Contributed by Liz O’Donnell, Author of HelloLadies.com
The theme of this year’s Simmons Leadership Conference, held in Boston last week, was “Passion & Profession,” and the program examined how passion fuels success. The Conference took place at Simmons College, home of the first and only MBA program in the US designed specifically for women.
Eileen McDargh, a speaker at this year’s event, helps individuals and organizations transform their careers, their lives and their businesses by connecting them with their passions. We had the opportunity to sit down with McDargh during the conference and examine how women can blend a productive career with a personal passion.
McDargh has first-hand experience. Thirty year ago she walked out of her public relations job and never looked back. “I just couldn’t write another press release,” she said. And she leapt at a time when she needed the money. She was confident, though, that if she followed her passion, she would land on her feet.
And she was right. Realizing, of course, that not all women can walk out on a steady paycheck to pursue a new idea, McDargh acknowledged, “Sometimes, it’s our job that supports our work.”
She encouraged women to pursue their passion, even if they aren’t totally clear on the outcome. “You don’t have to be crystal clear,” she says. “But you must be crystal on the intention.” And forget about achieving work/life balance.
Ambition and Motherhood: Can Women Have It All?
Work-LifeIn her 2007 book Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success, Sylvia Ann Hewlett explores the often “non linear” career paths women take because of the still constant tug of domestic responsibilities. According to Hewlett, women typically provide 75 percent of the housework and childcare, which makes it harder for them to cope with today’s extreme jobs.
“Thirty seven percent take an ‘off ramp’ at some point in their careers, voluntarily quitting their jobs for a short period of time. Another 30-plus percent take scenic routes and the consequences aren’t pretty: 50 percent of those seeking to return to mainstream jobs fail to find them and those taking an off-ramp lose 18 percent of their earnings power,” Hewlett wrote.
Presumably, these off-ramps are an attempt to raise children or manage other family responsibilities, with the goal of returning to the workplace. But as statistics show [PDF], there is often no workplace to return to. And for those who manage to return to their previous employer, many suffer what’s been called the mommy penalty. It is assumed their head is no longer in the game and they no longer care about their career as much as they did pre-child.
According to a new survey by the SFN Group, over half of working moms aren’t satisfied with their careers. Fifty-six percent of the 600 working mothers surveyed said they are not satisfied with their career and 62 percent said work/life balance is the most crucial aspect to their career happiness. The problem is that work/life balance is difficult to attain, so it comes as no surprise that 70 percent of the survey respondents report not having a flexible work arrangement.
Yet so many continue moving forward, hoping to successfully balance an exceptional career and a healthy family. Can ambition and motherhood go hand-in-hand; will one always suffer as the result of the other? Essentially it comes down to the one question that has been haunting working mothers since day one: Is it possible to have it all?
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Ask-A-Career-Coach: How to Stop Looking for Balance and Start Finding Your Focus
Ask A Career CoachThe way the media goes on about women “finding balance,” you’d think that Balance is a town in upstate New York. Just program it into your GPS and life will be perfect!
As if.
I hear it from my coaching clients every day: the workplace is more competitive than ever, and there is no reprieve in sight. These smart, ambitious women tell me: “I am required to deliver more and more, faster and faster, at both home and work. I feel pulled in every direction and never feel I’m doing anything well.” And that, dear reader, is the perfect formula for personal burnout and professional stagnation.
There is no such thing as “balance.” (And BTW, Prince Charming isn’t going to show up to save the day, either.) If you want to feel less stressed out and scattered, then you have to choose to harness and shape your energy. Let go of the female ego: trying to do it all, and doing it all perfectly. Instead, you have to focus, focus, focus.
That means committing to being present in every moment, wherever you are. That means being ruthless about your priorities. That means taking responsibility for how and where you direct your attention. Because more than ever, attention is the most precious gift we have to offer. Don’t squander it.
So, how do you find your focus?
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Lessons from the Simmons Leadership Conference
Industry Leaders, LeadershipThe theme of this year’s Simmons Leadership Conference, held in Boston last week, was “Passion & Profession,” and the program examined how passion fuels success. The Conference took place at Simmons College, home of the first and only MBA program in the US designed specifically for women.
Eileen McDargh, a speaker at this year’s event, helps individuals and organizations transform their careers, their lives and their businesses by connecting them with their passions. We had the opportunity to sit down with McDargh during the conference and examine how women can blend a productive career with a personal passion.
McDargh has first-hand experience. Thirty year ago she walked out of her public relations job and never looked back. “I just couldn’t write another press release,” she said. And she leapt at a time when she needed the money. She was confident, though, that if she followed her passion, she would land on her feet.
And she was right. Realizing, of course, that not all women can walk out on a steady paycheck to pursue a new idea, McDargh acknowledged, “Sometimes, it’s our job that supports our work.”
She encouraged women to pursue their passion, even if they aren’t totally clear on the outcome. “You don’t have to be crystal clear,” she says. “But you must be crystal on the intention.” And forget about achieving work/life balance.
Read more
Voice of Experience: Linda Albornoz, Vice President, B2B Payment Solutions, American Express Technologies
Voices of Experience“With the entry of new technologies, and the ability to be accessible 24/7, the challenges of work-life balance exist for everybody, not just women,” began Linda Albornoz, Vice President of B2B Payment Solutions within the American Express Technologies group.
She continued, “The key is for individuals to set priorities and have clear goals. Your own boundaries have to be clear. There will be high stress times that arise when you’re needed more at work, and during those times, you have to monitor stress and create checkpoints.”
