How to Achieve What You Want Professionally in 2021

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Nicki GilmourIt is the time of year when professional women (and men) try to finish out the year at work. Reflecting upon and making meaning of an extraordinary year is no easy task as we look back at 2020. An executive coach can help you figure out what matters to you as we enter 2021. Flash forward a year from now, what story do you want to be telling about how your 2021 went? Achieve what you want professionally next year!

Working with a coach is a great way to accurately goal set and get clarity and not just rely on hope as a strategy. Executive coaching helps you behaviorally align to  achieve what you want, no matter what 2021 throws our way. Self- efficacy is a pretty interesting topic at a time when productivity hacks are definitely top of mind.

Promotion or Just a Better Version of Yourself?

Whether it is promotion, advancement, enjoyment, renewal, growth or balance and boundaries at work, most people have some thoughts about how they want 2021 to play out.  Coaching is a process but it is also very much a relationship between coach and ‘coachee’. It can be very intimate in the sense that both the coach and the client has to show up with honesty and vulnerability. Curiosity is important , but not for curiosity’s sake but rather to truly evoke true insights that the client can experience to help them further their leadership or career journey. Sometimes people know the questions and answers consciously and just need help with options. Sometimes people may not know the questions or answers that they need to solve for their challenges or mindset.

The What, The Why, The How and The When

Everyone who comes to coaching knows they want to change something. Or at the very least, the know they want to be a better version of their current selves at work, as a leader or an aspiring leader. Figuring out what you want to achieve, defining it and making sure it is really want you want is cemented by checking in on the ‘why’ you want it. This way we tap into understanding your motivation so we can leverage that to make it actually happen. Are you committed? If not, let’s find out why! And, find out what you really want.

The best way to succeed in 2021 is to clear the life long mental debris, and surface any lingering competing agendas that hunker down in your subconscious and tell you things like you don’t have time or you aren’t good enough which stops you from going after your goals.

More often than not, the subconscious sometimes heard in self-talk, drives the bus, so goal setting is futile if behaviors are not aligning with achieving those goals and your brain tricks you into rationalizing it all that everything is as it should be. Literally, coaching work we do here at theglasshammer is based on a methodology developed at Columbia university and further developed by our head coach. It encompasses adult learning theory, developmental psychology and our immunity to change, neuroscience, behavioral science, social or individual/organizational psychology known as I/O psychology and psycho-dynamic theory around groups and how they operate. In plain english? It boils down to two things:

  • Fear, shame or esteem issues might be sitting hidden in your subconscious paralyzing you from being your greatest version of your professional self.
  • Sometimes it is not about, the systems and dynamics are dysfunctional and you are bearing the brunt of it in your role mostly.  Also sometimes also there are traits in your identity or personality that accentuate issues or make you take up a role like the person who calls it for example.

In coaching, the co-creation of the “how to” begins with a serious look at context, where do you work and what are the organizational norms as these do vary depending on the team and workplace. How does work get done? What is rewarded and what gets tolerated that should be?

Coaching Leaders in Real Life

If you are a leader who struggles with followership after a very successful career built on getting things done, then it is a matter of looking at how work gets done around you.

EQ is about adapting. So, if despite your technical competence and generally mastery of skills, you just cannot get people onboard with the plan the way you want to see it executed, you may be left scratching your head.

Chances are you are not hearing people around you when they explicitly or infer things to you about the project and how they see their role in it. Not listening to feedback, everyday conversations, observations on how people act and react is probably part of what is going on there.

When talking about feedback, I am not referring to the once per year performance formal feedback review. The answers are always in front of you, even in passive aggressive “covert process” type teams and organizations where people seem to say yes but do what they want anyway.

Maybe, you are a manager whose peers and managers do not think you are ready for the next step. Again, what are you missing here? Is it a behavior of yours? Is it something you are or are not doing? What should you do more of, less of and maybe stop or start doing?

If you are a leader who needs to internalize that leadership identity, chances are you have “imposter syndrome” and you might be working very hard in the same way as you always have. Often people who have these tendencies of being “insecure overachievers” do not realize that the behaviors of large amounts of quality work output that got them so far, is not what is going to take them to the higher echelons of company management. Authenticity comes into play here as they struggle to shift identities as fear dictates so much around losing the identity of being the expert.

Cognitive understanding of what you need to do is one thing, behavioral change is another and it is very hard to do.  That is where a good coach  can come in to help you look at your options. Caveat emptor, buyer beware, there are millions of coaches out there as the industry is under-regulated, feel out the fit with a chemistry meet and ask for their methods and see if they are certified by the ICF at PCC level.

What should you expect? After a time, some people can start to reflect not just on action but in action and make behavioral choices in the meeting live time no longer beholden to the old ways that were not longer working for them. Real strategic insights and executive muscle can be built.

You get to be in the movie and watch the movie at the same time. Who wouldn’t want that?

To book an exploratory call with Nicki our founder and Head Coach select a time below

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Equal Pay: Mending The Broken Rung

Equal PayThe first year of your job matters more if you’re a woman. How your company pays you do as an entry-level rookie either sets you up for successful pay equity or sets you back a peg relative to your male counterparts.

Envision the climb to senior leadership at your company as a ladder. That very first rung is the most unreliable for women. According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace, women are significantly outnumbered in entry-level management positions. They hold just 38% of manager-level positions as opposed to men who hold 62%. In other terms, for every 100 men promoted only 72 women are.

This step, known as the “broken rung”, is a woman’s biggest obstacle to senior leadership. While a lot of ink has been given to the glass ceiling and the poor representation of women in the C-Suite, the breakdown in that trajectory turns out to be not the last promotion from Vice President to President, but instead the first step in your journey: the promotion from entry-level to a managerial position.

Entry-level positions are also notoriously difficult for young people just starting out. Adjusting to the workplace, figuring out passions and career paths, and finding your professional voice comes with experience. And in an entry-level position, you might not have that experience to bolster your confidence.

This brief work record leads to what Sheryl Sandberg explains to be a bias against women and favoring men. She says, “These are all workers at the entry-level– they haven’t built long track records, they all have similar work experience, and they were all good enough to be hired in the first place. There’s no good reason why so many more men than women are being tapped for promotions, only a bad one– bias.”

