Tag Archive for: Leader

Voice of Experience: Laure Châtillon, Partner and Diversity Leader, PwC France

oice of Experience: Laure Châtillon, Partner and Diversity Leader, PwC FranceThere is a famous book by the French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau called Choisissez Tout (Choose Everything), where she underscores that women don’t have to make sacrifices. There is no standard in life: You don’t have to be ambitious or start a family, but you have to try before giving up. That has been an important theme in Laure Châtillon’s career, as she believes that anything is possible if you do it your own way.
“Early in my career, I had talked with women who said I was a dreamer to imagine that I could have a fulfilling career as well as several kids even if I already knew it was possible,” she says, citing her current reality as a partner at PwC France and a mother to four children. “I would love to talk with them and tell them how my husband and I made it work,” she says.
Building a Fulfilling Career
That quest to have it all began when Châtillon was attending a French management school and joined PwC France as an intern. After her last year of school she decided to start her career there, joining the valuation team where she valued intangible assets and companies. Except a short time in the leveraged finance division of Royal Bank of Scotland, she spent almost her entire career at PwC France. “I had my four kids within PwC, and it has never been an issue for my bosses,” she says.
She was promoted to partner in 2017. “We are transforming business, and we know that business is different every day so I enjoy the constant challenge,” she says. Additionally, she was asked to take on the diversity and inclusion subset within PwC France, a new role that has offered an exciting complement to her position as partner in valuation.
A Focus on Diversity
Diversity is a focus Châtillon has always had. “It’s not just a matter of philanthropy; our societies are more and more diverse and we really have to be more inclusive if we want to stay up-to-date.”
Although companies are increasingly finding that a robust focus on diversity is vital to retain talent, better meet client needs and foster innovation, there is still much to do. Châtillon feels that one way to encourage diversity is to become an active sponsor, as building a group of supportive women will help to retain more in top management levels. Sometimes it can feel like an uphill battle, she says, as she herself has seen many women who attended school with her choose to downshift their careers. “Stereotypes don’t come from men only,” she notes.
Of course, the ability to juggle work and family is never easy. “The most significant challenge is time, but you learn to find space in your agenda for what matters and then couple that with the trust you can build on your teams,” she says.
Furthermore, there is not just one path to success. “Define it for yourself and find your own path to get there,” she says. “Never be afraid to think outside the box and do things differently, more innovatively.”
One of her most recent accomplishments as diversity leader was starting a women’s incubator with soft skills workshops and a mentoring program, along with inspiring events such as hosting speakers like the French Minister of Equality. Châtillon also launched an initiative for gay, lesbians and everyone else, with the hope that it will ease inclusion for everyone working in the company. Lastly, she started different initiatives to attract more people from different backgrounds within the company, with the purpose of being more representative of the society as a whole.
Châtillon’s ability to prioritize and juggle has led to her fulfilling career. “My proudest accomplishment is that I’ve been able to share my enthusiasm for our industry with my clients and team, and still balance a busy family,” she says.

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Why We Must Bring Mindfulness To Leadership

thought-leadership

By Aimee Hansen

Leadership today is not crying out for people who are destined to be great. It’s crying out for people who are dedicated to being present.

We don’t need bigger beacons to admire at the top, but human beings who can connect and be here now.

According to Gallup, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work. Forbes found that more employees (65%) would rather see their bosses fired than receive a raise. Research reveals a massive chasm between leaders’ self-perception and how their employees see them. One McKinsey study found that 86% of leaders rated themselves as inspiring, but a Gallup survey found 82% of employees see their leaders as uninspiring.

“Around three years ago, we started to see more and more leaders today being overwhelmed, being always on, not being able to keep up,” says Jacqueline Carter, partner and North American Director of Potential Project and co-author of “The Mind of the Leader – How to Lead Yourself, Your People and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results.

“This is equally evidenced by research that shows what we’re calling ‘a real crisis in leadership,” says Carter. In partnership with HBR press, her organization conducted interviews with 250 C-suite executive interviews, assessed 35,000 leaders and reviewed previous studies.

