Tag Archive for: Leadership

How Are Women Unique as Leaders?

Guest Contributed by Sam Bowman

Self-care in leadershipWomen are rising up in the ranks, leading companies, global organizations, and even countries.

According to a Pew Research Center study, the number of world leaders who are women has doubled since 2005.

Women simply make great leaders. As WGU points out, women are more effective than men in leadership roles. They’re also more innovative and cooperative problems solvers who tend to see the bigger picture as they work toward goals.

It’s not a stretch to say that as leaders, women are unique. Here are just a few of the exceptional traits they bring to the leadership table and how women can highlight these strengths to move up in their chosen field.

Women Are Empathetic

When leading people, it’s important to be able to put yourself in their shoes. Leaders must understand the different perspectives people bring to the table and empathize with them in order to be effective.

This is not to say that men aren’t empathetic, but it’s a trait that research supports as being a strength possessed and utilized more effectively by more women in leadership roles than men. The ability to empathize also assists leaders in being more flexible and able to build stronger interpersonal relationships with subordinates than their male counterparts.

Women Communicate Effectively

If you want to lead, then you must be an effective communicator, especially when it comes to communicating across cultural lines. Many studies done over the years indicate that women are better at communication than men. A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that women’s brains possess a “language protein” that may explain the communication differences between men and women.

In the workplace, women put these communication gifts to good use. Their naturally interactive leadership style encourages participation and the sharing of information at all levels. This makes them better at getting results from their teams since they’re able to communicate what they want and set expectations clearly.

Women Collaborate

It’s important for leaders to understand that team members simply approach problems differently than they might and value those different perspectives. Women seem to possess an innate quality for working well with others and enjoy learning about new solutions to solve problems together. This all relates back to the fact that women value teamwork and can make everyone on the team feel as if their contributions are valued.

Women can also use this collaboration skill to keep information flowing throughout teams and departments, ensuring that everyone has the data needed to do the job right.

Women Are Convincing

The willingness to build interpersonal relationships in the workplace also helps them to be more persuasive leaders. This is due to the fact that many women are empathetic listeners that take the time to learn about people in order to appeal to their sensibilities and needs. The result? Women tend to understand concerns or objections others may have to ideas and can effectively formulate a response that bears these facts in mind.

Women Are Generous

Many women are givers in their personal lives and that translates to the workplace, too. It’s easy for women to encourage the people around them and allow them to thrive as team members. They inspire and uplift the people they’re surrounded by, which is part of what makes women such great long-term strategic thinkers in the workplace. They want others to do well because they recognize that if their team does well, they do well too.

Don’t mistake generosity in the workplace for weakness, however. Women may be willing to be inclusive, but that doesn’t mean they are playing the role of mother to the people on the team. They’re not there to make sure you have your lunch, they’re there to make sure you’re participating in an environment that welcomes your ideas.

How to Highlight Your Unique Skills

Remember, being a positive and effective leader isn’t a position you apply for or a title you’re given, it’s something you show through example and action. When writing a compelling resume or cover letter, it serves you well to include your leadership skills and expertise, highlighting how you use these skills to set you apart from the crowd.

To showcase your workplace leadership styles and skills, you should:

● Discuss them: In your cover letter, address the leadership experience you have that makes you a successful manager or executive. Talk about the qualities you possess concisely to help convince a prospective employer that you have what it takes to be an effective leader.
● Prove it: You can say that you’re great at solving problems or delegating work, but you have to be able to demonstrate it with your resume too. Back up claims you make with bullet points that show your achievements and describe how you’ve leveraged this skill set in the past. Also, think about how you have used your leadership skills in the past to benefit employers and make sure to point these out in detail.
● Prepare: Whatever skills you choose to highlight in your resume must be backed up in conversation. You should expect to be pressed for details on these subjects, so think about how these skills make you perfect for this job and come to the table with examples.

Women Make the Workplace Successful!

Research has shown that companies that have women as a representative portion of their management teams perform better financially than those that don’t. While women still face many challenges in the workplace and must work hard to show they’re up to the task, progress is being made. As women continue to chip away at the barriers they face, organizations only become stronger. Lead by example and soon enough, people begin to follow.

