By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
In a recent New York Times article, Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland echoed recent comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a consistent characteristic of extremists around the world – they try to control women.
Freeland points to a new study out of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management that suggests cultural styles may be to blame.
Based on an analysis of 32 countries, the study’s authors, Rotman professors Soo Min Toh and Geoffrey Leonardelli, propose two different types of cultures – “tight” and “loose.” Loose cultures (like Hungary, New Zealand, and Ukraine) don’t have extreme norms and tolerate change and deviation from tradition well. On the other hand, tight cultures (like Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey) tend to have a strong reaction to anything that is different from what they consider traditional or normative – and in many cases this means female leadership.
Toh explained, “Cultural tightness can prevent the emergence of women leaders because tighter cultures may make a society’s people more resistant to changing the traditionally-held practice that placed men in leadership roles.”
But that’s only one piece of the puzzle, she explains. After all, as generally homogeneous and socially conformative, Norway is also considered a “tight” culture – and it is often at the forefront of gender equality action.
The difference is that Norway actively promotes gender equality as a cultural norm, where everyone from political and corporate leaders to individual citizens are expected to participate. It is a society keenly focused on egalitarianism.
Leonardelli continued, “But when it comes to the emergence of women leaders, cultural tightness can have an advantage too. Cultural tightness may also be a helpful instrument, because in societies where men and women are treated equally, tightness could more strongly implement and sustain practices that encourage the emergence of women leaders.”
The study suggests that workplace cultures can be influenced by the tight/loose dichotomy as well. How is culture change looked upon at your company? How about in your industry at large? Are women merely tolerated or are they celebrated as leaders?
Why Connecting to Your Purpose Makes You A Better Leader
Ask A Career CoachSteve Jobs’ said, “I want to put a ding in the Universe.” Albert Einstein said, “Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.” Two people with a clear sense of purpose who made great impact. I am personally convinced that purpose is what separates leaders from managers. Yet in our 24/7 work lives how many times do we stop to think about the one factor that makes all the difference in our leadership? Here are five reasons why our purpose is core to our leadership and some leadership practices to help you discover your purpose.
First, a true story. I was inspired to my purpose by a prostitute from Nepal. It was about 5 years ago and I was leading our company’s business in Mexico. I had just returned from a trip to our Switzerland headquarters where my team and I had been recognized as one of 10 in the organization (of 90,000 employees) for our business results. After the initial euphoria wore off, I found myself strangely disappointed. I expected to be happier and was not. It was then that I saw a documentary about child prostitution and trafficking between Nepal and the brothels in Bombay. The documentary went on to profile a young Nepali former prostitute who had created a half-way house on the border of Nepal and India to help others escape.
The power and sense of purpose that I sensed in this woman was something that had eluded me thus far in my 15+ year corporate career despite all the outward trappings of achievement and success. She had somehow figured out how to escape not just her pimps, but her small self, and instead found a bigger self in the work she was doing. Ironically, it was the discovery that achievement was not enough that set me off on a journey of discovery into my own purpose.
What is purpose? It’s the UNIQUE impact we are called to make for the benefit for others. Each one of us has a purpose and it is up to us to discover and bring it fully to our work and to our lives.
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Who’s Your Best Mentor?
Mentors and SponsorsMuch of the public buzz about mentorship centers on helping women find and secure a mentor. Less discussed is the topic of how to find the right mentor for you. There are a number of possible differentiators that might make a certain mentor the perfect match for your colleague, but a poor fit for you.
Qualities such as the mentor’s age, industry level, and personality all could play a role, as could your own variables in these departments. (Gender is a larger issue, which we explored in more depth in “Does Gender Matter When it Comes to Your Mentor?”) The question is, how do you know which differentiators are most important in your particular mentor match? Below, a number of women executives in the finance, legal, and tech industries, as well as workplace experts, offer their thoughts, strategies, and guidance to help you pinpoint your ideal mentor.
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Backlash: Are Women Really Getting Even?
Featured, Managing Change“How many of you are feeling this tsunami feeling… that things are changing?” asked applied futurist Faith Popcorn during her keynote talk at Catalyst’s 50th Anniversary conference last week. Popcorn gave examples like Time Magazine’s recent cover story “The Richer Sex,” which suggests that 40% of working wives now out-earn their husbands, and last summer’s much-talked about article in The Atlantic, “The End of Men.”
Articles like these point out that the majority of college graduates around the world are women or that girls tend to perform better in school than boys. They claim that it’s only a matter of time before women become the dominant gender at home and in the workplace. They imply that we are on the verge of a zero sum ascendency of women. Really?