Leadership Begins in the Mind, and With You

“An unmindful leader is someone who is distracted all the time, who has a hard time getting things done, probably not very calm, maybe stressed,” says Carter. Mindfulness develops the ability to say: “Okay, no matter how chaotic it is out there in the external reality, I can maintain a sense of focus and of discipline and of calm in my internal reality.”

But most leaders don’t feel that way.

“The Mind of the Leader” research found that 73% of leaders feel unmindful most of the time and 67% of leaders feel their minds are simply cluttered. Attention itself has been touted as the world’s scarcest resource in the book, “The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business.”

“If we don’t have the ability to understand and lead our own mind, we’re certainly not able to be effective for ourselves,” notes Carter, let alone able to understand our people or the “collective minds of the organization” so that we may lead effectively.

Three Steps to Start Your Own Mindfulness Practice

1) Start a 10 minute guided practice with this app: Research shows that after 14 days, 10 minutes a day, you can actually see the impact of feeling a little more focused, more calm, more clear-minded.

2) Take stock of distractions: Carter advises to take stock of what keeps you from being focused (eg phone on in meetings). Minimize the amount of habits that distract you and create scattered feelings, tension or stress to increase your focus.

3) Stop the multi-tasking: According to Carter, multi-tasking is a myth (the brain conclusively shows we can’t give real attention to two things at once, we just flit between). We can reduce our stress levels by not scattering our attention.

When it Comes to Effectiveness, Mindfulness is a No-Brainer

Mindfulness practice cultivates self-awareness, which is a foundation of good leadership. Mindfulness has been associated with benefits such as enhanced focus and better task performance, enhanced work-life balance, more creativity and innovation, better decision making and problem-solving, more ethical decision making, increased job satisfaction, fewer sick days and more retention.

On a personal level, mindfulness can bring better sleep, enhanced attention, decreased stress, reduced cellular aging, increased emotional intelligence, and also benefits for the immune system, brain, heart and blood pressure.

What is also required, according to Carter, “is not letting our egoistic tendencies drive our behaviors” while “bringing more compassion and kindness into our work places, for strategic reasons, not just because it sounds like a nice idea.”

Why Leaders Need to Watch Their Ego

The research found that when we rise in leadership, it’s incredibly difficult not to develop a big ego. Leaders are listened to, surrounding with people who praise them, paid more and maybe have the fancy corner office.

“There’s all these subtle things that tell the brain, basically, you’re important,” says Carter. “And ego naturally grows.” So, rising into leadership has a tendency towards corrupting our behavior to be ego-driven.

For example, Carter points out, “One of the things about having a big ego is that we’re more susceptible to confirmation bias. We want to see things through the lens of the way we want to see things.”

Mindfulness practice is a way of training your mind to break unconscious biases, to affect how you relate and respond – to stay open, fluid and and respond rather than react.

“We know that we are emotional beings as opposed to rational beings. Too many programs that focus on unconscious bias appeal to our rational approach: ‘Okay, I understand diversity is good’. But we also understand that doesn’t change our behaviors,” asserts Carter. “If we all knew the right thing to do and that enabled us to do it, we’d all be exercising, we’d all be eating well.”

“It’s the same thing with unconscious bias,” says Carter. “The motivation needs to be there, which is the awareness piece, but we also need to train ourselves to be able to overcome those biases that are so unconscious they’re much more difficult to tap into.”

Mindfulness Cultivates Presence and Self-Care

“When somebody is more centered and more grounded (not about being arrogant) but has a strong sense of themselves, you feel that, and you respect them more,” says Carter. “It’s easier for people to listen to those people, because they draw people in.”

The more we cultivate presence, according to Carter, the more we can overcome the cultural addiction to action. More presence means less hustle.

“Being more mindful enables you to set more boundaries, and that was true for all the leaders we spoke to, but certainly the female senior leaders…” says Carter. “It’s a combination of being able to be mindful about what you can do and what you can’t do, and be okay with the fact that you may let people down, but you need to be able to take care of yourself.”

