% of leadership roles in the industry.”

Pioneered by Women, Now Unable to Attract and Retain Them

The underrepresentation of women in STEM is a persistent theme, with hurdles across seven different levels including the drastic erosion of women’s sense of belonging in the STEM field.

“Ironically, America’s tech industry started as a majority-female industry. As Mary Ann Sieghart notes in Wired, during the 1950s and ’60s, roughly 90 percent of programmers and systems analysts were women,” writes Victoria Mosby in BizTech. “By the 1990s, however, men held most of those positions.”

As recently as 1984, women comprised nearly 40% of computer science majors at U.S. universities, and women comprised 35% of tech workers. Today, fewer than 1 of 5 Chief Information Officers at the 1,000 biggest companies are women.

Accenture’s Resetting Tech Culture 2020 report shares that women leave tech roles at a 45% higher attrition rate than men, and 50% of women who take a tech role drop it by the age of 35, 2.5x more than attrition in other positions. Meanwhile, there’s a huge disconnection between HR leaders perception and the women working in tech: HR is twice as likely to perceive it’s easy for women to thrive in tech.

What needs to shift? Next week, theglasshammer focuses on how COVID-19 has impacted women in tech and why tech is crying out for what Accenture calls a “widespread cultural reset”.

By: Aimee Hansen

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Op-ED: The Power of Intentioning: Are you ready to answer the #1 most important question for your life?

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Power of IntentionGloria Feldt, Co-Founder & President of Take The Lead, shares on the life-changing power of intentioning for women, as revealed in her newest book.

On a spectacular Arizona day in late January, 2020, when you can be lulled into thinking all’s right with the world, I was hiking with a friend. Then boom! I tripped on an unseen pebble, put my hand out to catch myself and knew immediately from the snap and the pain that I had broken my wrist. The first broken bone I’d ever had.

It’s never the mountains that trip you up. It’s the pebbles on the path.

Within 6 weeks, as everything shut down because the whole world had been tripped up by coronavirus, I realized I should have seen it as an omen. The year of broken bones I called it. Broken almost everything. More like two years now. And when will it stop?

We’ve all been through a difficult time of so much loss and grief.

The pandemic tripped us up. Ground us to a halt. Changed so much about how we see the world and each other. Maybe it changed how you envision your career and life from now on.

So there’s no better time to answer the question that prompted me to write my book, Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. This is without a doubt the #1 question you need to answer to be in the driver’s seat for the rest of your life, not the backseat wondering where life is going to take you next.

Your power TO WHAT?

What does that mean? Here’s the backstory.

I started writing Intentioning well before Covid-19 reared its ugly head. I interviewed over a dozen women whose stories form the basis for a new set of Leadership Intentioning tools to build on the 9 Leadership Power Tools in my last book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power.

In No Excuses, I explored women’s culturally learned relationships with power. I realized ambivalence about power was a key to why women hadn’t reached parity in leadership of any sector despite all we’d done to open doors and change laws. So much female potential was not being realized.

We needed a different idea about power than the oppressive narrative of history that’s based in fighting and wars and the assumption of scarce resources. By shifting the paradigm to the expansive, creative, generative, abundant idea of power TO, women’s would say, “I want that kind of power.”

Now, after a decade of teaching and coaching women how to embrace their power on their own terms, I realized the necessary next step is to ask, “the power TO WHAT? How am I going to use my power once I know I have it?”

Your answer will enable you to clarify your intentions.

Identifying and getting what you want out of life can seem like a daunting task, even more right now, when you may be uncertain about whether you’ll be working from home, whether your children will be safe, and if your job will exist at all. And it isn’t automatic that a woman will want to walk through an open door or even see it as a possibility. She may feel ignored or not respected, exhausted from experiencing microaggressions. She may fear she’ll be passed over for a promotion at work, that it’s too late to start over when her profession or company changes, or that for whatever reason she’s not good enough.

This doesn’t have to be how you live your life and I don’t want it to be that way for you.

Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic and another pandemic of belatedly acknowledged racial injustice created huge disruptions in every part of our economy and social structures.

But that is, or can become, a good thing.

We are in a season of disruption. We are in a season of rebirth. The two have much in common.

Disruptions of this magnitude are the best opportunity we will ever have to make long needed structural changes. Because when the world is in chaos, people and organizations have to think differently to survive. Ideas that wouldn’t have been considered previously become solutions.

So here’s a quick overview of the 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools that will enable you to achieve your goals once you answer that #1 question for yourself:

The Self-Definitional Leadership Intentioning Tools

  • Uncover Yourself – what sets you apart is what gets you ahead, and the keys to your best future are already in your hands
  • Dream Up – if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.
  • Believe in the Infinite Pie – when we use our power to build rather than rule over others, we learn that the more there is for everyone, the more there is to go around.

The Counterintuitive Leadership Intentioning Tools

  • Modulate Confidence – self-doubt can have a positive value.
  • Strike Your Own Damn Balance (and love your stress) – you get to choose what matters to you and reject the rest.
  • Build Social Capital – relationships are everything and will ultimately help you as much as educational qualifications or work experience.

The Systems Change Leadership Intentioning Tools

  • Be “Unreasonable” – sometimes you have to break the rules and invent new ones to get where you want to go.
  • Unpack Implicit Bias and Turn Its Effects on Its Head – you can make its effects your superpowers.
  • Clang Your Symbols – they create meaning, which brings others into the story, the most essential function of leadership.

I wish you great intentioning.

Bio: Gloria Feldt is the Co-Founder & President of Take The Lead: Breakthrough diversity and women’s leadership  solutions for individuals and companies, and author of Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. On her website, you can get her free workbook that accompanies the book and will help you answer your #1 question, get the most from these tools, and make a plan to achieve your highest and best intentions.

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Women in L&D Leadership: Why Aren’t There More?

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women in l&dLearning and development (L&D) is an industry where women are considered to thrive, but that reputation is shockingly more substantiated by the abundant representation of women entering the field than the slimmer percentages in leadership roles. 

As leveraging L&D expertise becomes more critical to propelling women into senior roles amidst reskilling/upskilling demands across industries, can the L&D field address its own gender ratio flip at the leadership level?

Female-inclined Field, Same Leadership Gender Gaps

By the disproportionate numbers entering into the field, women are clearly drawn to leading on education. A recent survey showed that both education and human resources were among the top five areas for job satisfaction for women. Gallup research has previously found that women slightly outrank men on accepting and empathizing with others as well as being able to recognize and develop people’s potential, natural matches for the L&D field.

Training Industry research has also shown that women in traditionally “female” fields (such as L&D) are more likely to have access to training in strategy and negotiation, key leadership skills, relative to fields like tech or government—which makes what happens at the leadership level more astounding.

L&D is often housed in human resources, where women comprise over 70% of managers, but that’s an inaccurate reflection of L&D senior leadership composition.

As called out by #womeninlearning, a movement began by Sharon Claffey Kaliouby and co-founded with Kate Graham to amplify the voices of women in the L&D sector, research by Donald H Taylor revealed that the more senior you go in the US and UK, the more absent women are in L&D roles.

While support and entry level positions were 67% female and 33% male, this ratio flips entirely at the senior level—where leadership positions are 69% male and 31% female.

The gender advantage toward women already dissipates at mid-authority roles (51% male, 49% female) and practitioner roles (53% male, 47% female), where the split is equal but men become overrepresented versus entry level numbers.

