Listening Is Getting Harder, but It’s Necessary for Leaders

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women in technologyEvolving digital technology demands more communication and accessibility from all employees, which leads to a culture of multi-tasking. But as leaders face increased communication demands, it’s important that they retain the value of listening.

Listening is Getting More Difficult

Active listening has been identified as one of the ten attributes of embodied leadership. Effective listening by leaders has been noted as the first step in creating trust within organizations. Also research shows that supervisor listening contributes to employee job satisfaction, satisfaction with the supervisor, and fosters a strong and beneficial exchange between leaders and team members.

Yet according to Accenture’s #ListenLearnLead study of 3,600 business professionals across 30 countries, the vast majority of professionals (64%) feel that listening has become more difficult in today’s workplace.

While nearly all (96%) of global professionals judged themselves to be “good listeners”, nearly all (98%) also report multi-tasking at least part of the day.

The study found that eight in ten respondents said they multi-task on conference calls with work emails (66%), instant messaging (35%), personal emails (34%), social media (22%) and reading news and entertainment (21%). In fact, professionals report distracted listening and divided attention unless they are held directly and visibly responsible within the context of the meeting.

“Digital is changing everything, including the ways in which we communicate. In turn, the way we communicate is changing how we listen, learn and lead in the workplace,” says Nellie Berroro, Managing Director, Global Inclusion & Diversity at Accenture. “Today, truly listening means not just watching our nonverbal cues in face-to-face meetings, but also maintaining our focus on conference calls, staying present, and resisting the urge to multi-task with instant messages and texts.”

Multi-Tasking Means More Quantity, But Less Quality

The attraction to multi-tasking seems to be a double-edged sword in the workplace that pins quantity against quality.

In Accenture’s study, 64% of Millennials, 54% of Gen Xers, and 49% of Baby Boomers reported multi-tasking during at least half of their work day. While 66% of professionals agreed multi-tasking enables them to get more done at work, 36% report that distractions prevent them from doing their best work. Millennials were at the extreme on each – feeling multi-tasking meant getting more done (73%) and yet distractions prevented them from doing their best work (41%).

However it’s traditional interruptions imposed by others (telephone calls & unscheduled meetings & visitors) rather than technology that were reported as most disruptive, perhaps due to the lack of control over these distractions.

What suffers? The trade-offs reported include decreased focus, lower-quality work, and diminished team relationships. But can leaders afford these trade-offs, too?

Despite the Benefits, Are Leaders Too Accessible?

“Our survey found technology both helps and hinders effective leadership,” says Borrero. On the positive side, 58% of survey respondents saw technology as a benefit for leaders enabling them to communicate quickly with their teams, allowing both time and geographic flexibility (47%) as well as accessibility (46%).

However, 62% of women and 54% of men felt technology made leaders over-stretched by being too accessible. 50% of respondents felt it forced multi-tasking and 40% felt it distracted from culture and relationship building. 55% felt a top challenge for leaders is information overload.

Borrero recommends practicing discipline when needed in disengaging from other technologies to give full focus to the material in front of you, such as putting your mobile device on silent during phone conferences and actively noting key points. “When you face information overload,” she says, “become comfortable with turning off technology. For example, you might disconnect at night, so you can recharge, and decide not to look at your phone until the morning.”

Importantly, when it comes to effective leadership and overcoming barriers to it, focusing on quality of communication and connection matters most – and that may very well start with listening.

The most important leadership attributes identified by the study were the “soft skills” of effective communication (55%), ability to manage change (47%), and ability to inspire others and ideas (45%), closely followed by understanding team members.

Yet this is also where skills suffer: the two most commonly perceived obstacles to effective team leadership were a lack of interpersonal skills (50%) and a lack of communication skills (44%).

Getting Better At Listening

While digital technology brings many advantages, leaders who compromise at listening may compromise their ability to lead effectively.

A Westminster Business School report highlights, “Listening is an essential skill in all situations and it is particularly important for leaders and managers to actually hear what others say, not simply what we think we hear them say…All great leadership starts with listening. That means listening with an open mind, heart and will. It means listening to what is being said as well as what isn’t being said.”

Despite its importance to leadership, leaders are too often ineffective at truly listening according to an HBR article by Christine M. Riordan. She notes, “The ability and willingness to listen with empathy is often what sets a leader apart.”

Riordan outlines three key behaviors leaders can practice that are linked with empathetic listening:

1) Hearing with all of your senses and acknowledging what you’ve heard.

This means “recognizing all verbal and nonverbal cues, including tone, facial expressions, and other body language.” It’s as much about listening to what is not said as what is said, and probing a bit deeper, as well as acknowledging others feelings or viewpoints and the act of sharing them.

2) Processing what is being shared and heard.

This means “understanding the meaning of the messages and keeping track of the (key) points of the conversation.” Effective leaders are able to capture and remember global themes, key messages, and points of agreement and disagreement.

3) Responding to and encouraging communication.

This means “assuring others that listening has occurred and encouraging communication to continue.” Acknowledging others verbally or non-verbally, asking clarifying questions, or paraphrasing reflects consideration of their input. This can also mean following-up to ensure others know listening has occurred.