About the Author

Sam Bowman writes about marketing, tech, and how the two merge. He enjoys getting to utilize the internet for community without actually having to leave his house. In his spare time he likes running, reading, and combining the two in a run to his local bookstore.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

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How to Lead in a Fast-Isn’t-Fast-Enough World

female leaders

By Sara Canaday

Leaders are being challenged with increasingly complex demands every day, and they are expected to respond in record time.

Unfortunately, the conventional approaches they’ve always relied on simply don’t have the same impact in the context of this new business environment.

I work with thousands of leaders every year, and many of them feel like walking to-do lists and perpetual firefighters who never have enough hours in the day. These leaders recognize the need to change the way they respond to chaotic and inconceivable demands, but they aren’t entirely sure how to do that.

The common question is this: How am I supposed to lead successfully in a fast-isn’t-fast-enough world?

The good news is, we can uncover some clues to the answer by looking at the innovative approaches used by today’s modern thinkers and trailblazing leaders. Their strategic choices are oddly counterintuitive, undeniably successful, and downright fascinating.

I’d like to share with you six of the new practices and describe how they are helping talented professionals elevate themselves into modern leaders producing enviable results.

1. Shaking off the age-old bias for action and perfecting the use of the strategic pause.

Successful leaders in the modern era seem to have adopted a new habit. Instead of making action the default for every challenge, these leaders are pairing that alternative with an opposite response. It’s not about replacing action, which we know is a necessary leadership ingredient. We still need to reach our goals, meet deadlines, and produce results. This is different.

They think of it as developing a companion habit that celebrates BEING rather than DOING. It involves a strategic pause. A mental time-out. Space for their brains to percolate. Whatever we call it, this new habit requires consistently taking some time away from the chaos of business to let ourselves think.

2. Escaping from the prison of their own perspectives and passionately seeking out cognitive diversity.

Modern leaders know that their own decision-making doesn’t come from a mentally neutral position, so they push themselves to uncover other angles. Not a polite, obligatory surveying of the crowd to reach consensus, but a mold-breaking, eyebrow-raising exploration to prove themselves WRONG.

These leaders aren’t just finding success through an openness to new ideas; they passionately seek them out. They value cognitive diversity and invite team members to challenge them with radical alternatives. They let go of the need to validate their own perspectives, and they focus all of their energy on finding the best solution to meet shared goals. No matter where those solutions might originate.

3. Ditching the need to let hard data drive every decision and welcoming the insights of soft intelligence.

Trailblazing leaders today have recognized the tendency to be held hostage by information overload. Even though it feels unnatural, they give themselves permission to break free from their dependence on data. Do they still value the facts? Definitely. They just work to gain a broader context about its meaning. They’re willing to be informed by data but not ruled by it.

Leaders who are open to the idea of Whole Data—a more comprehensive view of the facts— stretch beyond the usual quantitative boundaries to incorporate intangible elements. They better serve their teams and their customers by paying attention to stories and narratives, emotions and attitudes, worries and complaints, risks and vulnerabilities. They search for the qualitative information that paints a more vivid picture.

4. Dropping their dependence on the usual routine and letting go of outdated tasks and deliverables.

Today’s forward-thinking leaders have realized that everything consuming their time must earn the right to be on their to-do lists. To establish that competition, they have adopted a new approach that defies their normal logic.

Most leaders have a competitive streak that pushes them to take on more rather than do less, but they are seeing the wisdom in that concept. Narrowing their focus to expand their perspectives. Minimizing their actions to maximize performance. Doing less to achieve more. Through the ingenuity of letting go, they are finding abundant success.

5. Defeating the drag on their communication and creating positive experiences that expand their influence.

Modern leaders embrace the idea of disrupting their typical approach to communication. They start in reverse. Instead of trying to determine what information needs to go out, they concentrate on the end result. What impact do they want to make? What are the challenges and perspectives of their audience members? What experience would they like to create?

With that in mind, they peel away all the layers of complexity that have been clogging up their communication and get down to messages that are authentic and engaging. They present them in novel ways. They aren’t afraid to open a window into their motives and rationale. And they create a meaningful, compelling experience that communicates in a more powerful way.

