By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
Within Citi, enthusiasm and support continues to grow for a new program designed to develop and advance women leaders in Risk. Brian Leach, Head of Franchise Risk and Strategy at Citi and architect of the program, said he designed the “Women in Risk” program (WIR) to focus on developing key leadership attributes.
“We believe the essential attributes of a leader include decision making, building and maintaining a strong professional network and team, and a willingness to take intelligent risks,” he said. The multi-faceted one-year program provides visibility, training, career planning, and access to senior leadership within Risk and across Citi, pairing a carefully selected group of senior, high performing women with a sponsor from the Risk function’s executive committee.
Leach continued, “To be blunt, I expected success. But what I was pleasantly surprised to see was how many of the participants, in the first year, took on new jobs with increased responsibilities as a direct result of the access and the opportunities the program provided them.”
In fact, more than half of the participants moved onto bigger roles in their first year. He explained, “When you go through a program like this, if it is successful, you wind up with an incredibly confident group of people. And if you’re confident, you’re willing to take on new challenges. Once you have that mindset, when opportunities present themselves, I think a lot of things line up.”
Diana Lozano Zay, now a Director in Commercial Risk at Citi, was one of the participants in the program’s inaugural class. She summed it up, “While the WIR program helped me transition to New York, and provided a great sponsor, most importantly, it allowed me to join a virtuous cycle that leads to better opportunities.”
Zay continued, “Since participating, I have received new and increased responsibilities. I feel more confident and am more aware of the importance of ‘taking control of my career. Thus, I have become more vocal about what I want. Further, my managers became more aware of my potential. I feel this new opportunity is a direct result of the program.”
In just three years, the Women in Risk program has produced better prepared, more self-assured female leaders. Here’s how it works, what Citi has learned since the program launched, and advice on how to develop your own high potential sponsorship program.
Do Women Really Make Better Decisions than Men?
Managing ChangeAccording to a new study, companies would be foolish not to hire more women to their boards of directors. The reason, as the authors say, is that women are better at making complex decisions: “women simply have the capacity to make better directors and their presence on corporate boards has been linked to higher organisational performance.”
The research, published in the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics was based on the results of a test given to 624 board directors. The Defined Issues Test (or DIT) is used to measure three types of decision-making styles: personal interest, normative, and complex moral reasoning. Male directors were significantly more likely than women to make use of normative decision-making on the test. Female directors were significantly more likely than men to base their decisions on complex moral reasoning (CMR).
The authors, Chris Bart, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University and Gregory McQueen, School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, A.T. Stills University, believe, that in a board setting, this makes a big difference.
They write, “It is a superior form of reasoning which logically leads to the higher quality decision making reflected in higher rates of return and lower rates of bankruptcy. And our research shows that CMR is what separates the male and female director.”
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Best Practices: How One Corporate Sponsorship Program Creates More Confident Women Leaders
Mentors and SponsorsWithin Citi, enthusiasm and support continues to grow for a new program designed to develop and advance women leaders in Risk. Brian Leach, Head of Franchise Risk and Strategy at Citi and architect of the program, said he designed the “Women in Risk” program (WIR) to focus on developing key leadership attributes.
“We believe the essential attributes of a leader include decision making, building and maintaining a strong professional network and team, and a willingness to take intelligent risks,” he said. The multi-faceted one-year program provides visibility, training, career planning, and access to senior leadership within Risk and across Citi, pairing a carefully selected group of senior, high performing women with a sponsor from the Risk function’s executive committee.
Leach continued, “To be blunt, I expected success. But what I was pleasantly surprised to see was how many of the participants, in the first year, took on new jobs with increased responsibilities as a direct result of the access and the opportunities the program provided them.”
In fact, more than half of the participants moved onto bigger roles in their first year. He explained, “When you go through a program like this, if it is successful, you wind up with an incredibly confident group of people. And if you’re confident, you’re willing to take on new challenges. Once you have that mindset, when opportunities present themselves, I think a lot of things line up.”
Diana Lozano Zay, now a Director in Commercial Risk at Citi, was one of the participants in the program’s inaugural class. She summed it up, “While the WIR program helped me transition to New York, and provided a great sponsor, most importantly, it allowed me to join a virtuous cycle that leads to better opportunities.”
Zay continued, “Since participating, I have received new and increased responsibilities. I feel more confident and am more aware of the importance of ‘taking control of my career. Thus, I have become more vocal about what I want. Further, my managers became more aware of my potential. I feel this new opportunity is a direct result of the program.”
In just three years, the Women in Risk program has produced better prepared, more self-assured female leaders. Here’s how it works, what Citi has learned since the program launched, and advice on how to develop your own high potential sponsorship program.
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Why We’re Not Sure We Want to Be #1
Ask A Career Coach“I am a really good #2. I don’t want to be #1.”
