Spotlight on Asia: The Future of Professional Women in Corporate Asia

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Leading a dynamic teamWelcome to The Glass Hammer’s Spotlight on Asia Week. We’ll be featuring profiles of successful business women working in Asia all week long!

By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

This week on The Glass Hammer, we are featuring profiles of senior level women living and working (not to mention succeeding) in Asian markets. Collectively, their stories are inspiring and offer a representation of professional women in Asia that is motivating to future generations. Individually, each of their journeys is truly remarkable. Here, we take a closer look at some of the key issues surrounding women’s career advancement in Asia and what the future holds for the talented and bright young women emerging from this region.

Women’s career advancement has become a focal point in different industries across the globe, and some countries and regions have progressed at a faster rate than others. When you take a look at the landscape of gender diversity in the corporate culture in Asia, you will notice a gap that is starting to gain a lot of attention from business leaders who are beginning to recognize the value of women leaders in the workplace.

Tapping into the Female Workforce in Asia

McKinsey recently released their report, Women Matter: An Asian Perspective [PDF], which offers an in depth look at the state of gender diversity in Asia. This research is based on their assessment of 745 companies and a survey of 1,500 senior managers to assess the interest in increased gender diversity, the challenges involved in getting more women in leadership positions, and the barriers preventing female talent from gaining access to the talent pipeline.

The report states:

“Asian cultures of course vary widely, so the picture is a varied one. Nevertheless, the survey results are an important benchmark against which to assess both the current situation and judge future progress. Not surprisingly perhaps, the results show women hold very few of the top jobs in Asia. On average, they hold 6 percent of the seats on corporate boards and 8 percent of those on executive committees. Moreover, although elements of a gender diversity program are in place in some Asian companies, the issue is not yet high on the strategic agenda of most.”

The data may look bleak, but it can only mean one thing –there is only room to grow from here. The global economy is growing, but Asia boasts some of the fastest growing economies in the world right now. In order to keep up with the growth on the consumer side, businesses must create growth driven strategies to stay competitive. What does this all boil down to? All of this economic growth is a driving force behind the need for more labor force participation, and if this does not include women, the well of the workforce will dry up pretty fast.

Aside from the sheer supply and demand economic benefits associated with getting more female participation in the workforce in Asia, there are strategic advantages as well. Champions of gender equality have been making the business case [PDF] for gender diversity in the workplace for years, but as more women fill the top spots, companies are starting to see a profound effect on their bottom line. Yet, according to the McKinsey report, 70 percent of the executives they surveyed stated that gender diversity is not a priority on their strategic business agenda.

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Why Role Models are Critical for Developing Women Leaders in Tech

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iStock_000009318986XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Recently, The Glass Hammer revealed our new research on women in technology – we wanted to find out what companies can do to better retain women at the junior and mid-career levels. Many companies are making a robust effort to recruit a high percentage of women at the entry-level, but few are building the organizational structure that will ultimately keep them there.

In our study, we identified a few motivators that stoke the career ambition of junior and mid-level women in technology – things like “walking the talk” (see our earlier article on the topic) and participating in a leadership development course.

Another key indicator of C-suite ambition was having a role model. In fact, the vast majority of our respondents (79.9 percent) said they had a role model. Meanwhile, respondents who didn’t have a role model were significantly more likely to say they had no C-suite aspirations than those who did have one.

That’s why, we believe, it’s important for companies to recognize the importance of nurturing connections between junior and mid-level technologists and the people at the top who support them through sponsorship initiatives, women’s networking groups, and mentoring programs.

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Three Takeaways in Our Latest Research on Women in Tech That Will Really Make You Think

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Woman Typing on Computer Keyboard In OfficeBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Today The Glass Hammer is releasing the latest in our series of research papers: Women in Technology: Leaders of Tomorrow. Sponsored by Accenture, the report examines the next generation of women leaders in technology and the responsibility that companies have in supporting their growth and development.

At our Women in Tech career event last fall, we heard stories of success from women in senior technology roles at their companies. But afterward, during the Q&A and networking sessions, we found that our guests (junior and mid-level women technologists) still had some questions. They had a lot of ambition, but they seemed unsure of how to approach real obstacles in their climb to the top. They asked questions like how to make sure they are taken seriously and getting credit for the work they’ve done, how to deal with supervisors who just don’t seem to acknowledge their potential, and how to be seen and remembered in a field rife with turnover and near-constant reorganization.

