CEOs Are More Technical, More Social, and More Aggressive: Are You Ready to Lead?

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African American Businesswoman on WhiteBy Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

A recent infographic released by CEO.com revealed that the next generation of CEOs could be bringing an entirely different set of characteristics and leaderships traits with them to the C-Suite. These traits include a greater affinity for risk, more social interaction on social media platforms, an increased focus on leveraging technology, and more aggressive growth strategies.

If you are on the leadership track, you should continually be thinking about how to develop the skills and qualities now that will equip you to be an even more effective leader in the future. The traits of the next generation of CEOs listed above are critical components of leadership that you should try to understand and master to be a good leader at any stage of your career.

Leveraging Technology in the C-Suite

The age of high tech is upon us and younger CEOs are harnessing the power of digital and applying technology as a business solution. This means that in order to be an effective leader, you should know when to leverage technology to benefit the company as a whole. According to a recent article published in Financial Times, a lack of technological aptitude in the C-Suite can negatively impact a company’s growth and development.

The key to keeping your technical knowledge sharp is to find networking groups with a tech focus. This way you can stay current so that when the time comes for you to lead; you can do so with the most current technological knowledge and skills.

This includes having a handle on the value of social media. While social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are great for spreading content and sharing company news, the real social media impact for companies is seen in LinkedIn. This legitimate platform for networking helps leaders establish a circle of virtual colleagues to use as a sounding board.

Digital engagement is an inevitable part of the future of business strategy. In fact, many of the executives we talk to have indicated that learning about all of the different ways technology can be implemented to improve business processes and strategies is something that makes their job incredibly exciting and rewarding.

Developing an understanding of social media, its applications, and results can help you be a better leader because you will have a pulse on how your clients and customers view your brand. According to one article, social media is one factor that will permanently reshape the business strategy landscape from this point forward.

Remember, however, it is not just important to know how to utilize social media as a business and leadership tool. You also should be able to measure and prove its value to your business in the short-term and the long-term.

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Personal Power and Your Posture – What Does Your Smartphone Have to Do With It?

Businesswoman using smart phoneBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Blackberry addict? According to a new Harvard study, you may be sabotaging your leadership style by stooping over your smartphone. Sure, it may seem a little silly that your phone could influence how much confidence you exude, but research into posture and the psychology of power is no joke.

Studies have shown that when people use expansive postures they tend to feel and act more powerful. After spending as few as two minutes adopting an expansive posture, people are more willing to take risks and they tend to do better in interviews. They may also be less fearful or stressed out.

Now, say researchers Maarten W. Bos and Amy J.C. Cuddy, there is reason to believe that using bigger technology may lead you to be more assertive, and smaller tech to be less assertive. They believe it has to do with how your device affects your posture. They write:

“Just before walking into a meeting, many of us are hunched over our smart phones, reading and responding to emails, and reviewing last minute notes. Following this frenzied attempt to efficiently manage our time, we have to be on our game in the meeting. Recent research documenting the benefits of adopting expansive (vs. contractive) body postures – “power posing” – suggests that hunching over our smart phones before a stressful social interaction, like a job interview, may undermine our confidence and performance during that interaction.”

Bos and Cuddy set out to test this hypothesis, and according to their new working paper [PDF], people in their experiment who were using bigger pieces of technology (like an iMac) were more assertive than those with small ones (like an iPhone).

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A Guide to Coming Out at Work (Again, and Again)

iStock_000007266707XSmallThis article is part of our June Pride series – check back all month as we explore what it means to be an LGBT woman or ally in the professional workplace.

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Coming out at work is not a one-time event that’s over and done with in a single revelation. For LGBT professionals, it’s something that must be addressed over and over again to new coworkers, clients, and vendors.

As Marion S. Regnier, a Senior Associate at PwC, told The Glass Hammer in 2012, “Working in consulting you meet and work with new people all the time so coming out is a continuous process. I don’t think there is a one-time solution.”

This is just one of the many challenges of coming out in the office that led us to prepare the following Guide to Coming Out at Work as part of our Pride Month coverage. For advice and expertise, we turned to Regnier to address some of the complex challenges that LGBT professionals face in the workplace around the coming out process, and how to successfully navigate them.

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New Report Discusses Online Feminism, Collaboration, and How Business Can Get Involved

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last month the Barnard Center for Research on Women published a report on the future of online feminism. The paper, “#FemFuture: Online Revolution,” is written by Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti, and discusses the opportunities that the internet is providing for people working toward gender equality. It also discusses the challenge that exists in building momentum for a movement driven by virtual relationships.

While the internet has provided a voice and a platform for people who advocate for equality, it has also created more decentralization within the movement. Martin and Valenti believe more strategic collaboration will help propel feminism forward, and strengthen the discussion. In her introduction, Martin writes:

“Forging partnerships between feminists – online and off, younger and older, poor and wealthy, organizing at the grassroots and strategizing at the treetops – will have far-reaching consequences. It will foster the formation of new connections between grassroots advocacy and service organizations, educational institutions, coalitions, unions, convenings, conferences, legacy media, policy makers, politicians, entrepreneurs, etc. Online feminism has the capacity to be like the nervous system of this modern day feminist body politic.”

They also discuss the value of partnering with leaders in the business space. Developing institutional know-how and business acumen, they reason, will help feminists create meaningful and long-lasting change.

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The ‘Sticky Floor’ Revisited

Woman with portfolioBy Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Do women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers? The question has been up for debate for years, with leadership experts identifying self-defeating or self-limiting actions as the “sticky floor.”