“I really love the job I’m in and don’t want my boss’s job. It just seems too political.”
“I think I could do my boss’s job, but I don’t really want that much stress in my life right now.”
“My kids are young, I’m already working as hard as I can, I can’t really take on that stretch project.”
In March, I spent did a lot of speaking at conferences and connecting with women as part of Women’s History Month. As women approach me with questions, I’m struck by the ambivalence I see in many to pursue the top job. I understand. I actually wrote about why so many women drop out of corporate America. I was one of them.
For those who want to stay, I advise them to get clear (as hard as it is given the trade-offs) about work life priorities and stop being ambivalent. Ambivalence keeps us stuck. It zaps our energy. Here are the five mindsets I’ve observed that keep us stuck. Do any of these apply to you?
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New Study Shows Women are Increasingly Seeking Global MBAs
Back to School, PipelineThe world is becoming more connected, companies are becoming more global, and the workforce is more international. As a highly-motivated woman, you may have had the intuition that you need global experience and education to further advance your career. You see a need to manage culturally diverse teams and deliver growth in new markets. You’ve thought of going back to school either part- or full-time, but a business school in the United States just doesn’t seem quite enough.
The good news? You’re not alone in your thinking. Increasingly, women are recognizing and taking action on the desire to build an international network and enhance their business acumen and skills. You understand that we are all operating in a more global world.
“Business education is the single most effective investment you can make in one year to transform your career,” noted Wendy Alexander, associate dean, London Business School for Degree Programmes and Career Services. “But, if you want a global education, you need to come to a global school.”
Jointly, the London Business School and the Forté Foundation researched an emerging trend: North American women heading to Europe to study for and obtain their MBA degrees. These women, according to Alexander, have found “the X factor for the future: experience, expertise and cultural awareness.”
That is not to say those who chose this path did not already have successful careers. Most graduated from some of the best universities in the U.S. and embarked on finance or consulting careers. They, however, reached a point where they needed to take the next step to move forward.
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Census of UK Women Board Directors Reveals Seniority Differences
Managing ChangeEver since Lord Davies of Abersoch released his 2011 report on the shockingly low representation of women on UK boards of directors – 12.5 percent of FTSE 100 directors in 2010 – companies have ramped up their efforts to attract women to these posts. The report recommended that FTSE 100 boards work toward achieving 25 percent representation by 2015. Today about 17.3 percent of director positions are held by women in the FTSE 100 and about 13.2 percent of director positions in the FTSE 250 are held by women.
Initially, companies complained that there certainly weren’t enough qualified women to expand the percentage of women directors. But, a new survey [PDF] by the Ashton Partnership, an executive search firm, shows that boards have found plenty of women non executive directors by broadening their search parameters. Even still, if they are to meet the 25 percent goal in the next three years, they will have to ramp up their search for female directors even more.
According to report authors Nick Aitchison and Bibi Boas write, “In order to pinpoint the talent pool for the next wave of female FTSE 250 NED appointments, The Ashton Partnership set out to understand the earlier Executive career backgrounds of the 183 women appointed by the end of 2012 as NEDs on FTSE 250 Boards.”
Aitchison and Boas found two key differences in the men and women NEDs – and both of them point to the root of the issue. There are fewer women in the pool of executive roles from which NEDs are traditionally found. The result is that companies are looking at a more diverse field of talent for their directors, and given the state of group-think and rubber stamping of risky behavior that contributed to the recent economic crisis, that can’t be a bad thing.
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Working Dads are Feeling the Work/Life Squeeze Too
Work-LifeA few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Norway* to learn about the country’s innovative efforts toward gender equality. Norway had legislated that the boards of all publicly traded companies have to be 40 percent women. But that was only one side of the equation. If women were going to be empowered at work, the country reasoned, men would have to be more empowered at home.
Norway already offered lengthy paid parental leave (now 46 weeks at full pay) to be divvied up between new moms and dads, but when legislators realized that moms were taking the majority of the leave time, they created a period of parental leave reserved only for fathers – now ten weeks long. “Use it or lose it,” became the mantra – if dads don’t take paternity leave, they miss out, and moms can’t use that time in their stead. The law does two things. First of all, it ensures that fathers are taking on more of the heavy lifting at home after the birth of a child.
Secondarily, tn makes employers consider younger men and women the same way when hiring them – male and female applicants will likely be taking time off if they have children, so employers can’t cite looming maternity leave as a reason not to hire women.
The cultural change hasn’t been seamless, though – even in progressive Norway. During my trip, I met with a “daddy day-care circle” – a group of young dads on paternity leave. One of them talked about how he was offended when an older woman had stopped to straighten his child’s hat while he was taking a walk with the stroller, as if he, a man, couldn’t possibly have gotten it on right. Another talked about how his family didn’t approve of his taking time out of work to be with his child. A cab driver mentioned that his son was preparing to take time off work to spend with his new child, but he himself was glad his kids were grown up because spending time at home wasn’t interesting to him.