According to Accenture’s Borrero, “Leaders are role models employees emulate, so it’s important for them to set a good example. In our increasingly hyper-connected digital workplace, we all need to practice ‘active listening,’ including paraphrasing, taking notes and asking questions. At Accenture, we offer a number of courses in effective listening, which is critical to our company as we focus on serving clients.”

In today’s leadership context, where effective leadership means showing social awareness not just self-awareness, leaders may employ technology to help them do it, but one way or another, it’s important they find a way to truly listen.

By Aimee Hansen

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Values-Based Leadership: How It Can Improve Your Effectiveness

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Values-Based LeadershipAs a leader, do the values of your organization speak through your actions?

A recent article in The Journal of Values-Based Leadership reminds us that Steve Jobs said, “The only thing that works is management by values.” It’s no surprise that companies like Apple who foster a values-based approach in their leadership culture create connections that have a significant impact on company performance.

Your ability to focus on and motivate through core organizational values can have an impact on your effectiveness as a leader, too.

HOW FOCUSING ON ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES HELPS YOU AS A LEADER

Raises you to a leadership perspective

The Financial Times defines value-based leadership as “Motivating employees by connecting organizational goals to employees’ personal values.”

A Harvard Business School paper asserted that when leaders focus on the technical or administrative side of their work, they become too fixed on short term returns. The paper stated, “If leaders instead sought to uphold values and maintain integrity, they could establish the long-term perspective and commitment to innovation necessary for sustaining their competitive position in an increasingly global economy.”

Effective leaders keep focused on the visions and values of the organization as a compass for action. Indeed, having women in the boardroom has helped at aligning corporate action to company values. International research has shown that “the positive impact of women on the board on financial performance, and on ethical and social compliance, indirectly affects firm value.”

Also, keeping your eye set on organizational values, and above the daily tasks, may help you from getting too drawn into office housework that can be peripheral to your leadership goals.

Increases bonding with you as a leader

Building relationships with those who work with you is important, but when they’re built through a common bond around organizational values, it strengthens your position as a leader.

The ability to compellingly communication organizational values is a key attribute of leadership success. Communication research shows that optimized messages can garner a “shared sense of purpose, which is achieved when multiple employees possess the same understanding of the purpose of the work.” In particular, the combination of “a large amount of vision imagery with a small number of values” increases performance by creating a shared sense of organizational goals and coordination towards them.

Effective leaders also create a motivational sense of belonging. Leadership research shows that people feel more bonded to a leader with which they feel a “shared social identity” that is representative of their in-group. Leaders who effectively convert organizational values to a shared identity would seem able to create deeper commitment from those they manage.

In fact, values coach & author Joe Tye asserts that values-based leadership can create a culture of ownership rather than a culture of accountability, which he asserts relates to motivation, productivity, and retention.

Affirms your leadership integrity

Values are meaningless unless put into action, and the standard for integrity within an organization is set by its leaders.

Speaking to values-based leadership, Mark Fernandes, Chief Leadership Officer at Luck Companies, says “In order for these values to be authentic within the organization, it’s imperative that the leaders be fully committed to demonstrating the values in everything they do. There’s a level of inauthenticity that associates will notice and it can erode their trust in the leadership if they’re not actively seeing the behaviors exhibited in the actions and words of their leaders.”

The HBS paper asserted that by embodying the values they espouse, leaders enable employees to find meaning and value in their own work: “Members’ interactions with the organization and their actions on its behalf are not just transactional but are imbued with meaning. As members internalize the organization’s purpose, to the extent that their own actions further this purpose, they come to regard these actions as meaningful. They further view themselves as part of a valued community. They are motivated to exert effort on behalf of that community, to defend it when threatened, and to advocate on its behalf.”

Being able to connect individuals to the values of your organization is especially important when it comes to motivating Gen Y. Research has shown that for Millenials, job fulfilment hinges partially on believing in the vision and strategic direction their organization is pursuing in the world and feeling personally connected to it.

If leaders don’t uphold the values the company espouses, employees lose faith and begin to disengage. If they do, they inspire.

Ignites your potential and the potential of those around you

When your personal ambition is aligned with your company’s vision, you are more engaged, more productive and more able to reach your potential according to research. This is true not only for you, but for those you manage and motivate. When you feel corporate values are more closely aligned to your personal values, it creates intrinsic motivation.

Fernandes focuses on igniting the full potential in others, “Values-based leadership is defined by living, working and leading in alignment with your core values, principles, beliefs and purpose to, in turn, ignite the extraordinary potential in those around you.”

Values-based leadership has also been linked to creating a culture of creativity and innovation. The Journal of VBL article states, “When an individual has a personal and professional commitment to align personal values with those of the organization he or she works for, a powerful connection is created. This connection creates numerous possibilities for both individual growth and company productivity.” The article suggests that motivating a “work culture or atmosphere that sparks creativity” is increasingly a matter of customizing motivational strategies to align employee values with organizational values.

WALK THE WALK ON VALUES

So given how values-based leadership can positively impact your leadership potential, how do you begin to walk the walk? Perhaps the first question to ask yourself is what the organizational values really mean to you.

Conscious Manager recommends to, “Develop a personal understanding of your organization’s values. Think about what the company’s values really mean to you and to your unique leadership style. You need to know which of your behaviors demonstrate those values. If the business’ beliefs and principles don’t have meaning for you, you won’t be able to make them meaningful for anyone else.” Ultimately, it’s your actions, not your words that speak to how well you represent values – in being a role model, in teaching the values, and in recognizing them. “Bringing values to life is a behavioral issue.”

