Recently, I had the privilege of facilitating webcasts on women in leadership for the Association of Talent Development (ATD), the world’s largest professional training organization, and for the career services program for Georgetown University alumni association.
Tag Archive for: Leadership
Evolving digital technology demands more communication and accessibility from all employees, which leads to a culture of multi-tasking. But as leaders face increased communication demands, it’s important that they retain the value of listening.
Listening is Getting More Difficult
Active listening has been identified as one of the ten attributes of embodied leadership. Effective listening by leaders has been noted as the first step in creating trust within organizations. Also research shows that supervisor listening contributes to employee job satisfaction, satisfaction with the supervisor, and fosters a strong and beneficial exchange between leaders and team members.
Yet according to Accenture’s #ListenLearnLead study of 3,600 business professionals across 30 countries, the vast majority of professionals (64%) feel that listening has become more difficult in today’s workplace.
While nearly all (96%) of global professionals judged themselves to be “good listeners”, nearly all (98%) also report multi-tasking at least part of the day.
The study found that eight in ten respondents said they multi-task on conference calls with work emails (66%), instant messaging (35%), personal emails (34%), social media (22%) and reading news and entertainment (21%). In fact, professionals report distracted listening and divided attention unless they are held directly and visibly responsible within the context of the meeting.
“Digital is changing everything, including the ways in which we communicate. In turn, the way we communicate is changing how we listen, learn and lead in the workplace,” says Nellie Berroro, Managing Director, Global Inclusion & Diversity at Accenture. “Today, truly listening means not just watching our nonverbal cues in face-to-face meetings, but also maintaining our focus on conference calls, staying present, and resisting the urge to multi-task with instant messages and texts.”
Multi-Tasking Means More Quantity, But Less Quality
The attraction to multi-tasking seems to be a double-edged sword in the workplace that pins quantity against quality.
In Accenture’s study, 64% of Millennials, 54% of Gen Xers, and 49% of Baby Boomers reported multi-tasking during at least half of their work day. While 66% of professionals agreed multi-tasking enables them to get more done at work, 36% report that distractions prevent them from doing their best work. Millennials were at the extreme on each – feeling multi-tasking meant getting more done (73%) and yet distractions prevented them from doing their best work (41%).
However it’s traditional interruptions imposed by others (telephone calls & unscheduled meetings & visitors) rather than technology that were reported as most disruptive, perhaps due to the lack of control over these distractions.
What suffers? The trade-offs reported include decreased focus, lower-quality work, and diminished team relationships. But can leaders afford these trade-offs, too?
Despite the Benefits, Are Leaders Too Accessible?
“Our survey found technology both helps and hinders effective leadership,” says Borrero. On the positive side, 58% of survey respondents saw technology as a benefit for leaders enabling them to communicate quickly with their teams, allowing both time and geographic flexibility (47%) as well as accessibility (46%).
However, 62% of women and 54% of men felt technology made leaders over-stretched by being too accessible. 50% of respondents felt it forced multi-tasking and 40% felt it distracted from culture and relationship building. 55% felt a top challenge for leaders is information overload.
Borrero recommends practicing discipline when needed in disengaging from other technologies to give full focus to the material in front of you, such as putting your mobile device on silent during phone conferences and actively noting key points. “When you face information overload,” she says, “become comfortable with turning off technology. For example, you might disconnect at night, so you can recharge, and decide not to look at your phone until the morning.”
Importantly, when it comes to effective leadership and overcoming barriers to it, focusing on quality of communication and connection matters most – and that may very well start with listening.
The most important leadership attributes identified by the study were the “soft skills” of effective communication (55%), ability to manage change (47%), and ability to inspire others and ideas (45%), closely followed by understanding team members.
Yet this is also where skills suffer: the two most commonly perceived obstacles to effective team leadership were a lack of interpersonal skills (50%) and a lack of communication skills (44%).
Getting Better At Listening
While digital technology brings many advantages, leaders who compromise at listening may compromise their ability to lead effectively.
A Westminster Business School report highlights, “Listening is an essential skill in all situations and it is particularly important for leaders and managers to actually hear what others say, not simply what we think we hear them say…All great leadership starts with listening. That means listening with an open mind, heart and will. It means listening to what is being said as well as what isn’t being said.”