Issues like these, we believe, are the ones that drive women to leave technology careers, rather than realize their full potential as leaders.

Yet, the solutions to these issues have little to do women themselves. They are systemic problems within organizations that push women to the side and don’t provide them with the opportunities to flex their very capable leadership muscles. With this research, we sought to find out what engages women leaders, how to support them as they advance, and what they think of leadership and themselves.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be examining more closely the findings of our report and what they mean for women in technology as well as the companies that need them. Here are three big takeaways from our report.

1. Women in Tech are Ambitious. The vast majority (85.3 percent) of the women who responded to our survey (almost 200 women in junior and mid-level technology roles around the world, but mainly focused in New York) said they hoped to get a promotion in the next three years. This is not big news – career advancement is a short term goal for a lot of people.

But our respondents’ ambition was not limited to the short term.

Almost two-thirds (62 percent) of our respondents said they hoped to make it to the C-Suite or Senior Management someday. This is higher than other similar measures that have been reported in recent years. For example, in McKinsey’s 2012 report “Unlocking the full potential of women at work,” only 41 percent of successful women executives said they were interested in a C-Suite job.

We don’t know if long-term ambition is a common characteristic of women in technology as a whole, or if it was just a common characteristic of the women who chose to take our survey. Since The Glass Hammer is a career website for women interested in leadership, it seems likely that these are the type of people who would respond. Either way, we believe this means our report provides a unique insight into what high potential women technologists are looking for in their career and company.

2. Less Than a Quarter Say Their Company “Walks the Talk” on Women’s Advancement. At many companies, it’s become fashionable for corporate leaders to talk about the “business case” for women’s advancement, and to discuss why their companies should develop more inclusive cultures that empower women. But, our survey shows, that’s not as common as we might think. Less than half of our respondents (44.6 percent) said their leaders are vocally supportive of women.

What’s more, less than a quarter of our respondents (24.5 percent) said companies “walk the talk” by following through on the values espoused by corporate leadership by providing real support for women.

A trend in our research showed that “walking the talk” is really important for igniting women’s desire to lead. Women who worked at companies that “walked the talk” were often more interested in advancing to the C-Suite someday. This points to the critical importance of companies following through on promises by providing real, tangible resources for programs designed to develop women leaders.

3. Women Believe They Have Different Core Traits than Today’s Leaders. We were curious about what women thought of today’s leaders, and we were also curious about how that compares to the way they see themselves. In our survey, we presented our respondents with a list of ten traits and asked them to pick three to describe today’s leaders. Later on, we presented the same list and asked them to pick the three that best describe themselves. The differences were striking.

Top 3 Traits for Leaders        
 Top 3 Traits to Describe Yourself
Collaborative (44%) Collaborative (50.5%)
Innovative (41.9%) Honest (47.8%)
Decisive (38.0%) Goal Oriented (44.0%)
Technically Adept (35.3%) Confident (32.1%)
Confident (33.2%) High EQ (32.1%)
High EQ (30.4%) Passionate (27.7%)
Goal Oriented (28.3%) Technically Adept (23.9%)
Passionate (23.4%) Creative (23.4%)
Honest (19.6%) Decisive (22.8%)
Creative (16.3%) Innovative (17.9%)

The number one trait women chose to describe both themselves and technology leaders was “Collaborative.” Otherwise, the lists couldn’t be more different. Women described themselves as “Honest” much more than their leaders. They also described themselves as “Goal Oriented” more frequently. On the other hand, for leaders, “Innovative” and “Decisive” were top traits, but they were at the bottom of the list of traits women used to describe themselves.

This poses an interesting question: do women anticipate growing into the traits that mark today’s leaders? Or do they expect to change what it means to be a leader tomorrow?

Our research also produced meaningful information on sponsorship, networking, role models, and more – we will explore these topics further in the coming weeks. Click here to download a full report [PDF].

We would like to thank Accenture for sponsoring this very important research. If you have any questions about how corporate leaders can use this information to better attract, retain, and develop female technologists, please contact our Founder and CEO, Nicki Gilmour at nicki@theglasshammer.com.

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Passion and Purpose – Why Leadership Means Following Your Heart

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SHE Summit 2013By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, thousands of women took part in S.H.E. Summit Week, a week-long event designed to empower women to take ownership of their careers and dreams. The week of pop-up events around the world culminated with a two-day conference on work and life in New York City. Speakers included people like Cindy Gallop, Joi Gordon, Gloria Feldt, Reshma Saujani, and John Gerzema, who examined the powerful and positive ways women leaders are reshaping the 21st century.