6. Committing to metaphorically resigning their roles as experts and approaching tasks with the spirit of a beginner.

Modern leaders are accelerating their careers by breaking free from the expert trap. They no longer allow themselves to remain captives of their expertise. They are finding the courage to change the tired, old narrative with a new attitude, some genuine vulnerability, and the never-ending desire to learn.

Success for these leaders means deliberately putting themselves in positions to humbly learn and grow. Every single day. They have learned to value questions just as much as the answers. And, perhaps more importantly, they work hard to ask the right questions—many of which start with, “What if…?”

While these exciting new principles are remarkably effective, the most compelling thing about them is the way they are applied. It’s a selective process. Not a simple swap of out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new. There’s a firm acknowledgement that the old rules aren’t completely obsolete. The most successful leaders have a knack for knowing when to stick with the traditional approaches and when to break away. They’ve adopted a new brand of wisdom, and they know when to use it.

If you’d like to learn more about the strategies behind this fresh approach to leadership—one that is ripe for our challenging times—I invite you to read my new book.

Author Bio

Sara Canaday is a leadership expert, keynote speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor and author. She works with leaders and high-potential professionals from organizations around the world to expand their capacity to innovate, influence, engage, and perform. Her new book, Leadership Unchained: Defy Conventional Wisdom for Breakthrough Performance, is now available on Amazon. For more information, please visit SaraCanaday.com.

The opinions and views expressed by guest contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of theglasshammer.com

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Defy Conventional Leadership Wisdom to Achieve Breakthrough Performance

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Leadership is experiencing a metamorphosis today.

Its tried-and-true competencies are being tested (and sometimes even crushed) in our chaotic, always-on, hyper-connected, and competitive world. Conventional wisdom simply doesn’t have the same impact in the context of this new business environment.

Sara Canaday In writing a new book called, Leadership Unchained: Defy Conventional Wisdom for Breakthrough Performance, I highlight a bold segment of leaders who were willing to make completely unexpected business moves with extraordinary results. All of these modern leaders had one thing in common: They refuse to allow the conventional thinking and practices that were pivotal in their past success to become the chains that hold them down in the future.

Their strategic choices were oddly counter-intuitive, undeniably successful, and downright fascinating. Here are six behaviors that break the mold.

1. Shaking off the age-old bias for action and perfecting the use of the strategic pause.

Successful leaders in the modern era seem to have adopted a new habit. Instead of making action the default for every challenge, these leaders are pairing that alternative with an opposite response. It’s not about replacing action, which we know is a necessary leadership ingredient. We still need to reach our goals, meet deadlines, and produce results. This is different.

They think of it as developing a companion habit that celebrates being rather than doing. It involves a strategic pause. A mental time-out. Space for their brains to percolate. Whatever we call it, this new habit requires consistently taking some time away from the chaos of business to let ourselves think.

2. Escaping from the prison of their own perspectives and passionately seeking out cognitive diversity.

Modern leaders know that their own decision-making doesn’t come from a mentally neutral position, so they push themselves to uncover other angles. Not a polite, obligatory surveying of the crowd to reach consensus, but a mold-breaking, eyebrow-raising exploration to prove themselves WRONG.

These leaders aren’t just finding success through an openness to new ideas; they passionately seek them out. They value cognitive diversity and invite team members to challenge them with radical alternatives. They let go of the need to validate their own perspectives, and they focus all of their energy on finding the best solution to meet shared goals. No matter where those solutions might originate.

3. Ditching the need to let hard data drive every decision and welcoming the insights of soft intelligence.

Trailblazing leaders today have recognized the tendency to be held hostage by information overload. Even though it feels unnatural, they give themselves permission to break free from their dependence on data. Do they still value the facts? Definitely. They just work to gain a broader context about its meaning. They’re willing to be informed by data but not ruled by it.

Leaders who are open to the idea of Whole Data—a more comprehensive view of the facts— stretch beyond the usual quantitative boundaries to incorporate intangible elements. They better serve their teams and their customers by paying attention to stories and narratives, emotions and attitudes, worries and complaints, risks and vulnerabilities. They search for the qualitative information that paints a more vivid picture.

