By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
In a New York Times opinion piece this weekend, Cambridge research fellow John Coates describes with compelling detail the way hormones influence the behavior of (male) traders. He writes, “[Testosterone] produced by men (and, in lesser quantities, by women) primes the trader for the challenge ahead, just as it does athletes preparing to compete and male animals to fight. Rising levels increase confidence and, crucially, appetite for risk.”
Considering the awe with which Coates narrates the effects of the chemical trio testosterone, adrenaline, and cortisol, you’d think he was channeling Sir David Attenborough. “Finally… the trader leans into his screen, pupils dilated, breathing rhythmic, muscles coiled, body and brain fused for impending action.”
Coates suggests that this biological interplay is so pronounced in younger men that it can drive markets to soar or crash.
His solution? More women. “Women and older men have a fraction of the testosterone of young men, so if more of them managed money, we could perhaps stabilize the markets,” he writes.
In Coates’ bleak description of the (male) trading mechanism, he envisions women as the brakes for a contraption spinning out of control. Calls for diversity are, of course, appreciated. But using women as a tool to gum up the works, rather than overhauling a system that overrewards risky behavior, seems more like a quick fix than a long-term solution. More seriously, it reduces individual humans to purposefully ill-fitting cogs in a corporate machine.
Would you want to work for a company that only hired you because it believes your biological construction is inherently ill-suited for the way its top performers make money?
Got Fear? Five Practices to go from Fears to Fierce
Expert AnswersDoes this situation sound familiar? You want to really go for that promotion but you don’t think you’re quite ready so you don’t raise your hand. You’ve been thinking about pursuing an entrepreneurial venture but are afraid of losing the steady paycheck so you don’t take the next step toward your dream. Your company offers you a challenging global assignment, but you’re not sure how you’ll navigate that so you say “No.” You want to really go after a big client but are afraid to ask for the business.
Our fears stop us from stepping outside our comfort zone, yet all growth toward our own highest potential lies outside of our comfort zone. What to do? Face your fears.
I got to know fear pretty well as I faced the prospect of giving up a 20-year career and steady paycheck to start my own business at the height of the recession. I can honestly say that a year and half into my business, I still have my fears (including moments of utter panic). Here are some leadership practices I pursue so that I can still have my fears but they no longer have me!
Here are the five leadership practices you can try:
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How the Perception Gap Slows Gender Equality
Office PoliticsAccording to a new study out of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, men and women view the gap between genders at the workplace very differently.
For example, based on a study of 925 professionals involved in talent development at top companies in the US, 57% of men said the number of women in senior management had increased in the past five years – compared with only 36% of women. Similarly, 53% of men said their companies were “extremely” or “moderately” effective at recruiting women, compared with only 33% of women.
When it came to retention of women, 73% of men said their organizations were “extremely” or “moderately” effective, and only 52% of women said the same.
In each case men were roughly 20% more positive than women regarding their firm’s efforts toward promoting, recruiting, and retaining female employees. This gap in perception reveals one way that men and women experience corporate life differently – and, it could be slowing women’s movement to the top.
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Get in Line: Negotiate for P&L Experience Now
Next LevelAccording to McKinsey’s latest report on advancing women in US companies, “Unlocking the Full Potential of Women at Work,” one of the most impactful career moves women can make is to move into a line role. You don’t have to stay there forever, but getting profit and loss experience throughout your career helps you showcase your competence and appetite for leadership – characteristics that will propel you to the top.
Based on a review of 60 large US corporations, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of surveys, the consulting firm sought to determine the top practices by which companies can retain women and promote them to the c-suite. Much of the work that will enable women to advance in greater numbers is institutional – gender supportive leadership, managerial accountability, carefully monitored metrics at every level. But there is room for individual strategy and growth as well.
Lareina Yee, co-author of the report with Joanna Barsh, explained, “One of the things we did was to interview 200 successful individual women, and distill their shared characteristics of success. One of them was line experience.”
How successful? According to Yee, “79% of women who were very successful and reached the upper echelons had line experience as a big part of her portfolio.”
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Sponsors See a $25K Pay Boost
NewsAccording to the latest research from Catalyst, sponsoring high potential employees comes along with significant benefits. In addition to developing key allies and demonstrating your own leadership capabilities, sponsoring a protégé is correlated with compensation growth.
How much? Catalyst says that during the 2008 to 2010 time period, sponsors received an additional $25,075.
Christine Silva, co-author of the report along with Sarah Dinolfo and Nancy M. Carter, explained, “We were really pleased that we had hard numbers showing that sponsorship is a win-win. When you pay it forward and develop others, you also get ahead further and faster.”
She added, “Not only that, but there’s a benefit to the organization when people help develop the next generation of leaders. So sponsorship really is a triple win.”
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Handling Direct Challenges to Your Authority
Expert AnswersIt was a quiet afternoon, as almost the entire team was out for an offsite retreat. It had been three months into my new job and I was left holding the fort. Then the phone rang. The CEO’s office wanted some analysis in an hour. Someone had to go and present the data. That someone had to be me!
But while the query was routine, the database was managed by an IT guy who had issues with female authority figures. Other women had warned me about him.
I requested the report from him and explained the urgency the best I could. The simple report should have taken ten minutes. Yet, after anxiously waiting for forty-five minutes and despite an email reminder, I still did not get it. Finally, I walked up to him and asked him to “please hurry it up as the meeting starts in fifteen minutes.” That’s when all Hell broke loose.
He yelled on top of his voice “You better wait. I will give it to you when it is done. You are not the boss, so stop behaving like one. I don’t care if it is urgent.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Everyone stopped to stare at me.
