“It’s second to none in importance today in business, the skill of being a whole leader, an inclusive leader.” The Glass Hammer talked to Mike Fenlon, PwC’s Global Talent Leader, about PwC’s Aspire to Lead program.
Now in its third year, Aspire to Lead is a PwC series on leadership and gender equality that provides university students and professionals with inspiration and practical insight on developing leadership, from the perspective of inspiring leaders.
“Aspire to Lead is all about development,” Fenlon told us. “We’re not talking about what you need to do to as the CEO. Here are the skills that Day One will be relevant and make a difference for you, women and men.”
In addition to an annual video webcast that reached over 107 countries this year, PwC runs development and skill-building workshops and discussions with students year-round and across the world.
The first live webcast featured LeanIn.Org Founder Sheryl Sandberg and President Rachel Thomas. The second focused on “The Confidence to Lead,” and featured Confidence Code authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman and Eileen Naughton, Managing Director and VP of Google UK and Ireland.
This year, the event was hosted by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and featured Award-winning actor Geena Davis, Founder of Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Dawn Hudson the Academy CEO, and Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The panel provided insights from Hollywood on gender portrayal and taking your career to centre stage.
Fulfilling potential – being an inclusive and awake leader
“Aspire to Lead is about fulfilling potential,” Fenlon told us. “It’s absolutely critical for us to create an environment where everyone, men and women, can fulfill their potential and be whole leaders, inclusive leaders, and that means both individually and in our teams. That’s literally at the heart of our development framework.”
“One (aspect of inclusive leadership) is that I’m demonstrating self-awareness,” explained Fenlon. “In the context of working across differences, that means a commitment to understanding my own (unconscious) blindspots.”
“I’ll give you a few words,” he said. “Engineer. Scientist. Venture capitalist. Executive. Surgeon. Leader. Accountant. CEO. Literally, who do you see? What the research shows us is that who you see is skewed towards a male image, for both men and women.”
“The point is when I see you, do I see you as someone who possesses the potential to be a leader,” said Fenlon. “Am I going to connect you with people who I think will be valuable? Am I going to assign you to work that will stretch you and develop you? Will I take some risks because I see potential? This is about seeing potential.”
One of the discussion materials that’s been used in the program is an animated video in which a woman shares an idea in a meeting and goes unnoticed. Minutes later, a man shares the same idea and it’s hailed as “a breakthrough”.
“That shows a blind spot as a leader,” Fenlon said. “Am I awake, am I tuned into the dynamics of my team, to creating an atmosphere where everyone can contribute their ideas and everyone’s heard?”
“So when we talk about whole leadership,” Fenlon explains, “we start by saying I have to develop my self-awareness around who I am, around how my life experiences and culture have shaped how I see the world, and how I see others, and my ability to recognize talent. Is there anything more important in business than the ability to recognize talent, to spot talent?”
“If you’re asleep, if you’re blind, you’re really captive to your own biases and cultural assumptions, which just aren’t true,” Fenlon said. “If I’m awake, I understand, I’m seeing what’s in front of me, the dynamics in my team, who is speaking, who is being heard, who is contributing. I’m awake to the potential of my colleagues, of the people in my team. I see it. I’m excited by it. I’m creating opportunities for people to fulfill their potential. I’m aware of my blindspots. This is important for women and men.”
Throwing out the script
Speaking about the 2016 webcast, Fenlon says, “Our focus was the representation of gender in the entertainment and the media, and how that shapes the assumptions we make and those blindspots. We used that as a metaphor for ‘how do I write my own script, how do I demonstrate the confidence to be center stage, how do I launch my career in a way that I’m positioned to fulfill my potential?’”
The forum demonstrated how women can reject cultural scripts to write their own.
“Think of it this way,” said Fenlon. “Stereotypes are scripts that other people have written for you…You show up, day one of the office. Well, here are the three standard scripts, if you will, and they reflect massive blindspots. They may reflect all sorts of assumptions that are widely inaccurate about who you are and what you can do. But they’re the traditional scripts.”
“Jennifer Yuh Nielson is one of the very few women directors in Hollywood,” said Fenlon. “When she leads, and this is part of the power of the discussion we had, she leads as an introvert. She’s very focused on listening. She’s not the stereotypical director… She didn’t take the scripts that may have been handed to her. It’s about authentic leadership, playing to your strengths, and different styles of leadership than maybe what are stereotypically associated with men. It’s not just about being more like stereotypical male masculine models. And what can men then learn, in turn?”
Bringing men and women together
As one of the ten founding IMPACT partners for HeforShe, an important aspect of Aspire to Lead is that it brings both men and women together to work on gender equality together.
“When we did our session with Sheryl Sandberg, I bought all sort of books and I was handing them out,” said Fenlon. “I was talking to women colleagues and they were organizing Lean In circles, reading books, going to lunch and going to talking about it, going to conferences. And meanwhile what were men doing? Very little, is the answer.”