4. Dropping their dependence on the usual routine and letting go of outdated tasks and deliverables.

Today’s forward-thinking leaders have realized that everything consuming their time must earn the right to be on their to-do lists. To establish that competition, they have adopted a new approach that defies their normal logic.

Most leaders have a competitive streak that pushes them to take on more rather than do less, but they are seeing the wisdom in that concept. Narrowing their focus to expand their perspectives. Minimizing their actions to maximize performance. Doing less to achieve more. Through the ingenuity of letting go, they are finding abundant success.

5. Defeating the drag on their communication and creating positive experiences that expand their influence.

Modern leaders embrace the idea of disrupting their typical approach to communication. They start in reverse. Instead of trying to determine what information needs to go out, they concentrate on the end result. What impact do they want to make? What are the challenges and perspectives of their audience members? What experience would they like to create?

With that in mind, they peel away all the layers of complexity that have been clogging up their communication and get down to messages that are authentic and engaging. They present them in novel ways. They aren’t afraid to open a window into their motives and rationale. And they create a meaningful, compelling experience that communicates in a more powerful way.

6. Committing to metaphorically resigning their roles as experts and approaching tasks with the spirit of a beginner.

Modern leaders are accelerating their careers by breaking free from the expert trap. They no longer allow themselves to remain captives of their expertise. They are finding the courage to change the tired, old narrative with a new attitude, some genuine vulnerability, and the never-ending desire to learn.

Success for these leaders means deliberately putting themselves in positions to humbly learn and grow. Every single day. They have learned to value questions just as much as the answers. And, perhaps more importantly, they work hard to ask the right questions—many of which start with, “What if…?”

While these exciting new principles are remarkably effective, the most compelling thing about them is the way they are applied. It’s a selective process. Not a simple swap of out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new. There’s a firm acknowledgement that the old rules aren’t completely obsolete. The most successful leaders have a knack for knowing when to stick with the traditional approaches and when to break away. They’ve adopted a new brand of wisdom, and they know when to use it.

About the Author

Sara Canaday is a leadership expert, keynote speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor and author. She works with leaders and high-potential professionals from organizations around the world to expand their capacity to innovate, influence, engage, and perform. Her new book, Leadership Unchained: Defy Conventional Wisdom for Breakthrough Performance, is now available on Amazon. For more information, please visit SaraCanaday.com.

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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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5 Tips to Increasing your Empathy as a Leadership Strategy

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

I used to have zero empathy, lots of honest concern for the person in their situation, but zero empathy (and I have the psychometric tests to prove it).

I could not understand why people could not do better, get over it and get on with it. I was judging them against my paradigms built as a child growing up in a terrorist state with an emotionally unavailable parent and a right wing culture telling me I had to be tough to survive( Northern Ireland in the 1980s under Thatcher). My frameworks and values were in play exclusively, not the other person’s frameworks. It was frustrating for me and I am pretty sure it was not a pleasant experience for people I managed and had in my life. Empathy is a leadership skill, because without it you cannot understand what people are feeling which dictates everything from how they perform to how they show up at work attitudinally and to how authentic they are with you.

This is key if you want to get past the golden rule of ‘treat others of treat people how you want to be treated’ and evolve to the platinum rule of “treat others how they want to be treated.”

So, I built, brick by brick and I internalized it and like any muscle flexed it until it became integral to my nature. You can do this also!

Here are 4 quick tips to get started:

1. Ask open questions that allow people to tell you about themselves and their situations in a way that gives them space to do it their way. Don’t interrogate people as building trust comes before, during and after these types of interactions.

2. Understand the difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is when you feel an emotion for their situation ( such as sorrow and there is distance between you and them emotionally). Empathy is when their emotion is something that you feel with them as it pertains to your own ability to map it internally to your own experiences.