Presence helps us discern what is necessary, what we can put our focus on effectively, and what we can accept and release from our control.

“In our research, it was amazing to see how basically the higher you got in an organization, the higher the level of the executives, they all took time to exercise, they slept well, even despite ridiculous travel schedules and ridiculous scopes of jobs,” says Carter. “It was really clear that if you don’t start taking good care of yourself and setting good boundaries and saying no at an earlier level of your leadership journey, you’re gonna burn out.”

“Presence Pays”

Research shows a direct correlation between a leaders’ mindfulness and the well-being and performance of their people.

“Human beings know when people aren’t present with us,” says Carter. It’s un-motivating, inefficient and costly.

“When you look at how distracted people are, at turnover rates, lack of engagement, you can make a pretty strong business case that being present with people, being kind to people, being about others not about ourselves, it’s not just nice to have,” said Carter. “It’s pretty critical to be successful in business today…we look at it as ‘presence pays’.”

“What we’ve found in our experience of training people to be more present is it actually saves time because if I know that I’m heard, I’ll stop talking. My message got across,” says Carter. When we don’t feel heard, we’ll keep trying to be – we’ll keep on talking.

Presence can be as simple as sticking around for a real answer to “how are you?”. On the contrary, “if you go to a meeting, and half the people are on their devices, you should just get up and leave. Seriously,” says Carter. “You’re wasting your time because of lack of presence.”

Presence, paired with compassion, creates a sense of meaningfulness and connection, and that matters when in inspiring others and earning their trust. Research has shown that a lack of trust ultimately erodes performance and the bottom line.

“We are wired to want to fit in and want to feel valued. And when feel heard, when we feel like we matter, and when we then are able to connect with other human beings, it enables collaboration, it enables the right conversations to happen, including tough conversations,” says Carter. “If I give you feedback and I’m distracted, that’s gonna be horrible for you. But if I give you feedback because I really care about you and I really want you to get this didn’t work out well, you can completely receive that. It’s the power of presence to be able to have both tough conversations as well as nice, engaging moments of meeting effectiveness.”

The Lone Leadership Ideal Is Dead

“What has been an iconic idea for a long time of a single, solitary leader – the great leader theory – is really dead.” says Carter. “The pace of change that all of us are experiencing regardless of what industry we’re in – the disruption, the distraction, the pressure – is just too complex and too much for any one individual to have all the answers.”

Nobody, and especially Millennials, want “some great person (often some ‘great man’) on a pedestal they don’t connect with,” said Carter.

Meaning, purpose and connection is what most of us want.

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5 Things You Can Do as a Leader to Help Increase Engagement In Company Initiatives

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Latina
This week we invited a guest to contribute to the career tip column.

Fierce Conversations wrote a recent blog post on how leaders engage with it comes to organizational initiatives.

  1. Get on board, even if you’re not the driver. Just because you aren’t driving an idea or initiative, or didn’t come up with it to begin with, doesn’t mean the team and the entire organization doesn’t need you to get behind it. The sooner you can play the role of supporter-in-chief, the faster things will start to change and the larger impact you will see.
  2. Set expectations, and meet them. If you say you will be an advocate for a program, or that you expect an initiative to succeed, you need to show up for it. Trust is key here, as too many promises broken can lead your employees to simply stop making an effort.
  3. Model the behavior. Leaders need to be modeling the behavior they want to see. As there is a clear correlation between C-suite behavior and the model behavior they wanted exhibited. If you want all meetings to start on time, make sure you are never late. If you want people to work across teams, make sure they see you doing the same.
  4. Engage on a personal level. Through one-on-one conversations, either planned or organic, interact and engage regularly with employees and other company leaders. Create opportunities, such as social events or a weekly office walkthroughs, to support this endeavor, and ask about activities taking place. Use this feedback to improve upon the process.
  5. Follow-through. An initial email isn’t enough to support something. Ensure you continue to have conversations that advocate for a program, and that the leaders around you do the same. These conversations need to be ongoing, and fluid. Consider having a specific check-in point where you communicate widely the feedback and results to-date. Make changes as necessary.
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Reluctant Leaders – Why You Might Be Readier to Lead than You Think

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Latina

Guest contributed by Sarah Dixon

Ann thought that she knew herself well.