Courtesy of GreatBusinessSchools.org

This bias is costly for women as once you miss that first promotion it’s an incredibly hard fight to catch up on. This broken rung leads to a domino effect resulting in fewer women in leadership positions. Additionally, the cycle continues circularly as studies have shown that men are more likely to promote another man, and women are more likely to promote a woman.

While it’s nice to dream that the corporate world will right the “broken rung”, history has proven that corporations move glacially slow when implementing social change. As women, we have to empower ourselves in entry-level positions to ensure the promotion and get past this first hurdle early in our careers.

Here are some ways to clear the rickety, old “broken rung”:

  • Find a mentor. Mentees are promoted 5 times more often than people without mentors, according to Forbes. You want to have someone in your court when it comes time to discuss promotions. Find a senior-level mentor to learn from and who will advocate for you when the time comes. You can learn how to effectively network online by reading this guide.
  • Interrupt bias. When you see bias rear its ugly head, stop it dead in its tracks. The Catalyst assembled an infographic on the double-bind dilemma, which goes into depth on how women are stereotyped in the workplace. “Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t. Too soft. Too tough. Never just right”, is the dilemma many women find themselves in at work. Instead of being categorized by these labels, speak up again bias and interrupt it whenever you see it playing out in the workplace.
  • Make yourself visible. Wave your flag loud and proud. While it’s easy to be mousey in your entry-level position, try little, but effective ways to make yourself visible. For example, if you have a hobby, talk with your HR department and try to start an internal club that you lead based on your hobby. If you like reading, start a book club. If you like collecting plants, start a succulents club. Think creatively about how to make yourself visible to the entire company.
  • Take on responsibilities early. If you want to get promoted, do the work of the position you want before receiving the title. Expel any questions of your capabilities by cementing a track record that you are up for the job.
  • Empower yourself to learn. A rising number of women are attending business school which is an encouraging indicator that the workplace landscape may change in the coming years but not guaranteed. Empower yourself to get an advanced degree or learn new skills as your expertise is one of the many things employers consider when making discussions on who to promote. As we know stereotypes are real around who makes the best leader so it is good to have as many quills to your bow as possible to counter fallacy.
  • Believe in yourself. The most important thing, but also the most undervalued. Despite bias and discrimination in the workplace, know how valuable you are. Believing in yourself will allow you to be bold, be visible, and be a leader despite whatever obstacles you face.

Usually, when discussions are had about women in the workplace, the emphasis is on the poor representation of women at the leadership level. That spotlight creates a blind spot in the actual cause of this discrepancy. Tracing the disparity back to entry-level promotions and understanding the “broken rung” is important to inform processes that company need to develop to ensure equal pay from day one. Women can support each other and how we can advocate for ourselves early on but it is the systemic elements that ultimately matter.

Progress must be made by corporations to abolish this misstep and while that is happening, men and women can empower each other to propel past the first hurdle and go on to have a successful career.

This is a contributed article and therefore the views expressed here are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com 

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Op-Ed: Leading Toward Disruption – A Call to Action for Women In STEM

Danielle Arnone

There has never been a time in my career when I have been more optimistic about the future for women in leadership and women in STEM.

I have been inspired through all of the chaos of the last year to work toward a new kind of change leadership where uncertainty is the norm and reinvention becomes the goal.

The intense turmoil of 2020 – the pandemic, social unrest, economic instability and devastating natural disasters – has exposed the fragility and insecurity of old paradigms of leadership.

Leadership that is rooted in preservation ignites fear. The fear of change that persists in organizations is the same fear that perpetuates gender bias because it means that we have to do things differently.

As women, STEM professionals and change leaders, we are uniquely positioned to shift the equilibrium from fear toward sustained progress.

 

We are a triple threat.

Now is the time for us to seize the momentum as champions for equity, catalysts for purpose driven innovation and architects of permanent changes for good.

We must expose the invisible barriers that have weakened companies and communities and leave the rules of the past behind.

While there are more women in STEM than ever before, recruiting more women into STEM careers is not enough. Developing and galvanizing a pipeline of women that can lead into disruption is our greatest opportunity.

In a 2019 research study developed and conducted by RTI International commissioned by L’Oréal USA and the Heising-Simons Foundation, 90% of respondents agree that in the past decade, women’s opportunities for career advancement in science have improved along with gender composition and 66% agree that women’s representation in leadership positions in scientific fields has improved.

While there is a sense of progress emerging, the gender gap in STEM continues to grow especially in leadership roles.

 

My journey upon reflection

Reflecting on my own leadership journey, I was not always optimistic about the future – especially my own. I experienced set backs, rejection and a lot of disappointment.

For many years, I emphasized competence and performance as a way to advance. I took on more stretch assignments to increase my visibility. I ignored the signs that my dissenting voice was unwelcome and my naïveté got the better of me. I was exhausted, frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. I falsely assumed that change in organizations is rational. And, I battled whether or not I needed to change myself or my expectations to be successful.

Overtime, I began to realize that competence is a trap, certainty is a fallacy and being a critic is really hard.

I started to educate myself and concluded that I wasn’t alone and that the discrimination I experienced was not personal but systemic and far reaching.

According to a study conducted by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) commissioned by the National Science Foundation, women believe they need to be exceptional to advance in STEM.

As STEM is considered “masculine”, women are seen as either competent or likable but not both. When a woman displays competence, she pays the price in pay equity, rewards and advancement. And this double bind has a significant impact on retention among the most talented and highest potential women in particular. An Oxford Academic Journal studying retention concluded that women with advanced degrees are 165% more likely to leave STEM.

I too was on my way to becoming another statistic but I reversed the trend and actually I’m proud to say that I am a statistic – but the good kind. In 2018, Harvard Business Review published a study from the Center for Talent Innovation which found that one in five women in STEM achieve success regardless of how supportive or hostile their working environment is.

One of the key differentiators highlighted in the research is speaking up. However, 82% of women in STEM say when they do speak up, their contributions are ignored.