“I wrote in one of my blogs, ‘Is gender equality women’s work?’ Obviously, that’s rhetorical,” said Fenlon. “If we’re going to achieve gender equality, inclusive leadership, we all have a role to play here, and for men to become inclusive leaders, to fulfill their potential as a manager, as someone who can spot talent, who can bring out the best in others, who can bring out the best in a team, it means I’ve got to exercise self-awareness. I’ve got to look and acknowledge my blind spots. I’ve got to diversify my personal network. I have to learn to make sure I’m calling out all voices. I have to bring equality home.”
“The question is: who do you see…?”
“Aspire to Lead reflects our commitment as a culture,” said Fenlon. “We want students to have a really valuable development experience and in the process develop whole leaders, develop the leadership skills of students, help them prepare to launch their career, and to drive gender equality.”
Getting personal, Fenlon shared, “I brought my daughter to Hollywood Boulevard, and I took a picture of one star. You know these stars that have yet to be named? The question is: who do you see in that star? When you think about talent, when you think about a software engineer, when you think about a doctor, surgeon, accountant, lawyer, executive, venture capitalist, who do you see?”
Across the bottom of the symposium page for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, are the words: If she can see it, she can be it.
What Fenlon is driving at here is a critical complementary point. If we can all learn to see the potential of it already in her (or stop being blind to it), we can help her to be it, too.
Most Likely to Succeed: What matters most when you are trying to get ahead
Climbing the LadderThe median long stint for these women CEOs is 23 years spent at a single company before becoming the CEO, compared to only 15 years for men. This means that for women, the long climb is over 50% longer than for their male peers. In addition, 71% of the female CEOs were promoted as long-term insiders versus only 48% of the male CEOs.
This means that it is especially important for women in the middle of their careers to find the best possible fit when looking to advance their career at their company or someplace new.
Finding the right company to go the distance with
Sharon Hadary who co-authors with Laura Henderson the book How Women Lead: The 8 Essential Strategies Successful Women Know believes that the importance of finding a company whose values match your own is key. In order to understand just what your values are—beyond the friendly HR language—she suggested women “look for the factual evidence that companies are supportive of women and that it’s not just words”. This means finding out how many women are in senior positions, hold positions on boards, and are involved in company supported networking groups. Hadary is not without cynicism however as it is really important to see how the rubber meets the road beyond programmatic solutions and comments,
“I always worry about women in programs, lots of companies will talk about their programs they have for women, but do they really put it into practice?”
Bonnie Marcus, author of The Politics of Promotion, echoes Hadary’s concerns. We asked her how women can really tell the difference between companies who are paying lip-service to diversity and those that truly support women. In addition to Hadary’s points, Marcus suggests noting whether or not women have P&L responsibility.
“Many companies will boast that they have promoted women to assume leadership roles, but when you take a good look at the organizational chart you may discover that these positions do not come with any fiscal responsibility. In other words, the company may have gendered roles even at the senior level.”
This is closely linked to her next suggestion, which is to make sure you have an understanding of women’s power and influence in the overall operations and strategy of the company. She suggests finding out the role women play in the overall operations and strategy of the company.
“Do they have any involvement in setting the direction of the company? Do women at all levels sit on committees that have a voice with senior management?”
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, this second point is one of the primary reasons there aren’t more women at the tippy top of the corporate ladder—they are not in operational positions that will give them the necessary experience for making the kinds of decisions that impact the company’s bottom line. Instead, they tend to rise to the top of functional departments, like human resources or finance. In fact, their numbers show 55% of the women in senior positions of the S&P’s 500 head these kinds of functional departments. When paired with the fact that 94% of these same companies’ CEO’s were in senior management positions of operations—like the development of product lines—immediately before making that final leap to the top, it seems especially important to find a company that already has women in these senior roles.
Recently, the Glass Hammer reported on how women can best make the transition back to work after taking a break. Business Insider reports that the unconscious bias associated with women who have children—that their commitment to their children will outweigh their commitment to their work—remains a large factor in their overall career progress. So, if you are planning to have a family one day, you may also want to note how many of the senior female executives have children and get a sense of their overall experience. The conversation about working mothers tends to revolve around work-life balance, but there is more to it than just finding time for car pool and illness. It’s about giving mothers the responsibility of projects that have a direct impact on the bottom line.
Finally, Marcus suggests finding out whether or not their programs and networks meant to support women actually have a budget.
“Many of these programs lack any financial support which most likely indicates the company is paying lip service to supporting the advancement of women. Very little can be accomplished without money or executive sponsorship.”
There is no telling the future, and there is no sure fire road to the top. And yes, you may do everything right, follow the rules, be assertive, engage men, find a mentor and take every other piece of advice given, and still not make it. Sometimes, the numbers are just that tough and the intentions that hard to decipher. These hard facts are all the more reason to be focused, be smart and do your research when looking for that next job—it is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make. And even though it can be fun to hop around, and even a good idea early in your career, but eventually, your best chances of getting ahead will be found when you commit to a company that is equally committed to you.
By Rebecca S. Caum
Staying Safe While Challenging The Status Quo
Career AdviceOur panel responded with very sensible and specific answers but for the sake of an answer here, I can sum it up to the following points adding to the panel answers with my knowledge as an Executive coach and Organizational Psychologist:
– Know your environment (context is everything and how work gets done around here is the ultimate organizational culture question- what flies and what does not?)