At 45-year-old, she’d been tested by life often enough to know her strengths and weaknesses. She’d done a few personality tests over the years and had a handle on how she worked most effectively at work.

Then Ann’s firm called in team-building experts, who carried out personality evaluations on the whole team. As Ann read her report, she saw something that she’d never considered before. She had tested well for leadership ability.
Ann had never thought of pursuing more responsibility in her career. Work, for her, had always taken a second place to looking after the children. But with the kids at university, Ann began to think about the possibility. Once she turned thought into action, it wasn’t long before she started rising through her organisation.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, let alone to Ann. Many of the qualities that make a good leader are gained through the sort of life experiences that women deal with day in, day out. There are examples of these kinds of experiences throughout this article, but these are not the only way those qualities can be acquired. Hopefully they will enable you to identify a similar experience in your life, if you have not had that particular one yourself.

Empathy

There have been many studies over the years which have shown that women are more empathic than men. While this empathy is sometimes perceived as a weakness, when you’re building a team being able to understand your staff and find ways to motivate them has obvious advantages. Rather than adopting a dictatorial style, it allows you to build a deeper connection with staff which pays dividends in terms of loyalty and commitment.

Empowerment

Girls compete, women empower – or so the meme goes. But this isn’t just about feminism and giving your fellow females a leg-up. Managers who delegate tasks within their team, and give their staff the tools they need to excel are more successful than their more controlling counterparts. As women, we spend a lot of our time facilitating for others. Whether it’s our partners, children, or friends we are used to supporting others to achieve for themselves. Carrying this instinct into a leadership role brings you a loyal, talented and effective team.

Resilience

Whether it’s banging your head on the glass ceiling, or dealing with the sorts of experiences highlighted by the #metoo campaign, women have a head start in continuing in the face of adversity. Resilience doesn’t mean bullishly pushing on regardless of what comes your way. Cassandra Stavrou of Propercorn wrote in The Telegraph explained how for her, resilience was about thinking strategically rather than simply being strong. It led her to develop recognisable packaging to ensure that her boxes were not lost in vast warehouses.

Communication

Because women take on the burden of emotional labor, we also become adept as communicators. Being well organized, and finding the right words to get things done are skills that we often overlook, simply because they are taken for granted by society as a whole. But if you’ve ever had to talk down a toddler who has been given triangles of toast when they wanted squares, you’ve been prepared for negotiation. Handling relationship breakdowns gives us experience in making deals, even when the stakes are high. Life teaches us the importance of saying what we need to say.

Accountability

Ultimately, a good manager needs to be able to hold their hand up and take responsibility if things don’t go to plan. If someone on your team screws up? The buck stops with you. But, doesn’t it always? Whether it’s birth control, avoiding sexual assault or many other issues women are constantly being asked to stay accountable for the actions of others. While those expectations are often unfair, perhaps the silver lining is that they prepare us to be willing to shoulder the burdens of our team.

No Better Time

There is perhaps no better time than the present to look for more responsibility. The world is changing. Women’s voices are finally being heard and men are beginning to really see the equality problem. We can hope that the coming generations will find their lives so much easier, their paths to leadership more assured.

But for those of us who find ourselves standing on the threshold of management via a more circuitous route, we can take comfort in the fact that while the journey may not have been easy, it has at least prepared us for what is to come.

Sarah Dixon writes for Inspiring Interns, which specializes in sourcing candidates for internships and graduate jobs.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Becoming a Great Leader: Managing Conflict in Teams

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Elegant leader

Guest contributed by CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke

Let’s face it: Most of us hate conflict. Even the toughest among us are at least a little uncomfortable with it. When faced with it, many leaders and executives tend to opt out.