Embodying Values is one of five key behaviors of great leaders, says Author Ken Blanchard. He asserts, “Leaders must establish, articulate, and enforce the core values of their organization. More important, they must model the behaviors that support the values.”

He suggests leaders ask these four questions:

“How can I integrate our core organizational values into the way my team operates?”

“What are some ways I can communicate our values to my team over the next thirty days?”

“How can I create greater personal alignment with our values on a daily basis?”

“How can I recognize and reward people who actively embody the values?”

Inspiring leaders motivate us towards a common goal. Values-based may be less a type of leadership, and more a requirement of it.

By Aimee Hansen

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Why Being “True to Yourself” Can Hold You Back From Your Leadership Journey

By Aimee Hansen

“Countless books and advisers tell you to start your leadership journey with a clear sense of who you are. But that can be a recipe for staying stuck in the past. Your leadership identity can and should change each time you move on to bigger and better things,” says Herminia Ibarra, professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD.

In an article entitled “The Authenticity Paradox” in Harvard Business Review’s January 2015 issue, Ibarra challenges the predominant views and momentum on authenticity to assert that “true to self” approaches can hinder leadership growth. She argues “a too rigid definition of authenticity can get in the way of effective leadership,” often keeping leaders from evolving as they gain new insight and experience.

“Because going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what’s comfortable,” she explains. “In my research on leadership transitions, I have observed that career advances require all of us to move way beyond our comfort zones. At the same time, however, they trigger a strong countervailing impulse to protect our identities.”

Misunderstanding the Leadership Journey

How did we all come to revere “true to self” approaches? In her book ACT LIKE A LEADER, THINK LIKE A LEADER, Ibarra states the “holy grail of leadership development” that says you must navigate your way to leadership from a clear inner compass of who you are (inside-out development) is a fallacy derived from a research tradition of profiling highly effective leaders NOT the journey they took to get there. Ibarra’s research on the “development of leader identity” suggests that people become a leader by acting like a leader, which necessitates acting outside of your self-perceived identity rather than within it.

According to what she calls the out-sight principle, when it comes to leadership, what we do changes how we think, what we value, and who we see ourselves as – not the other way around. She writes, “Simply put, change happens from the outside in, not from the inside out.”

The Danger of Staying “True to Self” for Women

Ibarra spoke to us about how latching onto authenticity plays out for women. “The more common trap I see women falling into is not acting like a man but sticking too long to an authentic but outdated way of leading.”

She shared a scenario of role-transition in which both men and women were clearly out of their depths. “Women were more likely to try to prove their competence by demonstrating technical mastery over the long term; while men are more intent on making a positive first impression to create relationships.”

She explains how latching onto authenticity back-fired, “The women cited their reliance on ‘substance rather than form’ as a more ‘authentic’ strategy and thus as a source of pride; yet they were also frustrated with their inability to win their superiors’ and clients’ recognition.” She observed, “Despite the value they placed on authenticity, their cautious and protective behavior wasn’t necessarily true to self either, and they had a harder time enlisting others’ support because they were perceived as less adaptive and flexible than their male peers.”

Ibarra strongly emphasizes however “the divergent strategies of men and women are not due to issues of confidence or personality, i.e. women being more cautious, prudent or less risk taking and bold than men. What explains women’s heightened authenticity concerns is ‘second generation bias,’ defined as the powerful yet often invisible barriers to women’s advancement that arise from cultural beliefs about gender, as well as workplace structures, practices, and patterns of interaction that inadvertently favor men and accumulate to interfere with a woman’s ability to see herself and be seen by others as a leader.”

The antidote to that self-perception gap, of course, is leading. INSEAD research has shown that the more leadership experience women have, the less identity conflict they experience as a woman and a leader.

The authenticity paradox is especially acute for women in male-dominated companies. Ibarra told us, “Stepping up to leadership in male-dominated cultures is particularly challenging for women because they must establish credibility in cultures that equate leadership with behaviors that are more typical of men and where powerful female role models are scarce… If they ‘don’t look like a leader; to the seniors who evaluate their potential, they are less likely to get the assignments and sponsorship that are the heart of the learning cycle involved in becoming a leader.”

The Importance of Being “Adaptively Authentic”

In her HBR article, Ibarra encourages leaders to view themselves as works in progress with adaptive professional identities evolved through trial and error, acknowledging “That takes courage, because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous. But the only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic sense of self would keep us from doing.”

This takes more courage for women, because it can lead to a catch-22 as Ibarra shared with us, “When women are authentic, leading in less prototypical ways — crafting a vision collaboratively, for example, rather than boldly asserting a new direction — their contribution and potential is more likely to go unrecognized. But ‘chameleon’ strategies, that involve emulating the leadership styles of successful role models – as men are more apt to do – are less effective and less appealing to women in male-dominated leadership companies: they are evaluated negatively if they appear to be ‘acting like men’ and the styles that work for men are less likely to be a good fit for and appealing to them.”

In HBR, Ibarra proposes being “adaptively authentic”, a leadership approach that comes from embracing a playful attitude to identity rather than a protective one, a willingness to try out possible selves to figure out what’s right for new challenges.