– Know your audience, who are you asking to change or address something and what is their track record/temperament?
– Know when to make your ask/raise an issue- timing is everything.
This is a very delicate topic but ultimately as I said in the event opening last week, change leaders are people who want to see things be done better and that doesnt come by accepting blindly the status quo.
It is not for everyone, but for those out there who wish to speak truth to power, we want to arm you with the right tools.
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work
Voice of Experience: Christine del Rosario, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Voices of ExperienceCareer Path
Del Rosario joined the Orange County office of PwC in 1998 after graduating from UCLA and spent nine years in the assurance practice specializing in the industrial products sector. In her first coaching meeting, she recalls, she mentioned to her coach she wanted to do an international tour at some future stage in her career, and that aspiration was always revisited in their discussions from that point forward. Her plans materialized in 2007 when she moved to London for a three year assignment, and also had the opportunity to work in Tokyo during that time. Through this experience she was exposed to the financial services sector and decided to switch her specialization to financial services when she repatriated in 2010.
Over the years, del Rosario has seen that superiors give opportunities to people they like and in whom they see potential, and they will invest time in developing those individuals. She suggests for women to continue to find ways to connect with leaders in their organizations, both men and women alike. “It’s not so much about networking, but about developing relationships that are genuine because of the emotional investment you have made with those people, which creates a special bond that, almost always, stays with you forever.”
Del Rosario says she was fortunate to develop deep relationships with senior managers and partners early in her career, and she found those individuals looked after her, providing counsel and feedback. “Navigate your way to increase your visibility and likeability factor so you’re top of mind when opportunities arise,” she advises.
One program at PwC she feels has contributed to her success is “Breakthrough Leadership,” where high-potential senior managers who have been identified as future leaders gather for a two-day conference. They build skills, such as how to solicit candid feedback, and are connected with leaders who will help open doors and act as sponsors as they make the journey into the next stage of their careers. “It’s important that we make sure we have these opportunities to develop women, and support them as they progress towards getting admitted into the partnership,” she says. A key contributor is the ability to get exposure and network with leaders and other peers.
Exciting Times and Giving Back
Without hesitation she says that being admitted to the partnership is the achievement she’s most proud of. “Leading up to it you get such tremendous support and the partners truly make you feel they have your back, so when you get admitted it’s like being welcomed to this special family,” she says.
Currently, del Rosario is working closely with some new clients on the audit side. “New engagements with new teams are always a great opportunity to learn together and establish new processes, which is quite powerful when you realize you helped shape what people will continue to build upon for years to come,” she says. “These types of highly collaborative projects are very exciting to me.”
In addition to working on these new clients, del Rosario enjoys being constantly challenged and working to help clients understand how PwC’s five identified megatrends (demographic and social change, shift in economic power, rapid urbanization, climate change and resource scarcity, and technological breakthroughs) will shape the global and economic landscape, many of which may disrupt her clients’ businesses.
Del Rosario has always had an interest in developing others, which carries over into her philanthropy. She serves as an officer of the board of Ascend, a non-profit that focuses on diversity and inclusion and development of Pan-Asian leaders in the business community. Since having been involved in Ascend, “I have had the opportunity to help mentor a lot of wonderful and highly-engaged and motivated individuals as they work their way through their careers, and all of them inspire me to continue to try to make a difference each and every day,” she says.
A Travelling Family
Del Rosario appreciates the privilege she had of travelling around Europe when she and her husband were living in London and now she delights in taking her son places they went as a couple to rediscover them as a family. Before her son turned five, he had traveled over 100,000 miles, with each journey catalogued in a special travel book a friend created when he was born.
Aspire to Lead: Developing Whole and Inclusive Leaders
Career Advice, Featured, This Month's FeatureNow in its third year, Aspire to Lead is a PwC series on leadership and gender equality that provides university students and professionals with inspiration and practical insight on developing leadership, from the perspective of inspiring leaders.
“Aspire to Lead is all about development,” Fenlon told us. “We’re not talking about what you need to do to as the CEO. Here are the skills that Day One will be relevant and make a difference for you, women and men.”
In addition to an annual video webcast that reached over 107 countries this year, PwC runs development and skill-building workshops and discussions with students year-round and across the world.
The first live webcast featured LeanIn.Org Founder Sheryl Sandberg and President Rachel Thomas. The second focused on “The Confidence to Lead,” and featured Confidence Code authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman and Eileen Naughton, Managing Director and VP of Google UK and Ireland.
This year, the event was hosted by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and featured Award-winning actor Geena Davis, Founder of Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Dawn Hudson the Academy CEO, and Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The panel provided insights from Hollywood on gender portrayal and taking your career to centre stage.
Fulfilling potential – being an inclusive and awake leader
“Aspire to Lead is about fulfilling potential,” Fenlon told us. “It’s absolutely critical for us to create an environment where everyone, men and women, can fulfill their potential and be whole leaders, inclusive leaders, and that means both individually and in our teams. That’s literally at the heart of our development framework.”