It is no wonder, many of us eventually retreat. According to the Oxford study, after about 12 years, 50% of women who originally worked in STEM leave, compared to only 20% of professional women.

There have been many times that I have been afraid to speak up to avoid discomfort, retaliation and embarrassment.

I became aware that I could take a stand, get overlooked, keep going and be afraid all at the same time.

I convinced myself that I could breakthrough by taking the biggest risk of all – being myself.

This journey of leadership is how I got to today – ready to embrace the unknown, finding the way forward between old and new and reimagining what comes next.

Standing up for change is a courageous decision – especially when it requires change from within.

I envision a future where courage is rewarded and change resistance is no longer tolerable.

Women leaders in STEM are the trifecta of audacity, empathy and diversity needed to unleash a new reality that is grounded in equality.

We are the change.

 

Danielle Maurici-Arnone is the Chief Information Officer at Reckitt Benkiser (RB), a global Consumer Products company, where she leads the technology function for the North America Health and Nutrition businesses and sits on the Global Council for Diversity and Inclusion. 

Danielle has served in global technology leadership roles for more than 20 years. She has founded and led SaaS based start ups in digital marketing and retail. 

She has a rare combination of skills and experience delivering enterprise digital technology transformations as well as designing and scaling emerging technology solutions. 

Danielle graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA from Rutgers University. She received her Masters in Public Policy and was a graduate fellow at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers. She holds a Masters in Information Systems from the Stevens Institute of Technology.

She serves on the Governing Body of Gartner’s CIOs Forum, is a board member of the Foundation Committee for the NJ Society of Information Management, is board member and Scholarship Committee chair for the Academy of Finance. 

Danielle passionate about the advancement of women in STEM careers, technology and business leadership

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Women in Tech: Seven Hurdles to Overcoming the Gender Gap

women in techMore women in tech leadership would catalyze innovation, increase revenue and enhance profitability for tech firms. It would challenge the default male world and address the economic liability that the absence creates.

So why is tech still so male-dominated? Research shows gender diversity training programs are not altering the leadership composition in tech.

Perhaps it’s because the gender gap is truly a series of interconnected hurdles that run along the tech trajectory.

Attraction Deficit

Women have been disinvited from tech over the decades, often even steered away by their teachers. Both tech stereotypes and a lack of visible role models are discouraging.

Back in the 1980s, women made up 37% of computer science (CS) graduates. Nationally, women earning CS degrees decreased from only 27% percent in 1997 to 19% in 2016.

Meanwhile, Accenture found there are more jobs in the field than graduates to fill them.

Yet focusing only on attracting female students – who are inclined to be more proficient in engineering and tech tasks at the eighth grade level – is highly oversimplifying.

Fewer Women In Tech Roles

As of 2015, women made up only 25% of computing roles nationally. In the UK, only 17% of the digital workforce is women for a decade now.

“A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone,” says Google CEO Sundar Pichai. But the tech profile does not reflect gender diversity.

As of 2020, women comprise only 20% of Microsoft tech jobs, and 23% of tech jobs at Facebook, Google and Apple.

“Bro Culture”

A stereotype-ridden “bro culture” that is laden with microaggressions creates a sense of women not belonging in tech.

“Diversity in the workplace has a lot to do with psychological safety and a comfortable welcoming environment in the workplace,” writes Kamilika Some in Analytics Insight. “As long as workplaces don’t become women-friendly, they would not feel comfortable enough to speak up and contribute to the team constructively.”

Pew research in 2017 showed that 74% of women in computer jobs felt gender discrimination. In a male-dominated workplace, 79% of women felt they had to prove themselves all the time.

An Ivanti study showed that more than 60% of women in the tech sector felt that long-standing stereotypes still favored men in leadership roles in tech and that women are judged by different criteria. 53% of women felt they weren’t taken seriously in the workplace.

Forbes council member Tendu Yogurtcu writes that increasing women in leadership requires meaningful cultural changes and “happened (at her company) because we focused on creating a fair, inclusive environment where everyone feels empowered to share ideas.”

Less Pay

Pew Research reports that women in computing on average earn 87% of what a man earns, with greater gaps for Black women.

A 2019 IDC report showed that, contrary to stereotype, women (52%) in tech were more concerned about compensation and pay than men (33%). Further, only 42% of women felt their employer paid equitably, while a whopping 75% of men felt they did.

The Ivanti research revealed that 64% of women would see equality in pay and benefits as a main factor in attracting them to a new role.

Low Retention

National Science Foundation data shows that only 38% of women who majored in computer science are actually working in the field (compared to 53% of men).

Previous research showed that US women working in tech, science, or engineering were 45% more likely than male colleagues to quit their job in the first year.

With lower pay, unwelcoming culture and less likelihood of leadership, it’s not surprising.

Missing in Leadership

The Ivanti women survey found that women perceiving a glass ceiling in tech (31%) rose in 2019 (from 24% in 2018).

An IDC report indicated that women in tech senior leadership increased from 21% in 2018 to 24% in 2019. 54% of men felt they were likely to be employed to executive management in their company, whereas only 25% of women felt the same – noting lack of support, self-confidence and sponsorship.

Deloitte found that women who have sponsorship within STEM are 22% more likely to be satisfied with their rate of promotion, 37% more likely to ask for a raise, 70% more likely to have their ideas endorsed, 119% more likely to have their ideas developed and 200% more likely to have their ideas developed.

According to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), only 41% of new US tech startups have a woman in the C-Suite and 37% have one on the board of directors. Only 4.8% of S&P 500 CEOs are women.

Women make up only 25% of Microsoft leadership, 26% at Google, 27% at Amazon, 29% at Apple and 33% at Facebook.

IDC research shows that at companies where at least half of the senior leadership positions are held by women, the chances of equal pay for women, higher retention and job satisfaction are better.

Yet only a third of start-ups have programs focused on increasing women in leadership and 17% have goals to increase C-Suite representation, according to SVB.

Few Women Founders

The gender of the founder or founding team of startups has a huge impact on gender diversity in leadership, according to SVB.

Only 14% of total startups have a women CEO. But among startups with a woman on the founding team, 46% have a woman CEO. Among startups with only male founders, only 2% have a female CEO.

