By Robin Madell (San Francisco)
In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Heidi Miller, who was formerly head of the international business line at J.P. Morgan, recommended that women in finance get comfortable with asking for more.
In the article, Miller describes a time earlier in her career when she worked for Chemical Bank and learned firsthand the value of asking for what you want. After experiencing some frustrations in her position, she considered quitting. But before making a final decision, she practiced asking for a list of demands, and then presented this list to her manager. Her practice paid off when she received everything that she asked for—including the title of managing director and a bump in salary.
No matter what level of the organization you’ve currently reached, there are little ways that you can learn to improve your skills at requesting more of what you want and deserve in the workplace. To explore the best strategies, The Glass Hammer spoke with Carol Frohlinger, co-author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It.
Frohlinger, who is also a co-founder of Negotiating Women, explains that she wrote the book with co-author Lois Frankel because girls are socialized to be “nice,” and some women end up carrying those messages into life as adults, causing them to be reluctant to ask for what they deserve. (See “How to Navigate the Niceness Paradox, Part 1” and “Part 2.”)
“Girls are told they should be seen but not heard, should let others take the lead, and should put the needs of others’ first,” explains Frohlinger. “But it is also important to note that gender stereotypes are operative—and both men and women believe them. As a result, when women do ask, they can face backlash because the cultural expectation is that they won’t ask.”
Frohlinger emphasizes the importance of applying negotiation and communication principles and skills to one’s personal life, as well as to workplace situations. “I think this aspect has been neglected—and I firmly believe that one can’t be successful at work unless you negotiate for whatever you need at home,” she says.
The Wage Gap Explained
Money TalksSeveral years ago, I stepped into a career fair at my undergraduate university. As a 22-year old anthropology major, I had little direction regarding my future career. The first thing I noticed was that all of the other students were wearing suits and had fancy leather portfolios. Meanwhile, I had merely tucked in my shirt before wandering in from the cafeteria, which is where I had first noticed a flyer for the expo.
I felt like a fish out of water – but what happened next surprised me even more.
I was immediately approached by a recruiter from a global defense contractor, asking me what I thought I might want to do for my career. I responded, “I’m not sure… I think I want to do something that helps people.”
The recruiter chuckled, and said, “I think there’s a table of folks from Prince George County Schools over there.” He pointed me in the right direction and moved onto the next college senior.
Now, I’m not saying that I would have been a good recruit for the defense contractor. But I suspect a man in my position would have gotten a harder sell on the company (maybe something like how defense firms do plenty of good, providing security for people around the world), or at least a folder of information, possibly a magnet or lanyard. I got the brush-off instead, and the suggestion that I might prefer being a teacher.
My story illustrates a few of the ways subtle gender bias influences the careers women choose and are encouraged to choose. It also helps point out a lot about the subtle, sinister factors driving the wage gap. Women today make only 82 percent of what their male peers make one year out of college.
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Practice Makes Perfect: Little Ways to Ask for More
Next LevelIn a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Heidi Miller, who was formerly head of the international business line at J.P. Morgan, recommended that women in finance get comfortable with asking for more.
In the article, Miller describes a time earlier in her career when she worked for Chemical Bank and learned firsthand the value of asking for what you want. After experiencing some frustrations in her position, she considered quitting. But before making a final decision, she practiced asking for a list of demands, and then presented this list to her manager. Her practice paid off when she received everything that she asked for—including the title of managing director and a bump in salary.
No matter what level of the organization you’ve currently reached, there are little ways that you can learn to improve your skills at requesting more of what you want and deserve in the workplace. To explore the best strategies, The Glass Hammer spoke with Carol Frohlinger, co-author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It.
Frohlinger, who is also a co-founder of Negotiating Women, explains that she wrote the book with co-author Lois Frankel because girls are socialized to be “nice,” and some women end up carrying those messages into life as adults, causing them to be reluctant to ask for what they deserve. (See “How to Navigate the Niceness Paradox, Part 1” and “Part 2.”)