“One (aspect of inclusive leadership) is that I’m demonstrating self-awareness,” explained Fenlon. “In the context of working across differences, that means a commitment to understanding my own (unconscious) blindspots.”
“I’ll give you a few words,” he said. “Engineer. Scientist. Venture capitalist. Executive. Surgeon. Leader. Accountant. CEO. Literally, who do you see? What the research shows us is that who you see is skewed towards a male image, for both men and women.”
“The point is when I see you, do I see you as someone who possesses the potential to be a leader,” said Fenlon. “Am I going to connect you with people who I think will be valuable? Am I going to assign you to work that will stretch you and develop you? Will I take some risks because I see potential? This is about seeing potential.”
One of the discussion materials that’s been used in the program is an animated video in which a woman shares an idea in a meeting and goes unnoticed. Minutes later, a man shares the same idea and it’s hailed as “a breakthrough”.
“That shows a blind spot as a leader,” Fenlon said. “Am I awake, am I tuned into the dynamics of my team, to creating an atmosphere where everyone can contribute their ideas and everyone’s heard?”
“So when we talk about whole leadership,” Fenlon explains, “we start by saying I have to develop my self-awareness around who I am, around how my life experiences and culture have shaped how I see the world, and how I see others, and my ability to recognize talent. Is there anything more important in business than the ability to recognize talent, to spot talent?”
“If you’re asleep, if you’re blind, you’re really captive to your own biases and cultural assumptions, which just aren’t true,” Fenlon said. “If I’m awake, I understand, I’m seeing what’s in front of me, the dynamics in my team, who is speaking, who is being heard, who is contributing. I’m awake to the potential of my colleagues, of the people in my team. I see it. I’m excited by it. I’m creating opportunities for people to fulfill their potential. I’m aware of my blindspots. This is important for women and men.”
Throwing out the script
Speaking about the 2016 webcast, Fenlon says, “Our focus was the representation of gender in the entertainment and the media, and how that shapes the assumptions we make and those blindspots. We used that as a metaphor for ‘how do I write my own script, how do I demonstrate the confidence to be center stage, how do I launch my career in a way that I’m positioned to fulfill my potential?’”
The forum demonstrated how women can reject cultural scripts to write their own.
“Think of it this way,” said Fenlon. “Stereotypes are scripts that other people have written for you…You show up, day one of the office. Well, here are the three standard scripts, if you will, and they reflect massive blindspots. They may reflect all sorts of assumptions that are widely inaccurate about who you are and what you can do. But they’re the traditional scripts.”
“Jennifer Yuh Nielson is one of the very few women directors in Hollywood,” said Fenlon. “When she leads, and this is part of the power of the discussion we had, she leads as an introvert. She’s very focused on listening. She’s not the stereotypical director… She didn’t take the scripts that may have been handed to her. It’s about authentic leadership, playing to your strengths, and different styles of leadership than maybe what are stereotypically associated with men. It’s not just about being more like stereotypical male masculine models. And what can men then learn, in turn?”
Bringing men and women together
As one of the ten founding IMPACT partners for HeforShe, an important aspect of Aspire to Lead is that it brings both men and women together to work on gender equality together.
“When we did our session with Sheryl Sandberg, I bought all sort of books and I was handing them out,” said Fenlon. “I was talking to women colleagues and they were organizing Lean In circles, reading books, going to lunch and going to talking about it, going to conferences. And meanwhile what were men doing? Very little, is the answer.”
“I wrote in one of my blogs, ‘Is gender equality women’s work?’ Obviously, that’s rhetorical,” said Fenlon. “If we’re going to achieve gender equality, inclusive leadership, we all have a role to play here, and for men to become inclusive leaders, to fulfill their potential as a manager, as someone who can spot talent, who can bring out the best in others, who can bring out the best in a team, it means I’ve got to exercise self-awareness. I’ve got to look and acknowledge my blind spots. I’ve got to diversify my personal network. I have to learn to make sure I’m calling out all voices. I have to bring equality home.”
“The question is: who do you see…?”
“Aspire to Lead reflects our commitment as a culture,” said Fenlon. “We want students to have a really valuable development experience and in the process develop whole leaders, develop the leadership skills of students, help them prepare to launch their career, and to drive gender equality.”
Getting personal, Fenlon shared, “I brought my daughter to Hollywood Boulevard, and I took a picture of one star. You know these stars that have yet to be named? The question is: who do you see in that star? When you think about talent, when you think about a software engineer, when you think about a doctor, surgeon, accountant, lawyer, executive, venture capitalist, who do you see?”
Across the bottom of the symposium page for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, are the words: If she can see it, she can be it.
What Fenlon is driving at here is a critical complementary point. If we can all learn to see the potential of it already in her (or stop being blind to it), we can help her to be it, too.
The Bamboo Ceiling Could Be Costing Business
Career Advice, This Month's FeatureAs we enter Asian-Pacific American Heritage month, we can say this about the bamboo ceiling: no matter the myriad of individual, cultural, and organizational factors holding it in place, it’s likely to be costing businesses.
