By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
Why do companies need women in leadership? According to a new book by Sally Helgesen, Writer and Leadership Development Consultant, and Julie Johnson, Executive Leadership Coach, women bring a different kind of vision to leadership than men. The book, The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, reveals that women are privileged to a “broad scale notice” style of leadership, while men display a more pointed focus.
While it may at first seem like a ’90s style Men are from Mars Women are from Venus approach to gender diversity, as Johnson pointed out yesterday at a National Council for Research on Women event, the book is based on neuroscience, examining the differences between male and female brains, as well as interviews and surveys with thousands of individuals.
Helgesen explained, “Women tend to focus in a broader way. Our attention operates like radar,” taking into account context and nuance. “Men display a laser-like focus on one thing,” she added.
Kerrie Peraino, Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer at American Express, opened the event, explaining Helgesen and Johnson “are onto something. This is cutting edge work.” Peraino said that Amex is working to position itself as a “gender intelligent organization.”
She explained that means playing to “the competitive advantage that is created when you bring both brains to work. Not only is it a nice thing to do, but really is about creating the competitive advantage.”
Move over Time Management: Increasing Your Power, Effectiveness, and Fulfillment with Choice Management
Expert AnswersLife is busy. Perhaps that’s a huge understatement. For many, life is moving at a very fast pace and it has become a never ending to do list. You have careers and personal lives and no matter how much you do each day, it is often hard to feel like you are ever getting ahead. So how do you try to solve this problem? By better managing time.
You may attend time management seminars, buy time management calendar systems, or endlessly play with your outlook schedule in search of more time. But in truth, time is finite. There are only 24 hours in a day and 168 in a week. Time actually can’t be managed, as hard as we may try. Sure there are times when you get a lot done but you may feel as if you are on treadmill with no way to get off. You are moving fast but not feeling inspired or fulfilled by your accomplishments Bottom line, you may feel like you hardly have enough time to manage all of you roles and responsibilities let alone contemplate how you can be more fulfilled and inspired. Given this reality and how much is on your never ending, ever growing to-do list, what are your options? How you can stop trying to manage time? How can you find a way to be more powerful and effective in the face of everything you juggle and end the day with sense of fulfillment and purpose? You can begin managing your choices – instead of focusing on time.
Choice management is fundamentally about consciously choosing how you direct your energy, what actions you take in life, and what you agreements you make. At the heart of choice management is awareness of your values and what matters most in your life. It is about having a vision for your life and what you want it to look like. So instead of managing time, you start to manage the choices you make so they are in greater alignment with your vision and values. For example, if you are clear that you highly value family, then each night at dinner you have the opportunity to choose family. You can put your Blackberry away and allow yourself to be present and enjoy each and every person at the dinner table. At work, if you value collaboration, you can pick up the phone and have a conversation, rather than perpetuating an endless round of emails to resolve an issue.
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Ask-a-Career-Coach: How to Get Pulled to the Top
Ask A Career CoachHR pros have a saying: “You don’t push yourself to the top, you get pulled there.” Which begs the question: Whose hand is reaching out to give you a lift?
If the names aren’t leaping from your lips, then it’s time to take action. You need to assess, plan, and implement a strategy that will build your cadre of helping hands. Here are two strategic options to get you going:
The first strategy, recommended by Catalyst (a nonprofit membership organization working to expand opportunities for women and business), takes a singular approach: find a sponsor. In “Be Somebody—Get Sponsored,” Catalyst president and CEO Ilene H. Lang explains that a sponsor is a mentor with a difference: she actively advocates for your advancement.
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Women in Charge: The Next Critical Step for Work/Life Progress
Work-LifeThis weekend saw the release of another study revealing the value of women in leadership roles. The study, by researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College, showed that the inclusion of women in a group can increase its effectiveness in decision making.
The crux of the study – that more women equals better decision making – was a surprise to researchers, who said they did not set out to study gender, but rather what they have termed “collective intelligence.” The more collaborative a group was in the decision making process, the better its decisions turned out to be – a result of “social sensitivity,” or how well group members understood each others’ feelings.