“Girls are told they should be seen but not heard, should let others take the lead, and should put the needs of others’ first,” explains Frohlinger. “But it is also important to note that gender stereotypes are operative—and both men and women believe them. As a result, when women do ask, they can face backlash because the cultural expectation is that they won’t ask.”
Frohlinger emphasizes the importance of applying negotiation and communication principles and skills to one’s personal life, as well as to workplace situations. “I think this aspect has been neglected—and I firmly believe that one can’t be successful at work unless you negotiate for whatever you need at home,” she says.
Read more
Five Easy Steps to Market Your Personal Brand
Ask A Career CoachIn these times when each of us is a knowledge worker and global economies are in turmoil, if we want to have greater control over our careers it’s critical that we define our personal brands. I often work with my executive coaching clients to help them create their personal leadership brand. They identify purpose, the strengths they bring, and their core values. The stumbling block that we come to often is “You mean I have to actually promote myself? That just feels so fake!”
For a lot of us, it’s easy to brag about others or fight for a cause we believe in. Promoting ourselves is tougher, so we don’t do it. Yet, having a great personal brand without marketing it is sort of like if Apple designed a great product and no one knew about it. Like product brands, personal brands create great value for us when we market them well. So here are five steps to market your personal brand, applying some of the principles I used as a former chief marketing officer.
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Perceived Macho Cultures Influence the Career Choices of Women MBAs
Next LevelA recent study suggests that women’s career choices are influenced by industry stereotypes – which could be the reason that women are less likely to enter fields like finance or consulting, which carry the perception of being male dominated.
The study is presented in the journal Organization Science. The researchers, Roxana Barbulescu, McGill University, and Matthew Bidwell, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, found that female MBAs are deterred from applying for jobs that they perceive as culturally unwelcoming. Women MBAs also believe they are less likely to receive an offer for finance or consulting jobs – but in reality, this was not the case. Companies in these industries were just as likely to offer jobs to the women who applied as they were to the men.
It is troubling that even highly educated, highly competitive women are avoiding these high paying jobs because they don’t identify with them culturally. And it’s equally troubling that these women anticipate they won’t get hired because of a perceived cultural gender gap.
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Ambition to Lead: Exercise Your Power
Next LevelOn this election day, Tiffany Dufu, President of The White House Project, has a message for women. “You are the most powerful change agent in your own journey. Exercise your power. Vote.”
Dufu’s words come as a reminder that the prevalence of women in leadership has not existed for long. Throughout history, there have indeed been notable women in positions of power – but they were rare. The era we live in is unlike any before, in terms of the power women can wield in the public space.
That’s not to say that women have, by any stretch of the imagination, attained equality of representation – either in politics or in business. This is a detriment to everyone – study after study has shown that a diverse group of people at the top produces a stronger result. Diverse groups reach conclusions that are at the same time more innovative and more considered.
“We need women leaders,” Dufu said. “We don’t have enough women in leadership in business or in politics. We have, in fact, people at the highest levels of business and politics who impact every single one of us. And until this group is truly a diversity of voices, the biggest crisis we have is a crisis of leadership.”
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Voice of Experience: Hanna Derry, Managing Director, Technology, Blackrock
Voices of Experience“Be visible,” advised Hanna Derry, Managing Director of Technology at Blackrock.
Derry, who is a COO for one of Blackrock’s global software development divisions, encouraged senior women in financial services technology to recognize their capability for leadership. By talking about their own story, she explained, women can illuminate new pathways for young people advancing their careers.
“Be a visible female leader to set an example for younger women – as well as younger men,” she said. “Be available to mentor so people can hear your story. People want to know your story.”
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Yes…Extroverts and Introverts Can Lead Brilliantly!
Expert AnswersThere is not one single way to lead. Don’t get me started. Nothing irritates me more than hearing from so-called experts that, in their boundless benevolence, they are bestowing on us mere mortals the five laws of management or seven rules of success or three indisputable truisms of leadership.
In reality, as you have already recognized, everyone is unique. Given this basic fact of human nature, how could there possibly be one set of rules on how to manage effectively? There can’t and there isn’t.