As we look to Asian American women at the top of corporate leadership, Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO of Pepsi Co (for a decade now), ranks #2 in Fortune’s 50 “Most Powerful Women in Business”and #15 in Forbes’“The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women”.
But Nooyi is the only Asian American woman represented in the Fortune ranks and joined only by Chinese-born Weili Dai, Cofounder-President of Marvell Technology Group Ltd, at #95 in Forbes list.
Catalyst data has shown that Asian women make up only 4.4% of manager and above level positions and under 2% of executive positions in S&P 500 companies and 3.7% of board seats. If you really want to know about successful Asian American women business leadership in the U.S., you have to look at a different list.
Self-Made Women Who Grow Businesses
In May, 2015 Forbes introduced a new women in business success list – “America’s Richest Self-Made Women” – which tells a different story about Asian women at the top of successful business ventures in the U.S.
Asian American women claim nine of the 50 spaces across various industries – including #4 (Jin Sook Chang – retail), #13 (Peggy Cherng – food), #14 (Thai Lee – tech), #15 (Neerja Sethi – tech), #21 (Weili Dai – semiconductors), #29 (Jane Hsiao – biotech), #30 (Jayshree Ullal – tech), #34 (Vera Wang – fashion), and #41 (Sachiko Kuno – pharma).
Nearly one in five of the richest self-made women are Asian Americans. Thai Lee’s SHI International is the largest female-owned business in the US according to Forbes and one of the largest minority-owned businesses.
The Wall Street Journal also sums up, based on a new report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions, that minority-owned businesses were “a key driver of business and job-creation”between 2007-2011, responsible for 72.3% of new jobs. The most dramatic shifts were among female entrepreneurs – and most of all, Asian Americans.
The number of Asian American women owned businesses increased by 44% and those hiring paid employees by 37.6% during that time, and these businesses also witnessed an uncommon growth in sales.
According to the center, catalyzing the share of businesses lead by minorities to mirror the minority share of the labor force would result in 1.1 million more businesses, nine million more jobs, and $300 billion in income for workers.
The under-representation of minority female leadership, and resulting missed financial opportunity, is not limited to entrepreneurship. It’s also present with the missing Asian American leaders in corporate America.
The Employee-Executive Gap
Last year, a diversity study across five companies entitled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Asian-American Leaders in Silicon Valley”by Ascend demonstrated that, as put by The Atlantic, “Asian Americans professionals aren’t being promoted”and that showed especially true for women.
The study found that while 27% of professionals across five major tech firms were Asian American, fewer than 19% of managers and less than 14% of executives were. But for Asian American women in the sample, only 1 in 285 were an executive (versus 1 per 201 for Asian Men, 1 per 123 for white women, and and 1 per 87 for white men).
The report states, “The ‘Asian effect’ is 3.7X greater than the “gender effect”as a glass ceiling factor. The Asian effect was measured at ~154% for both men and women. The gender effect was measured at ~42% for both whites and Asians.”
According to The Atlantic, “Rather than blatant discrimination, report coauthors Denise Peck and Buck Gee (and Janet Wong) say, this disparity is a result of implicit biases. They say that Asian Americans need to learn the leadership skills that corporate America values, such as adapting public speaking skills to fit their company, while the executives themselves need to learn how to best retain and promote Asian American talent.”
The Glass Hammer has previously written about the barriers of success for Asian women facing two ceilings (glass and bamboo) that add to a greater whole – barriers such as cultural differences and culturally internalized norms, cultural stereotypes and expectations, social perception and self-perception, and the imposter syndrome.
The report authors identify “three major Asian leadership gaps: a gap in awareness and expectations, a gap in role models, and a gap in behavior”and asserts that both Asian American professionals and companies need to take steps in closing these gaps that contribute to many professionals in “most successful racial group in the United States”from being promoted to leadership roles in tech businesses.
Jane Hyun, author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling, speaks to the misperceptions that can come from cultural factors such as holding back to show respect, as well as the importance of self-promotion. “…I realized it’s not just about working hard, but knowing how to communicate what you’re doing, having the right mentors and sponsors, and connecting with people in a way that people understand what you’re doing and the value of what you’re trying to achieve as well.”
Closing the Bamboo Gap
Forums such as The Asian American Business Roundtable, which held its inaugural summit in January, help to address the gaps. One of the specific objectives is to increase the visibility and presence of Asian Americans in the U.S. business area, and the summit included panel discussions with women trailblazers sharing insight on their success.
Where strong cultural gaps exist, the work needs to come from both sides, but one thing is clear: If nearly 1 in 5 of the most monetarily successful self-made women (read: bosses) are Asian American, then the potential for leadership in the corporate world is greater than what is being realized, and that’s a gap that could be costing businesses more than they think.
Working hard? How is the teamwork at home?
Career Advice, Work-LifeAll relationships start in 1st Gear. Let’s take a romantic relationship for example. You begin slowly getting to know each other, spending leisurely hours talking about what you like and don’t like, want and don’t want so you can become good friends or even mates. Then you reach a shifting point-for weeks you’ve been so obsessed with your “startup relationship” that friends and family are leaving messages, “Where have you been?” No, you didn’t move out of town or leave the planet. You’ve been in the preoccupying, all-absorbing, time-consuming 1st Gear of Relationship!