But, here’s the truth: The best and most creative solutions often happen when people opt in to conflict. Not an all-out brawl or a name calling wrestling match, but a quality sharing of how we really feel about a decision or an issue. To do this a leader must create optimal conditions and their job isn’t to have the right answer, but to create the space for the project, team, or organization to wrestle together to collaboratively come up with an answer and move forward.

Our decade and a half of experience working with teams shows that when even one person listens to and reflects on the opposing opinion of a peer with genuine curiosity, the change in the room is palpable. That combination of vision, opinion, and passion, when combined with curiosity, leads the entire team to new possibilities. That’s the role of a healthy dose of curiosity.

Too often a leader unwittingly defuses the tension by determining the right answer, Maybe you have as a leader or have seen leaders cutting off discussion and taking things off-line when people get too emotional or listening to the loudest or the favorite voice, the one whose thoughts are usually the same as the leader’s.

The Value of Vulnerability and Curiosity

When teams are vulnerable and curious, they use the natural energy of conflict and discover that it isn’t my way or your way, but a whole new way. New ideas emerge. Instead of a fight, there is magic.

It starts with people opting in, becoming vulnerable, and revealing what they really think, feel, and want. This allows for a free flow of opinions which can be more or less judgmental but if combined with curiosity, not righteousness or defensiveness) can use the energy of conflict to become a smarter and highly innovative team.

We’ve seen it time and time again in our work. Teams that master the use of vulnerability and curiosity produce creative and innovative solutions not just once, but over and over again. They are more resilient and they bounce back from setbacks and failure. People on these teams feel engaged and fulfilled, and they have more fun. Just an aside: It’s probably no surprise that vulnerability and curiosity work wonders in personal relationships too.

Either of these qualities can instantly transform a team in conflict. Put them together and teams make quantum leaps forward. It only takes one individual to make a difference.

And, remember that you don’t have to let go of your judgments or opinions. Curiosity means having your judgments and being open and interested in a different perspective. Being curious means considering that there may be more than one right way, reality, or answer.

Stopping the fight for your right way and being open to the ideas of others and taking an interest in how the other person came to his or her conclusion. Listening with the willingness to be influenced via an open mind.

Some helpful phrases that help demonstrate curiosity and elicit another’s response are:
  • “Help me understand how you got there.”
  • “Why is this so important to you?”
  • “What is driving your strong conviction?”
  • “Tell me where I’m wrong?”
  • “Wow! That is very different from my view. How’d you get there?”
So, want to transform your team? Here’s how:
  • Be human and acknowledge conflict. You are the model. If you acknowledge when you’re uncomfortable in the tension and ambiguity, others learn they’re not alone.
  • Don’t go for the quick fix. The drive for efficiency in conflict is born from the discomfort of the tension, the ambiguity of not having the answer, or a fear of looking bad.
  • Get out of the right-wrong trap. Yes, we all want to be right, but do you want to be right more than you want to succeed?
  • Check for conflict. If you see people disengage, check it out. Encourage people to speak up, to have different opinions, and to hang in for the long haul.
  • Listen to the naysayer with interested curiosity. Even when you think a team member is a pain in the butt, step into his shoes and see the world from his point of view, sharing that out loud. You might be surprised what you find when you get out of your own way.

The benefits of being curious include getting outside of your own story, which opens a greater pool of information to generate creative ideas. This can strengthen the team’s learning and growth.
Making the other person feel heard and considered can shift the energy from defense to cooperation, opening the door to new, creative possibilities and therefore transitioning the focus of the team from power struggles to idea expansion.

About the author

CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke are business consultants, speakers, and co-authors of The Beauty of Conflict: Harnessing Your Team’s Competitive Advantage (November 1, 2017).

They and their organization, specialize in helping professional women, leaders, teams and entire companies learn how to transform conflict into creativity and innovation.
Many thanks

Disclaimer: The views and opinions of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Becoming a High Performer – Stress Recovery and Renewal Matters!

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Latina

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

As ambitious, hard working women, we are often not satisfied about what we have achieved at work.