“This is also one reason why building great teams is so important. It ensures you don’t have to work 24/7,” she explained.
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Found Your Own Networking Group – These Women Did
NetworkingOn The Glass Hammer, we discuss the importance of networking almost on a daily basis. While your company may provide networking events or you may belong to a professional organization that offers networking opportunities, when it comes to networking, it can be difficult to find the group that meets your needs or aligns with your personal interests.
The United Women in Business Foundation is a non-profit designed to encourage networking between women of different generations. The organization was originally founded by a group of George Washington University alumnae in December of 2009. The women, who had been part of a networking group as undergraduates, wanted to continue developing their careers, but couldn’t find quite what they were looking for. So they decided to found their own.
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5 Ways to Build Confidence at Work
Office PoliticsOut of all the potential hurdles women face in the workplace, surprisingly the biggest challenge can sometimes be a lack of self-confidence. According to a survey titled, “Ambition and Gender at Work” [PDF] published by the European Institute of Leadership and Management, “There is a strong link between managers’ confidence levels and ambition.” The study further cites that “individuals with high levels of personal confidence are more likely to have a very clear idea of their career path as well as greater expectations to ‘take on a management or leadership role,’ and have these expectations met.”
Given the direct correlation between confidence, ambition, and subsequent achievements for women in the workplace, how do we push through our uncertainty and begin to focus on our abilities and talents? Here are 5 tips to consider.
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Why Cross-Generational Networking Matters
NetworkingCurrently many young women on Wall Street don’t have senior women to reach out to and if they do, these women are too busy to be a mentor. Another theory, as uncomfortable as it may seem, is that senior women don’t feel it’s their job to help younger women coming up the ranks. After all, they defied the odds with little help, so why can’t younger women?
Many believe that women’s networks are the cure all for these problems, but cross-generational networking presents an all new set of problems.
Elisabeth Kelan, a lecturer in Work and Organizations in the Department of Management at King’s College London recently conducted a study that revealed how difficult it is to get young women involved in a company’s long-standing women’s network. “Younger women find it difficult to connect to women’s networks in the workplace, because they view these networks as something that belonged to their mother’s generation,” Kelan said. The irony is that when new women’s networks are started at companies, they’re often run by younger women, who experience difficulties getting senior women to become active in the group.
So, how can cross-generational networking be improved and what is the business value in networking between Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial women?
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Are You A Transformational Leader? Part 1
Ask A Career CoachAre you achieving success in your career but still feel like you are not making the impact you have the potential to make? Are you successful but not deeply fulfilled by the work you do?
McKinsey research from the Centered Leadership Project shows that, for women in particular, a key component of success is the ability to make a contribution. There are a lot of women I meet in my Executive Coaching practice who have a deep desire to succeed but also leave a legacy that is bigger than their achievements.
If you are one of these women, you have the potential to be a transformational leader in your organization. And you are deeply needed right now. As a transformational leader you see opportunity for impact all around you. Your goal is to help create great change and build and nurture great leaders. You want to engage and inspire rather than just form transactional relationships with others. As a transformational leader you are able to tap into the discretionary energy, the full creativity and potential within you and within the people around you.
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Firms Must Employ Transparency to Eliminate Hidden Bias against Female Leaders
Featured, Managing ChangeA new study by McKinsey has shattered the notion that women aren’t rising to the top in significant numbers because they don’t want to be leaders.
In fact, the report showed, women in middle management very much want to reach senior executive levels – even moreso than women in entry level corporate jobs. The study, “Unlocking the full potential of Women in the US Economy” showed that while 79% of women in entry level roles agreed or strongly agreed that they “desire[d] to move to the next level,” 83% of women in the middle management said the same.
While the report does discuss the fact that some women make lifestyle choices that keep them from attaining the highest ranks in their companies, it points out that this number of women is not sufficient to account for the significant lack of women in senior executive roles.
What the study does reveal, however, is that unconscious bias is hard at work – that managers (both male and female) have hidden beliefs about what a leader should look like. Thoughts about who should occupy a leadership position are keeping women down and pushing women out.
On the other hand, numbers don’t lie. Employing an earnest and transparent metrics-based method of culture change can reveal bias where it was hidden before. As Saadia Zahidi, Director, Head of Constituents, World Economic Forum, said at the Wall Street Journal’s recent Women in the Economy Conference, “You can look at it as naming and shaming, but it works.”
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Inside Executive Coaching: Why It Matters for Women
Industry Leaders, LeadershipExecutive coaching can be an effective tool for women looking to advance their careers, one that businesses can leverage as an investment in developing leaders.
Dale Kurow, an executive coach based in New York City, says clients seek her services for a variety of reasons. Some are looking to develop stronger skills politically due to a recent promotion, or to quickly strategize for a new, “stretch” assignment. Others are looking for fresh ways to resolve a problem, such as behavior patterns that hinder promotion or recognition, managerial difficulties, or a communication “style” that needs development, which Kurow says is often code for “a need to increase sensitivity towards others, or improve emotional intelligence.”
Still others seek coaching with a longer view, to achieve goals within their career path and reach the next level in their journey. Employers may refer an employee to an executive coach for these same reasons, or clients may find a coach independently. In each case, the coach partners with the client to objectively identify strengths and challenges, and becomes a strategic resource towards achieving the set objectives.
Kurow states that women may especially benefit from this partnership:
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