Additionally, Namely found that women entering human resources made nearly 11% less than male counterparts, the gap widening around age 45. In organizational and industrial psychology, the gap was 17.7%. A salary and compensation report from the eLearning Guild in 2018 found that women beginning e-learning roles in their 20s start with a 6% pay gap, which increases to 20 percent at 60+ years. Men also received double the average bonus given to women, .5% higher raises, and 16% more average total compensation, despite women in the sample having higher education levels.

One survey of L&D professionals by Training Journal showed that one in four respondents felt outright discriminated against because of gender, many feeling penalized for being a working mother. Greater were the race disparities. Chief Learning Officer data has shown that only 9% of learning managers are Latino, 5.6% are black, and 2.2% are Asian.

Looking to L&D To Advance Women Across the Board

While the L&D industry’s reputation as a women-oriented field conceals its own perplexing gender leadership gap, the industry is itself being heralded to lead the way on recovering lost ground on gender equality and making advances.

Amidst the vast and disproportional hit that Covid-19 pandemic response measures have had on displacing and exasperating disadvantage for women in the workforce, online learning is being championed as a primary ally in returning opportunity to and empowering women in professional roles.

“It is only when they have access to quality information and ways to decipher it that women can march ahead towards leadership roles in organisations,” writes Dr. S.K Nigam in HERSTORY. “And sectors like Corporate Learning and Development have a huge role to play in this.”

Training Zone in the UK observed that from the beginning of the first lockdown in March 2020, “the number of women enrolling in online courses tripled, with a 250% year-on-year increase in female enrollments across our business and management courses.”

Training Zone also found that since the pandemic, 75% of US employers are more likely to hire people with online education.

In addition to “seeing more women taking the initiative in using online learning to combat the impacts of the pandemic on their careers,” the organization emphasize that organizations need to assume this responsibility too.

A D2L survey reported an awareness gap around training resources: only 48 percent of women reported having access to online learning platforms at their company. But according to Nigam, an international survey indicated that among a sample of 300 companies, 59% reported they ran women-specific learning and development programs, the number going up to 79% among large enterprises.

Upskilling/Reskilling Demands are Elevating L&D’s Profile

Writing in Chief Learning Officer, Amy Borsetti, senior director at LinkedIn Learning Solutions, points to the LinkedIn Learning’s “2021 Workplace Learning Report” to affirm that “L&D is well-positioned to have a long-term, elevated role within organizations today, from promoting internal mobility to actively creating a more inclusive and equitable workforce.”

“One thing this year has made clear is that skills are the new currency in the workplace,” write Borsetti, later continuing, “From an organizational standpoint, creating a culture of continuous learning is a competitive advantage. Those organizations that seize the moment, and get this right, have a higher likelihood to outpace their competitors. It’s not just about learning itself — it’s about the outcomes.”

Whereas being seated in HR has arguably distanced L&D from the core business value and strategy discussions, Borsetti argues that the C-Suite has never been more actively engaged than it is right now. The LinkedIn Learning report found that over half of the 1,260 L&D professionals surveyed felt that L&D is evolving in prioritization from a “nice to have” to a “need to have.” And 63% of L&D professionals reported having a seat at the C-Suite table, a 27% lift within one year.

As Borsetti puts it in Chief Learning Officer, “The reality is, the shelf life of learning programs is shortening at the same or faster clip than the shelf life of jobs.”

The acceleration of pandemic response-correlated disruption, such as displacement and job creation from automation and the more autonomous work-from-home office, has made ongoing reskilling/upskilling both individual and organizational agendas. Meanwhile, attaining microcredentials and refining essential soft skills are on the rise too.

The report found upskilling/reskilling were the top priorities for L&D professionals in 2021, especially internal mobility: “The conditions have never been more right to prioritize skill development as the new corporate currency, level the playing field, create a more equitable workplace and achieve business results that wouldn’t be possible otherwise,” notes Borsetti.

But the question is not only what is needed, but how it should be done. What is garnering attention is exactly how L&D structure, content and approaches evolve to meet the current context in which education must engage, much of which was not considered amidst the whiplash reactivity to online education brought on by the pandemic.

Dr. Rumeet Billan, Chief Learning Architect at Viewpoint Leadership Inc, observes: “We continued to perpetuate our traditional understanding of what L&D is supposed to look like, instead of what learning is supposed to feel like.”

L&D professionals are speaking to how learning is evolving towards being more accessible and customized, self-driven and on-demand, context-relevant, bite-sized, blended, flexible, on-going and more akin in interaction to everyday work activities.

“Transformative learning is an art. Designing a training session is choreography – it’s a sequence that makes the learner reflect, feel, and draw connections that are applicable and practical to them. It’s an experience,” says Billan, who also adds: “The future of learning should look and feel different. We should be intentionally redefining the traditional notion of L&D, how we design and deliver content, and how a learner experiences training and development.”

Can L&D Lead its own Gender Equality Change?

“…I do believe what we’re doing here is opening people’s eyes. Once you see the imbalance, it becomes almost impossible to unsee it,” notes Kate Graham, co-founder of #womeninlearning. “Just look at the speaker line-up of any conference and you can instantly see if that organisation is paying any heed to gender balance and the voices of women.”

So as L&D rises in position in the C-Suite’s vision agenda and increasingly focuses on the learner experience to shape the design and delivery of learning, what kind of experience will be created for the women aspiring to rise to leadership in this very field?

By: Aimee Hansen

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How Neurodiversity Can Enhance Your Organization

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neurodiversityRoben Dunkin, chief operations and innovation officer at PGIM, talks about the importance of neurodiversity in creating a culture of innovation in the workplace.

A Lesson From Mom

When she was just a little girl, Roben Dunkin received one of the biggest lessons that would later help shape her nearly three decades in the finance industry, most recently as chief operations and innovation officer at PGIM, the $1.5 trillion asset management business of Prudential Financial Inc. It was a lesson she learned from her mother, a teacher at a school for children on the autism spectrum. Meeting the children her mother worked with and seeing how she related to them was eye opening.

“The autism spectrum is such a broad range of so many different ways the brain works,” Dunkin says. “I could see my mom’s frustration, because the ability to communicate for some of these kids wasn’t there. But at the same time, I saw her compassion and patience. She found a way to understand what each one of them needed and she found a way to get through. She never gave up on anyone.”

That experience was something that stuck with her as she began her career in finance at Lehman Brothers, where she rose to global head of sales and investment banking technology.

“What I learned from my mom actually makes me a good manager—having that patience, and really trying to understand the different levels of how people communicate with each other,” Dunkin says. “It’s not just people with autism, everyone is so different and kind of quirky in their own way. Within my own family, we have a lot of dyslexia and ADHD. When you grow up with that around you, you learn that some people need extra time and attention to bring out their best. And their best might astound you. Not everyone understands that. They think if someone has one of those conditions, they’re not smart, or they’re not good enough.”

After Lehman’s failure in the financial crisis, Dunkin joined Credit Suisse and became a leader in the firm’s technology organization. In a position to influence the company’s talent strategy, she set her sights on changing management’s perception of what traits made a valuable employee.