For Claudia Chan, the powerhouse behind the S.H.E. Summit, stepping into leadership meant following her true passion and purpose. Although she became a successful entrepreneur at 25 when she founded what would become the girls’ night out entertainment company Shecky’s, it wasn’t until she left her business nine years later that she began examining the greater impact she wanted to make for women and for the world as a leader. She explained, “During my latter few years of my last business, I had achieved material success but I wasn’t fulfilled on the inside because I lacked a deeper sense of purpose. Experiencing what I did as a female entrepreneur, I really started learning and thinking about the state of women. When the a-hah moment came that I needed to build a more purposeful women’s media business that would share and scale the advice of today’s female role models in a modern way, a whole new definition of leadership kicked in for me. To be the best leader I could be, I had to take the leap to pursue a vision that I believed could positively impact women at large, and I am extremely proud of what we have achieved since we launched just 15 months ago.”

Being a leader isn’t just about being successful in business, she explained. “It also means having a clear vision of what you want to build, knowing what is needed to achieve that vision at different building stages, acquiring and empowering talent where you have weakness, knowing when to fight versus be patient and humbled, never giving up even when it feels harder than ever, and building something profitable that improves the lives of everyone involved — from partners to clients to employees.” These are big themes for Chan – and they are themes of the S.H.E Summit as well.

“I had to ask myself, ‘Am I doing what I’m really passionate about? Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for?’ I realized I really lacked focus. And I really wasn’t doing something that was making me happy.” She continued, “It was going through those challenges, several years ago, that forced me to create positive change in my life and to create a platform that would inspire women to dream and do big with passion and purpose, just like in my experience.”

Leadership is often born out of turmoil, she explained. “It’s not the cliché of having success and making a lot of money and all of the sudden I became a great leader. I always say obstacles create opportunities, and the number one quality for leadership is humility. Going through challenges helped me become a leader.”

Chan says her goal with her business SHE Global Media (parent company to ClaudiaChan.com, and her global women’s week S.H.E. Summit), is to be the leadership and lifestyle media company that creates only positive and empowering content and products for women. “It’s about building a business that is of service to others – making a positive dent on this universe. That is really how I define great leadership.”

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Ambitious People are a Little Happier and Live a Little Longer

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iStock_000017389678XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In a recent article in The Atlantic, writer Emily Esfahani Smith attempts to argue that ambition and relationships are mutually exclusive. She writes:

“The conflict between career ambition and relationships lies at the heart of many of our current cultural debates, including the ones sparked by high-powered women like Sheryl Sandberg and Anne Marie Slaughter. Ambition drives people forward; relationships and community, by imposing limits, hold people back. Which is more important?”

The notion that people can’t have a rewarding career and meaningful personal relationships is absurd. Certainly, there will always be choices to make when it comes to career advancement and personal commitments – but having those choices is what makes life worth living.

Smith goes on to write that people who really care about their relationships would be wise to give up ambitious dreams, and that people who pursue their ambitions are unhappy, destructive, and live shorter lives. She’s wrong. All in all, she attempts to use an erroneous and misleading argument to shame those who would pursue ambitious goals. In fact, the very study Smith cites to “prove” her argument says quite the opposite – people who are ambitious tend to be a little more satisfied in life and live longer.

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Why Aren’t We Ready for Female Breadwinners?

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iStock_000014539701XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Today women are more likely than ever to be the primary financially contributor (breadwinner) in their households – but that doesn’t mean we’re comfortable with it yet. At least, that’s what a new study out of the Simmons School of Management says.

Mary Shapiro, Professor of Practice at Simmons and leader of the study, explained, “A lot of girls and women have gotten that message – to be financially independent and find joy and personal satisfaction in their job. But society has lagged.”

The research is based on a survey of over 460 businesswomen who attended last year’s Simmons Leadership Conference in Boston. The majority of breadwinner respondents said they don’t share their financial situation with their family, friends, or colleagues, because, they say, it’s just not anyone’s business. The top reason? According to the survey, they were most likely to say they don’t want to “embarrass” their partners.

The women breadwinners in the study reported feeling high levels of pride in themselves and satisfaction in their jobs, yet they were conflicted. They worried what others might think of them and their partner’s unconventional roles. Shapiro said, “The message is, ‘I’m ready to be a breadwinner, but I’m not sure everybody else is ready for me to be a breadwinner.’”

Why not?

