By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama opened the White House’s conference on workplace flexibility, a topic near and dear to her heart. She said, “for many years before coming to Washington, I was a working mother, doing my best to juggle the demands of my job with the needs of my family, with a husband who has crazy ideas.”

She told the story of her last job interview before moving to Washington – she was unable to find a babysitter for her daughter, so ended up having to take her along to the interview. The interviewer was understanding, and she got the job. But, she said, she was lucky – many women wouldn’t have had such good fortune.

The conference, hosted by the Obamas, coincided with the release of a new report by the Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers, “Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility” [PDF]. The report makes an economic argument for flexible work programs, noting that there are many challenges to instituting such programs – not the least of which is a lack of facts about their actual costs and related benefits.

The Glass Hammer talked with workplace flexibility expert and co-founder of FlexPaths Meryl Rosenthal on why women can benefit from flexible work arrangements, and how they can encourage flexible work programs in their office.

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Contributed by Selena Rezvani, Author of The Next Generation of Women Leaders

While women are making collective strides in the workplace, their youngest members still have a ways to go. In the words of Kelly Picket, one of the women executives I interviewed for my book, “It doesn’t take much for people to look at a woman in her twenties and say ‘that girl has a lot of growing up to do.’”

On one hand, generation Y women have a high degree of confidence, earn the majority of bachelors and advanced degrees, and as evidenced in a recent Families and Work Institute survey, have a tremendous hunger for jobs with responsibility. On the other hand, this group is the least likely to fit the typical CEO mold, especially compared to the look and leadership style of the most common executive: a Caucasian male in his late 50s.

Here are my top five tips for businesses looking to leverage the talent of Gen Y women, the most ignored leadership pipeline.

1. Give Them a Proper Induction: From the very moment a Gen Y woman signs an employment contract, you can be instrumental in seeing that she gets off to the right start. Make sure this group has a logistical orientation as well as the more overlooked kind – a culture orientation. Learning the culture of an organization proactively–rather than passively figuring it out as one goes along–can help a newcomer package their messages so that they’re embraced more often. Make leadership development a major priority for all new people entering the organization, rather than an exclusive benefit only for those that are well established.

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Contributed by Liz Cornish, Leadership Coach and Keynote Speaker

It’s been a tough and frustrating year for financial professionals. Watching other smart, motivated people lose their jobs is sobering. Increased regulation is forcing many institutions that were playing by the rules to endure shrinking margins and panicked customers. It’s like being grounded because your sibling broke curfew. As the economy shifts and uncertainty prevails, what should women in finance do to ensure their own future?

First, congratulate yourself. You’re a motivated woman in the right industry. Sure, there will be changes and disruption, but finance is here to stay. As Patty Vantuhl of Bank of America noted, “There will always be a financial world. Names and players will change. But people will always need a way to store, access, invest, leverage and keep track of their money.” If you were in the newspaper publishing business, this would be a very different article.

So you’re in the right place, right career. Now what? What will it take to thrive in the new economy?
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Contributed by Colleen J. Payne-Nabors of www.colleenjpayne.com.

Leadership is neither an art nor a science, rather a combination of both. It is an art form because it must continually change and evolve, requiring energy and creativity. And it is a science because there are certain essential principles and techniques required to become a good leader.

Management positions give you the power to make decisions, but this power does not make you a leader. It makes you merely the boss. A good leader empowers, motivates and inspires others to reach a common goal. Anyone can manage, but leading requires transparency.

Transparency is the ability to clearly see the relationship between oneself and one’s environment. Transparent leaders know their strengths and weakness but, above all, know who they are and how their actions impact the actions of others.
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By Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids. Michigan)

Companies are struggling with how to facilitate true accountability within their organizations, seeing it as a path to recovery from the current economic crisis and an important component in a plan to stave off future disasters. In their new book, How Did That Happen? Holding People Accountable for Results the Positive, Principled Way, workplace accountability experts Roger Connors and Tom Smith build upon the concepts in their two previous books—The Oz Principle, which focused on personal accountability, and The Journey to the Emerald City, which addressed how to create an accountable culture— to show how accountability within an organization is essential to its success.

The first half of the book shines a spotlight on the importance of the leadership role. Whether supervisor or CEO, the reader is asked to take an honest look at her leadership style, relationships with the people on whom she depends for results, and her effectiveness in achieving the results she wants. The authors emphasize that, before a manager can promote personal accountability in her organization, she has to embrace it herself, and that the whole group, including leadership, shares responsibility for not achieving the desired results.

Two Steps for Defining Accountability Expectations in Your Organization

Defining expectations is crucial to fostering personal accountability in subordinates and other colleagues. The authors have created the Accountability Sequence, a systematic approach to establishing accountability in an organization. The Sequence is divided into two components: the Outer Ring, which zeroes in on leadership behavior and the importance of establishing clear expectations, and the Inner Ring, which addresses unmet expectations and defines the four main causes (poor motivation, inadequate training, too little personal accountability, ineffective culture) and the four solutions (motivation, training, culture, accountability). The authors also advise that one needs to step back and look at accountability not just within one’s organization, but also of all the stakeholders in your “Expectations Chain,” beginning with vendors and continuing all the way down to customers.

Using examples from their twenty years in accountability consulting, events in history, and even the varied responses to natural disasters, Connors and Smith show how unmet expectations, poor assumptions, and a lack of accountability lead to failure time and time again. On the other side, Connors and Smith have an equal number of success stories that illustrate the power of positive accountability throughout an organization. Although most of the client names have been changed, readers will recognize companies like Sprint, figures such as Henry Kissinger and Jack Welch, and events such as Hurricane Katrina, Apollo 13 and the Mars Orbiter in the examples put forth by the authors. Read more