The Great Untapped Population

“Everyone seems to understand now how important diversity is to a company, but too often, they overlook a large part of our population that is truly underserved, but also incredibly talented—one that crosses, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and national origin,” Dunkin says. “People across the neurodiverse spectrum, which includes everything from Asperger’s and autism to ADHD and dyslexia, have to face a stigma. Their levels of unemployment are quite higher than the general population—as high as 80%.”

And yet, Dunkin points out, even if someone doesn’t have any of these conditions, they almost certainly know someone who does.

“Earlier in my career, one of my peers had a son who had Asperger’s syndrome and couldn’t get a job. And we talked about how so many people who are on the spectrum, their brains think differently—sometimes they can see patterns other people can’t, they go about solving problems differently, and that can be a good thing. We started just kind of brainstorming, asking, ‘What can we do about this?’”

The idea that Dunkin and her colleague eventually developed was to actively seek out neurodiverse individuals for a pilot program in data science—specifically, to identify anomalies in data surrounding trade fails. Trade fails can happen when there are mistakes in processing or mismatched information, and they can be a costly problem for a firm. One of the goals of Roben’s team was to discover if there were particular clients, types of trades, or other patterns that would help them identify where problems might occur. While AI and machine learning could parse huge amounts of data, the computers had their limitations. There were still reams of data to filter out.

Participants in the pilot program, as it turned out, were quick to find patterns others had missed. “They were able to look at the data and pinpoint the issue, pinpoint the problem. They had the ability to redirect the technology to ask the right questions. That’s such a specific skill set that most of us really have to learn. There seemed to be an innate ability in some of the people that we were working with to be able to do that,” Dunkin says. “It was just really impressive the amount of positive feedback that we got from people working with the individuals in the pilot program. And those participants—they were so thrilled to be employed and really contribute. It was so rewarding on so many levels.”

Dunkin doesn’t want to make it sound simple, because it isn’t. A lot of legwork went into making sure the program was set up for success.

The Right Goals, The Right People, The Right Projects

It’s the same work Dunkin is putting in now to establish the neurodiversity program at PGIM, with one big difference.

“We’re not looking to narrowly focus this on one area of the business,” Dunkin says. “Individuals on the spectrum have skills and interests that are just as diverse as their neurotypical peers, and we see this as something we want all our asset managers to be involved in and benefit from.”

That begins with a firm commitment from the top.

“Neurodiversity can be a very emotional topic,” Dunkin says. “Recently we had a panel with many of our senior leaders at PGIM, some with children who are on the spectrum, even leaders who identify as neurodiverse themselves. The head of our largest asset management business spoke at length about his two sons who have autism. We had hundreds of employees attend and it was game changing for a lot of people who were able to put their hand up and self-identify. We broke through a lot of walls.”

Secondly, for a neurodiversity program to succeed, managers need to be trained and prepared to work with individuals who may miss social cues. Those managers need to be clear about expectations and literal about tasks.

“Cues and signals that we might expect would be normal are not normal for a lot of people on the spectrum. So you have to ask questions differently—you have to be more nuanced, and can’t worry about body language and eye contact. Job interviewers and managers should be able to understand how to engage with people differently,” Dunkin says. “It’s important to learn where someone is on the spectrum and understand how to help them thrive and deliver their very best. Do they feel more comfortable emailing, do they not do well in a group setting? You want to always be learning how you can give and receive feedback so you can course correct relatively quickly.”

The remote work environment brought on by the pandemic has added to this challenge.

“In some cases, if you talk to some of the people who are on the spectrum, they’re loving remote work, because they don’t have to interact with people in person,” Dunkin says. “At the same time, for a manager, it makes it even more difficult to engage with that individual and make sure they feel included.”

Finally, Dunkin says you need to connect individuals with the right projects, with a clear business case and business value.

“You can’t necessarily put someone on a trading desk environment, but you can put someone on in a data science role. So it’s being very clear about matching the person and the right skill set with the right job and being really explicit about what you’re aiming to accomplish,” Dunkin says.

Why all this matters

“The financial services industry is struggling to hold onto talent,” Dunkin says. “And here is a talent pool that is able and willing to work, and has skills to contribute in the right roles.”

Her prior experience tells her the effort is worth it.

“It’s hard to find data scientists—you can’t train them fast enough. And we know there’s high attrition rates in data science—when you train them, they leave. But our neurodiverse employees in the pilot program were super loyal. We built a team of data scientists from scratch who were able to help us leapfrog ahead quite drastically to meet our goals. We’d done right by them, we gave them a chance, and they rewarded us by staying with the company.”

Dunkin believes that attention paid to neurodiversity in an organization has a much wider impact on company culture, leading to better outcomes for all employees.

“The pandemic has been a very challenging time,” she says. “We’re all uncomfortable, we’re all re-learning how to interact with each other, we’re all working differently. We all need compassion and patience. If we’re not using this moment to identify talented individuals inside and outside our organizations and do what we need to do to support them, then we’re wasting a golden opportunity.”

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OP-Ed: The Three Personality Traits Most Prone To Burnout

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burnoutFirst, let’s get one thing straight: burnout is not an individual problem; it’s an organizational problem that requires an organizational solution. Self-care has been the prevention strategy du jour for decades. And yet burnout is on the rise. Why? Because we’re ignoring the systemic and institutional factors that are the real causes of burnout – things like workload, lack of control, poor relationships, and other root causes that cannot be solved with yoga and vacation time.

If you are feeling burned out, know that it’s not your fault. But focusing on what we can do to help ourselves is the part we can control in a world full of the uncontrollable. And if you happen to exhibit one of the following personality traits, you are more prone to burnout.

Neuroticism

Neuroticism is one of the “big five” higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. If you dig into the definition, it makes sense that this trait correlates to higher rates of burnout. Individuals who score high on the neuroticism scales are more likely than average to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. People who are neurotic respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult.

In her 2018 dissertation, “The Relationship Between Big Five Personality Traits and Burnout: A Study Among Correctional Personnel,” Sharon Maylor of Walden University found that neuroticism was the only personality trait that was associated with all three dimensions of burnout.

Conversely, it’s important to see the value in this personality type. We tend to give personality traits like these a bad rap, but there are upsides. People with the neuroticism trait tend to be:

  • Highly analytical and hyperaware of threats or dangers
  • Cautious and less likely to make impulsive decisions
  • More accountable and will take personal responsibility for errors

There are obvious potential benefits to tending toward neuroticism on the team, but you need to be mindful of the downside to avoid burnout.

Introversion

It is a myth that introverts fear or dislike others and are shy and lonely. This is not the case. They simply have nervous systems more suited to spending time in a calm environment with one or a few friends.

Although their nervous systems may be dissimilar to those of extroverts, that doesn’t mean that introverts aren’t just as effective. “Extroverts are routinely chosen for leadership positions and introverts are looked over, although introverts often deliver better outcomes. They’re not perceived as leadership material,” says Susan Cain, bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, and a frequent speaker on introversion and extroversion in the workplace.

According to Cain’s research, the power of introverts can be identified in the following behaviors. They:

  • Tend to be more productive than extroverts and less likely to become distracted
  • Explore subjects in more depth
  • Are great listeners, which helps them in problem-solving scenarios
  • Are often creators; writers and artists are more likely to identify as introverted
  • Have a strong capacity for empathy
  • Are moderators and can calm stressful situations
  • Are more cautious and better at managing risk

However, since the physical office can be a highly social place, research suggests that introverted people are at greater risk of developing burnout than extroverted people.