Committed, you shift to 2nd Gear, de-focus on each other and re-focus on the rest of your lives such as projects, deadlines, appraisals, promotions and bonuses. Productive and competitive again, you work long and hard to plan your wedding and pay for it, find a home and furnish it, fund IRAs or 401Ks, buy stock, and build your client base.
Ah, it seems like you’re accomplishing so much together but actually you’re accomplishing more and more apart with taking care of your new home, starting your family, dropping off kids and picking them up, babysitting for each other so you can attend meetings and take clients to dinner. Now you’re doing more and more separately so you have less and less in common. Division of labor is what you call it but loneliness is what it feels like. And what about your plans and dreams, the unique contributions you want to make in your lives? There’s no time or energy for that now. Increasing pressures, longer hours, more disappointments, misunderstandings and arguments until you reach a choice point.
Do you choose to shift to 3rd Gear together and find solutions? “Honey, we love each other dearly. What can we do to re-create our relationship? To make time to talk for hours like ‘the good ole days’, to get to know each other again, to plan and dream our future. Can we find a regular sitter and set up a date night? Or take a class or start a project we can share and enjoy?”
A quick overview:
1st Gear is for starting and keywords include: new, basic rules, safe/dangerous, right/wrong, good/bad, should/shouldn’t, have to/must. You need to downshift to handle change, expected or unexpected… to slow down to hear about your child’s day or study for your CFA exam. Or handle accident, injury or illness… a sick child, spouse, parent or friend.
2nd Gear is for producing and competing and keywords include: more-better-faster, win/lose, longer/harder, deadline, profit, bonus. Today we spend most of our time accelerating in 2nd Gear.
3rd Gear is for creating and innovating, co-dreaming and cooperating and keywords include: Aha! realize, discover, recreate, innovate and renew.
Yes, from time to time you’ll be in the same gear at the same time and will be learning together, producing together, or creating together. But sometimes you won’t and there will be Mis-Gear-Matches so it’s essential for you to not only recognize which gear you are in, but also which gear your partner, child or client is in. What their gear-needs are and shift gears to meet them.
Now that you know more about the Three Gears and when each is needed, it is time to begin shifting up, and down, at the right time in all your relationships so you can have more fun and romance. And feel more fulfilled together at work and at home.
Guest Contributed By Susan Ford Collins
Susan Ford Collins has been called, “America’s Premier Success and Leadership Coach” by CNN. Collins is also the author of The Technology of Success book series which includes, The Joy of Success: 10 Essential Skills for Getting the Success You Want, (October 2015).
Change Yourself to Change the World
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!This is very close to my heart as I undertook a Change Leadership masters at Columbia University in the City of New York (I highly recommend this course to all executives, it is life changing. ) and a big part of the work we did there was using ourselves as tools of change by first understanding who we were, where are biases lie and looking at our appetite for challenging the status quo. That is what change work is! And you would be amazed at the levels of denial most people have around what constructs we all collude to keep in place.
So, start with you. Don’t say you want to have more diverse people in your team and then hire a man, don’t constantly look to men as the authorized experts on every topic and don’t discount yourself as the expert either. If you have got it, flaunt it as so many women I know are less aware than they should be off how equally or possibly more skilled they are than other counterparts yet are happy to defer to them.
Ultimately, it is about owning your influence to effect change!
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work
Voice of Experience: Wendy Yun, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Voices of ExperienceBuilding a Successful Career from Past Experiences
Yun began her career as a private practice attorney focusing on securitizations and structured products. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 and now oversees a team of lawyers and negotiators who cover derivatives and other products globally on behalf of the firm’s Investment Management Division.
While one of her proudest professional achievements is her promotion to managing director in 2012, she says she is equally proud of her role in helping members of her team develop their own voice and identity as professionals.
Reflecting on her career, Yun has realized the importance of being open to new challenges and of maximizing new opportunities. As a junior lawyer, she hoped to specialize in collateralized loan obligations and other securitized products, but was often assigned other types of deals and transactions as well. “Initially, I thought these projects were a distraction from my primary focus,” she says. “But over time I realized that having the opportunity to work on a variety of assignments helped me become a better lawyer by diversifying my skill set and expanding my outlook.”
And, she adds, learning opportunities that shape your perspective may come from jobs or experiences that might not be related to your current career path. “I tell junior lawyers that having a range of experiences, including waitressing in high school or working as a legal assistant before law school, helped me develop interpersonal and other skills that I rely on today in my current role,” Yun noted. “I learned early on that you must be adept at multi-tasking and prioritizing competing requests while simultaneously being sensitive to your clients’ specific needs and preferences and managing different personalities.”
That mindset will serve professionals well throughout their careers, which often take twists and turns they don’t envision, Yun says. In her current role, Yun spends an increasing amount of time analyzing and implementing new regulations that apply to derivatives and other products utilized by her businesses. While the work deviates from the transactions and trading agreements that her team negotiates, she finds it fascinating to observe the process of how new regulations are developed through her involvement with industry trade associations and meetings with regulators.