This kind of dialogue shifts our focus away from the here and now, the present, when women still earn less money than men for doing the same job in every industry, when women are still only 3.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs, when women are still pushed out of the workforce and can’t get back in after having children, when women’s career dreams are still hampered by a societal belief that they are and should be less capable leaders than men.
The “end of men” rhetoric is aggressive and provocative. Rather than creating value, it sets us up for a fight with those who do not yet understand how inclusiveness can help companies and governments perform better, and will not agree with the urgent need address the issue. Or they simply don’t believe there is still an issue to address.
The “tsunami feeling” of change that Popcorn talked about is a great way to rally women, but without also acknowledging the headwinds we have to contend with, women will not be able to make much headway today – or, for that matter, tomorrow.
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Voice of Experience: Eliza McDougall, Partner, Bank Finance Practice, White & Case
Voices of ExperienceOriginally from Toronto, Eliza McDougall attended McGill University and then spent a year working in venture capital marketing. “I decided I needed to get further education and applied to both business and law school.” She enrolled in a joint JD/MBA program at the University of Toronto and, following a summer internship at Milbank,Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, she decided to go into law. McDougall spent the next five years working in their global project finance group. Subsequently, she moved into the leveraged finance group when the firm established it as a separate practice area and then moved to White & Case as counsel in 2010.
She became a partner in White & Case’s Bank Finance Practice on January 1st of this year.
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Catalyst Celebrates Milestones at 50th Anniversary Conference
Industry Leaders, LeadershipYesterday’s 2012 Catalyst Awards Conference was a celebration of landmark achievements. As Catalyst celebrated its 50th anniversary, the organization awarded its annual prize for diversity initiatives to two organizations: the food and facilities management services company Sodexo and Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s leading financial services company.
The two programs represented breakthroughs in diversity. Sodexo’s ROI driven diversity program has increased its number of women in leadership by 74%. Commonwealth has set the tone for diversity in Australia by being the first bank in the country to set targets for attracting, retaining, and promoting senior women.
The program also celebrated another kind of milestone. For the first time ever, two sisters have become Fortune 500 CEOs: Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications, and Denise Morrison, President and CEO of Campbell Soup Company. Together, they shared their work and family wisdom during the conference’s lunch panel.
What became clear throughout the event was the importance of leadership – how a dedicated and vocal commitment to diversity from the top can truly shape a company’s culture of inclusion.
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Are Female Leaders Tolerated or Celebrated in Your Company?
Industry Leaders, LeadershipIn a recent New York Times article, Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland echoed recent comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about a consistent characteristic of extremists around the world – they try to control women.
Freeland points to a new study out of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management that suggests cultural styles may be to blame.
Based on an analysis of 32 countries, the study’s authors, Rotman professors Soo Min Toh and Geoffrey Leonardelli, propose two different types of cultures – “tight” and “loose.” Loose cultures (like Hungary, New Zealand, and Ukraine) don’t have extreme norms and tolerate change and deviation from tradition well. On the other hand, tight cultures (like Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey) tend to have a strong reaction to anything that is different from what they consider traditional or normative – and in many cases this means female leadership.
Toh explained, “Cultural tightness can prevent the emergence of women leaders because tighter cultures may make a society’s people more resistant to changing the traditionally-held practice that placed men in leadership roles.”
But that’s only one piece of the puzzle, she explains. After all, as generally homogeneous and socially conformative, Norway is also considered a “tight” culture – and it is often at the forefront of gender equality action.
The difference is that Norway actively promotes gender equality as a cultural norm, where everyone from political and corporate leaders to individual citizens are expected to participate. It is a society keenly focused on egalitarianism.
Leonardelli continued, “But when it comes to the emergence of women leaders, cultural tightness can have an advantage too. Cultural tightness may also be a helpful instrument, because in societies where men and women are treated equally, tightness could more strongly implement and sustain practices that encourage the emergence of women leaders.”
The study suggests that workplace cultures can be influenced by the tight/loose dichotomy as well. How is culture change looked upon at your company? How about in your industry at large? Are women merely tolerated or are they celebrated as leaders?
Read more
Voice of Experience: Janet Adams, Head of Strategic Projects and Change Management for Group Regulatory Affairs, Royal Bank of Scotland
Voices of ExperienceOne of the major challenges women face in the financial services industry, said Janet Adams, Head of Strategic Projects and Change Management for Group Regulatory Affairs at RBS, is a shortage of female role models. “It can be daunting being in meeting after meeting where you are the only woman or there is a minority of women.”