Yet less than 4% of total startup funding goes to women founders, and Pitchbook reports 77% of US Venture Capital funding in 2019 went to all male founding teams.

When it comes to venture firms who channel the capital, 65% have no female partners. Only 7% of partners at global top 100 venture firms are women.

All in all, tech is currently better at keeping women out than encouraging them in. If the industry wants to catch up, it’s not only one gap that must be addressed, but all of the hurdles at which women drop out.

by Aimee Hansen

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Venture Capital, Wake Up: It’s Time To Back Women Founders

Venture Capital is still funding all male teams at an alarming rate. Pink Collar featured
In 2019, according to final statistics from PitchBook, all-female founding teams garnered only 2.6% of total venture capital (VC) invested in the U.S. Male-female combined founder teams took home 12.9%.

And the rest, $87 of every $100 VC dollars, went to all-male founding teams.

The U.S. is, at best, on par with the world in backing female founders and mostly backs those with a top university degree.

According to Kauffman Fellows Research Center (KFRC), the investment which only all-male founding teams collected in 2018 alone “exceeds the amount of VC dollars put into Female Founding Teams (at least one female) for the last 19 years combined.”

2020 Hits Female Founders

In 2020, the pandemic measures have caused a huge setback to gender equality, including a big drop in funding for women founders.

As of Sept 30th, only 1.8% of 2020 U.S. VC has gone to women teams, and Q3 has delivered the lowest quarter total of capital for female founders in three years.

Suspected factors include: VC’s are sticking to their existing network circle amidst uncertainty. Women are dealing with disproportional responsibilities in the at-home workplace. Women are pushed towards steady jobs when venture capital is evidenced to be harder for female entrepreneurs to earn.

It is beyond dysfunctional for business and humanity that 98.2% of investment capital is put behind men’s ideas only.

VC Persists as a Boy’s Club

At the end of February, All Raise put female decision makers (people with checkbooks) for both VC firms and angel investors at 13%. Underrepresented people of color make up less than 1%.

All Raise reported that 54 women (corrected from 52 in the initial publication) became female partners for the first time in 2019, a 42% increase from 2018, though only two were Latinx or Black.

65% of VC firms still had no female partner, down from 85% in 2018. 14% of VC firms had two or more female partners.

According to All Raise, among the new female VC partners in 2019, 62% were in the San Francisco area, where teams with women founders currently garner a smaller percentage of VC than New York.

50% of new female partners joined from operational or executive roles. 15% changed firms to get promoted, 17% were promoted within a VC firm and 17% started their own VC firms.

Women VC’s Back Women Founders More

Women VCs are more likely to back women. KFRC found that from the earliest stage of company development, women VCs are twice as likely to invest in female founding teams (at least one woman).

“We believe the reasons for this increased investment may include women having personal experiences that male investors would not,” writes the KFRC team, “which in turn helps them identify overlooked problems and understand their market size.”

All Raise found that “out of all of the U.S. VC firms that scored a top-quartile fund between 2009 and 2018, 69.2% of them had women in decision-making roles.”

When it comes to sectors, women VCs back female tech founders 63% more often and female consumer founders 108% more often than their male peers.

The researchers write, “one small step for VC partner diversity equals one giant leap for female entrepreneurs and the entire startup ecosystem.”

Founding Teams With Women = More Success in Business

KFRC also found that founder teams that include women raise millions more in capital than all-male founder teams in a head-to-head comparison, and create more innovation. They are also more likely to exit one year faster than companies with male-only founding teams.

In a review of their first ten year’s, First Round Capital found that women-founded companies in their portfolio outperformed companies founded by men by 63%.

As shared in Fast Company, companies with female founders generate 10% more cumulative revenue over a 5-year period, and generate 78 cents per dollar invested as opposed to only 31 cents per dollar invested for only male founding teams.

When it comes to increasing gender diversity, start-ups with at least one woman founder go onto hire 2.5 times more women than all-male start-ups to create more gender diverse companies. Going further, a female founded firm with at least one female chief hires six times more women than an all-male founder and chief firm.

Simply put, investing VC dollars into women founders or women inclusive founding teams is good for creating both diversity and the resulting increased business success.

VC Funding Needs a Paradigm Shift

Disrupting the homogeneous VC world, dangerously blinded by its comfort zone bias, has become an economic and human imperative. We’re overdue for a new paradigm of gender equity in investment.

Women, especially women of color, are inclined to entrepreneurship. Despite lack of VC support, the number of women-owned businesses increased by 21% over the past five years, sprouting up at a rate twice as fast as all firms. Businesses owned by women of color increased by double that rate (43%), even faster for Black women (50%). But while women own 42% of businesses, those businesses only earn 4.3% of revenue.

Morgan Stanley has reported that VC firms’ failure to invest in women and diverse founders is risking as much as $4.4 trillion in investment returns.


Solution Space

“The launch of Women’s Venture Capital Fund was the hardest thing I have done. We were a lone voice in the wilderness in the beginning,” says Co-Founder and Managing Director Edith Dorsen. “We were questioned and met skepticism every step of the way. At the time, there was no other venture capital firm focused on Series A capital for women. While there’s been great progress, there are still too few women around the investing table and almost no senior women partners.”

Today, WomensVCFund ll, among other VC firms and angel networks are helping to change the paradigm in venture capital by investing in high potential entrepreneurial companies led by women and diverse leadership.

For example, Venture Summit Virtual Connect, from November 17-19, will connect diverse innovators with investors.

Much more still needs to be done to effect real capital access. As reported recently in Harvard Business Review, the preponderance of capital invested in venture capital funds comes from institutional investors – foundations, family offices, endowments, pension funds and insurance companies. Large institutional investors can and should leverage their outsized resources and unique position to hold venture capital funds accountable for addressing gender and race gaps in their investment portfolios, assert Ilene Lang and Reggie Van Lee, investors in WomensVCFund ll

In Fast Company, Kathryn Ross, Accenture Ventures, Open Innovation, and Katica Roy, CEO and founder of Pipeline Equity, propose that strategically-driven Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) could catalyze the closing of the gender gap.