Despite its importance to leadership, leaders are too often ineffective at truly listening according to an HBR article by Christine M. Riordan. She notes, “The ability and willingness to listen with empathy is often what sets a leader apart.”
Riordan outlines three key behaviors leaders can practice that are linked with empathetic listening:
1) Hearing with all of your senses and acknowledging what you’ve heard.
This means “recognizing all verbal and nonverbal cues, including tone, facial expressions, and other body language.” It’s as much about listening to what is not said as what is said, and probing a bit deeper, as well as acknowledging others feelings or viewpoints and the act of sharing them.
2) Processing what is being shared and heard.
This means “understanding the meaning of the messages and keeping track of the (key) points of the conversation.” Effective leaders are able to capture and remember global themes, key messages, and points of agreement and disagreement.
3) Responding to and encouraging communication.
This means “assuring others that listening has occurred and encouraging communication to continue.” Acknowledging others verbally or non-verbally, asking clarifying questions, or paraphrasing reflects consideration of their input. This can also mean following-up to ensure others know listening has occurred.
According to Accenture’s Borrero, “Leaders are role models employees emulate, so it’s important for them to set a good example. In our increasingly hyper-connected digital workplace, we all need to practice ‘active listening,’ including paraphrasing, taking notes and asking questions. At Accenture, we offer a number of courses in effective listening, which is critical to our company as we focus on serving clients.”
In today’s leadership context, where effective leadership means showing social awareness not just self-awareness, leaders may employ technology to help them do it, but one way or another, it’s important they find a way to truly listen.
By Aimee Hansen
As a leader, do the values of your organization speak through your actions?
A recent article in The Journal of Values-Based Leadership reminds us that Steve Jobs said, “The only thing that works is management by values.” It’s no surprise that companies like Apple who foster a values-based approach in their leadership culture create connections that have a significant impact on company performance.
Your ability to focus on and motivate through core organizational values can have an impact on your effectiveness as a leader, too.
HOW FOCUSING ON ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES HELPS YOU AS A LEADER
Raises you to a leadership perspective
The Financial Times defines value-based leadership as “Motivating employees by connecting organizational goals to employees’ personal values.”
A Harvard Business School paper asserted that when leaders focus on the technical or administrative side of their work, they become too fixed on short term returns. The paper stated, “If leaders instead sought to uphold values and maintain integrity, they could establish the long-term perspective and commitment to innovation necessary for sustaining their competitive position in an increasingly global economy.”
Effective leaders keep focused on the visions and values of the organization as a compass for action. Indeed, having women in the boardroom has helped at aligning corporate action to company values. International research has shown that “the positive impact of women on the board on financial performance, and on ethical and social compliance, indirectly affects firm value.”
Also, keeping your eye set on organizational values, and above the daily tasks, may help you from getting too drawn into office housework that can be peripheral to your leadership goals.
Increases bonding with you as a leader
Building relationships with those who work with you is important, but when they’re built through a common bond around organizational values, it strengthens your position as a leader.
The ability to compellingly communication organizational values is a key attribute of leadership success. Communication research shows that optimized messages can garner a “shared sense of purpose, which is achieved when multiple employees possess the same understanding of the purpose of the work.” In particular, the combination of “a large amount of vision imagery with a small number of values” increases performance by creating a shared sense of organizational goals and coordination towards them.
Effective leaders also create a motivational sense of belonging. Leadership research shows that people feel more bonded to a leader with which they feel a “shared social identity” that is representative of their in-group. Leaders who effectively convert organizational values to a shared identity would seem able to create deeper commitment from those they manage.
In fact, values coach & author Joe Tye asserts that values-based leadership can create a culture of ownership rather than a culture of accountability, which he asserts relates to motivation, productivity, and retention.
Affirms your leadership integrity
Values are meaningless unless put into action, and the standard for integrity within an organization is set by its leaders.