Introverts working virtually in most situations, minus a global lockdown, are removed from the noise, the hustle and bustle of a buzzing office, the potential disruptions that cause a lack of psychological safety, and the pressure to conform to those office norms. What if we made workplaces free of these kinds of strain?

Just ask Cain, who shared in our interview, “The best workspaces allow people to move freely between solo and shared spaces. Sometimes we want to work alone. Sometimes we crave company. Sometimes we want both of these things in the space of a single morning. Why not design around these natural preferences? Radically open office plans don’t actually increase collaboration or decrease loneliness. On the contrary, they create giant rooms full of worker bees wearing headphones.”

Perfectionism

If you’re prone to perfectionism—specifically, perfectionism concerns— you run a high risk of burning out. Broadly defined, perfectionism is a combination of exceedingly high standards and a preoccupation with extreme self-critical evaluation. Scientists Joachim Stoeber from the University of Kent discovered that our desire and subsequent efforts to achieve perfectionism are acceptable as long as we can emotionally handle scenarios when we don’t achieve it. When we start to believe that everything we do must be perfect and anything less means a failure, or that others may judge us as a failure, then this becomes detrimental to our mental health.

Someone who struggles with perfectionist concerns may exhibit the following traits:

  • Maintaining a rigid self-evaluative style that looks at events in all- or-nothing terms, for example, you’re either a winner or a loser.
  • Overgeneralizing negative events by making a rule after a single event or a series of coincidences. For example, someone is passed over for a promotion, and the narrative is now, “I will never move up in this company.” These “always” or “never” statements frequently appear in a perfectionist’s vocabulary.
  • Ruminating about past failures. Being unable to let go of mistakes and assuming they will come up again in the future.
  • Having a strong need for self-validation, for example, always questioning their self-worth. In some situations, they will subconsciously seek out ways to prove they are “right.” They believe their self-worth is constantly threatened.

According to researchers Andrew Hill and Thomas Curran in their article “Multidimensional Perfectionism and Burnout: A Meta- Analysis,” “Perfectionistic concerns are associated with considerable strain that render individuals vulnerable to the accrual of stress and subsequent burnout. In summarizing current understanding of the perfectionism–burnout relationship, then, it is the harsh self-evaluative processes central to perfectionistic concerns that are understood to fuel the perfectionism–burnout relationship, rather than perfectionistic strivings.”

Authors Mick Oreskovich and James Anderson suggest that we need to consider the following, if we experience perfectionist concerns:

  1. Identify the difference between power versus powerlessness over people, places, things, and situations; if we stop trying to control everything, we will find more joy. It may be a challenge to surrender, but it is necessary to prevent burnout.
  2. Understand the differences between self-knowledge and self-awareness (self-knowledge is what we believe to be true about ourselves; self-awareness is seeing ourselves as others see us). These insights are rarely the same yet are equally important.
  3. Accept help.
  4. Take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others.

Jennifer Moss is an award-winning journalist, author, and international public speaker. She is a nationally syndicated radio columnist, reporting on topics related to happiness and workplace well-being. She is the author of THE BURNOUT EPIDEMIC: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It.

{Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It by Jennifer Moss. Copyright 2021 Jennifer Moss. All rights reserved.}

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14 Key Career Insights From Latina Leaders in Business

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Latina Leaders in BusinessAfter sharing top tips on self-promotion from Latina leaders in business as part of our Hispanic Heritage month coverage, The Glass Hammer continues our two-part feature with more key insights from Latina leaders we’ve interviewed across the past years:

1. Value Those Who Show Up For You

If you want people to take personal interest in developing you, value the gift of energy and time they give, advised Cassandra Cuellar, Attorney at Shearman & Sterling.

“People are more than willing to have conversations with you when you show you appreciate their time,” said Cuellar. “Female partners whom I don’t even work with have reached out, which was so impressive that these busy women would welcome me and offer their support.”

Update: Cassandra Cuellar remains an Attorney in Shearman & Sterling’s Emerging Growth practice group, with the firm now for over 3.5 years.

2. Embrace the Learning Phase

You’re not expected to be an expert when you begin, emphasized Lina Woods, as Director, Global Digital Go-To-Market Leader at PwC.

“There were times of stress when I should have realized it was okay to learn along with everyone else,” realized Woods, ”and I see now that I could have harnessed that perceived vulnerability and realized you should just dive in and do your best.”

Update: With PwC for over five years, Lina Woods was appointed to Managing Director and Commercial Product Strategy Leader in June of this year.

3. Balance Intuition with Receptivity

Growing as a leader means both trusting yourself and being receptive to feedback, observed Priscila Palazzo, as Legal Director at WEX Latin America.

“While law might appear to be my main job, I also excel at understanding people and their behavior,” said Palazzo. “It’s important to be open to new ideas and thoughts, but especially to feedback. If you seek it out and reflect on it, it can help show you areas where you can grow and improve. As women, we tend to follow our hearts and intuition, but we need to balance that with feedback.”

Update: With WEX Brazil for over seven years, Priscila Palazzo is General Counsel.

4. Look Up And Around

You benefit hugely by looking up from your work and connecting, noted Anita Romero, General Counsel, Global Consumer at Citibank.

“When you’re first starting out, you’re so focused on doing excellent work that you don’t realize the many benefits of seeking advice from peers in your network,” said Romero. “People learn over time, but had I known that up front it would have really helped.”

5. Be Resilient With Your Vision

It’s easy to lose faith at obstacles, but Cristina Estrada, Head of Derivatives for the Latin America Financing Group, Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, encouraged to keep the course.

“Pursuing what you are passionate about and chasing your dreams are key to having a successful career,” said Estrada. “Being patient is important though: there are ups and downs in everybody’s journey. Persistence and seeing beyond occasional difficulties pay off.”

Update: With Goldman Sachs for nearly 17 years, Cristina Estrada remains in her position.

6. View Detours As Opportunities

What appears as a career deviation may become your next adventure, guided Isela Bahena, Managing Director, Private Infrastructure Group at Nuveen Real Assets.

“It might seem scary, but looking back I see a lot of growth when I took those chances. There will be challenges, but sometimes the bridge is going to look different when you actually cross it,” said Bahena, known by junior colleagues for being calm amidst changes. “I tell them that’s because in the long run I always see them as opportunities.”

Update: With Nuveen Real Estates for over 3.5 years, Isela Bahena remains in her position.

7. Be The Change

Be the change the you wish to see, championed Elizabeth Nieto, as Global Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at MetLife.

“Women who have power can continue to push the envelope on women’s interests. We can complain about where we are or focus on what we’re achieving. Things may not be perfect in the corporate world, but we’ve accomplished a lot and we have to build from here,” encouraged Nieto. “Our daughters are watching us and making decisions about their lives based on how we make decisions about our own lives.”

Update: After nearly seven years at MetLife and a two year stint at Amazon, Elizabeth Nieto became Global Head of Equity and Impact at Spotify in March.

8. Create the Belonging

Women need to become aware of the barriers they impose upon themselves and invite each other in too, emphasized Yesi Morillo-Gual, as Founder and President of Proud To Be Latina.