We often feel insecure about giving less than 150% at work for fear of losing ground. And, the truth is, most of us work in very competitive industries that require us to be present for long hours, to travel and to take on massive amounts of responsibility. Would we have it any other way? My guess is if you are reading the glasshammer.com, you are interested in hearing how to have more of everything and have it right now!

However, research shows that sustainable high performance requires the executive to harness stress adequately with the right amount of pace and rest for stress recovery. Doing what you love means being well enough to do it. You are human. No matter how good the set up is at the office and at home, chances are you are a little stressed and a little exhausted. Throw kids in the mix and downtime to recover disappears further.

It is time to talk about that while growth is important in climbing the ladder and breaking the ceiling, renewal is even more important so that you can continue to high perform, learn and grow.

Staying well physically and mentally is now something more and more companies are paying attention to. Executives who understand their own sustainability are more likely to avoid burnout and have better longevity in their careers.

Stress also affects how you show up as a team member, manager or leader. Behaviorally, when under stress, most of us have shortcomings from being snappy, to avoidance of issues that need to be addressed. When you do not realize the stress, as it becomes normalized, then you equally might accept your less than optimal behaviors as normal too.

We have developed a group coaching program for high performing talent, and “insecure overachievers” that creates awareness of how stress is effecting your performance and ultimately hindering your development as an executive. By understanding your own neuroscience and your actual data you can understand how to make real change for your mental and physical health.

We are running a virtual cohort where people are matched in pods to work on sustainable high performance.

If you are “high performing talent” and likely to make Managing Director in the next 12 months then this group could be for you.

There is a cost for the 5 month program and it includes psychometric tests, individual and group coaching.

Write to nicki@evolvedpeople.com if you are interested in being considered for this cohort or to schedule a call to discuss this program for your company.

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Leadership – How to develop yourself to be the leader you need and want to be | Part one

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female leaderBy Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Pyschologist

One of my favorite books on leadership and women at work generally is called “Act Like A Leader, Think Like a Leader” written by one of my most admired academics, Herminia Ibarra from INSEAD. Why I like her book so much is that it is practical yet deeply rooted in a subject her and I both have passion for. What is that? Organizational learning and leadership development work.

In fact, one of her sub chapters in the book on how to be a great leader is called,”Steal Like An Artist”. She states that nothing is original and we have to stand on the shoulders of giants to keep evolved concepts and ideas. True to that, the book itself encompasses many of the best theories from other top academics so you get to read it all on one place as well as read Herminia’s insights which I think are top notch. So since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am going to endorse and share with you over the next two weeks in this column what Ms. Ibarra has to say on being more of a leader, being authentic as a leader and finally ensuring you want to be one.

Let’s start with looking at a self-assessment from her book – do you want to step up? Are you in a career building period? Or a career maintenance or a even a career transitioning period? Note: people come to me to be coached in any of these three stages.

Answer the questions with a yes or a no.

Have you been in the same job or career path for at least seven years?
Do you find yourself restless professionally?
Do you find your job more draining than energizing?
Do you resent not having more time for outside interests or family?
Do you have a changing family configuration that will allow you to explore other options?
Are you admiring folks around you who are making big changes?
Has your work lost some meaning for you?
Do you find that your career ambitions are changing?
Recent events have left me appraising what I really want?
Do you find your enthusiam has waned for your work projects?

If you answered yes to 6-10 statements then you could already be deeply in a career-transitioning period. Make time to reflect on your goals and see if your life goals are evolving also.

If you answered yes 3-5 times then you may be entering a career-transitioning period. Work to increase insights and “outsights” which are new horizons that appear from doing new things and meeting new people.

If you got 2 or less yeses then you are more likely to be in a career-building period in your current job so you are busy working on developing within that role, team or firm.

Ultimately, people often go for bigger jobs when they feel the excitement wane, so if that’s the case, let’s see how we can help you get what you want at work!

If you are interested in hiring an executive coach to help you navigate your career the contact nicki@theglasshammer.com for a no obligation chat.