According to the researchers, the women in the study showed higher levels of social sensitivity – and groups with more women tended to do perform better. The researchers even went to so far as to say that their study would have implications in the business world.
This is pretty convincing work. But what effect will one more study really have on increasing the tiny percentage of leadership positions held by women? So far, similar research hasn’t exactly caused a sea change in leadership diversity. What’s missing?
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Culture, Law, or Corporate Policy: What Change Comes First?
Office PoliticsBringing gender parity in the office requires an effort across multiple facets of corporate life. There needs to be legislative efforts to ensure women can compete on a level playing field at the most basic level. There needs to be adequate corporate policies to promote an environment where women want to work and can be successful working. And finally there needs to be a cultural acceptance of the value that working women bring to the wider society.
All three are needed to bring gender parity into the office, and all three build upon one another. As individuals, it can be hard to work out how we can make a difference and in particular which of these three should take our focus first. The Glass Hammer spoke to 4 women to find out what they thought about these three elements, and where we should be start.
You can’t change corporate policy, so work around it
“We need all three of those things but ultimately it is up to women to master the art of negotiating to get what they want and need in corporate America,” says Lee E. Miller, a former Fortune 1000 head of HR and co-author, with her daughter Jessica, of A Woman’s Guide to Successful Negotiating. She believes that women need to realise that they can’t influence corporate policy as individuals. “The corporate culture is the corporate culture. Until they become a C-level executive there is precious little anyone can do. Trying to do so will likely result in some superficial changes to make it look like the issue is being addressed. Unless executives in the C-suite see the issue as a bottom line business issue nothing significant will happen.”
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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up
NewsWhile US investors focused on the prospects of more quantitative easing (QE2), in Europe attention remained fixed on sovereign debt concerns and fiscal austerity. Ireland was the centre of unwelcome attention, as credit rating agencies lowered their ratings of Irish banks and the potential cost of bailing out the banks rose to 50 billion Euro, which would increase the budget deficit to around 32% of GDP.
Economic Backdrop
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What Does Being Your ‘Authentic Self’ Really Mean?
Office PoliticsUnless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are you’ve heard the buzz phrase “authentic self.” From diversity efforts and communication, to making those in the LGBT community feel more at ease in the workplace, this phrase du jour has come to encompass everything under the sun, especially as it relates to women in the business world. At this point, what does the “your authentic self” even mean?
Many motivational speakers would have us believe that tapping into our authentic selves is as simple as having an understanding of who we want to be and doing what we truly want. In other words, we just have to be ourselves and the rest will fall in place, but is it that simple?
In a recent column, Marcia Reynolds, author of the book Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction, discussed many of the questions that arise when women begin seeking out their authentic selves. “Women should be real, but what does this mean, really?” Reynolds wrote. “If you adapt to a situation so your ideas will be heard, are you being inauthentic? If you refrain from telling people details of your personal life, are you living a lie? If you are learning new skills but feel awkward when trying them out, are you being a fake? Or are you being an authentic human trying to fit into various social situations?”
How should women go about tackling these difficult questions? After speaking to women from around the country, it became clear that there is no singular path; one size does not fit all.
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On Our Radar – Why Female Vision is Critical at the Top
Industry Leaders, LeadershipWhy do companies need women in leadership? According to a new book by Sally Helgesen, Writer and Leadership Development Consultant, and Julie Johnson, Executive Leadership Coach, women bring a different kind of vision to leadership than men. The book, The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, reveals that women are privileged to a “broad scale notice” style of leadership, while men display a more pointed focus.
While it may at first seem like a ’90s style Men are from Mars Women are from Venus approach to gender diversity, as Johnson pointed out yesterday at a National Council for Research on Women event, the book is based on neuroscience, examining the differences between male and female brains, as well as interviews and surveys with thousands of individuals.
Helgesen explained, “Women tend to focus in a broader way. Our attention operates like radar,” taking into account context and nuance. “Men display a laser-like focus on one thing,” she added.