Ibarra shared two thoughts with us for women under biased pressure to prove themselves as leaders, “First, often time you can play around with different ways of being in your side projects and extra curricular activities first, where the spotlight isn’t so bright. Second, you can’t underestimate the risk of doing just as you always have. At different points in your career you reach inflection points where the only way to ‘prove yourself’ is to just try new stuff because the old way clearly isn’t working.”

In HBR, she argues that being too internally focused can limit us, “Without the benefit of what I call out-sight — the valuable external perspective we get from experimenting with new leadership behaviors — habitual patterns of thought and action fence us in. To begin thinking like leaders, we must first act: plunge ourselves into new projects and activities, interact with very different kinds of people, and experiment with new ways of getting things done…Action changes who we are and what we believe is worth doing.”

Women and Adapting to Influence

Ibarra shared perspective on how women can influence leadership as they adapt to become better leaders, “Christine Lagarde (Managing Director of the IMF) has a lovely phrase for women: she says you have to ‘dare the difference,’ meaning dare to be different, to bring to your company your unique gifts, values and perspective as a woman and an individual. I can’t agree more.”

“But,” she cautions, “that doesn’t mean you don’t adapt to essential ‘leadership demands’ to think more strategically beyond your narrow area of expertise, to develop a full arsenal for selling your ideas to the people who have to buy in to make them reality, and to stretch your style so that you can inspire and persuade a more diverse audience. Being authentic doesn’t mean you just say ‘It’s not me to go out on a limb;’ it means you experiment until you find new ways of leading that work and also feel authentic.”

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“Show Me how to Lead, Like a Woman”: Why Positive Gender Identity Matters in Leadership

Managing ChangeBy Aimee Hansen

“Show me how to run, like a girl.” On Sunday February 1st, millions of Superbowl viewers watched a 60-second ad from Procter & Gamble’s Always campaign, which powerfully demonstrated that doing something “like a girl” implies weak and wimpy performance is an association girls learn. From puberty, girls become divorced from their self-confidence and evidently self-perceived ability.

Calling the ad “groundbreaking” for its placement in the Superbowl, the Huffington Post stated it won kudos “for changing the conversation about what it means to run, throw, and do pretty much any activity ‘like a girl’.” A Washington Post blog referred to it as a “PSA for all womankind” – summing up what was revealed by how young girls behaved in response before they internalized the negative gender stereotype of weakness:

“…throwing ‘like a girl’ is the same as throwing like a person, right?”

If negative gender identification contributes to dropping a female’s self-confidence by the time she hits puberty, it’s no wonder that marrying the roles of “woman” and “leader” too often creates an identity conflict for professional women.

Leadership Stereotypes & Gender

Researchers Alice Eagly and Anne Koenig stated in a Footnote article last year that while it’s slowly changing, “the characteristics people typically associate with leadership are often stereotypically masculine” – especially when it’s men making the association. A prevalent gender stereotype, which it has been argued in the Financial Times, business schools perpetuate.

Drawing from their own and other studies, they wrote “The alignment of the stereotypical characteristics of men and the stereotypical characteristics of good leaders makes it easier for men to be perceived as successful leaders, a phenomenon known as role congruity. In contrast, women are perceived as less fit for leadership because traditionally feminine characteristics are less consistent with our perceptions of successful leaders.”

Add “perceive themselves” to that dynamic, and the case for internal conflict becomes clear – leaving women in a bind when they attempt to be a leader in a male-dominated environment where their gender is a perceived liability.

Identity Conflict

A recently published report, “Me, a woman, and a leader: Positive social identity and identity conflict” by INSEAD’s Natalia Karelia and ESMT’s Laura Guillén, explored the consequences of positive social identity for women in leadership roles, across over 600 leaders.

From the INSEAD working paper behind the report, identity conflict is when women perceive an incongruity between their gender and professional identity. The study proposed that when women leaders see the identity roles of “woman” and “leader” as holding conflicting norms, meanings, and demands, they feel at odds inside while trying to live up to the standards of each of them, and this creates the feeling of inauthenticity and internal problems.

The research found that especially in male-dominated organizations, women leaders experience significant identity conflict, which increases stress, decreases a sense of well-being, and turns leadership into a duty they have to persist with rather than a joyful and motivating role. These women felt under pressure to conform to male-associated leadership qualities and expected behaviors, at a sense of violating their female identity.

The researchers propose that women in male-dominated workplaces may struggle to integrate leader into their identity because female leadership is not being legitimized, “For women, the road of developing a self-concept as a leader may be especially bumpy in the environments where women are numerically underrepresented.”

The researchers write, “Our results indicate that in male-dominated organizations, women leaders may be more often ‘reminded’ of the incongruity between their professional and gender roles.”

Positive Gender Identity

The research found that what powerfully reduced identity conflict for women leaders is this: feeling positively about belonging to the social group of woman.

The research found, “Compared with women in more male-dominated organizations, women in organizations with proportionally more women held a more positive gender identity and experienced less identity conflict.” Working in organizations where being a woman, and evidently the associated strengths, is seen as explicitly positive left women more motivated to lead.

The researchers asserted that “holding a more positive gender identity reduces women leaders’ perceived conflict between their self-views as women and leaders. Thus, cultivating and maintaining a positive gender identity helps women leaders to improve their well-being not only directly, but also indirectly — by reducing identity conflict.”