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Most Likely to Succeed: What matters most when you are trying to get ahead

Elegant leaderChoosing the right company is important for everyone, but in today’s job market, it is tempting and more acceptable to move around from one company to the next. Although this kind of job-hopping may not carry the same stigma it used to, according to a new study from the Harvard Business Review, How Female CEO’s Actually Get to the Top, the most common path of the Fortune 500’s female CEO’s is one of long-term employment at one company, moving ahead from within.

The median long stint for these women CEOs is 23 years spent at a single company before becoming the CEO, compared to only 15 years for men. This means that for women, the long climb is over 50% longer than for their male peers. In addition, 71% of the female CEOs were promoted as long-term insiders versus only 48% of the male CEOs.

This means that it is especially important for women in the middle of their careers to find the best possible fit when looking to advance their career at their company or someplace new.

Finding the right company to go the distance with

Sharon Hadary who co-authors with Laura Henderson the book How Women Lead: The 8 Essential Strategies Successful Women Know believes that the importance of finding a company whose values match your own is key. In order to understand just what your values are—beyond the friendly HR language—she suggested women “look for the factual evidence that companies are supportive of women and that it’s not just words”. This means finding out how many women are in senior positions, hold positions on boards, and are involved in company supported networking groups. Hadary is not without cynicism however as it is really important to see how the rubber meets the road beyond programmatic solutions and comments,

“I always worry about women in programs, lots of companies will talk about their programs they have for women, but do they really put it into practice?”

Bonnie Marcus, author of The Politics of Promotion, echoes Hadary’s concerns. We asked her how women can really tell the difference between companies who are paying lip-service to diversity and those that truly support women. In addition to Hadary’s points, Marcus suggests noting whether or not women have P&L responsibility.

“Many companies will boast that they have promoted women to assume leadership roles, but when you take a good look at the organizational chart you may discover that these positions do not come with any fiscal responsibility. In other words, the company may have gendered roles even at the senior level.”

This is closely linked to her next suggestion, which is to make sure you have an understanding of women’s power and influence in the overall operations and strategy of the company. She suggests finding out the role women play in the overall operations and strategy of the company.

“Do they have any involvement in setting the direction of the company? Do women at all levels sit on committees that have a voice with senior management?”

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, this second point is one of the primary reasons there aren’t more women at the tippy top of the corporate ladder—they are not in operational positions that will give them the necessary experience for making the kinds of decisions that impact the company’s bottom line. Instead, they tend to rise to the top of functional departments, like human resources or finance. In fact, their numbers show 55% of the women in senior positions of the S&P’s 500 head these kinds of functional departments. When paired with the fact that 94% of these same companies’ CEO’s were in senior management positions of operations—like the development of product lines—immediately before making that final leap to the top, it seems especially important to find a company that already has women in these senior roles.

Recently, the Glass Hammer reported on how women can best make the transition back to work after taking a break. Business Insider reports that the unconscious bias associated with women who have children—that their commitment to their children will outweigh their commitment to their work—remains a large factor in their overall career progress. So, if you are planning to have a family one day, you may also want to note how many of the senior female executives have children and get a sense of their overall experience. The conversation about working mothers tends to revolve around work-life balance, but there is more to it than just finding time for car pool and illness. It’s about giving mothers the responsibility of projects that have a direct impact on the bottom line.

Finally, Marcus suggests finding out whether or not their programs and networks meant to support women actually have a budget.

“Many of these programs lack any financial support which most likely indicates the company is paying lip service to supporting the advancement of women. Very little can be accomplished without money or executive sponsorship.”

There is no telling the future, and there is no sure fire road to the top. And yes, you may do everything right, follow the rules, be assertive, engage men, find a mentor and take every other piece of advice given, and still not make it. Sometimes, the numbers are just that tough and the intentions that hard to decipher. These hard facts are all the more reason to be focused, be smart and do your research when looking for that next job—it is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make. And even though it can be fun to hop around, and even a good idea early in your career, but eventually, your best chances of getting ahead will be found when you commit to a company that is equally committed to you.

