By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Last year the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median employee tenure for wage and salary workers in the United States was 4.6 years, up slightly from the 4.4 year median tenure reported in 2010. Yet recent research shows indicates that “job hopping” is becoming more common among younger managers and high potential talent. Is this really an effective career advancement strategy?

It depends. On one hand, job hopping might not look so good on paper when potential employers are deciding whether or not to hire you. However, staying in a job that is not fulfilling your ambition and your talent will most likely not allow you to grow and advance in your career. So, how much time and effort should you put into thinking about your next career move?

Rating Your Career Happiness Level

According to a survey of 1,200 employees conducted by the Harvard Business Review, the young and the talented are also proving to be quite restless. Monika Hamori, Jie Cao, and Burak Koyuncu report that almost 95 percent of young employees (average age of 30 years old) actively maintained their resumes and stayed current on information regarding potential new employers. Furthermore, this same group of workers was likely to leave their companies after only 28 months, on average.

The HBR study found that one of the primary factors contributing to the early exit of young top talent is their dissatisfaction with the employee training and development programs available at their firm. More specifically, they asked young managers to rank the importance of mentoring, coaching, support from direct managers and support from senior management on a scale of 1 to 5. The managers surveyed gave each one of these categories a 4 out of 5 rating, but also expressed dissatisfaction in how much mentoring and coaching is provided by their employer.

If you have a similar dissatisfaction for the amount of career development options available to you, then perhaps it is time to start considering your next career move.

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By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Innovation is a word that is often used in association with business growth and competitiveness, but what does innovation in action look like and how can you make sure you are flexing your innovative muscles at work?

Recently, Harvard Business Review reported that the lack of innovation was one of the biggest mistakes Steve Ballmer made as CEO of Microsoft. He didn’t necessarily do anything wrong. After all, he did manage to keep Microsoft’s stock price steady during his time as the company’s leader. But, he didn’t really create a “wow factor” around Microsoft or its product lines either. As a result, Ballmer has been the topic of much media debate over whether or not he led the company with enough attention on innovation.

While Microsoft has not met the same demise as former tech giant, RIM, the message to companies is pretty clear: innovate or die. Julia Kirby, author of the HBR article writes, “Despite two decades of seeing the problem, very few CEOs have thought seriously about how their organizations should be reinvented if innovation matters more than anything else. Well, guess what: it does.”

As a recent Deloitte report suggested that innovation is not limited to a select few within a company’s org chart. Instead, companies need to start recognizing the value of institutional innovation, which Deloitte describes as, “redefining the rationale for institutions and developing new relationship architectures within and across institutions to break existing performance trade-offs and expand the realm of what is possible.”

Where do you fall on the innovation spectrum?

If innovation is becoming the cornerstone of competitive businesses, innovative people will become even more valuable. If you want to remain an asset to your company, you need to continue to sharpen your innovation skills, so that when the opportunity arises to turn ideas into actions, you will be ready. The following tips will help you keep innovation on the top of your to-do list each and every day.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

By now, you’ve probably heard about how women are more risk averse than men, and this could be one reason why firms with more women decision makers do better in turbulent business environments. In fact, the idea that the overconfidence bubbling up from a culture of testosterone-drenched male traders was the root-cause of the 2009 economic meltdown was popularized by the New York Magazine article “What If Women Ran Wall Street.”

Women tend to be more conservative than men in how they approach risk, writes author Sheelah Kolhatkar. This can result in more stable, rational decision making. Rather than making ego-based trades driven by showy overconfidence, women traders tend to operate on a more even keel. This rationality is a generalized characteristic of women that is viewed as an asset in any industry.

Nevertheless, women still receive mixed messages about confidence. We praise women for taking a conservative approach to business risk, while at the same time, we encourage women to take more career risks, by talking up their achievements, asking for stretch assignments, and taking on more of the P&L roles that test their mettle.

How much confidence is too much confidence? When is the right time to feel good about your chances, and predict your own success? What is that illusive sweet spot?

A new INSEAD study purports to show that being optimistic about one’s work can actually boost performance. But in doing so, the authors also make an important distinction between optimism, confidence, and overconfidence that may help sort out some of the contradictions women face when it comes to taking risks.

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By Hadley Catalano (Boston)

A recent Deloitte report [PDF] indicated that, “One size does not fit all” when it comes to corporate leadership. The fact that some businesses are facing an unstable and jagged economic future means they need a leader who can thrive across multiple complex environments. Requiring these top executives, both individually and collectively, to break out of a cookie cutter mold of one-dimensionality and embrace a multifaceted approach to leadership.

Qualities such as a high tolerance for risk and failure, a diverse skill set, a willingness to learn, adaptability, and a passion to engage fellow employees, are what corporations are seeking in a contemporary leader, according to the Deloitte report. But does this set of leadership qualities favor women leaders?

According to an in-house study conducted by Caliper, women leaders are, “more assertive and persuasive, have a stronger need to get things done and are more willing to take risks than male leaders.” The results of the Caliper study also emphasized that women leaders set a new standard of executive leadership by infusing qualities such as empathy, flexibility, and strong interpersonal skills. Is this blending of more traditional leadership qualities and new traits encouraging more women to seek leadership roles?

The answer would seem to be yes, according to Alice Eagly’s work at Northwestern university. She noted, “Cultural stereotypical leadership roles are changing to incorporate more culturally feminine aspects, without losing the culturally masculine aspects.” Professionally, Eagly explained, this is helpful to women, because social skills are being incorporated into the expectations of a leadership role.

“Women do well with an androgynous mix of culturally masculine and feminine behaviors,” Eagly said. “It’s often possible to do both—be assertive while maintaining consideration of others. I think that female leaders/managers often offer a mix of masculine and feminine behaviors, and can be accepted with an appropriate mix. So it’s not a matter of masculine or feminine behavior.”

However, finding the right balance between assertiveness and approachability is critical for female leaders.

Eagly continued, “At higher levels, women are in the minority as leaders everywhere, but there is gradual change overall toward more women in leader roles. We know that in more culturally feminine fields (education, social work, healthcare, community groups) women are relatively more successful and accepted as leaders. In more culturally masculine fields such as business and finance, and especially in highly male-dominated roles, women are less successful as leaders and encounter more prejudice,”

Why? It’s simple, she explained. It is because where expectations are for more masculine behavior and for the presence of men; women are distrusted more and accorded less respect and liking.

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By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

In a recent paper by PA Consulting, the benefit of shaping a corporate culture with a focus on diversity in order to create a high performance environment is explored through the lens of gender diversity. The paper presents a problem, which is that across the globe, there are simply not enough women in leadership positions within large corporations.

While you are reading this, as a woman in the trenches, maybe you are looking around your office and taking a quick mental count of number of women in charge? Are you concluding that whilst there are many women in the room, there is still a skewed distribution when it comes to the big decisions –of course this is industry and department specific –so one discourse about the glass ceiling does not fit all?

At The Glass Hammer, and the work we do via our consulting arm Evolved Employer, we believe that whenever you attempt to solve dilemmas around attracting, retaining and promoting people who haven’t historically been the people in the corner offices, then you need to identify multiple approaches, methods, and solutions that incentivize change.

Achieving gender diversity in the workplace –or any degree of diversity for that matter –really depends on two key factors that must work hand-in-hand: policy and people. Policies set the tone for a corporate culture and people reinforce the culture in their daily interactions with their colleagues and clients. When people are incentivized to challenge their own assumptions only then can policies bolster an inclusive work environment and the result is a positive impact on business performance.

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