In simplest terms, what the study found was that women that feel more positive about being a woman feel better being a leader, closing the gap between them within. A significant contributor to that is seeing females reflected in numbers around them.

Self-Affirmation

Embracing our social identity as woman can also help to free us from the confines of stereotypes and perceived incompatibilities.

Drawing from past studies, Karelia and Guillén pointed out that a positive social identity links to a stronger self-worth which can spill across roles and indirectly build self-affirmation. “Therefore, the more positive social identities woman leaders hold, the more freedom they will feel about the way they can lead, and the more likely they will be to develop their own way of leading that makes them feel comfortable and authentic.”

“Leader” and “woman” need not imply an inherent divisiveness, when women embolden themselves to find their own way.

Who defines what it means to lead “like a woman”?

Well, ultimately, you do. Lead.

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Year End Annual Reviews: How to avoid de-motivating your team while giving honest and useful feedback

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By Tolami Franklin

download_20140902_134357You are a manager leading a team. You arrange 1:1 meetings with each member of your team to have that conversation, typically relegated to take place once a year – the annual performance review. Its very mention can prompt anxiety for many, a response which prior experience suggests is often real and warranted. Consequently, research proves that ratings have the ability to shift our brains into fear or flight mode, a shift that encourages defensiveness and eliminates the opportunity to learn.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Year End review process isn’t all shivers and shakes, it has its merits and it does serve a purpose.

The Year End process offers some organizational benefit as it provides a structure and context by which staff are measured and thus rewarded, providing a target for individuals to work towards which can have a motivational value. This value is even more evident when staff are truly bought in and have a shared understanding of the culture of the organization they are affiliated to. Weiss and Hartle in their book ‘Reengineering performance management’, describe the annual review as being built on the tenets of shared understanding as a means to increase the likelihood of achieving success at both an individual and organizational level. Similarly, in Armstrong’s Handbook of Performance Management, the annual review is defined within the context of an agreed framework of planned goals and requirements. Notably, the critical words underpinning the annual performance review are ‘agreed’ and ‘shared’, thus its philosophy is rooted on a mutuality of interest for employers and employees, all of which is good, at least in theory.

This marks the key ingredient in turning the culture of fear to a culture of opportunity.

But the bad can’t be ignored! There are more practical drawbacks which squash this theoretical understanding of the annual performance review. In a meta-analysis of performance evaluations, Kluger and Denisi in their publication ‘Feedback effectiveness: Can the 360-degree appraisal be improved?’ concluded that at least 30% of the performance reviews ended up in decreased employee performance and HR studies show that 90% of performance appraisals are painful and simply do not work.

Likewise, the ugly truth is that an employee could feel so disheartened by the annual performance review process that their confidence takes a severe hit and they choose to leave their team or worse the organization. This may mean that a team member who has shown promise by being employed in the first place is left paralyzed by an ineffective performance review, made worse by an ill-prepared manager.

So how can you get the benefits that year end reviews are supposed to render and eliminate the culture of fear associated with that conversation?

Play your role
A manager plays the starring role of the protagonist in the year end review, as they are to evaluate their team’s performance over the course of a year often on the basis of biased judgement. It can be a stressful time for managers and subordinates alike – who respectively have to make a judgement or have to be judged. A consequence of this being that a manager can delay the layers of process involved until the last minute and frame ratings on the recency of good or bad output and behaviour, rather than a holistic assessment of the full performance year. This can be detrimental to the collective success of an individual, team and even the organization.

Career conversations
Research shows that the statistical measurement and forced rating doesn’t lend itself to the collaborative nature of today’s corporate world. Managers and indeed subordinates have a personal and professional duty to ensure that the performance review is done in a way which reflects the dynamic environment they are situated. Therefore, having career conversations throughout the course of the year rather than strictly at the point of the annual performance review is in the best interest of all parties. A manager should know their team’s frustrations and career aspirations, because there is regular, transparent, two-way communication. Career conversations diffuse the responsibility of the protagonist role owned by the manager by giving each team member a platform to voice their assertions – achievements or setbacks. This empowers the employee to play a more proactive role in the build up to the annual performance review.

Continuous feedback
As a manager, regular coaching and feedback should be given to your team throughout the year so they consistently know where they stand and what is needed for improvement. Feedback can be provided at the end of a client meeting, presentation or points at which traits of positive or negative behaviour is demonstrated. It is particularly important to recognise the power of continuous feedback in eliminating the culture of fear around the annual performance review for both strong and weak performers in the team. Strong performers should be praised and challenged to continue to do better. And weaker performers should also be praised for their achievements but their development points should be addressed objectively – delivering negative feedback in third person helps!

The Year End annual review should not be seen in isolation – it simply marks the final milestone of a build-up of discussions taken place throughout the year. Understanding your role as a manager, engaging in open dialogue and providing objective feedback to your team while ensuring they buy into the shared goals of the wider organization are the key ingredients to eliminating the cold sweat brought on by that conversation.

It is possible to turn that culture of fear into a culture of opportunity!

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Women in Technology: What should you look for in your next job?

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By CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com Nicki Gilmour

iStock_000014657648XSmallWhether you work as an engineer or a coder, a big data analyst, product manager, or a project manager in technology, you probably want to work for a great company who values both the technology itself and the women who make it happen.