“I started Proud To Be Latina because of some of the challenges I faced in my own career. These included things like not knowing how to navigate the landscape, not knowing about the unwritten rules, not having a lot of support, and also not really believing that I belonged because the majority of my colleagues did not look like me,” said Morillo-Gual. “There is a sense that we don’t belong, or that we have to leave who we are behind in order to advance our careers. We tend to question ourselves and our abilities.”

“I often hear women say that corporate America was not designed for them, and in response I tell them that corporate America may not have been designed for me, but I was designed for corporate America,” she added.

Update: Yesi Morillo joined Cushman & Wakefield as Director, Global Head of ERGs & External Partnerships in April.

9. Ask For Support

Getting past the notion of being the totally independent woman is hard but it’s also growth, shared Rosa Bravo, Business Development Director at Accenture, who started her career as an aerospace engineer.

“One of the things I wish I had known earlier is that it’s okay to ask for help. There are so many choices you have to make along the way, and you just can’t do it alone,” reflected Bravo. “I’ve been culturally conditioned to be a strong woman, to want to be able to do everything on my own. It took a few years to feel comfortable to raise my hand and ask for help when I needed it, but it made things much easier when I did.”

Update: Senior Technology Executive Rosa Bravo has been with Accenture for over 27 years.

10. Don’t Delegate Your Career Path

It’s important to design your own career rather than delegating that to your boss, asserted Valeria Strappa, as Head of Efficiency and Cost Management for Citi Latin America.

“What I think is important is to first be the designer of your own destiny and second, to learn that you might not necessarily get what you think you deserve, you will get what you are able to ask for and to sell for your results,” said Strappa. “A lot of times women think people will recognize their work. And they do, but that doesn’t mean you get what you were expecting for it. You have to be able to solve a big problem for a big leader and of course be able to stand up and show your results.”

Update: After a decade with Citi, Valeria Strappa has been with JPMorgan Chase & Co for nearly five years, and was appointed Managing Director – Head of M&A Integrations and Client Relationship Management in January 2020.

11. Embrace Change As a Catalyst

Change can be disruptive, but Elizabeth Diep, back when she was Senior Manager in PwC’s Asset Management Practice, challenged women to leverage it to advance their careers.

“Be open minded. There is such a changing landscape in this profession. We are seeing growth in Latin America, while in Europe, there are challenges now but absolutely something different is going to come out of it. It’s about being open to opportunities and not hesitating to take on new roles,” advised as Senior Manager, Asset Management Practice at PwC. “Every experience, whether good or bad, is going to help you grow. Don’t resist change. Change will help you become a seasoned professional a lot faster and a lot better.”

Update: Elizabeth Diep made Partner in 2013, and has been with PwC for over 21 years.

12. Leverage The Cultural Asset of Connectivity

Nellie Borrero, Managing Director, Senior Strategic Adviser of Global Inclusion and Diversity at Accenture, expressed that Hispanic women have an advantage in relationship building.

“We understand the advantage of relationships – it’s so embedded in our culture. That savviness and understanding of the importance of relationship building and maintaining relationships comes naturally to the Hispanic community,” asserted Borrero, who emphasized to network strategically: “And I would like to see young women do more of this: be able to reach out to the women at the top, and absorb that coaching and experience they can share. Become a sponge and absorb as much as you can. If they’re up there, they’ve found a way to make it work.”

Update: With Accenture for nearly 28 years, Nellie Borerro remains in her position.

13. Empower Yourself To Ask for What You Want

Twenty five years into her career, Marilyn Foglia, Managing Director and Head of Latin America at UBS Global Asset Management, realized it didn’t pay to be timid.

“I wasn’t always so persistent about getting my ideas on the table – but now I am!” Foglia declared. “If you’re too polite and wait for an opening to speak you may never get a voice. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. We women tend to think that if we work hard, we will be rewarded. But we have to ask for it.”

She encouraged women not to think of themselves as having less opportunities: “If you do that, you become afraid to voice your own opinion. Be sure to express your beliefs broadly. People will eventually hear you – that’s how you get recognized and move up the ladder.”

Update: With UBS for over 28 years, Marilyn Foglia remains in her position.

14. Find a Culture You Can Thrive In

Put the right environment at the top of your criteria when it comes to career-related decisions, advised Noelle Ramirez, Project Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at PGIM.

“Culture first. Seek out advice from people that are already there. What has their experience been? Do they feel comfortable? Do they feel like they can bring who they are to the table? If the answer is yes, that’s a good place to start. It takes away a lot of productivity and energy to not be who you are,” said Ramirez. “Go somewhere where you can be yourself. I’m very passionate in my delivery and it’s part of my culture. Making sure I’m in an environment where that doesn’t have to be shut off is important. Look for environments that are ready to receive you, because that’s where you’ll be your most productive, innovative, creative and strategic.”

Update: Interviewed earlier this year, Noelle Ramirez remains in this position, with PGIM for nearly 2.5 years.

We hope you enjoyed this two-part retrospective!

By: Aimee Hansen

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11 Tips From Latina Leaders on Self-Confidence and Self-Promotion

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Latina leadersAs part of celebrating Hispanic Heritage, The Glass Hammer covers career insights and tips shared by Latina Leaders in business whom we’ve had the fortune to interview over the years.

In this retrospective two-part feature, we’ve mined the best experience-based guidance across our profile interviews with Latina leaders. As the theme of authenticity, self-confidence and self-promotion have been emphasized again and again, we focus entirely on facets of this critical message for part one of this feature.

1. Claim Your Self-Worth Early In The Game

Entering an industry or an organization where too few people look like you can be challenging, but there is never a more important moment to believe in yourself and claim your worth, emphasized Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon, Managing Partner at Avante Capital Partners.

“I wish I had known from the start of my career that I should have more confidence in myself,” said Rodriguez Simon. “Over time I’ve realized that you should never doubt your own capabilities. There may be obstacles, but you can do it. With a lot of luck, hard work and great mentors I’ve made it in this industry, which is hard for women, especially minority women.”

Update: Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon remains in this position, now with Avante Capital Partners for nearly 13 years.

2. Embrace All of Who You Are

Finding an authentic sense of self is essential for all women, but especially for young Latina women just starting out in their career, impressed Yvonne Garcia, as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Client Solutions, Investment Manager Services at State Street Corporation.

“It is critical to realize that the diversity of thought and cultural experiences that you bring are so valuable to organizations. Embrace who you are, make sure you find mentors and sponsors that will help you develop and grow as a leader,” advised Garcia. “Get involved in volunteer organizations like ALPFA where you will be able to grow and give back at the same time.”

Update: Yvonne Garcia was promoted to Chief of Staff to CEO at State Street in January 2019.

3. Stay Authentic To Your Truth

In tech for over two decades, Rocio Lopez, as IT Executive at Accenture, realized at a deeper level from Accenture’s Hispanic American Employee Resource Group (ERG) that she needed to be authentic about what she brought to the table as a talented Hispanic technologist.

Both passionate about advancing diversity and leading Latinx American talent attraction initiatives, Lopez said: “The one piece of advice I would give to anyone is to be authentic. For the longest time, I was trying to run in a different size shoe – actually a male size 8. It wasn’t until I met my ERG family that I realized I like my 7.5 size red high heels.”

Update: Now with Accenture for over 26 years, Rocio Lopez was promoted to Technology Strategy Lead NA Education Practice in January 2020.