She also finds it important to maintain a global perspective on understanding how rules from multiple jurisdictions might differ. “As we support global businesses, we constantly have to be aware of how various regulations could affect our transactions with other multi-national organizations and our clients worldwide.”
Opportunities for Women
Yun has seen increased opportunities for women in the financial sector and is active in helping others build their skills. She believes that fostering women’s ambition can start at an early age and currently mentors a high school junior who is preparing for college through the Student Sponsor Partners program. She also serves on the Women’s Leadership Council of her alma mater Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., to help prepare female graduates to enter the workforce.
In addition, Yun mentors junior people at the firm and encourages them to develop their professional identity as thought leaders. “At Goldman Sachs we have a culture that encourages teamwork, but women also need to find their own voice and develop leadership skills.”
Yun finds that some women, even at senior levels, may be more risk adverse than male counterparts in taking positions, sharing views or asking questions. Over time and based on the responsibilities that Yun has been given in the course of her career, she has developed a greater willingness to express her perspectives among leaders in the business, with colleagues in her department and others in the industry. She also recognizes the importance that mentors have had in helping her to develop this greater confidence. “I would encourage women to seek advice and feedback from peers or mentors and not hesitate to ask questions and share thoughts,” she urges. “Take advantage of the support network you have through mentors, sponsors and colleagues.”
Use Travel to Develop a Global Understanding
An avid traveler, Yun encourages everyone to get out of their comfort zone and travel to develop a global perspective of the world. She cites her studies in Moscow as an experience that instilled in her a new outlook at a relatively young age. “Entering a culture where people did not have access to basic goods fundamentally changed my outlook and priorities,” she says. “Travel positively alters your view of not only global issues, but also your perspective of your own life.”
Why Real Executive Presence is Not Only About Making Impressions
Career Advice, Office PoliticsWhen it comes to possessing successful leadership behaviors, C-Suite females rate themselves virtually the same as male executives. But having what it takes to be a leader and being perceived equally as one are different things.
In a recent INSEAD article, Dr. Caroline Rook shared that an investigation of 1,167 female and male C-suite executives revealed “no meaningful differences between the way men and women rate themselves on twelve leadership behaviors attributed to successful global leaders.” In fact, Rook found that in some industries women were more likely to self-rate rate higher than men did on emotional intelligence and team-building.
An Elusive Bridge Between Ability and Success
Experts may advise on how to cultivate it or even be aware of what detracts from it, but executive presence remains elusive. Fast Company has called it “the intangible career trait that you need to succeed.” It’s easier to recognize than describe. It’s been approximated with the words “gravitas”, “charisma”, and the ability to “command a room.” It’s also been called the “workplace X factor”. Executive presence seems to be a Gestalt mosaic of qualities exuded by select leaders which, subjectively perceived, makes their whole greater than the sum of their parts.
Silvia Ann Hewlett, Ph.D., author of Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success, told Fast Company that executive presence is “a measure of image – a dynamic mix of gravitas, communication, and appearance.” According to Hewlett and many other experts in this space, executive presence is the bridge you build between your abilities and advancing – because merit alone is unlikely to get you there.
“Executive Presence” Brings Men to Mind
In their study, “Understanding Executive Presence: Perspectives of Business Professionals”, researchers Gavin Dagley and Caderyn Gaskin explored executive presence through in-depth interviews with 34 Australian business professionals with expertise in the effectiveness of organizational executives.
The researchers concluded that “a person with executive presence is someone who, by virtue of how he or she is perceived by audience members at any given point in time, exerts influence beyond that conferred through formal authority.”
Because executive presence is easier to perceive than describe, the researchers began with asking the participants to nominate four people who they thought of as having executive presence, and from that point they explored what executive presence was.
71% of participants brought up and described male examples, women doing so (75%) even more than men (65%). None only brought up female examples. Some participants realized during the interview they were speaking only about men, and self-corrected to include women, but their initial inclination was already clear.
Are the Characteristics of Executive Presence impossibly male?
The researchers found that executive presence is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. One person may perceive an executive to have substantial presence, while others may be less impressed.
They also found that executive presence is not entirely impression-based, something a leader exudes from the first impression. Rather they found that sustained perceptions of executive presence were a sum of initial contacts and evaluations over an extended time of more exposure.
Of the ten characteristics of executive presence they identified, five were based on impressions during brief contacts which we would argue are heavily gendered making it tricky for women to be measured with the same yardstick since historical notions of status are just so, well, male?
Gender and “Executive Presence”
Dagley and Gaskin found that “executive presence is located in the perceptions of audience members rather than being something inherent in the executive.” Executive presence might be the bridge to the executive office, but it’s also subjectively defined by who is present in it.
The research shows how women can more broadly build the bridge of their executive presence, how you can recognize existing strengths and fill in your own personal gaps. But how executive presence interacts with gender is embodied in the word. The most likely reason “executive presence” brings men to mind first is that men are over-represented in the corporate executive suite.
When will “executive presence” bring women right to mind?
When women have equal presence in executive roles.