For women who are looking to make a move to a new employer, you have choices that on a binary level break down into either working for a technology firm with technology as the product or working for a firm who has a different product or service but frankly has exhilarating technology making it all work behind the scenes.

Read more

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Making the Grade in Women Entrepreneurship: Gender-GEDI Shows Countries How

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Business meetingBy Michele Drayton

As the fall season begins, it’s a good time to check the progress of how countries are faring in removing the hurdles that hamper women entrepreneurs from reaching their full potential.

Look no further than the 2014 Gender-Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Gender-GEDI) funded by Dell. This one-of-a kind global study identified and analyzed factors that influence whether a woman’s business stays small to middling or expands into a powerhouse. That is, it becomes an integral part of a region’s economic fabric, creating well-paying jobs, sought-after products and cross-border trade opportunities.

For this second annual release of the GEDI, researchers studied 30 countries, up from last year’s 17, with respect to factors such as business climate, access to education, capital financing, and cultural attitudes toward women in leadership.

The Gender-GEDI showed that even the highest scorers could do better and like any good progress report, identifies strengths and weaknesses that government officials, policy makers and the private sector can utilize to help women entrepreneurs reach substantial scale.

The Grades
At the top of the class, based on a rating scale of 0 to 100, were the U.S. with a score of 83; Australia (80); and Sweden (73). The next highest-scoring countries, France and Germany, were tied at 67. The United Kingdom, Chile and Poland scored above 50.

Seventy-three percent or 22 of the 30 countries surveyed ranked below 50, and the lowest scorers included Uganda and Bangladesh, where women’s access to education and basic legal protections remain elusive.

Importantly, the GEDI emphasizes that even the countries ranked at the top of the scale can learn from countries with lower scores, underlining the fact that no country has arrived at the appropriate formula that multiplies high-growth, women-led businesses.

The Impact
Marsha Firestone, Ph.D., founder and president of the Women Presidents’ Organization offers evidence of the impact of such high-growth, women-led businesses. WPO members run multi-million-dollar enterprises and those attaining the highest membership-tier levels run businesses generating at least $10 million in revenues or up to $50 million in revenues.

Firestone appreciates that the Gender-GEDI study offers a framework for this level of success. She recalls a time when the phrase “women’s business” connoted very small organizations. No more. The WPO issues its own annual list of global entrepreneurial stars, the “50 Fastest-Growing Women-Owned/Led Companies,” and those winners generated $4.9 billion in combined 2013 revenues and altogether employed 22,000 people.

“This study is very important because it clearly indicates that there are women who are succeeding who are not a small business, a young business or a microbusiness,” Firestone said. “Women are starting and growing substantial companies. We are seeing very substantial businesses grow and develop — and they are making an impact on the economy.”

Overcoming Barriers
How much more of an economic impact they could make with fewer barriers concerns Geri Stengel, author of Forget the Glass Ceiling: Build Your Business Without One. Her book uses the Gender-GEDI as a foundation to study the experiences of 10 women helming thriving businesses.

Read more

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Career Advancement: Why it’s Worth Taking Risks

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Risk TakingBy Nneka Orji

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”  T.S. Eliot

We seem to be encouraged to take risks in many aspects of life in the hope or expectation of reaping greater rewards; from high-risk, high-return financial investments to extreme sports for “the thrill”. In our careers, we are also challenged with taking risks to increase the likelihood of successful career progression. Playing it safe, we’re told, will not differentiate us from our peers.This is welcome advice for some; taking risks is second nature. However for others, risk aversion comes more naturally. The definition of risk is “the possibility that something bad or unpleasant (such as an injury or a loss) will happen.” Every time we take a risk, we open ourselves up to an increased chance of something going wrong. This is hardly an appealing prospect, so why then do some people see risk as a prerequisite for success?

Risk as a prerequisite to success
To answer this question, we only need to look at those who have been successful and how they have approached risk. From political to sporting successes, it is clear to see that risk was not just one of many factors of success, but a necessity:

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Robert F. Kennedy

“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” Frederick Wilcox

It seems that for people to be successful, instead of seeing risk as being vulnerable to failure, they seize risky opportunities as a means of learning not to be scared of failure. The Huffington Post’s “7 reasons why risk-taking leads to success” also include seizing unforeseen opportunities, learning career-changing lessons and standing out from the crowd as reasons to take risks. The article highlights successful women who embraced risks, including Arianna Huffington (President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post), Heather Rabbatts (first female director of The Football Association), Sandra Peterson (CEO of Bayer CorpScience). Some of these women have been interviewed by theglasshammer.com previously on the topic, with Mrs Clinton’s famous learning that she had to “Dare to compete.”

With such prominent women promoting risk taking as a prerequisite to success, it isn’t too hard to see why many now see risk as essential to career advancement. But what happens if we are risk averse by nature?

Women – are we really more risk averse?
Previously, risk was viewed as an inborn trait – remaining static regardless of experiences or environment. If you were born a risk-taker, you remained a risk-taker in all aspects of and throughout your life. However more recent studies show that this is not an accurate reflection of risk. Research, such as the paper included in the 2012 Social Psychological and Personality Science journal, show the importance of environment and “culture of honour” in influencing an individual’s appetite for risk. Other papers also show that discrimination, rejection or the presence of women can all increase the chances of throwing caution to the wind and taking risks.