3. Do not limit other people’s emotions to your own range or to your own experiences. Frankly, you might not have the biggest range in the world. And if are very subjective in your ability to interpret events and can only do it through your lens ( see Kegan and Lahey again on the socialized mind in Immunity to Change) then I have found in people who have low EQ but lots of empathy that the person who is seeking to be understood by you on a topic can feel frustrated by the way that you are very keen to share what happened to you as part of the meaning- making and it can drown out the original person. Or that the subjectivity factor completely limits the process, putting the process in or near the concern quadrant if this was a map.

4. Recap and name the emotions you hear as a question not as a statement. In my opinion this is very tied to points 1 and 2 and 3.

5. Use the “magic if” to walk in the other person’s shoes. For example: “If my dad had a stroke this week, would i be able to finish project x today?’.

Practice makes perfect! And imperfection is ok too, your efforts will be appreciated, I am sure.

If you would like to develop your leadership skillst, I would be happy to work with you as your executive coach. Contact me on 646 6882318 or nicki@theglasshammer.com for an exploratory chat

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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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Self-promotion v. corporate branding: a dilemma for women CEOs? Do women CEO’s do enough to promote their brands?

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Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

Guest Contributed By Patricia Harden, President and CEO of Harden Communications Partners

In today’s media-saturated business world, a company’s image is inextricably linked to the reputation of the CEO. Wall Street analysts, marketers and corporate communicators understand the importance of a CEO’s personal brand and how it affects demand for a company’s products or services and its market value.

The “personal brand” of Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com or Tesla’s Elon Musk is an extension of the company. And there are any number of other high-profile male CEOs, who are recognized as industry leaders. How many similarly high-profile women CEOs are there? After HP’s Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, who both ran for public office, and a handful of others, it is hard to come up with names. Granted, unfortunately there are simply not as many women as men in the C-suite. However, perhaps the lack of women CEOs with well-defined personal brands is an issue that goes deeper than their respective numbers.

During my 25 years in corporate communications, I have observed many women CEOs that do not eagerly embrace communications tools and strategies to build a powerful personal brand. They are often more reluctant to express their personal values, beliefs and business philosophy than their male counterparts, and frequently, I see successful women leaders who want to stay on “safe” ground, sticking to unassailable fact-based positions.

What’s behind their reticence? I have a theory: On the way up, women CEOs worked incredibly hard just to prove they were as competent (and more so) as men. They had to show they were good team players in order to win the support of colleagues. Advocating a point of view, stretching the boundaries and sharing a bigger “vision” are leadership traits that are subjective, individual and highly visible. Given history, it’s not surprising that women CEOs may err on the side of staying low profile for fear of being criticized as “self-promotional” or grandstanding.

For example, we see women leaders who are press-shy, avoiding media engagement except in the most controlled situations. They seem reluctant to step outside what they see as the confines of their professional roles. One client refused to discuss her accomplishments in building a major data business from the ground up: “I’ll only talk about our product, not myself.” I call this “The Hillary Problem”: Feeling more secure in the role of competent project manager instead of inspirational, but potentially controversial, leader.

While the term personal brand may sound ego-centric, developing an authentic personal brand can add tremendous value to your organization. As a woman leader, what is your personal brand? I believe it is all about becoming known for what you stand for in addition to what you do in your job. Your brand is the “why” behind decisions, choices and results. Inevitably, the “why” involves some subjectivity – and this is where I see women reluctant to capitalize on the credibility that they have earned as CEOS and leaders. Yet I argue that it is absolutely mission critical: It might well be an essential, if unwritten, part of your job description.

Where to start developing a personal brand and leveraging it for the greater good of your company? By working closely with your in-house communications team and public relations advisors, you can develop a strategic plan that will establish and grow your personal brand. It’s not necessary to undergo a personality transplant and become a “celebrity” CEO or another Sheryl Sandberg. Rather, with the right advice and collaboration with professionals, select the issues, forums and communications channels that mesh with your core values and support your organization’s agenda.

“Leaning in” to build and maintain your personal CEO brand isn’t about self-promotion: it’s about advancing your own agenda and that of your company—to step out of your personal comfort zone for the greater good.

About Pat Harden

Patricia (Pat) Harden founded Harden Partners to help companies be heard, known and valued. Pat brings clients the benefits of a lifelong passion for communication and the desire to help organizations take their game to new levels.