One way or another, it’s time for much of the VC world to wake up from being blinded to the value of firms that are founded and run by women.

By Aimee Hansen

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Cultivating Resilience Amidst Collective Trauma: Reconnect with Your Purpose

cultivate resilienceThough “we are not all in the same boat,” we have all been affected by “the storm” of COVID-19 – whether the pandemic, the implemented measures, the struggle to understand or the heated debates on individual and collective action.

Reconnecting with your purpose and anchoring in what creates meaning for you could be a core component of cultivating resilience amidst this prolonged uncertainty.

We Are Inside of a Collective Trauma

“Collective trauma means first of all, a shared experience of helplessness, disorientation, and loss among a group of people,” explains group psychologist Molly S. Castelloe in Rolling Stone.

While the physical aspect of the pandemic has touched so many, the psychological and emotional impact – perhaps including moral fatigue, loss and sadness – can touch everyone. Some have lost their job or business, and most everyone has altered the way in which we work.

For some, this has brought the joy of being at home, for others it has diminished the connective aspects of work, and for many mothers it has forced an attention split between juggling the ‘office’ with childcare and home or online schooling.

Even if you’re back in the office or loving the changes to your lifestyle, things are externally disoriented for everyone when the phrase “new normal” has slipped into the cultural lexicon overnight and for the first time in our lives.

Social psychology “research suggests that the sharedness of traumatic experience is an important factor in mitigating the distress and anxiety that these events create,” writes Orla Muldoon. “In particular, a sense of shared experience can contribute to feelings of collective efficacy… This in turn is likely to contribute to psychological resilience.”

However, with social division rife and self-isolation serving only to “amplify distress and compound the traumatic effects,” it’s more important than ever to cultivate personal resilience as we struggle to come together collectively.

Building Resilience

According to psychologists, resilience is “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.”

Resilience does not mean immunity to pain or distress or grief or anxiety. It means being able to navigate difficulties in a way that enforces strength and fosters growth.

While some people have personality traits that support it, resilience is absolutely learnable since it’s a habit of behaviors, thoughts and actions.

“The ability to learn resilience is one reason research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary,” according to the American Psychological Association (APA), “Like building a muscle, increasing your resilience takes time and intentionality.”

The APA suggests connection, wellness, healthy thinking and meaning are the four core components to withstand and grow from traumatic experiences. Let’s focus on meaning.

Your Sense of Agency and Self-Motivation Matters

Focusing on what you can control, rather than getting overwhelmed by what you cannot change, is a key behavior for building emotional resiliency. One aspect is turning your attention and energy to what personally animates and holds value for you.

Research has shown a positive relationship between intrinsic motivations and resilience and that self-determined motivation is a positive predictor of resilience. Self-motivation facilitates adaptation and leads to self-regulation of behavior.

“Building resilience through cultivating grit is particularly important in the face of adversity,” writes Beata Souders in Positive Psychology, “Sense of agency is central to developing grit and boils down to being at the cause not at the effect of life.”

Connecting With Values, Meaning and Purpose

“During times of crisis, individual purpose can be a guidepost that helps people face up to uncertainties and navigate them better, and thus mitigate the damaging effects of long-term stress,” writes a team of McKinsey co-authors.

The McKinsey team reports that people with a strong sense of purpose are more resilient. People who feel they are “living their purpose” experience a well-being that is five times higher than those who do not.

Purpose is all about identifying what creates meaning for us, and the ability to feel we are engaging with and striving towards more realization of it.

The McKinsey authors are quick to point out that “an individual’s sense of purpose isn’t fixed or static—it can be clarified, strengthened, and, for some, may serve as a lifelong aspiration, or North Star” and also, that it can change quickly in response to life events. The authors even recommend for companies to conduct individual “purpose audits” in these times.

“Resilience is more than bouncing back from setbacks,” writes Souders. “It is about pursuing your goals in the face of adversity and often feels like cheating chaos.”

Dr. Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University, who researches stress, recommends reflecting on our values when in middle of a stressful situation.

“This form of mindset-shift intervention allows us to change our internal narrative toward a language of personal adequacy and see ourselves as someone who overcomes difficulties,” writes Souders.

Other research shared in SmartBrief emphasizes keeping your purpose ever-present in your awareness to help sustain energy.

“At times, your purpose can be in the background as successes make it seem easier to keep going,” write the SmartBrief team of authors. “However, at other times, much like now, we can call on our purpose to be our beacon, to help guide and sustain us.”

Coaching Supports Being Purpose-Driven

Among other APA recommendations for resilience are making small daily accomplishments in the direction of your purpose, embracing healthy thoughts, looking for opportunities for deeper self-discovery and prioritizing connections.

“It takes a conscious effort to dig deep into our purpose,” writes the SmartBrief authors, who also recommend to “identify and use your signature strengths” and “lean into high-quality connections” to promote resilience, learning and growth.

The right executive coaching relationship fosters all of this, arguably making the investment in that support more important than ever.

by Aimee Hansen

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Far Too Few Latinx Executives: When Will the C-Suite Stop Resisting Reality?

Theglasshammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 with profiles of Latina leaders. Enjoy our 2020 update progress!

The gap between workforce participation and leadership presence is wider for Hispanics than any other group in the U.S., and Latina executives report cultural barriers to inclusion. The result of these barriers is far too few Latinx executives, which is an inequitable representation of not only the growing Hispanic population but also of its buying power. What will it take for the C-Suite to understand this?

Hispanics make up 18.3% of the U.S. population and 17% of the workforce, but only 4.3% of executive positions. Though female CEOs amidst the Fortune 500 hit a record high this year (37, vs. 33 last year), only three are of color, and none are Latina or black.

Latina women also experience the worse gender wage gap, earning 46% less than white men and 31% less than white women. As for the pipeline, for every 100 entry-level men who are promoted to manager, according to a McKinsey study, only 68 Latinas are.

High Workforce Participation, Few Leadership Positions

In New York, Hispanics represent 22.6% of the workforce, but only 4.5% of executives. In LA, Hispanics represent 34.2% of the workforce and 8% of executives. In Houston, they are 43% of the workforce and 10.3% of executives.