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What does International Women’s Day Have to Do with Advancing Women at Work?

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

It is really important for the world to celebrate IWD and to stop for a moment and think about issues that affect women in countries near and far. This year there is activity around sexual violence, trafficking and abuse, and poverty – all good topics to address and in some cases, a little action can improve people’s lives tremendously. You will often hear me say that inaction or silence is essentially collusion with the status quo, which keeps in place whatever ugliness is happening in the world.

Nevertheless, awareness can go a long way, but without challenging structural and cultural elements of any issue, we are just minimizing collateral damage. If there is no systemic change, then power and authority paradigms remain the same and we will continue to scratch our heads and wonder why our expectations aren’t met around people doing things differently. The same holds true for advancing women in the workplace.

We need to be having the right conversation to actually see some traction. Catalyst in 2012 reported barely changed figures for women on boards, female CEOs, and women in senior executive jobs.

Often, I feel that we spend too much time arguing over gender-based matters, such as work life balance. Instead, I would like to advocate that we direct the discussion to look at systemic and cultural issues as a way out of the “pink ghetto.” Arguing about whether we should “lean in” more or not as a group is just not going to do it!

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Developing Multicultural Competence

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By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

“Everyone has a cultural lens based on their own socialization. It’s important to realize that we all make assumptions. The important task is to check that assumption for validity.”
–Tonnie Martinez, PhD, Assistant Professor, Kansas State University

It’s impossible to avoid unconscious biases, and being able to recognize and work through them is a critical skill for the leaders of today’s diverse, global companies.

Attorney Jennifer Passannante at the New Jersey firm Hoagland Longo Moran Dunst & Doukas, LLP has had conversations with friends and colleagues about how dangerous “latent as opposed to blatant” discrimination can be. “Subtle but pervasive discrimination often manifests itself in workplace patterns, as opposed to acute incidents,” says Passannante.

“Psychological research has shown that issues regarding racism, sexism, and homophobia (to name just a few) run deep into our unconscious process and influence the way we view the world,” adds Silvia Dutchevici, president and founder of the Critical Therapy Center. “Reflection plays a big part in identifying these biases and in changing them. Examining one’s own biases and prejudicial attitudes, particularly when one is learning about and working with different identity groups, facilitates a process of change.”

To that end, leaders can take the initiative to begin recognizing their own blind spots when it comes to diversity, and start to change behaviors that may be holding others and themselves back. Here are some ideas on how to develop your multicultural competence:

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Selling Your Skills: Sales Techniques Everyone Should Master

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Avis Yates Rivers began her career at Exxon Corporation in the 1970s. She rapidly rose through the ranks of the company, moving from an administrative position to HR and training, and then into sales – which is where she really began to shine. When the company launched a new technology division (Exxon Office Systems Corporation), she took a role selling early technology in downtown Manhattan.

For Yates Rivers, part of the reason she enjoyed her job so much was the sense of adventure. “I realized how much I loved sales,” she recalled. “How much I loved walking into a door and not knowing who was going to be on the other side, and just feeling happy.”

After five successful years in technology sales at Exxon, she learned the division was going to be sold. “I began thinking seriously that I should be doing this for myself,” Yates Rivers explained. “This was after several years of overachieving my sales goals. It was something I liked and something I was good at. To me, the most reasonable step was to start my own business. This was 1985.”

Yates Rivers went on to found her own technology company, and today, she is the CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, a business that delivers critical IT asset management and leasing solutions to corporations, across many industries. A successful entrepreneur for 27 years, Yates Rivers is also on the board of the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT), and she participates in other groups such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council and the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization.

She shared her advice on the most important sales skills women should learn. Whether you’re working in sales or not, understanding the building blocks of a successful sales career can help you build your own.

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No More Ms. Perfect

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By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

“I have a note on my refrigerator that says, ‘If you’re not f***ing up, you’re not in the game.’ This is my constant reminder to be OK with making mistakes and that it’s better to try new things and fail than to do nothing.”

–Ruth Carter, Owner/Attorney, Carter Law Firm, PLLC

The new year is a great time to work on fighting perfectionist tendencies. When else do we have so many goals and plans? There’s nothing like an impossible list of expectations to throw a perfectionist into overdrive.

A tendency toward perfectionism can prevent women from trying new things or taking career risks. But it can also drive women to excel and achieve at the highest levels. We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater — so how can professional women maintain the drive that comes from a quest for perfection, while gaining the flexibility that comes with letting themselves fail?

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