“We have three new female non-executive directors at RBS, and our Chairman is actively committed to developing women in senior positions so we do have successful female role models,” she said. “I have been mentored by two of the more senior women here over the past five years and benefited greatly from this.”
It’s also incumbent on women to reach out to role models, she said. “You need to go out and find them and approach them.”
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Why Facebook’s IPO Matters to Women
Expert AnswersFebruary was a tough month for women. At a House committee hearing, a panel of five men expounded on religious liberty—in the context of President Obama’s compromise plan on insurance coverage for contraception. In Oklahoma, protesters rallied against Republican Senator Dan Newberry’s bill that would require a woman to hear the fetus’s heartbeat before a doctor could perform an abortion. Facebook announced a $5 billion IPO without a single woman on its board. But, unlike the House committee hearing, or the Oklahoma personhood bill, the public outcry against Facebook’s board was anemic.
A group of young women—two journalists, one paralegal, and a Rhodes Scholar—decided to do something about it. They wanted to use Facebook, not to topple Arab governments, but to create meaningful change in corporate America—change that has not occurred for years, despite the articles, conferences, and commitments to do better.
They could see no reason for Facebook not to expand its board to include women. Study upon study has shown that when boards include women, attendance at board meetings improves, audits occur more frequently, and equity—the shareholders’ investment in the company—grows.
Further, women on Facebook’s board could generate positive publicity for Facebook as a leader in corporate governance as it has been in so many other areas of our society.
In his Letter to Investors, CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to Facebook’s role in the Arab Spring, saying that the site should “empower people” to seek an alternative to the “monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date.” The young women wondered: Shouldn’t Facebook’s top management structure be less monolithic, too?
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Does Gender Matter When it Comes to Your Mentor?
Mentors and SponsorsOne of the most basic questions in the mentor-selection process is whether to be mentored by a man or a woman. When it comes to mentoring women, should the gender of mentor candidates be a consideration? The answer is not straightforward. While some experts and execs believe male mentors can offer the best resources to women, others feel that female mentors can offer better understanding of specific issues that mentees need to know. Still others feel that gender should not be a deciding factor for mentorship.
“I don’t think gender and age really matter,” says Christina Inge, who works in the technology industry. “I’ve had mentors in different fields of different genders. It’s about shared values more than anything.” Jessica Albon, who works with financial advisors, agrees: “I haven’t found gender to matter at all,” says Albon. “What’s mattered to me is someone’s perspective—how able are they to see the big picture? How able are they to put themselves in my shoes and extrapolate?”
On the other hand, Roy Cohen, author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide, says that gender is a real issue. “It is a practical matter,” says Cohen. “There are just not enough women in leadership positions, and like any community not all of them want to, or can, be mentors. For those who do, they tend to be burdened by requests from many, many women—too many. So that leaves men to pick up the slack.” Cohen notes that this has advantages as well, because the right men can open doors and influence other men. “Men tend to have historical relationships to tap that may be less available to their female colleagues—like membership in the old boy’s club.”
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How Do You Measure Work/Life Balance?
Work-LifeAccording to a recent study released by the Future of Children (a research collaboration between Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution), state programs intended to ease work/life balance challenges do not put undue strain on economies.
Taking a macro view of work/life issues, the study compares competitiveness and unemployment data from the International Labour Organization, the World Economic Forum, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other sources to determine if countries that offer safety net programs like paid parental leave or guaranteed time off for breast feeding were worse off economically.
And, it found, no – state programs designed to better facilitate work/life balance did not put extra stress on an economic system. The study said:
This is good news for people living in countries that guarantee these kinds of programs – the research shows that, even through the recession, these particular policies have not caused the most competitive economies to suffer. Perhaps this will encourage laggard states (we’re looking at you, US) to adopt policies that ensure families have better health and wellness opportunities. But in taking a macro look at work/life balance, the study doesn’t really cover the fact that childcare is only a small slice of the work/life pie.
Work/life balance (integration, effectiveness, fit, etc.) isn’t only about childcare, or elder care, or caretaking in general. It’s also about self-respect, mental and emotional health, physical health, productivity, and living the life you want to live – whether that means grabbing a 15-minute manicure in between board committee meetings, baking PTA cupcakes while on a call with the Beijing office, or spending the weekend hiking in the Adirondacks.
It’s personal. And that means work/life balance at the micro level is a much harder quality to measure.
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