Secondary cities with a smaller Hispanic population of less than 4% seem to exhibit more equity in leadership representation, such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

Miami, where the benefits of cultural and linguistic diversity are likely more valued, and where Latin America media-based companies like Telemundo are based, is an exception with 44.1% of the population and 24.6% of executives being Hispanic.

Cultural Barriers to Inclusion

“I am just one of millions of people who have been told that in order to fulfill my dreams, in order to contribute my talents to my world, I have to resist the truth of who I am,” expressed award-winning actress America Ferrera in her Ted Talk last year, “I, for one, am ready to stop resisting and to start existing as my full and authentic self.”

Along these lines, a recent qualitative study by the Network of Executive Women (NEW) and Latinarrific explored barriers to inclusion for Latina leaders, as possible insight into the exodus from big companies. The focus group study was based upon 36 Latina leaders, 25 mid-level executives and 11 senior executives.

The executive participants mentioned several Latinx cultural aspects that clashed with U.S. big corporate culture and inhibited “authentic advancement.”

These “barriers of inclusion” included:

Collectivist (vs. Individualistic)
Whereas corporate culture exalts an individualistic culture of assertiveness, independence and push-back, Latinas come from a more collectivist culture that emphasizes being selfless, giving and respectful of authority. Participants felt this focus on collaboration and end results rather than self promotion can create the impression that Latinas are less “hungry” for individual advancement, and they get overlooked.

Latina Expressiveness (vs. Reserve)
Some women spoke of their “Latina-ness” as being “too much”, with phrases like “too colorful” or “too expressive” or “tone it down.” Others referred to being perceived as having a “Latin temper.” Compared to a cultural norm of expressiveness and gesturing, the office “poker-face” can be enigmatic.

Personalismo (vs. “Too Familiar”)
The Latin comfort with physical proximity, openness and touch as personal and respectful ways to do business can clash with the more distant and removed norm of the U.S. boardroom and more uptight cultures.

Prioritizing family (vs. “Whatever it Takes”)
Latinas put a big importance on sharing time with family and reject the notion that spending more time with family diminishes their commitment to or delivery on the job. Despite lip-service, the corporate line remains an attitude of doing “whatever it takes” for work.

COVID-19: A Catalyst to Embracing Latina Leadership?

“Most Latinas feel they’re not being listened to or supported because their values do not align to the corporate culture,” said NEW member Iliana Rojas Saldana, Founder and CEO of BeLIVE Coaching & Consulting, who turned to entrepreneurship like many, only after holding executive positions in Fortune 500 companies.

But that could be changing in the light of the pandemic impact.

“In a way none of us could have predicted, many of the traits the Latina professionals in our focus group cited as drawbacks within the traditional, white male dominated workplace – expressiveness, empathy, a desire for work-life balance – have become celebrated assets in the COVID-19 work-from-home landscape,” shared study co-author Karianne Gomez.

Even as the stay-at-home orders loosen, Saldana suspects the opportunities for Latina executives could improve. “Companies are rethinking the working environment; seeing how employees can be productive – especially Latinas who (successfully) manage family and business.”

The study authors observe that Latina executives have the competitive edge of having “a foot in two worlds,” and this has never been more valuable than now.

“A Latina’s cultural heritage has genetically engineered her for the work-from-home paradigm shift prompted by COVID-19,” said study co-author Arminda Figueroa. “Freed from the stress of babysitters, elder-care and long commutes, she can seize her full potential as ‘Chief Household Officer,’ being there for her family while managing her schedule and tapping into her overachieving nature to produce high quality work.”

“You are What the World Looks Like”

“My identity is not my obstacle. My identity is my superpower. Because the truth is, I am what the world looks like. You are what the world looks like. Collectively, we are what the world actually looks like,” spoke America Ferrera. “And in order for our systems to reflect that, they don’t have to create a new reality. They just have to stop resisting the one we already live in.”

With a 19.6% (and growing) Hispanic population in the U.S. that controls $1.5 trillion dollars in buying power, it’s time for corporate culture and the C-Suite to meet reality.

by Aimee Hansen

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There’s No Such Thing as a “Set” Career Path

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GS Returnship ProgramBy Sophie Jacob

Before the phrase “social distancing” became a part of our collective vocabularies, in-person interviews and orientation were part of the usual recruitment and new joiner process. Now, like everything else, joining a new company does not look quite like it used to – orientation is done virtually, and networking with fellow new joiners might not seem as simple. But while integrating into a new role virtually is a different experience, non-traditional beginnings can be a good thing.

Take Goldman Sachs’ Returnship® program for instance – founded in 2008, the program is an eight-week, paid program designed specifically for individuals who left the workforce for two or more years and are ready to return. The program aims to help talented professionals restart their careers after an extended absence from the workforce and provides access to training, networking and support from the firm’s senior leaders, as well as hands-on work experience with meaningful responsibilities in a variety of divisions across the firm.

Lori Taylor, a member of the Returnship Class of 2015, joined Goldman Sachs in the immersion program after a six-year hiatus from the workforce. After hitting the ground running in the Risk Division, Lori joined the firm full-time, and became the first Returnship Class member to be named managing director.

Read on for Lori’s unique perspective on integrating into Goldman Sachs quickly and efficiently, her best advice for making the most of a non-traditional career path, and how she stays in touch with other Returnship program alumni virtually.

Tell us about your career before Goldman Sachs and what drew you to the firm’s Returnship program.

Lori: After a decade-long career at GE Capital, I left work to focus on my family full-time. After six years, I wanted to explore going back to work. A friend of mine was an alumni of the program and told me about it.

When I was applying, I explained to friends and family that the program was a chance to learn about Goldman Sachs and see if it would be a good fit for me. The Returnship program was attractive because, of all the opportunities I had been looking into, it was the one that had the longest and best track record.

What were your favorite parts of the program?

Lori: I really appreciated the focus on networking. Coming in with a Returnship class made the transition smoother, and I’m still close with my Returnship colleagues today. The role I was placed in made a lot of sense for me, and returning to work in a position that I felt excited about showed me how much I missed this part of my life. It was like I had never left.