Under her leadership, Harden Partners has grown steadily from a one-person consultancy to an award-winning, mid-sized agency, serving the financial, healthcare and professional services sectors.

An avid reader, theater-goer and traveler, Pat serves on the board of Theatre Bay Area and she and her husband enjoy making Pinot Noir from their home-based vineyard.
This is a Guest Contribution. The views and opinions of the Guest Contributor are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Idolize Your Boss? Not So Fast.

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team-meeting-in-office-5lNobody likes to work for somebody who doesn’t respect their employees, make fair decisions, or is more concerned with their own professional advancement than the good the whole team. It’s easy to spot a bad boss, but what does a good boss look like? You might picture her being open to your ideas, easy to talk to, supportive of your professional development and excited about your work. These are nice ideas, but sometimes what seems like a good boss at first can quickly sour when you find out that great performance review was rooted in their own desire to be liked. And sometimes, that tough to please boss who never lets you get a word in has the potential to teach you lesson that will grow your career by leaps and bounds.

How can you learn to manage a relationship with your boss, whether they are good or bad? And, when things do go bad, how can you steer the relationship back to healthy?

When Love Hurts

Annie McKee is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the PennCLO Executive Doctoral Program and the author of Resonant Leadership. In her work with leaders, she often sees the downside of having a boss who grows their leadership style from the root of having a congenial relationship with their employees. Mckee lists three primary issues that can arise from idolizing or loving your boss.

First, strong emotions tend to cloud our judgment, making it more likely that we will be passive when we should be assertive. Probably, having good judgment is one of the reasons you were hired in the first place—you don’t want to leave it at the door when you go into work each day.

Second, a relationship that is based in ‘liking’ one another can often lead to favoritism. This is never a good scenario; as soon as there is a problem, your boss is likely to distance themselves from you, as their likeability is their top concern. You will soon be replaced by the next easy target.

Finally, blind dedication to a leader can actually be truly dangerous as it leaves you vulnerable to making decisions which can compromise your values.

The bright side of a bad boss

While recent research shows that a boss who is truly abusive—somebody who uses public humiliation and personal attacks to impose fear and blind cooperation—is absolutely bad for your health and will most likely have a negative impact on your family life, it is possible to manage the relationship in a way that will benefit you, your team and the your company.

There is a lot of research supporting the negative impacts—on every aspect of business from the employee’s personal health to the company’s bottom line—of bad bosses, but there is not so much research on the positive impacts. Even so, there are many people whom have found that they have learned as much from challenging bosses as they have from those whom were easier to work with. If you are able to take a step back, you will learn what not to do, become more resilient, and self-reliant. These are stellar qualities that can help you become ready for your next leadership position.

A difficult relationship with your boss could be rooted in a number of different conflict types. They could be plainly harsh in their criticisms, irrational in their decision-making process or you could simply have a personality conflict. Either way, how can you find your way through it to the next phase of your career without damaging your personal brand, or your job performance?

Moving onward and upward

According to the American Psychological Association, the best way to manage a difficult boss begins with understanding the reasons your boss’ chooses to behave the way she does. If it seems that the behavior stems from stress due to work overload, it is likely to change in response to changes in the amount of workload or other factors. But if your boss’ behavior seems to follow a consistently hostile or abusive patter of interacting with co-workers and employees, it is less likely that the behavior will change. In this case, the APA recommends seeking the counsel of a trusted mentor.

Once you have determined the reason for your boss’s behavior, you will want to manage your own negative emotions. You do not want to engage in self-defeating behaviors such as counter-attacking your boss or stonewalling them. Remember your purpose at work, do your job, and remain professional.

Third, communicate your feelings with your boss or another trusted supervisor. It is important to frame your concerns in a positive manner. Perhaps this will bring a change, but some experts say this is unlikely. The administration of the company has already expressed their opinion by promoting the difficult boss in question.

In the meantime, the APA advises to try and separate your personal ego from your business persona. When your supervisor is critical, be rational in your response. Is there something for you to learn from the criticism? If so, use it as an opportunity to work with your boss on a play to address the problem. But if you don’t think it is reasonable or valid criticism, then take solace in that. Their lack of judgment does not have to take over your entire sense of self.