4. Allow Your Unique Personality To Shine

By allowing her unique self to shine through, Laura Sanchez, Managing Director, Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs, found that she was better able to form more impactful bonds with clients and colleagues that helped to create a more fulfilling career.

“When you’re new – and I had also switched industries – you may be anxious about fitting in and looking like everyone else or acting like everyone else. But trying too hard to fit in can stifle who you are. To not be yourself for the majority of your day creates a lot of stress,” Sanchez reflected. “When I’ve been true to myself and let my own light shine through, that’s when I’ve been my best. That’s when I think the success started.”

Update: Laura Sanchez remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for over 27 years.

5. Become A Supportive Friend to Yourself

Believing that women had many advantages in the area of dispute resolution, including the ability to appreciation a situation from multiple perspectives, Ximena Herrera-Bernal, as Counsel in the International Arbitration Group at Shearman & Sterling, London, urged women to encourage the truth of their own voice in the room.

“It is imperative to believe in your abilities and to make your views appropriately known,” Herrera-Bernal said.“ When you’re doubting yourself, imagine that you are giving advice to a female friend who is experiencing the same issues. Then listen to your own advice.”

Update: After 16 years with Shearman & Sterling, Ximena Herrera has gone on to be a Founding Partner in Gaillard Banifatemi Shelbaya (GBS) Disputes.

6. Let Your Difference Empower Your Voice

The very thing that once inhibited you from using your voice is often what validates its importance, asserted Noelle Ramirez, Project Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at PGIM.

“I bring to the table my lived and learned experience as a woman, a lesbian woman, a Hispanic woman,” said Ramirez.“ The things that kept me quiet in the room before are the things making me speak the loudest in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion space.”

Update: Interviewed earlier this year, Noelle Ramirez remains in this position, with PGIM for nearly 2.5 years.

7. Be Forward About Owning Your Work

It was a decade into her career before Paula Arrojo, Managing Director and Private Wealth Advisor, Investment Management at Goldman Sachs, figured out that she had to match her hard work with her self-promotion.

“Women often expect that if you work really hard you’ll be noticed and rewarded. But they need to realize how important it is to let the right people know what they’re working on and what they want next – what team, what clients,” Arrojo said. “If you want to go for it, you have to position yourself to have that credibility. Had I known to be more strategic in this area earlier, I would have saved a lot of time getting to where I am.”

Update: Paula Arrojo remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for 21 years.

8. Beyond Your Role, Build Your Personal Brand

After watching too many women voice their great idea only after the meeting finished, inhibiting their success from their hesitation to speak up, Patricia McCarthy, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, emphasized the importance of being proactively seen and heard.

“When you have good ideas, you need to voice them and add value. Remember that your job is to contribute to your team, and that entails being confident and pushing yourself beyond what your perceived role is,” McCarthy noted. “More than achieving a title or promotion, my biggest source of pride is establishing a personal brand as an individual who can improve a process.”

Update: Patricia McCarthy remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for over 17 years.

9. Be Your Own Best Advocate

When it comes to advancing as you become more senior, Grissel Mercado, as Counsel at Shearman & Sterling LLP, emphasized you have to go beyond focusing on doing excellent work and build a profile.

“Young attorneys tend to focus on delivering excellent work, which is important, but also expected. You also have to seek out opportunities to network,” said Mercado. “Nobody is a better advocate for you than yourself. Women need to take more initiative. If you’re talking with the team before a call, mention a success, just as a man would.”

Update: With the firm for 14 years, Grissel Mercado was appointed to Partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP.

10. Self-Promote To The Leaders Above You

Take the shame out of self-promotion and instead learn how to do it by doing it, emphasized Ilka Vázquez, Advisory Partner at PwC US.

“I think it’s ok to brag a little about your impact and what you’re bringing to the table. We assume someone is noticing our great work and will reward us, but the reality is that you can speed up the process if you talk about your success to people who are influential,” Vázquez noted. “Your elevator speech gets better the more you give it and can help you establish a personal brand.”

Update: Ilka Vázquez remains in this position, now with PwC for 11 years.

11. Know That You Are Ready (Enough!)

Opportunity is the chance to grow into the role, communicated Neddy Perez, as Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Talent Management COE at McCormick & Company.

“Women are still socialized to put their heads down and work hard with the hope that someone will recognize your success. The reality is you have to become your own best advocate. As long as you feel comfortable with 70% of requirements of a job then go for it,” encouraged Perez. “No one is ever 100% ready for their next job; we just have to get comfortable with asking for what we want and going for it.”

Update: Neddy Perez remains in this position, now with McCormick & Company for nearly 3 years.

Look out next week for part two of this series on wisdom and insight from Latina leaders in business over the years.

By Aimee Hansen

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Embracing Culturally Relevant Latina Leadership

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Latina LeadersTheglasshammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 with profiles of Latina leaders and feature themes.

When we look at the numbers among corporate leadership for Latinx executives, little has quantitatively shifted, but what is finally evolving is the talk around the journey: towards valuing culturally integrative leadership.

Latina Style called out the Top 10 Corporate Latina Executives of 2020, included Agnes Suarez, President & CEO of AIG; Leticia M. Sanchez, Executive Director and Market Director of Banking at JP Morgan Chase & Co. Customer Bank; Luz Esparza, Managing Director, Los Angeles of Accenture; Patty Arvielo, Co-Founder and President of New American Funding, and Patty Juarez, National Diverse Segments Director, Commercial Banking Group, Wells Fargo & Company.

But among 16 current Hispanic CEOS of the top S&P 500 companies, women hold none of those positions. Between 2000 and 2020, Latinx have made up only 36 of new Fortune 500 CEO appointments, and there’s been 41 Latinx CEOS, with only two being women.

While calling out Latinx tech leaders, Latin America Reports points out that Latin America itself has been now birthed 17 unicorns, 14 of which have developed in the last three years, and mostly in finance, insurance, and real estate.

Nit Reeder of Ernst & Young notes that Latinx entrepreneurs are leading the start-up scene, with over 40% of Latinx entrepreneurs being millennial and Latinas starting up businesses at five times the rate of their male counterparts. But the same time, even as far back as November, Covid-19 was closing a third of Latinx-owned businesses.

And in a broader glance of the Latinx working population, a recent Aspen Institute report emphasizes integration of the Latinx workforce into the digital economy—as the group highest at risk of digital displacement from automation.

Gaps in Both Perception and Opportunities

The IBM Institute for Business Value published a survey report called Untapped Potential: The Hispanic Talent Advantage, based on 1000 Hispanic leaders offering their perceptions on the opportunities and lack thereof in the corporate workplace during a 33 hour virtual jam session.

When it comes to perception of the Hispanic community, only 16% of participants felt the community is unified and nearly nobody (2.5%) felt the perceptions of the Hispanic community reflect the reality.

They found 41% of Hispanic executives say they benefited from formal mentoring or training but only a quarter of junior managers felt they had access to mentoring programs and only 31% had access to workplace training.

Only 1 in 5 felt empowered to overcome the professional challenges they faced.

The experience of prejudice or feeling they needed to work harder was very prominent. 87% of all participants had experienced racial prejudice, and 63% had experienced prejudice due to accent, language or speech pattern. 63% of the participants felt they had to work harder because of their Hispanic identity and 82% of Latinas felt they did not get the respect they deserve. Latina women were also more likely to cite discrimination based on gender (78%) than white women (67%).