The program also does a great job of organizing panels and other forums for participants to hear from leaders at the firm; some of the advice I heard in those early days still resonates with me today. I continue to be involved with the Returnship program, and just recently participated in an event for the new class, with half of the class via video conference given diverse locations.

What did you find most surprising?

Lori: Probably how fast it went by! Once I hit the desk, the days flew by, I think in large part because right away I was given opportunities where I felt like I was really providing value.

The Returnship program allows the firm to access pockets of talent that we might not be able to get to otherwise – experienced hires with a range of professional and life experiences bring fresh perspectives that can help teams evaluate challenges through a new lens.

Can you tell us about the make-up of your class?

Lori: My class was comprised of people who had been out of the workforce for very different amounts of time and for various reasons – some colleagues had taken a two-year break, while others had been out of the workforce for closer to 20 years. We were a mostly female cohort, with one male colleague in our ranks.

You’re a trailblazer as the first program participant to be named managing director as a member of the Managing Director Class of 2019. Can you tell us about that journey?

Lori: I had worked in Credit Risk earlier in my career, so it was a natural fit for me. While the markets are constantly changing, the skills and tools we use to evaluate risk stay the same. I spent the last five years working hard, and I was fortunate enough to have mentors and supporters along the way who gave me opportunities to take on more and more responsibility and continue expanding my scope.

We’re welcoming new people to the firm remotely every week. Do you have any advice for them or for people wondering how to face the challenges of joining a new company under unique circumstances?

Lori: I’d say that there is no such thing as a “set” career path. My career certainly hasn’t been linear, and the fact that it has been non-traditional provides me with a different perspective and experience.

What might we not know about you?

Lori: I’m a twin! Also, I was inducted into the University of Vermont Athletic Hall of Fame for basketball – even though UVM is surrounded by mountains, I didn’t ski there until after my senior season, because I couldn’t risk an injury.

By Sophie Jacob

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Tell your career story! It matters.

Tell Your Career StoryWe believe it’s important to tell your career story around the digital campfire and why visibility matters for professional women.

We are looking to profile more amazing women on theglasshammer.com this Fall and would love for you to tell your career story around our global digital campfire. We believe visibility matters more than ever in these remote times. We want to inspire other women and help you stay front and center in your firm and to your industry. We are looking to profile professional women in SVP or Managing Director roles as well as rising stars so if you are a VP or director please get in touch also for consideration. Thematically, we have our annual Latina Leaders series coming up for Hispanic Heritage month, and every October we profile women in technology roles and teams. We are super interested in sharing your story with other women in any role in financial, professional services, technology or Fortune 500 firms. You do not have to fit the themes, but you do have to be willing to tell your career story!

The Story of theglasshammer.com

In many ways theglasshammer is my story, because I have dedicated more time and attention to the topic of gender in the workplace, leadership and organization development regarding “diversity” than to anything else in my life. When I launched it thirteen summers ago, back in 2007, I had no idea that the journey would be so interesting, so enriching intellectually and at times so emotionally wrenching.

I had just wrapped up the sale of efinancialcareers.com to venture backed Dice Inc.  I had come to the USA in 2004 from the UK headquarters to launch and run the US arm of the business. I came up with the concept of what become theglasshammer.com in 2007 after seeing a gap in the market for women to feel as confident as men to apply to the highest paid jobs in financial services and “go for it.”

I knew that women existed in all levels of financial services and that there was a visibility issue. There were panels of male talking heads, interviews by male experts written by male journalists, and the straight white man in a pinstripe was still firmly the default. It was a generation ago, and much progress has been made but it feels like we are still only just on the brink of deep change. Most firms are not much further on, and some are just starting the journey. Back then in 2007, millennials were just entering the workplace and diversity work for most was a version of box-checking Noah’s Ark – two women, two people of color and two LGB (not even T) people in the whole firm. If they achieved that in optics, some leaders thought they were in good shape.

The reason that I decided to launch theglasshammer.com was simple; I knew there were others like me. Other women navigating their career, high-performing ambitious women who just needed to know they were not alone. Being a country manager and head of the business at efinancialcareers was certainly a big responsibility. Like many other people who are promoted into big jobs in their late twenties, I had been the main rainmaker in the sales team of the Financial News in London and the Chairman had seen my naked ambition and knew where to put it to good use. I was a young, female Managing Director, a foreigner, openly gay with a strong instinct to call out nonsense where and when I saw it. I had three things going for me: I knew how to build brands and sales operations from scratch, having done it with the Financial News in the original team. I had long term vision and good instincts. And, I didn’t really know I was a “girl,” meaning no one had openly or covertly tried to oppress me due to my gender. Like so many young women until a certain point, I had no sense of “not possible”. But, by the end of that experience, as a Managing Director and young ( and only female) board member, I had navigated successfully and uncovered, yet couldn’t name what I later realized were systemic issues regarding gender. It was not by accident that the acquiring company had not one single person of color or openly gay person in the entire firm and that the one female in senior management was paid one third of the salary of the other members, revealed when they went public to all.

Within the first two years of theglasshammer.com, I wanted to understand for real what I saw and felt. I knew quickly that we needed more than career advice, i knew women where asking for what they wanted and that they were already leaning it. It was the system that was letting them down. I went to Columbia University in 2011 to study for an Executive Masters in social-organizational psychology with a specialization in change leadership to put real theory to the applied test. Highly recommended, life changing and I made some friends for life in this year long program.

Equality and equity happens in the human behavioral sphere and workplace culture matters. However, how systems and talent processes are built and maintained make the difference in how to incentivize the well intended, fair people and prevent the nonsense from the bad players  who so often make insidious behaviors acceptable.

Data points are always good. If you suspect dynamics that aren’t about you personally, look at how many women are on the board and how they are paid against male peers for measurement. Ask questions around talent processes. Understand how work gets done, who gets rewarded and why and what gets tolerated.

In 2012, I started coaching women and men as I realized that advancement is often to do with understanding the system as it is today. While we are working on what we want it to look like tomorrow, critical mass and good leadership behaviors from the women and men at the top right now, matters! And, upon returning to Columbia University to complete their coaching program in 2016, I was so fortunate to be educated again on a new discipline, developmental psychology.  Each person who has been shaped by their experiences and it is how they develop a lens on that process that matters for real growth. You will never hear me say “all women” or “all men” as I truly feel privileged to help humans on their journey wherever they start or want to go to.

