By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

As we draw closer to the end of another year, The Glass Hammer’s team is taking time off to reflect upon the things we are thankful for.

This has been a big year for us at Evolved People Media. We hosted several successful events for professional women in New York and London, published interesting new research, and launched a new consulting and training division – all while continuing to publish inspirational profiles and practical advice on how to get to your next career level.

Our community of ambitious women is growing, and for that we are thankful. This year we have focused on celebrating the growing power of influential women throughout the financial and professional services. As more women ascend to the top of the ladder, they open new pathways for women at every step along the way. That’s good for women and companies. We believe (and research proves) that a more diverse workforce builds stronger firms.

We’re thankful for the trailblazing women who have made it possible for all of us to climb higher – in that vein, here are a few of our recent posts on the growing power of women to change the world.

• Ambition to Lead: Exercise Your Power
• Empowering the World’s Women Would Fuel Economic Growth
• Practice Makes Perfect: Little Ways to Ask for More
• Wall Street Women and the Power of Networking
• Why We Need to Keep Celebrating Powerful Women

What are you thankful for this year? Let us know in the comments section below. We’ll be back next week with more articles designed to inform, inspire, and empower you!

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

Are you ever in situations where no matter how hard you push your brain you remain confused about important decisions? As I faced my own personal mid-life questions, my brain often came up short on answers to these:

• “What is a successful life look like for me?”
• “Do I take an assignment where I’ll be making more money but will be working for someone I don’t connect with?”
• “I feel restless, like I should be doing something different, but how do I find out what that is?”
• “What work life balance is right for me?”

Interestingly, one of the most read articles on Harvard Business Review’s site is Clay Christensen’s “How Will You Measure Your Life?” suggesting we all ponder these questions from time to time. Yet our workplaces seldom equip us with answering them. As we get into higher level positions we are faced with many decisions where the answers are not black or white, but dwell frustratingly in the gray. With all the emphasis in the business world on facts and data and logical conclusions, it’s easy for us to let an important part of our decision-making center lapse.

This part is called our inner voice or intuition. I call it the inner coach. Our inner coach connects us to our own authenticity, our core, our values. When we listen to our inner voice it helps us be at peace with important decisions. It also helps us be a more authentic leader.

Albert Einstein said “the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Here are five practices that have worked for me to tap into the gift we all have been given.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Happy Independence Day! For the rest of the week, The Glass Hammer is taking a break from our regular publication schedule for a much needed vacation. But don’t fret, dear readers. We’ve assembled a short list of our favorite articles from this year – a year in which women have been asked (and are asking ourselves) tough questions.

If you’ve got a few days off, here’s a chance to catch up on some of our latest work.

• Ending the Beauty Bias
• Being Yourself at Work: Avoiding Stereotypes and Building a Solid Strategic Network
• Three Convenient Non-Excuses Keeping Women Off Boards
• Backlash: Are Women Really Getting Even?
• Standing Out Online: The New Realities of Job Search for Executive Women
• Do Powerful Women Have a Responsibility to Challenge the System?
• How to Talk about a Risky Career Move with Your Partner
• Sponsors See a $25K Pay Boost
• Get in Line: Negotiate for P&L Experience Now
• Why Do We Need a Business Case for Equality Anyway?

And, here are a few top articles from our contributing experts.

• Handling Direct Challenges to Your Authority
• Seven Steps for Making A Difficult Conversation Easier
• Mastering the Art of Diagonal Networking
• The Truth about Executive Presence

In addition to the articles on The Glass Hammer, we’re hard at work on another white paper (as part of our look at Managing Identities, we’re examining the challenges and opportunities for LGBT women working in finance in the UK) due out this month. We’re also pleased to announce two more events for this fall (our 5^th Women on the Buy-Side investment management industry breakfast and another career management panel for Women in Technology). More details to come!

Finally, we’d like to thank you, our readers, for helping our community of ambitious, powerful women grow and flourish. If there’s an event or a story you feel we’re missing, please add your voice in the comments section below!