Among the senior leaders, they were most likely to give value to strong communication skills, personal organizational skills, and business savvy in terms of capabilities that supported their success. “Success” was most likely to be defined as both “achieving financial security” and “creating positive change”.

The report notes that a key gap was between the value that mentorship had played in supporting the more senior Hispanic leaders and the lack of mentorship reported available in the perception of the junior managers aspiring to leadership, urging companies to create a hiring advantage by cultivating more mentorship and sponsorship opportunities for young Latinx talent.

Latina women with sponsorship earn 6.1% more than those who lack sponsors, and early on, it can contribute to more stretch assignments and promotions.

Culturally Relevant Leadership Development

Whereas misperception of identity and feeling penalized for it are brutal headwinds to face in the corporate environment, there is increasing encouragement for Latinas to focus on turning this to your advantage.

Recent qualitative dissertation research entitled Recognizing La Cultura: The Experience of Cultural Scripts in Latina Leadership out of the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota found that in different ways, cultural identity and firsthand experiences can be catalytic in informing leadership approaches and trajectories.

Cultural scripts included:

  • familismo: the importance of close, protective, and extended family relationships
  • marianismo: gender roles according to which women are expected to be selfless, self-sacrificing, and nurturing
  • personalismo: creating personal and meaningful relationships
  • colectivismo: the importance of belonging to a group and recognizing the needs of that group
  • respeto: high regard granted to persons because of their formal authority, age, or social power
  • simpatía: promoting pleasant interactions and positive relationships, while avoiding conflict and disharmony

Based on her findings, Patricia E. Conde-Brooks, the dissertation author, emphasizes that “culturally relevant leadership development needs to be encouraged in the Latino community,” meaning the integration of cultural assets as fuel in the leadership journey.

She found that Latina leaders sustain a strong cultural heritage, and that leveraging the positive aspects of these cultural scripts not only fosters pride and empowers Latina women, but can be leveraged as important leadership assets in your toolbox.

At the same time, overcoming the inhibiting influence of marianismo is part of the journey for some Latina women. And while self-promotion is often felt to go against the cultural grain, a survey into women’s fear of self-promotion found that “African American (44%) and Hispanic (47%) women are far less likely to downplay their strengths and abilities than white (60%) women”: influenced by their generally younger age profile.

One organization tapping into social and navigational cultural wealth to accelerate Latina women to the C-Suite is LatinaVIDA, whose mission “is to empower and equip Latina professionals to overcome systemic workplace barriers through culturally relevant leadership programs.”

Drawing from the key traits that define many successful Latina leaders, the organization focuses on fostering Visibility (getting noticed for your talent and leadership), Identity (strong comfort with personal and cultural identities), Determination (holding your personal vision despite challenges and barriers) and Action (a willingness to step up and take responsibility of all facets of your life).

LatinaVIDA offers a number of programs and events, including culturally relevant peer-to peer empowerment, mentorship, collaboration and leadership development.

By: Aimee Hansen

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Six Forms of Cultural Wealth You Can Leverage As a Leader

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cultural wealthIn her model of community cultural wealth, Dr. Tara J. Yosso identified six forms of cultural wealth (aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, familial and resistant capital) possessed and earned by socially marginalized groups, and countered the lens of cultural deficit.

Cultural wealth is defined as: “an array of knowledge, skills, strengths and experiences that are learned and shared by people of color and marginalized groups; the values and behaviors that are nurtured through culture work together to create a way of knowing and being.”

Affirming the cultural capital you’ve acquired as part of your road-tested skillset can be a compelling collective and personal narrative-flipper: factors that may have inhibited opportunities become empowering qualifications of your leadership ability. To walk into the room with a sense of cultural wealth integrated into your personal narrative could arguably reduce and reframe a sense of imposter syndrome.

In fact, Yosso’s model was initially designed to “capture the talents, strengths and experiences that students of color bring with them to their college environment”— but professional context, and even executive context, are even more compelling given you are further on the journey.

Here are the six forms of cultural capital and why they make you valuable as a leader.

Aspirational Capital

Aspirational capital is the ability to sustain hopes and dreams for the future amidst both real and perceived barriers.

As states the University of Portland UP Career Center, “It is the ability to envision a future beyond your current circumstances and work towards pursuing your dreams and aspirations.”

As Sheri Crosby Wheeler, VP of D&I at Fossil Group, told theglasshammer earlier this year when speaking to her own economically disadvantaged background: “I feel like it has given me the grit, the resilience, the fight, the get-up-and-go that I have to this day. I won’t see myself as ever being down and out, and I won’t stay in a ‘woe is me’ place, not for very long.”

The impact and success of Black and Latina female entrepreneurs, despite opportunity gaps, bias and barriers in the hallways of corporate America, bears testament to a mentality of sticking to a vision of realizing the dream beyond obstacles.

The ability to conceive of and hold to a vision beyond the current reality is not only essential to becoming a leader, but also what enables leaders to inspire entirely new visions and influence new realities.

Navigational Capital

Navigational capital is the ability to maneuver through systems and institutions that historically were not designed for you. Yosso notes that this capital empowers individuals to move within environments that can feel both unsupportive or hostile.

“I think you can approach a situation like that and feel like you’re the only one,” Gia Morón told us, on inviting herself into the NYC networking circle for the emerging legal cannabis industry, “or you can say, ‘I can invite other people and not be the only one.’”

As pointed out in Harvard Business Review by Marlette Jackson, PhD and Paria Rajai, the dedication many “first generation corporates” have to paying-it-forward and bringing others up through sharing the unspoken rules of navigating an organization is one way navigational capital comes into power. And for those who trail-blazed themselves, they bring that earned strategic and maverick gumption to what they offer.

“The most rewarding piece of my work is to create an opportunity and open a door, where traditionally that door may not have existed,” said Noelle Ramirez, Project Manager, DE&I at PGIM, about alternative recruiting channels, “to be able to put that spotlight on someone who might not have been seen and say, ‘I see you and there’s space for you here.’”

Social Capital

Social capital is leveraging existing community resources and connections in building a network in support of your goals.

The roles of social and cultural capital have been found to be key components in supporting academic achievement among Latinas. In one qualitative study of Latina women, the pursuit of higher education was truly conceived as a “family goal” in which sacrifices were made to realize the goal, and in turn the Latina women “considered their own educational advancements as advancements for the whole family.”

Recently, Monica Marquez, Co-Founder of Beyond Barriers, shared with us that years ago when pioneering a Returnship® program at Goldman Sachs that facilitated mothers back to work after their maternity leave, her team found Latina women were less likely to have opted out of work for home responsibilities than their white peers, because they had the strong family structure and childcare support within the family.

“The cultural nuance or norm of the tight-knit family, where it takes a village to raise a family, helped some women stay employed opposed to having to opt out,” said Marquez.

Linguistic Capital

Linguistic capital is the sum intellectual, social and communication skills attained through a particular language, history and experiences.

Linguistic research indicates that those who are bilingual or multilingual generally have more connectivity and integration in their neural networks, a sharper working memory, more cognitive reserve, better task-switching, more divergent thinking and are more adept at solving mathematical problems than monolinguals, for starters. Analyzing in a second language also reduces decision bias.