The singular method towards being a stellar manager is by channeling yourself.
Yet, many of us expend much time and energy telling ourselves what we should do to be a successful manager. The root of this buzz-kill is the false, damaging belief that we inherently lack some secret management juice that enables ‘real’ leaders to charismatically inspire the masses to do their bidding. Do yourself a favor. Notice when you think to yourself that you ‘should’ engage in some behavior to lead effectively. Replace the ‘should’ with a ‘shouldn’t.’ Because when you work too hard to convince yourself you should do something to succeed, it almost always means you shouldn’t. The key to being the best manager you can possibly be working with – rather than fighting against – your natural strengths.
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Empowering the World’s Women Would Fuel Economic Growth
Featured, Managing ChangeLast week, the World Economic Forum released its Global Gender Gap report for 2012. As usual, Nordic countries dominated the top of the index, which ranks countries on how close they are to minimizing the gap between male and female equality.
In the report, the WEF also highlights a large group of countries, like Japan, Quatar, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, that have made investments in women’s health and education, but have not removed barriers to women’s participation in the workforce. The study authors, Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard University; Laura D. Tyson, University of California, Berkeley; and Saadia Zahidi, World Economic Forum, believe that by removing the barriers to women’s workforce participation in these countries, the global economy would grow significantly.
Focusing on women’s health and education are only two steps toward equality. Empowering the world’s women at work would fuel economic growth in their own countries and around the globe.
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Do We ‘Think Crisis—Think Female’?
Managing ChangeErin Callan, Zoe Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Patrica Russo: these are the names of women who have been put forth as victims of the notorious glass cliff in the recent past.
The glass cliff, it has been theorized, is when women take on the mantle of leadership during a time of crisis. The position is highly visible and comes with a lot of potential power – but the risk of failure is high; so high in fact, that the board or management committee decides it’s time to try something completely new and different to try and get it right: put a woman in charge.
Often the person peering over this glass precipice is charged with an impossible task, lacks the resources or training to overcome the challenge, or is simply scapegoated for circumstances beyond their control. That’s why it’s called a glass cliff – it’s a gender-based assignment at a very high level, for which failure is eminent.
Glass cliff skeptics suggest that women in such situation select these roles for themselves – if they fail, it’s their own fault and gender bias has nothing to do with it, they argue. On the other side of the coin, the glass cliff theory runs a dangerous risk of treating women as passive puppets – assuming they had no choice or agency in taking on the task.
A new study in the journal Psychological Science refutes both claims – and examines how women and men judge perilous jobs differently, while at the same time corporate management may have a role to play in the unusually high ratio of women to men in these risky roles.
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Is the Law Firm Leadership Track Fair?
PipelineThe National Association of Women Lawyers and the NAWL Foundation have released [PDF] their 7th annual report on women in top law firms, and the numbers are similar to what we have seen before. Too similar, in fact. The percentage of women equity partners is only barely 15 percent and the number of women non-equity partners is only 26 percent. Similarly, women only hold 20 percent of governance committee roles, and only four percent of firms have a female managing partner.
“We are disappointed that women lawyers are still not reaching the highest levels of big firm practice or leadership in significant numbers,” said NAWL President Beth Kaufman, Partner at Schoeman Updike & Kaufman LLP in New York.
The study polled AmLaw 200 firms to examine the differences in pay and promotion between men and women lawyers. And, in fact, women are earning less than men at every level, with the biggest gap at the equity partner level (89 percent). NAWL identified that one potential reason for the discrepancies between men and women concerning pay and promotion may be the pipeline and a rigid structure of advancement at many law firms.
In a profession where rapid advancement up a tightly-defined ladder is the standard path to prestige, women are often pushed out of leadership. “The Survey has repeatedly found that law firm structure has important effects on women’s career paths,” said Barbara Flom, author of the report and Secretary of The NAWL Foundation.
Flom believes that by changing the rules of the advancement system (or rather, creating more paths to success within the system), women would benefit significantly. And so would firms, which would reap the rewards of greater leadership diversity.
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