Author Rebecca Shambaugh said in her 2007 book It’s Not a Glass Ceiling—It’s a Sticky Floor:

“I see women holding themselves back more than society ever could. And they usually do it to themselves quite unknowingly. When I see women capable of executive suite leadership mired in middle management, I don’t look for the glass ceiling anymore. Instead, I look for a sticky floor.”

The sticky floor phenomenon has been variously described as women’s self-imposed career blocks, corporate barriers to women’s promotion, and other middle-management bottlenecks that keep women stuck near the bottom half of the ladder. Not surprisingly, research has shown that the promotion rates for all levels of white men throughout their careers were higher than white and minority women. A large-scale study of more than 22,000 employees revealed that white men were 4.5 percentage points more likely to be promoted at any level than white women, and 16.1 percentage points more likely than minority women.

Yet, many experts take issue with the suggestion that women should be held responsible for their own failure to advance. “Saying women are responsible for holding themselves back lets off the hook the boy’s club of corporate executives who make them crazy, only to point their fingers and say, ‘See? That’s why we can’t promote them,’” says Mitchell D. Weiss, an adjunct professor of finance at the University of Hartford’s Barney School of Business.

Kathy Noecker, a member of the executive committee and management board of law firm Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, describes the sticky floor as a “both-and” situation. “I have seen many women not seek the next big case, take on a key role with an important client, or assume a leadership opportunity because of the sticky floor phenomenon,” says Noecker. “They may be fearful of failure, presume they can’t handle the time commitments, or simply be unaware that they should be advocating for themselves and their careers.” However, she adds that these situations may be closely intertwined with the glass ceiling issue: “Often, organizations favor, and women only see, a ‘male’ model of success.”

Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on, the same questions remain: why does the sticky floor still exist, and what can we do about it? The Glass Hammer spoke with Shambaugh and other experts about what actions women should take if they find themselves glued to a sticky floor, and what companies can do to facilitate women’s corporate ascent.

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Why Leadership is a Critical Skill for Career Growth

iStock_000006308877XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Leadership doesn’t begin when you’ve made it to the top of an organization. It’s something you display every day, throughout your career and personal life. Rather than thinking of leadership as something we achieve once we get to the top of a company, we should think of it as a skill that enables us to get to get there.

On Monday, the financial services consulting firm Capco celebrated International Women’s Day with a luncheon honoring women and leadership. It can be difficult to remember – especially for young women – just how far we have come in only a few decades. In the 1960s, as Stephanie Koontz wrote last month in the New York Times, “most Americans did not yet believe that gender equality was possible or even desirable.”

Fast forward fifty years and we are – at least on some measures like educational attainment and personal health – approaching equality. Ismail Amla, Partner and CEO for North America at Capco, explained that he feels that equality means, “My daughter who is 16 years old should have the same sort of opportunities as her brothers, even though the same opportunities would not have been afforded her mother only one generation ago.”

But, he continued, at the top of companies, we’re not even close. He cited Catalyst data revealing that in the Fortune 500, only about 14 percent of senior executives are women, and only four percent of CEOs are women. “There is still lots to address,” he continued. “Do we create an environment where women are leaders? How can I, as a CEO, say that women at Capco have the same opportunities as men?”

Corporate executives, both male and female, must ensure that their companies are authorizing and encouraging women to lead – that when women display leadership qualities, they are recognized and rewarded, rather than encouraged to fade into the background.

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Breaking the Ice with New Clients

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

“Don’t be the faceless name who’s suddenly appeared on the client’s bill.”
–Julie A. Fleming, JD

Many people, particularly in the professional services, establish long-term relationships with clients that may span years or even decades. Yet when you’re first assigned to work with new clients at the beginning of a project, you may know nothing about them.

How can you establish rapport and trust with a new client and learn how to break the ice? For answers, we asked a panel of professionals across the legal, finance, and technology industries for their experience and insights.

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Hate Small Talk? Here’s How to Make It Work for You

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Small talk can get big results — but only if you know how to use it. According to Psychology Today, up to 50 percent of the population may consist of introverts, who are often hesitant to “waste time” on what might be perceived as idle chit-chat.

But many networking experts believe in the power of small talk. Some see it as a necessary starting point to open doors to business opportunities that would otherwise remain closed.

The Glass Hammer asked a panel of expert networkers for their insights on why professional women need to engage in small talk, how to make it effective, why some people hate it, and how they can hate it less.

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The Art of Taking Criticism Effectively

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

No one really “likes” receiving criticism. No matter what kind of positive spin you put on its value, the truth is, it can make us feel badly to hear negative feedback, whether from peers or superiors.

Sometimes we take criticism to heart, letting it fester and affect our performance. But this isn’t necessary. Whether criticism is given constructively or not, it can help advance your career if you know how to use it right.

“It’s important to listen to all criticism without becoming defensive, argumentative, or angry,” says Kathi Elster, co-author of Mean Girls at Work. “There is always something to learn when hearing criticism.”

To understand how to accept office criticism with grace rather than a grimace, we spoke with national corporate etiquette expert Diane Gottsman.

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Diverse Mentors Offer Career Inspiration

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Have you ever wanted to sit down with the exceptional women executives that have climbed the ranks and ask them how they approach work and life?” asks a new report by the International Consortium for Executive Development Research (ICEDR). The network of top companies and business schools interviewed 60 female executives on how they managed to break through the glass ceiling.

According to Lauren Ready, Director of Talent Management Initiatives and Marketing at ICEDR and author of the report, the goal of the research was to provide a career roadmap for high potential women by asking senior women to complete the phrase, “If I knew then what I know now…”

She explained, “If young women are going to rise to the top, they need to know the secret workings of the business world. We wanted to study the pockets of excellence, the women who are the exception to the rule.”

After all, she added, only five percent of global CEOs are women. The next generation of women leaders has a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to achieve parity at the top.

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