“I have the benefit of growing up in a different country and being exposed to different cultures, so that helps me to understand and work with cross-cultural teams,” Anna Thomas, VP at BBH, told us. “For example, in Asian culture, unless you actually reach out and ask, someone will often think it’s disrespectful to provide their view of things. I grew up in that culture, so I know and I can actually coax and ask someone to speak up. I can come from that angle.”

Yosso emphasized that cultures where oral storytelling is part of the daily cultural fabric bring “skills [that] may include memorization, attention to detail, dramatic pauses, comedic timing, facial affect, vocal tone, volume, rhythm and rhyme”, such as to narrative crafting and public speaking.

Familial Capital

Familial capital is the cultural knowledge and nuance obtained from family and community experiences, for example how the communal-orientation of many Latin cultures may predispose networking skills.

While crediting her parents for raising her in faith from a long line of ministers and pastors, Marie Carr, a Global Growth Strategist at PwC US, said: “I have confidence in and the ability to appeal to a force higher than myself. That’s helped me to be more patient, to put myself in other’s shoes, to not be so hard on myself. You have to be able to center yourself, because you’re often going to find yourself in an environment that’s not going to affirm you. So, the ability to affirm yourself is really useful.”

Familial legacy of challenge and strife can also compel compassionate leadership.

Megan Hogan, Chief Diversity Officer of Goldman Sachs, recently shared that her family’s journey from the Dominican Republic to find opportunity influenced her own pro bono passion of working with immigrants seeking asylum: “It’s always been important to me to advocate for people seeking refuge from persecution as a way to pay it forward and allow others to find those same opportunities.”

Resistant Capital

Resistant capital is the inherited foundation and historical legacy of communities of colors and marginalized groups in resisting inequality and pursuing equal rights. This includes embracing a resistance to stereotypes that are not authentic to your sense of self.

Overcoming barriers and challenging the status quo enables a leader-oriented lens of questioning conventional models and methods that aren’t working or may be problematic for long-term growth, according to the findings of HBR authors Jackson and Rajai.

“The narrative is often ‘I come from a low-income neighborhood, I was raised by a single parent, my father is in jail, my brother was killed, I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. I’ve got no credentials to lead…Who am I to run?” said May Nazareno, NE Director of Gifts at Ignite, to us, speaking of encouraging the inherent young female leaders from highly marginalized neighborhoods. “And we flip the script and say: who are you not to? We’re here to convince each young woman that her whole life is what makes her qualified to lead.”

By: Aimee Hansen

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OP-Ed: 3 Ways Leaders Can Advocate for Workplace Flexibility

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Lauren Winans Workplace Flexibility Over the past year, businesses in virtually every industry around the world have undergone dramatic shifts, while the remote workplace has redefined workplace flexibility. Like it or not, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the most rapid transformation of workplace dynamics in recent memory, not the least of which has been the shift regarding the traditional employer-employee dynamic.

Increased trends in technological automation and innovations have forced us as professional leaders to rethink most of our internal strategies. From the processes we use to hire and retain talented employees, to the ways we interact with them on the clock, and even down to the resources we provide them to excel in their performance, one thing has been made clear: the pandemic has left its impact not only on society as a whole, but also on the individual as an employee.

As employees have begun to advocate for their wants and needs within the workplace, it is our duty as leaders to provide them with the environment and tools they need to feel appreciated and valued. The best way to do this is to advocate for greater flexibility within your business and its culture. By advocating for the flexibility and greater overall wellbeing of your employees, they will feel more supported. This support, in turn, boosts the confidence of your employees, allowing them to feel more deeply valued in their own abilities, both within and outside of the workplace.

Here are three ways you, as a leader, can become an advocate for the flexibility of your workplace’s culture and its employees.

1. Embrace the New Hybrid Work Model

Some employers are reluctant to change and are resistant to new ways of working for them and their employees alike. They may think that methods which worked well for the past several decades prior to the pandemic can continue to work just as well more than a year later. Employers may have a fear of the unknown or a desire to focus on other priorities for their business. Ultimately, it all comes down to an organization’s leaders–if leaders can acknowledge that the dynamic between them and their employees has shifted, and changes are required, half the battle is already won. When that acknowledgement is avoided, true change becomes impossible.

Many employers are permanently implementing remote work and hybrid working arrangements, providing bonuses for employees who worked extra hours during the pandemic, conducting compensation studies to ensure their pay rates are competitive, and adding benefits like additional therapy visits, meditation, and mindfulness training. Some employers are also adding more paid holidays to their workplace calendar, encouraging vacation day use, or bringing in freelancers, contractors, and consultants to help with complex projects and increased workloads.

Implementing a hybrid work environment can benefit employers in many ways, not the least of which is the reduction in size of their real estate footprint, which lowers operating expenses. For instance, implementing a hybrid work model shows employees that flexibility in their workplace environment is a priority for their leaders, allowing those leaders to retain talented employees for longer periods of time. This hybrid environment allows talented employees to juggle their priorities (such as caring for children or aging parents) while remaining employed without the fear of having to choose between their personal priorities or their career.

2. Revisit (and Revamp) Your Hiring and Retention Strategy

The number one thing employers can do is to ensure workplace flexibility is to have a clearly defined talent strategy; one that includes an aspirational vision or mission that leaders and HR can use as a guidepost. That guidepost is then used to update, change, or create practices and rewards that are aligned to the aspirational vision of a company’s leadership, which should be well-known throughout the organization. It should be communicated clearly and often, praised when demonstrated, and discussed regularly in large company-wide meetings and small team meetings alike. Great, talented employees need to know what they are working for, what they are working toward, and that their efforts are recognized, appreciated, and rewarded.

The recent hiring crisis our nation is facing exemplifies this point. Our current shortage of workers is impacting the ability of HR teams to focus on enhancing their people strategy, resulting in higher turnover rates that lead to a larger amount of open positions that are hard to fill. It’s a vicious cycle that has led many organizations to bring in HR consultants who can help employers and their teams tackle greater workloads in a shorter period of time. However, many HR professionals themselves are completely burned out after everything the pandemic threw at them. Some are shifting career paths, moving on to companies that provide them with more support, or leaving the workforce entirely.

If business leaders and employers are able to successfully adapt to new ways of working, and thinking about work such as implementing a hybrid work environment, this allows them to increase the size of their talent pool–particularly for positions that are difficult to fill. Hybrid work models likewise allows for greater inclusion, making it possible for companies to employ those with disabilities that keep them from a traditional onsite office setting. By increasing the size of their talent pool, employers make it easier on themselves to recruit for positions that would otherwise be hard to fill.

3. Consciously Provide Employees Opportunities to Thrive

The events of the past year have made it clear that employees crave support from employers to help them better balance their lives. Employees want to work for strong leaders, want to contribute to something bigger than themselves, to take care of their families, and to maintain their health and wellbeing. All of these needs require flexibility on behalf of the employer, and while employers are not expected to meet all of an employee’s personal needs, making conscious choices to provide employees every opportunity to thrive is what helps retain great employees.

By focusing your company’s internal people strategy to create a more flexible workplace environment and culture, your organization can focus more on how to foster the wellbeing of its employees. Companies that are more focused on the wellbeing of their employees will find it easier to attract and retain talent, combat burnout, and increase productivity. When employees feel supported, they’re more confident in their abilities at work. It’s no wonder that employees are looking for employers who have been or are ready to embrace this dynamic.

Written by Lauren Winans, CEO – Next Level Benefits

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