Kerrie Peraino, Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer at American Express, opened the event, explaining Helgesen and Johnson “are onto something. This is cutting edge work.” Peraino said that Amex is working to position itself as a “gender intelligent organization.”
She explained that means playing to “the competitive advantage that is created when you bring both brains to work. Not only is it a nice thing to do, but really is about creating the competitive advantage.”
Read more
5 Ways to Engage Men in Gender Diversity Initiatives
Managing ChangeGender equality is still an issue at work, but it is not a women’s issue. Gender initiatives have traditionally focused on improving women’s participation in the workplace, but recently (in sociological terms, anyway) there has been a shift towards making ‘gender’ a gender-neutral problem.
We need men to be part of the conversation on diversity. “The preponderance of men in leadership means their efforts are necessary to advance change in the workplace,” says Ilene H. Lang, President & Chief Executive Officer of Catalyst, a nonprofit membership organisation working globally to build inclusive workplaces and expand opportunities for women and business. “Research continues to show that diversity well-managed yields more innovation and is tied to enhanced financial performance – factors good for all employees.”
While it’s great news that the human resources professionals are creating a sense of inclusiveness, that hasn’t quite filtered down to the Average Joe in the office. Or the Senior Joe, for that matter. There are many men who ‘get it’ but there are still plenty who don’t. So how do you bring men onboard with gender initiatives, and start tackling this issue together?
1. Help men recognise that gender bias exists
“Before individuals can support a change initiative, they must first be convinced that there is something wrong with the status quo,” write Jeanine Prime and Corinne A. Moss-Racusin in their report for Catalyst, Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives: What Change Agents Need To Know. “For men to get behind their organisations’ gender initiatives they must first be persuaded that there is problematic gender bias in the workplace.” The research that Prime and Moss-Racusin carried out for their report shows that the higher men’s awareness of gender bias, the more likely men are to feel that achieving gender equality is important. The more aware the men in your workplace are, the more likely it is that they will support gender initiatives.
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Sponsors Needed: Leveling the Playing Field for Women
Mentors and SponsorsA recent Harvard Business Review article, “Why Men Still Get More Promotions than Women,” reports on some of the challenges emerging women face in mentoring programs. It points out the difference between mentoring and sponsoring and says that men are better at finding career-building mentors than women.
Lauren Stiller Rikleen is the Executive Director at the Bowditch Institute for Women’s Success, which is an organization that helps businesses attract and retain female professionals. She stated that the article confirmed what has long been considered true – that informal relationships can be a source of dedicated commitment to help you succeed. She also distinguished the difference between sponsor and mentor relationships.
“Sponsorship is defined as the active engagement in someone else’s career development,” said Rikleen. “The mentor guides more, answers questions and is a shoulder for someone. Sponsorship is a more active form of mentorship.”
Rikleen explained that women need to get comfortable with seeking people out in a variety of ways.
“Women tend to be focused on the task at hand in the workplace while men focus on relationship building,” said Rikleen. “Women need to think more strategically about establishing relationships that will help them achieve that next level in their career.”
She also said that men are more comfortable at weaving their social and work relationships together to build on each other. In comparison, women compartmentalize and separate their social and work contacts.
“Think more holistically about all of your relationships,” she said. “You can be at a parent/teacher conference and sitting next to someone that runs a company.”
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Why Men Matter in the Work/Life Debate
Work-LifeAccording to author and UC Hastings College of Law professor Joan Williams, the strongest form of discrimination in the workplace is against mothers. However, Williams goes on to assert that to shift this problem, national dialogue needs to move away from a maternal focus and address paternal responsibilities as well.
At a recent event organized by A Better Balance at Columbia Law School, Williams discussed material from her latest book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Williams argues that the conflict needs to be addressed not just from a mother’s perspective but from a father’s point of view as well. While the evidence against mothers in the workplace is overwhelming (according to Williams, moms are 79% less likely to get hired and when they are employed they earn $11,000 less than average), fathers face a unique set of problems and issues that must be taken into account if the work-life debate is going to be addressed.
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