That’s a bridge that requires collective organizational and cultural building.
By Aimee Hansen
Voice of Experience: Jennifer Tsahalis, Managing Director, Head of Planning, Execution & Operations, TIAA Digital
Voices of ExperienceOver the years if she was excluded from a meeting or important conversation, for example, she didn’t automatically assume it was because she’s a woman, but because the team wasn’t yet aware of her strengths, talents or ability to add value.
While Tsahalis has worked in financial services technology for many years, she initially attended the University of Vermont where she majored in Electrical Engineering, a path chosen because the school didn’t offer courses in architecture, her intended career of choice at that point.
During the course of interviewing for her first job after college, Tsahalis was particularly intrigued with Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, where she says “it was less about the bits and bytes and more about how you think and how you get work done.” She moved to Boston to work for them, which she says set her career path on its current trajectory. “Accenture taught me many essential skills. Their focus on the thought process and their encouragement to never stop learning has stuck with me.”
Building a Legacy of Success
During the tech bubble days in 2000, Tsahalis had a short stint at Razorfish, before deciding to pursue her next role as a tech lead at Fidelity Investments in the Health & Welfare Benefits Outsourcing division. It was there, while working Fidelity’s NetBenefits product that she says she found her niche and moved into technical project management. In her eventual role as Technology Delivery Manager Tsahalis ran some of the largest and most complex systems in the history of the firm, developing a reputation for bringing highly complex systems and highly matrixed teams together to deliver results.
Following her success at Fidelity, Tsahalis was offered an opportunity to join Merrill Lynch, helping to build the company’s digital presence. In her role as Director of Program Delivery for Online Channels, she led the design, development and delivery of the 3- year program to launch MyMerrill.com and Merrill Edge.com before moving the eventual ongoing day-to-day program delivery of the firm’s client facing (online, mobile, IVR and call center desktop) channels.
It was during this post-launch period that Jenn helped create a process that transitioned this launch of a brand new platform into a steady state development machine and is a period about which she is particularly proud. For Tsahalis, the satisfaction came from overcoming people and process resistance and developing a delivery methodology that made projects run both smoothly and transparently. “I’m one of those people who loves process,” she says. “It was gratifying to develop a process that would make someone’s job easier, in order to give them more time in the day to focus on being creative and innovative.”
In July 2015, Tsahalis joined TIAA as the Chief Operating Officer for the TIAA Digital organization – a group that spans both business and technology and is at the heart of TIAA’s quest to become a true digital company. Different from her technical program delivery past experience, she says working in a business operations role provides unending learning opportunities and challenges, all of which are immensely fulfilling and provide the same opportunity to establish right-sized processes and to grow professionally.
“It is fascinating to work on the business side of the TIAA Digital organization, developing strategic operational plans and delivering essential metrics,” she says. “Automating and improving both the customer experience and our back office operations is imperative to success, because in reality, every company must now become a technology company,” she says. “And this is absolutely true of a firm like TIAA.”
Investing in Each Other
Whether working on technical projects or driving business operations, Tsahalis has found one constant theme. “It’s important for women to support each other, regardless of their career stage,” says Tsahalis. “The workplace can be competitive and this sometimes can cause women to face off against each other. After experiencing some of this in the past, I’ve made it a focus to bond with my female peers and to invest in their teams and their goals, which helps to keep the competitive vibe at bay and better serves us in the long run.”
At TIAA, she has made it a point to join relevant groups including the company’s Women’s Employee Resource Group and the IT Women’s Council, where she recently participated in a panel discussion for International Women’s Day. “The panelists were fantastic – very transparent and candid. We really helped some of these younger women think about how they can manage their career and still have a good life balance,” she says. “I learned so much from the panelists myself – women really can do amazing things and I was inspired by my peers.”
Inspiring the Next Generation of Women
While Tsahalis says she didn’t understand the need to join women’s networking groups earlier in her career, she believes they can be of huge benefit to women because these groups offer an easy way to meet people, build your brand, contribute to a community and potentially even to find a mentor. She also encourages women to look to men as mentors to take advantage of the different perspective they can offer.
Tsahalis advises young women to have a vision for where they want to go and to reach out and build the relationships to get there. That’s an important topic for her as the mom of two daughters: Lily, age 11, and 18-month-old Violet. With a husband who’s also in IT, they focus on helping their daughters understand that they can aspire to any career.
“We spend a lot of time really encouraging them because we see the logical way their minds work to process information. Lily has become a very rational person as she applies logic and the principles of science to every decision – helping her to cut through the drama that can be associated with 6th grade girls.”
Tsahalis says that when she was growing up, she wasn’t aware of all the career options that were available and only landed in Electrical Engineering by accident. She is happy that girls now have so much opportunity presented to them through a wide variety of programs in their schools and communities.
In addition to taking advantage of women’s groups or other networking programs that may be available at school or work, Tsahalis also encourages all women to speak up for themselves and not to overthink their decisions. It is her experience that many women limit themselves just by not speaking up or trying something new. She believes that working hard, being confident in one’s skills, networking and supporting one’s peers are all keys to a successful career.