My stomach was in a knot, my mouth was dry, but I knew I could not let it go. Then with every ounce of courage I could muster, I amazed myself by telling him, “ Mr. Johnson, no one has, no one will and certainly not you, will ever talk to me like that.”
Then I walked out of the room trying not to reveal my shaken up demeanor. I somehow regained my composure in the restroom recognizing the timing of the presentation at hand. On my return, the room was still silent but the report was on my desk.
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Nature or Nurture: Diversity in the Financial Services
Featured, Managing ChangeIn a New York Times opinion piece this weekend, Cambridge research fellow John Coates describes with compelling detail the way hormones influence the behavior of (male) traders. He writes, “[Testosterone] produced by men (and, in lesser quantities, by women) primes the trader for the challenge ahead, just as it does athletes preparing to compete and male animals to fight. Rising levels increase confidence and, crucially, appetite for risk.”
Considering the awe with which Coates narrates the effects of the chemical trio testosterone, adrenaline, and cortisol, you’d think he was channeling Sir David Attenborough. “Finally… the trader leans into his screen, pupils dilated, breathing rhythmic, muscles coiled, body and brain fused for impending action.”
Coates suggests that this biological interplay is so pronounced in younger men that it can drive markets to soar or crash.
His solution? More women. “Women and older men have a fraction of the testosterone of young men, so if more of them managed money, we could perhaps stabilize the markets,” he writes.
In Coates’ bleak description of the (male) trading mechanism, he envisions women as the brakes for a contraption spinning out of control. Calls for diversity are, of course, appreciated. But using women as a tool to gum up the works, rather than overhauling a system that overrewards risky behavior, seems more like a quick fix than a long-term solution. More seriously, it reduces individual humans to purposefully ill-fitting cogs in a corporate machine.
Would you want to work for a company that only hired you because it believes your biological construction is inherently ill-suited for the way its top performers make money?
Read more
Voice of Experience: Lois Herzeca, Partner, Gibson Dunn
Voices of Experience“When I was in law school I fully intended to become a litigator,” began Lois Herzeca, Partner at Gibson Dunn.
After graduating cum laude from Boston University School of Law, Herzeca joined the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. through its Honors Program. Based on her experience working in the Antitrust Division, she decided to move into the private sector as a litigator, and took a position at Fried Frank in New York in antitrust litigation.
“Then I realized I was much more interested in corporate practice,” she explained. “I enjoyed the creativity in structuring deals and the strategic thinking involved in executing deals. I felt I could become a real advisor to clients.”
Eventually, Herzeca became a partner at Fried Frank, spending over twenty years with the firm. Then, three years ago, she moved to Gibson Dunn. “I felt a larger global practice created a better platform for my client base,” she explained. She is now a member of the firm’s Mergers and Acquisitions and Capital Markets Practice Groups, and she is co-chair of its Fashion, Retail, and Consumer Products Practice Group.
She says one of her proudest recent achievements was being named a Dealmaker of the Year for 2012 by The American Lawyer. “I’m honored to be among that group. There are relatively few women partners in law firms who work on contested M&A transactions,” she explained. Additionally, she continued, she is extremely proud to have been honored with her alma mater’s Alumni Pro Bono award in 2009 for her many pro bono activities.
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Movers and Shakers: Jean Balfour, Director, Bailey Balfour Consulting, Ltd.
Movers and Shakers“Dare to dream,” advised Jean Balfour, Director of Bailey Balfour Consulting. As an organizational development consultant and coach for executive women, Balfour has extensive experience working with women across many industries, and she said one of the key things she has learned from them is the importance of developing your aspirations.
“Dare to think big and dream big,” she continued. “And along with that, find a mentor and sponsor right from day one, who can help you achieve your dreams.”
She advised senior women to “really, really proactively support younger women, and encourage your male peers to mentor or sponsor young women as well, so they have as much support as they can get to move along in their careers.”
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Pride Month Primer: Being an Effective Ally and Champion for Gender Diversity
Featured, Men Who "Get It"“I’ve been involved with LGBT groups since 2002, and I first noticed the term ‘straight allies’ around 2004,” recalled John Henry Watson, Vice President at Citi. “I saw an ‘A’ at the end of LGBT and wondered what it meant, and when I found out, it seemed like a no-brainer.”
Now co-head of Citi’s LGBT network chapter in New York, Watson said one of the areas he focuses on is sustaining Citi’s ally program and keeping allies involved in the long term. “Straight allies are definitely a crucial component of a diversity strategy and they help to demonstrate and sustain a supportive, inclusive culture.”
In its report on straight allies [PDF], the UK group Stonewall explains how support from straight employees is critical in achieving inclusiveness in the workplace.
Watson believes, “If a straight ally goes through the effort to understand the issues that LGBT coworkers face, it’s not only energizing, but it can have a positive business impact.”
What can straight allies do to provide this critical support? Here are three ways straight allies can make a difference in workplace inclusiveness.
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Voice of Experience: Julia Hoggett, Head of Covered Bonds and FIG Flow Financing EMEA and Head of Short Term Fixed Income Origination EMEA, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Voices of ExperienceOne of the most important lessons Julia Hoggett learned early in her career was the importance of being herself. Now Head of Covered Bonds and FIG (Financial Institutions) Flow Financing EMEA and Head of Short Term Fixed Income Origination EMEA at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Hoggett explained, “Bringing your whole self to work can only help you advance.”
Early in her career, she hadn’t quite learned this lesson. “There was a sense that I needed to assume a professional face, both as a woman and as an investment banker. Luckily I learned that bringing the real me to the office made me better at my job.”
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