According to a paper by Bernd Figner and Elke Weber, it’s not just the environment that plays a role in the way we approach risk; “risk taking is not a single trait but is a behavior influenced by characteristics of the situation (what the decision is about and to what extent it engages affect vs. deliberation), the decision maker (age and gender), and interactions between situation and decision maker.”

Does gender matter?
The concept of gender differences when it comes to risk appetite is not new. Stereotypes have led to the belief that women are less likely than their male peers to take risks. These beliefs are supported by studies such as that led by the British Psychological Society. Geoff Trickey, study author, found that women were “Cautious Carols” at work and twice as likely to be wary and prudent compared to male colleagues.

Julie A. Nelson, author of the 2012 Tufts University paper, believes that the preconception that women are more risk averse than men needs to be challenged. Dr. Susan Marchant-Haycox agrees that it’s not black and white: “it’s the nature and perception of the risk which accounts for the sex differential”. While most research supports the case that men take more financial risks, there is increasing evidence to suggest that women take more career-related risks, including career changes, in an effort to seize opportunities they feel are more commonly given to their male peers. Mara Mather and Nicole R. Lightfall also highlight the effect of stress on risk taking and the gender differences in risk appetite; men tend to take more risks and adopt the “fight-or-flight” response under stress, while women tend to focus on bonding and developing relationships.

The message here is not that one gender is better than the other in taking risks, rather there needs to be a gender balance across any risk taking or decision making panel or board. Although a study by the German Bundesbank showed that female presence increases the risk appetite of male colleagues, there is evidence to show that both risk prone and risk averse men and women can work effectively to provide a balanced view for calculated risk taking – required for organisations to succeed.

Dealing with risk
While risk taking tends to be viewed as an intellectual exercise, a recent article in The New York Times argues that the physical experience associated with risk is just as important. John Coates, who authors the article, shows that when there is continuous volatility on the trading floor, the traders’ cortisol levels increase while risk appetite decreases by up to 44%. The reverse is true – spikes in volatility result in reduced cortisol levels, increased dopamine and testosterone, and an increased risk appetite.

The characteristics of the environment on a trading floor are similar to those we see in our careers. In our information rich and constantly changing world, we need to be mindful of how we are reacting physically and how that in turn determines our approach to risk. Learning how to deal with risk is crucial to our careers and avoiding it could potentially lead to missed learning opportunities and career defining moments.

As existential philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich says; “He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.” We must embrace risk, but it must be done in the right environment in order to be effective.

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Choosing Leaders for the Wrong Reasons

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Business meetingBy Nicholas Pummer

One of the most important decisions that any organization makes is who to name manager. However, according to a recent report by Gallup, companies are alarmingly bad at identifying managerial talent. According to the results published in the Gallup Business Journal, companies select the wrong candidate a staggering 82% of the time. Very few individuals – just 10% says Gallup’s research – possess the natural skill set necessary to become effective managers.

As if companies did not already face a difficult task in identifying the precious few with the potential to lead, the conventional selection process could be systematically overlooking female candidates based on preconceived notions about what a manager “should” look like.

A long line of research in management has identified gender role stereotyping as a major barrier for women. The association between gender role stereotypes and perceptions about requisite management characteristics could be a decisive factor in limiting the number of women in management positions.

Good managers are hard to find
The Gallup report identifies five principle characteristics that great managers display, including the following:
1. They are assertive;
2. They are motivational;
3. They create a culture of accountability;
4. They are skilled at building relationships;
5. They make decisions based on productivity, not politics.

The authors note that while many individuals display some of the above characteristics, only one in ten employees have all of the characteristics necessary to give them the potential to be great leaders within the organization. The stakes are high for companies, as great managers, says Gallup’s report, lead to a higher level of employee engagement, which ultimately results in a more successful organization.

The question remains why companies have so much trouble identifying the right candidates. Part of the problem, according to researchers, is the conventional selection process where little science is applied. Candidates are typically evaluated using a heuristic approach that considers factors such as tenure and success in a non-managerial role.

When considering candidates with similar profiles, a decision can ultimately depend on whether the candidate “looks the part.” This subjective criterion could cause more women that have the requisite skills to be overlooked.

Think manager, think male
It is well-documented that women often face an uphill battle when trying to climb the ranks within their organization. A large body of academic research confirms that one of the biggest barriers to the advancement of women in business is psychological – specifically the perception that the characteristics of a successful manager are more commonly found in men than in women.

Academics first began to consider the idea of the gender typing of managerial roles with the pioneering management studies of Virginia Schein in the 1970’s. Her research, which in the decades since has been replicated many times, demonstrated empirically that managerial positions were gender-typed as male occupations. Using a sample of male and female managers, she showed that both sexes perceived that the characteristics required of a successful manager were more commonly viewed as being held by men than women.

The obvious implication that follows this unfair perception is that the decision-makers influenced by stereotypical thinking are more likely to ‘think manager’ and consequentially ‘think male.’ The imbalance is evident in the data. Despite an increase in the percentage of women in management roles in recent years, and although they account for about 47% of the labor force, women are still underrepresented in all levels of management – most notably at the higher levels, where they hold just 22% of upper management roles.