By Rebecca S. Caum

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Voice of Experience: Nora Wu, PwC Global Vice Chairwoman, PwC Global Human Capital Leader

Nora WuWelcome the The Glass Hammer’s “Spotlight on Asia” week! We will be highlighting successful women working in Asia all week long!

Nora Wu believes that achievements do not determine success, but that success is determined by the obstacles that have been overcome. She herself has faced numerous challenges and barriers on her journey to being appointed PwC Global Vice Chairwoman and Global Human Capital Leader in July. “My professional career got off to a late start,” she recounts. “I started my family before I began to focus on my career and by the time I joined the accounting profession in 1988, my daughter was already two years old.”

As she recalls, she was the only female staff member from mainland China to be hired by one of the then-Big Eight accounting firms in San Francisco. “I was born and raised in China, which back then had yet to open itself up to the rest of the world. The US work culture was completely different and it was tough for me to immerse myself in such a highly competitive and demanding environment,” she explains.

Her new job required that she learn new professional skills and improve her English, but it also prompted her to appreciate cultural differences and new communication styles, while learning the importance of work-life balance. After her son was born, she took two years off to focus on her young family. “When I came back to work, I was competing with much younger colleagues who did not have the same challenges as me,” she says. “Becoming a partner at the firm did not even feature in my wildest dreams.”

In 1995, she moved back to China and became the only female manager in the Arthur Andersen Shanghai office. Five years later, she would become the first female partner. “Although my career got off to a later start, I never let that become a disadvantage,” she recalls. “I had the opportunity to see my kids grow and be there when they needed me but I was still able to dedicate myself to my career. Most importantly, I learned to focus on what I wanted to achieve in life and how to strike a balance between being a mother, wife, daughter and respected professional and leader.”
Women in Leadership

The challenges Wu has faced in her career have made her a better, more effective leader. When she was appointed PwC China’s Shanghai Office Lead Partner in 2006, she faced difficulties garnering support, especially among her predominantly male colleagues with more experience. “Giving up was never an option,” she remembers. “Instead, I reached out and found areas where I could add value as a leader, and slowly I began to earn the trust and respect of my partners and team. It was a rocky start but I’m proud to say that the mindset has since changed.”

Women face several barriers in the industry and Wu highlights two: fear and self-doubt. “Women tend to underestimate their capabilities,” she admits. “This is something that we can learn from our male counterparts. In many cases, even if they doubt themselves, men will still grab an opportunity and embrace it. Organizations can do more to help women, but ultimately, it’s up to us to take on new challenges and show we can lead.”

She advises women to let go of their fears and inhibitions, take advantage of opportunities and treat every challenge as a learning opportunity. “You never know where one opportunity or interaction will lead you and you only can find out if you give it your best shot,” she says. “You should never be afraid to work hard or put in the long hours. Work-life balance is indeed possible, especially if you do not separate your work and your life. By aligning your purpose, personality, and aspirations, it will be easier to create a balance. I’ve personally seen the transformation in our young associates who have risen to become very successful.”

But it can be hard to know your purpose in life when you are young and just starting your career, so Wu advises people to ask themselves what they want in life and what will bring them meaning and fulfillment. “To begin finding out what your purpose in life is, imagine looking back forty years from now and asking yourself what would make you proud, or if you would be able to admit to having lived a full and meaningful life,” she suggests. “The answers will give you a good indication of what you want, or should, aim for in life.” Wu also encourages the development of peer groups that are both trustworthy and supportive, as this enables sharing and mutual learning from different challenges and experiences.

Working in PwC

In her new role overseeing the development and execution of PwC’s global human capital strategy, Wu is very excited about the opportunities for the 184,000 people throughout the global network of firms. “We want to see how we can move the network’s people agenda forward,” she says. “The digital revolution is changing the world at a rapid pace and each year, PwC firms around the world hire about 20,000 graduate millennials. These future leaders grew up with technology, smartphones, tablets and cloud computing.”

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