I was also asked repeatedly during the week what I thought American men would think of the “use it or lose it” paternity leave scheme. Most people responded with surprise when I said I thought they’d love being able to spend more time with their children – especially younger men of my own generation.
That brings us to the here and now. Pew recently released the results of a study on modern parenthood. Researchers found that fathers in the US are now more worried than mothers that they are not spending enough time with their kids. Almost half (46 percent) of dads say they think they should be spending more time at home. A quarter (23 percent) of moms said the same.
The Pew survey indicates that traditional gender roles are becoming increasingly blurred here in the US. It also indicates that many workplaces aren’t keeping up, and that matters for men and women.
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Does Being Goal-Driven Actually Drive Us Crazy?
Expert AnswersIf you’re on this site, I’m going to assume you’re driven. Me too. But as driven women, we tend to get wrapped up in things we want but don’t yet have.
The dream job… the higher salary… the better body… you name it.
So when we want something, but don’t have it – what are we supposed to do? Ah, yes. Set goals. Write it down. Check the box. Congratulate yourself if you get it done… and beat yourself up if you don’t.
This is the path of us girls who have business books on our desks and self-help books by our beds, i.e. remarkably accomplished on the outside but plagued by a nagging discontent that’s like an itch we can’t scratch.
So what happens next?
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Work Guilt: Letting Go of Doing It All
Work-Life“A person can only try hard and do their best. The goal is not perfection.”
–Leigh Steere, Co-founder, Managing People Better, LLC
Many executive women spend time at work feeling guilty about not being able to accomplish more. Yet with so much expected at the executive level, particularly in a down economy when companies are short-staffed, it’s virtually impossible for an executive to ever clear her to-do list, either in the office or at home.
For women raising families, the potential for guilt mounts exponentially. A study of 2,000 women commissioned by baby care company NUK found that 90 percent of working mothers feel guilty for a range of reasons, which include being too busy to give their children enough attention, working late or long hours, and going back to work after maternity leave.
Manhattan psychologist Dr. Joseph Cilona suggests that among the factors behind work-related guilt for women are a series of long-standing societal double-standards: women are still often expected to be the primary caretakers of children, attend to more than their share of household maintenance, and to look youthful and attractive in the bargain.
“Women are frequently judged when they fall short of unrealistic, impractical, and often unreachable standards,” says Cilona. “It’s no wonder that many women are experiencing burnout at an earlier age.”
So what’s the problem with guilt? If we feel a little guilty while we work or parent, is there any harm? According to Cilona, the answer is yes. “As a psychologist, when I think of guilt, I immediately think of an emotional cancer that can do serious damage to both the self and relationships,” he says. “Though debated by some, for me there is no sufficient evidence that guilt is a universal human emotion like joy, sadness, or even anger, which have recognizable facial and postural expressions across cultures. Guilt appears to have emerged out of cultural rather than biological determinants, all of which to me are utterly toxic.”
If there’s a secret to learning to recognize the toxicity of work guilt and release it, we all want to know what it is. Here are some strategies for women to consider.
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Thought Leaders: Lisa Agona, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Thought Leaders“But when I came and interviewed at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, I found it was anything but uninteresting,” she said. “The people were innovative – even ingenious. From a marketing standpoint, it was a place I could get my arms around and build transformation and new ideas into the business.” So she took the opportunity and made the move to Atlanta, unsure of what the outcome would be. That’s her first piece of advice on getting to the C-Suite – take risks.
“I was right. It was a risk that paid off. When I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to get to work.”
Agona, now Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, shared her advice for women on breaking into the C-Suite.
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What to Do If Your Flex Work Arrangement Gets Axed
Work-Life“We live in an age of advanced technology, which provides opportunities for more efficient and flexible modes of communicating and working. Eliminating policies such as a flexible work schedule diminishes our progressive advances, and most often negatively impacts women more than men, as women are predominately the primary caretakers and are in greater need of flex time.”
–Tammy Marzigliano, Partner, Outten Golden LLP
First it was Yahoo’s decision to cut work-from-home arrangements. Now Best Buy is following suit. In the current corporate climate, flex work opportunities — previously embraced by many HR departments as good for retention and smart for business—are under increased scrutiny as struggling companies look for ways to cut corners.
What this means for employees is that those with previous telecommuting arrangements may suddenly find themselves scrambling to rebalance their work-life arrangements if corporate flex policies change. To be prepared, it’s important to be proactive by exploring steps you can take if you find yourself with a new manager who’s anti-flex work, or if someone in the chain of command says you can’t work from home anymore.
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