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer and Evolved Employer

I am delighted to introduce our 2012 Pride month coverage on theglasshammer.com, starting with this week’s profiles of LGBT women.

Our profiled women this week are also the panelists at our event in London on the 26th June called “Managing Multiple Identities at Work.” The event is part of our career management series exploring social identity and how it relates to building your network and advancing in the industry.

I am sure at this very moment, there are readers who are shaking their heads and saying, “If you work hard enough, it doesn’t matter who you are.” I would beg to differ. Our very existence on the web would suggest that competence alone does not get women to senior management.

Most of the research around gender issues at work is done around straight white women, and in fact, adding degrees of difference from the so-called “norm” (such as being LGBT [PDF] and/or being multicultural) to the mix often creates additional barriers to advancement, due to harmful stereotypes that, incredibly, are still alive and well in 2012.

This is where a supportive company culture motivated by good leadership, along with the right sponsors and a powerful network, can play a huge role in ensuring the success of talented people of all stripes. It’s only when everyone accepts that we aren’t all the same and are able to “own” their social identity that they can begin to understand that privilege is usually greatest for those who find themselves in the dominant group – the group which gets to set the societal, and consequently, the workplace norms.

Diversity should not simply be relegated to the diversity department to “sort out,” nor is diversity a matter of taking a Noah’s Ark approach so commonly seen in the form of box ticking and compliance. We all play a part of what makes up a company’s culture, as culture is really how work gets done beyond the organizational chart. That is why we welcome men as gender champions to our upcoming event, as well as straight allies to come and be active in their support. It’s also why I’m delighted to announce that we will be offering leadership development courses around diversity and inclusion through our consulting and research arm Evolved Employer.

LGBT issues, as with gender and ethnicity issues, are business issues, and we must stop asking these groups to prove their legitimacy. The business and talent benefits will come if relationships are built in an inclusive way. However, that is not to say that we want everyone to “suck it up and fit in.” Otherwise we are encouraging assimilation and ultimately group think. All that energy around fitting in could be used to innovate products and invigorate business relationships.

Let’s not apply the golden rule of treating others the way that you wish to be treated, and instead, treat others how they themselves want to be treated. The competitive advantage will go to leaders who can spot who gets silenced at work, and who will prevent unconscious biases from being rewarded.

I hope we can be the role models that the next generation wants and needs us to be.

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

At The Glass Hammer, we report frequently on mentorship and sponsorship. Yet we still find there’s quite a bit of confusion among women about the distinction between these types of roles and programs. In honor of Women’s History Month, we wanted to provide fresh insights and clarification from corporate diversity leaders about mentoring and sponsoring.

Some thought leaders argue that sponsorship is more of a semantic difference than a practical one when compared with traditional mentorship. Yet many diversity experts emphasize that the roles are quite different from one another, and that it’s important for women to strive to develop both types of relationships.

New or Just Different?

When asked whether she views sponsorship as the new mentorship, Maria Castañón Moats, chief diversity officer of PwC, responds that she believes sponsors and mentors are different, and both are important. “In my experience, mentors provide advice and emotional support,” says Moats. “They are people you look up to no matter what their role might be in the organization. A sponsor, in contrast, must be senior and influential. Sponsors are effective because they spend their political capital on your behalf. Sponsors go far beyond offering advice and offer opportunity!”

Having moved at PwC from senior manager, to partner, to C-level executive, Moats is in the unique position of having had mentors and sponsors who have helped her along the way, as well as mentoring and sponsoring others herself. When it comes to sponsors, Moats explains how her advocates went beyond simply giving advice:

“From my first day at the firm, I’ve had formative relationships with key sponsors—men and women who helped me grow, challenged me to take on tough assignments, and ultimately shaped the professional I’ve become,” says Moats. “They guided me toward new opportunities and helped expand my professional network by introducing me to key people both inside and outside the firm.”

Moats says she is also proud of currently serving as a sponsor. “I have several female protégés at the moment,” says Moats. “I see my role as providing candid feedback in real time and fighting to get my people the right opportunities at the right time.”

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