On bad days, I bellyache that the progress has been slow on the macro level for getting rid of mindsets that prevent all people from thriving on merit. But more often, I see that progress is real. I know that the 5,000 profiles on theglasshammer.com have contributed to making professional women visible to the world. I have coached hundreds of women who feel that they have gotten further and more out of their career than just going it alone.

At the end of the journey, I hope the word diversity leaves as this work is about stopping seeing the baselines as male or white. It is about getting rid of stereotypes and doing the work to understand what differences of all types means within each person and for each person. It is about personal, professional and organizational development.

Join our digital campfire and inspire other professional women!

Write to jennifer@theglasshammer.com with “Profile me” in the title if you wish to be considered.

If you wish to be coached by me or one of my selected associates, email nicki@theglasshammer.com

We run sessions for ERGs and High performing teams also.

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Becoming Conscious of Microaggressions

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by Aimee Hansen

Systemic racism is exemplified in cumulative and insidious ways in our everyday interactions, and we often do not even see it. 

Noam Shpancer Ph.D. speaks to the importance of identifying the “true character of American racism,” in Psychology Today, as “a systemic feature of our social architecture, interwoven into the collective fabric by way of myriad traditions, legacies, laws, myths, institutions, and habits.”

This means identifying that an “overtly oppressive ideology” is embedded in our culture and within each of us. We are complicit in racism because it is insidious to the culture that formed and influences our self-concept and worldview.

Implicit Bias and Internalized Racism

Shpancer describes that racism has gone from being habituated (no longer registering what we are used to), to internalized (integrated into self-concept, including the oppressed taking on the oppressor’s sense of values), to becoming learned helplessness (the repeated frustration that neutralizes sense of agency), to falling into confirmation bias (selectively perceiving affirmation of what we already believe to be true, and dismissing what disproves it).

“Once it’s been habituated to, internalized, and allowed to shape our habits and perceptions, the oppressive ideology has in effect coopted us into perpetuating it,” writes Shpancer.

Microaggressions Are “Death By A Thousand Cuts”

In 2007, social scientist researchers called microaggressions “the new face of racism.” They position the dominant culture as the norm and perpetuate disapproval, discomfort and aberrance of marginalized groups.

Derald Wing Sue, professor of psychology at Columbia University and author of the book Microaggressions in Everyday Life, states in Fast Company, “Racial microaggressions are the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities, and denigrating messages sent to people of color.”

Though often unintentional, microaggressions have “the impact of highlighting a person’s ‘difference’ from the majority represented group.” They are especially toxic because they appear neutral or positive to the speaker themselves, while reinforcing thinly veiled stereotypes and associations held by culture and that person.

For example, commenting that an African-American woman is “articulate” reflects that you did not expect her to be. Saying “your name is hard to pronounce” standardizes white names. Claiming to “not see color” is a microinvalidation of systemic racism that makes life more difficult because an individual is black, and discounts implicit bias. Other examples of microaggressions include telling an Asian-American woman she speaks English well, assuming two people need to meet just because they are LGBTQ+ or yet another manterruption while making a point in a meeting.

“It feels like death by a thousand cuts,” says HR expert, Avery Francis, who created a 10-slide presentation on microaggressions often experienced by black women that went viral. “[Microaggressions] really chip away at your self worth, and it’s harder because the instances seem so small.”

“Because of their somewhat ambiguous nature, microaggressions come with an added layer of emotions,” says psychologist Dr Samantha Rennalls, “They can be confusing, sometimes leaving the recipient with a sense of uncertainty about why they are feeling hurt or offended.”

Renalls shares that, “Long-term exposure to microaggressions has been associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, possibly due to the impact that they have on self-esteem and/or the way in which one may feel powerless to challenge them.”

“In our research, we find that the impact of microaggressions are cumulative, causing major psychological harm,” Sue said. 

Making Microaggression Visible

Confronting microaggressions is difficult because of how subtle and innocuous they can appear, because the microaggressor will often feel innocent in intention and because the recipient herself can have an unclear feeling about the interaction. 

“…it is important to understand that a lot of times people who engage in microaggressions will not believe that what they said was racist or sexist or homophobic,” says to psychology professor Kevin Nadal, “…and we’re all human beings who might commit microaggressions.”

The conversation must be navigated from a growth mindset for the possibility of awareness of bias and its impact to be made conscious. One suggestion Nadal makes is to ask, “What do you mean by that?” Another suggestion is to ask, “Where do you think that was coming from?”

This can provide a moment for the microaggressor to stop and consider their words. This can even lead to them realizing they are unintentionally perpetuating racism.

According to Sue as written in CNN, a “microintervention” must consider the two levels of a microaggression: “One is the conscious communication of the initiator, which was likely intended to be a surface-level compliment. Then there’s the unconscious metacommunication, which is the message the microaggression sends.”

Sue suggests three ‘artful’ strategies for confronting microaggression, as an ally: 

  • Making the invisible, visible – make the nature of the behavior visible to the perpetrator
  • Educate the perpetuator – shift the focus from the intention (in which harm was not often consciously intended) to the impact and how it can cause pain
  • Disarm the microaggression – steer the conversation away from a comment or remark to disarm the energy in the moment

If you’re the recipient of microaggression, power dynamics might make this dangerous or emotionally-depleting. One option is to enlist an ally of equal position to the perpetrator to confront the behavior. 

If you’re confronted for your own microaggression, it’s important to be open to listen to the pain expressed and learn from this moment with a growth mindset. 

The more we can navigate with empathy and compassion, the more we can consciously alter the power dynamics that have perpetuated systemic racism. 

Aimee Hansen is a freelance writer, frequent contributor to theglasshammer and Creator and Facilitator of Storyteller Within Retreats, Lonely Planet-recommended women’s circle retreats focused on self-exploration and connecting with your inner truth and sacred expression through writing, yoga, meditation, movement and ceremonies.

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