By Rebecca S. Caum

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A New Vocabulary For Your Daughters: Three ways we can instill confidence, resilience, and grit

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 Guest contributed by Dr. Priscilla G. Sands 

Leadership

Image via Shutterstock

Reaching a position of leadership, no matter your industry, requires hard work, perseverance, and resilience. How can it be made easier for the next generation to reach their potential? Perhaps we can start by simply by being mindful of the words we use.
As we prepare the young women in our lives for their future, we need to assemble a new “guidebook” to help them in their quest towards lives of purpose and meaning. We know this depends in large part on one’s internal grit and determination, and we all need to allow young women to self-advocate and to set their own goals while at the same time provide authentic mentorship.  

As the Head of School at Marlborough School, an all-girls middle and high school, we believe in a community that is free from the barriers and biases that can hold many women back. I am so proud of our graduates, women who break molds and shatter stereotypes while leaving a positive and lasting impact on the world around them.  
After spending nearly three decades in education, most of them in girls’ schools, I am often asked for my advice on raising confident, competent young women.

Here are three key suggestions for talking to the young woman in our lives:

 

1. DON’T tell her she’s smart. This is hollow statement that she will come to doubt when she faces adversity or challenge. It is a sure way for her to bump her head on the glass ceiling. Not only will she not believe you, she won’t be motivated to strive for more.
 
I know this seems counter-intuitive, particularly for high achievers, but for just that reason they may give up when faced with a difficult problem, rather than struggle through it and wrestle with new ideas and concepts. Being wrong is also part of being smart. So instead of simply stating what you see as a fact, but which is likely to be viewed with skepticism or indifference on the part of the young woman, I suggest an alternative.

DO tell her that you love the way she approaches challenging problems. Encourage her to stay with it and praise her willingness to keep working. She will develop a thirst and appetite for the puzzle and the question rather than simply the answer. Share examples of times when you struggled but ultimately succeeded in meeting a goal. Remind her that many of the greatest accomplishments take time and diligence to achieve as well as significant failure along the way.

2. DON’T refer to her or other women or girls as bossy. Too often girls are given the message that women in charge are disliked, which discourages their pursuit of leadership opportunities.  The most successful women were often told they were bossy along the way. In fact, rid your vocabulary of all gender-loaded words.

DO empower her to take on leadership opportunities where she can and use her voice to also empower others. Women reaching out to other women is a powerful chain of empowerment.
Look for opportunities to ask her advice or opinion. Discuss the process you use for leading, being candid with the way you balance the feedback of the team and the objectives of the project.

3. DON’T tell her she’s a math person…or a language person…There is no such thing and that’s a fact. This kind of language is limiting. It suggests that a woman is only one thing, that she can’t be good at both math and linguistics and soccer and painting. As a result, she may be hesitant to explore new avenues. In this century she should not be locking into an academic or intellectual binary, but should be nimble and engaged in many fields and ways of thinking.

DO help her learn that abilities are developed through commitment and hard work, two building blocks for accomplishment. Nothing happens if you don’t try. Risk being vulnerable yourself and learn something new together. Take a poetry class, learn a new language, or learn to code. You can share the process of learning (complete with your frustrations) and have the opportunity to demonstrate your own strategies for perseverance. This provides an opportunity to make memories and give both of you the chance to try something new, and have fun doing so.
Finally, though not really a “do” or “don’t,” I think the most important thing we can do for the young women in our lives is actively listen to them and demonstrate that they matter, they are valued, and they are respected.
 
Dr. Priscilla G. Sands 
Since 2015 Dr. Sands has been head of Marlborough School in Los Angeles, CA. Prior to this appointment Dr. Sands held leadership roles, from Assistant Head of School to Head of School and ultimately as President at Springside School in Philadelphia, later known as the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. At this institution Dr. Sands established the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, a program focused on helping students build the skills and mindset required for success in the 21st century. Dr. Sands continues to be a champion of education and wellness and is currently working on the creation of a Mindfulness Program based on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman.

Dr. Sands earned a B.F.A. from the University of Rhode Island, a Master’s in Liberal Studies from Villanova and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

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

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