Breaking the managerial mold
To improve upon the poor success rate in the search for managers, Gallup suggests the use of analytics to find those potential managers. According to their metrics, employees in any role have similar talents and recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that naturally equip them to excel. Using predictive analytics, they argue, can help identify them. It is possible that such an approach could lead to a less biased selection process that is free of stereotyping and could better identify the best candidate – male or female – for the job.

An equally important factor that could lead to a more balanced representation of women in the management ranks may be even more obvious. Recent research has suggested that gender typing of managerial roles was weakest in organizations that employ many female managers. Put another way, those who worked alongside female managers were less susceptible to the perception that males make better managers and also more frequently tended to think of management roles as gender-neutral.

Properly identifying leaders within an organization as well as greater inclusion in the selection process can bring tremendous benefits. More effective managers lead to more employee engagement and a healthier organization. Incorporating more female members in the highest ranks, in particular, has been demonstrated to improve overall firm performance. If managers have such a powerful impact on an organization’s success, it is in the interest of every company to invest more in uncovering talent within their ranks.

Think manager, think leader
Despite some advances, the old ‘think manager, think male’ attitude has proven very persistent. Women’s success in overcoming entry barriers suggests that the threshold requirements of education, skills, and commitment have been met, but barriers to their advancement within their organization persist.

Using modern analytics can help identify better leaders, yet is still not a solution that is widely used. Greater inclusion of female candidates can be helpful in breaking down stereotypes in the long term, but there is still a long way to go. These changes offer promise for the future, but they do little to help the many qualified female candidates that are trying to advance their careers right now.

The most important message of the Gallup research is that the managerial traits that it has identified are not by any measure male or female traits, but rather the traits of effective leaders. The best strategy for women seeking to advance is to present an image that reflects their role (or their desired role) within the organization. Focusing on crafting the five characteristics of great managers identified by Gallup for your own professional toolbox will put you ahead of the 90% of competition that are ill-suited for the job. Women that have already ascended the ranks should encourage the women that they mentor to do the same. For aspiring female managers, displaying your leadership characteristics will help your own cause, and also contribute to the erosion of old and harmful stereotypes.

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What Should Leaders Do About Stereotype Threat?

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

There are many organizational mechanisms that push women and people of color out of the professional workplace. Not least of these is a subtle, systemic bias toward white males that gives people who are part of the dominant group the benefit of the doubt, while those on the outside seemingly have to prove themselves over and over again.

Perhaps the most insidious factor driving women and minorities out of the professional workplace is the subtle, gnawing anxiety created by stereotype threat.

Dr. Maya Beasley, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, has spent years studying the effects of stereotype threat. “Stereotype threat is the term given for the anxiety individuals get when they are in situations where there are negative stereotypes about how their particular group performs in those situations. There’s a pressure to perform well and not to represent the negative group stereotype,” she explained.

Studies have shown that this anxiety leads to decreased concentration, increased heart rate, and nausea, “factors which would make any one freeze up during a test,” Dr. Beasley commented. Ultimately the fear of conforming to the negative stereotype leads people to perform worse – essentially, they fulfill the stereotype because they are afraid of fulfilling the stereotype.

While much of the research on stereotype threat focuses on how it affects people during specific events – a math test, for example – Dr. Beasley believes stereotype threat can affect people over the course of their university study or professional careers. Her research suggests that stereotype threat is sapping STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields of diverse talent. “It leads people to disengage from a situation where they feel this kind of anxiety,” she explained.

But, she suggests, it doesn’t have to be this way. Stereotype threat is driving talented people away from the academic and professional world, and leaders of these institutions can and should do something about it.

Stereotype Threat in Organizations
According to Dr. Beasley’s work, stereotype threat is causing women and people of color to leave certain fields at an alarming rate. “My research suggests that stereotype threat is not just isolated to events like tests, but to prolonged experiences, like pursuing a course of study. There are strong pervasive stereotypes about the performance abilities of certain groups of people with respect to specific fields and people within these groups are pretty aware of them. This awareness leads students to question whether they want to avoid participation in the very activities that lead to success within these fields.”

For example, she says, “Someone may wonder whether a professor thinks their question is a bad one because they are Black or because they are female, and that might make them less likely to ask.”

Ultimately, this leads people in the minority to leave. “Women and minorities are just as likely as white males to pursue degrees in STEM fields at the beginning of college, but they leave these fields at a much greater rate than white men,” she said.

In her next book, Dr. Beasley is examining the results of stereotype threat in the professional workplace. She said, “In a domain like the corporate workplace that is highly biased and dominated by white men, there are a number of stereotypes at play, for example that women or Asian Americans are meek, or that African Americans and Hispanics are hot-headed or prone to violence. It’s likely that these groups have encountered stereotypes growing up or on college campuses, and they are likely to encounter them at work. Trying to cultivate a contrary identity can be tiresome and it’s hard to shrug a stereotype off.”

There’s also research to support that when people behave contrary to a stereotype, they may be penalized. “For example, studies show that women who are aggressive are not rewarded in the same way as men.”

Eventually, the stress and anxiety of dealing with stereotypes day in and day out can cause talented people to leave the corporate workplace for a more inviting environment. “Most women and minorities tend to recognize that dealing with stereotypes is literally exhausting,” she said. “At some point, women and people of color are tired of warding off stereotypes and they may seek out a situation that is safer or where stereotypes are less pervasive.”

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