Speaking to values-based leadership, Mark Fernandes, Chief Leadership Officer at Luck Companies, says “In order for these values to be authentic within the organization, it’s imperative that the leaders be fully committed to demonstrating the values in everything they do. There’s a level of inauthenticity that associates will notice and it can erode their trust in the leadership if they’re not actively seeing the behaviors exhibited in the actions and words of their leaders.”
The HBS paper asserted that by embodying the values they espouse, leaders enable employees to find meaning and value in their own work: “Members’ interactions with the organization and their actions on its behalf are not just transactional but are imbued with meaning. As members internalize the organization’s purpose, to the extent that their own actions further this purpose, they come to regard these actions as meaningful. They further view themselves as part of a valued community. They are motivated to exert effort on behalf of that community, to defend it when threatened, and to advocate on its behalf.”
Being able to connect individuals to the values of your organization is especially important when it comes to motivating Gen Y. Research has shown that for Millenials, job fulfilment hinges partially on believing in the vision and strategic direction their organization is pursuing in the world and feeling personally connected to it.
If leaders don’t uphold the values the company espouses, employees lose faith and begin to disengage. If they do, they inspire.
Ignites your potential and the potential of those around you
When your personal ambition is aligned with your company’s vision, you are more engaged, more productive and more able to reach your potential according to research. This is true not only for you, but for those you manage and motivate. When you feel corporate values are more closely aligned to your personal values, it creates intrinsic motivation.
Fernandes focuses on igniting the full potential in others, “Values-based leadership is defined by living, working and leading in alignment with your core values, principles, beliefs and purpose to, in turn, ignite the extraordinary potential in those around you.”
Values-based leadership has also been linked to creating a culture of creativity and innovation. The Journal of VBL article states, “When an individual has a personal and professional commitment to align personal values with those of the organization he or she works for, a powerful connection is created. This connection creates numerous possibilities for both individual growth and company productivity.” The article suggests that motivating a “work culture or atmosphere that sparks creativity” is increasingly a matter of customizing motivational strategies to align employee values with organizational values.
WALK THE WALK ON VALUES
So given how values-based leadership can positively impact your leadership potential, how do you begin to walk the walk? Perhaps the first question to ask yourself is what the organizational values really mean to you.
Conscious Manager recommends to, “Develop a personal understanding of your organization’s values. Think about what the company’s values really mean to you and to your unique leadership style. You need to know which of your behaviors demonstrate those values. If the business’ beliefs and principles don’t have meaning for you, you won’t be able to make them meaningful for anyone else.” Ultimately, it’s your actions, not your words that speak to how well you represent values – in being a role model, in teaching the values, and in recognizing them. “Bringing values to life is a behavioral issue.”
Embodying Values is one of five key behaviors of great leaders, says Author Ken Blanchard. He asserts, “Leaders must establish, articulate, and enforce the core values of their organization. More important, they must model the behaviors that support the values.”
He suggests leaders ask these four questions:
“How can I integrate our core organizational values into the way my team operates?”
“What are some ways I can communicate our values to my team over the next thirty days?”
“How can I create greater personal alignment with our values on a daily basis?”
“How can I recognize and reward people who actively embody the values?”
Inspiring leaders motivate us towards a common goal. Values-based may be less a type of leadership, and more a requirement of it.
By Aimee Hansen
“Through every step of my career, I have focused on learning a set of skills and doing everything possible to meet the needs of my clients, so that when an opportunity came up, I was ready,” says Anne Ozimek, senior vice president at Voya Investment Management. “Each job will offer a different set of challenges and every one of them will prepare you for your next step.”
Ozimek’s career in the insurance and investment business has spanned many years and a wide variety of positions. As she has taken on different roles, she has always preferred those that were fast paced and required ongoing problem solving.
Her first job out of college was at The Hartford Insurance Group, where she traveled to regional offices to offer the production teams solutions to improve workflow and reduce backlogs. She became part of their management training program and held several positions before moving to Aetna. She started as a business analyst on an investment accounting system, handling the production functions, and then worked her way up to supervisor of the unit and ultimately manager – all while obtaining her MBA.
As a result of the business knowledge she acquired supporting those functions, Ozimek left that daily production role to manage a small unit of business analysts working on a large accounting system replacement project. Completing that project allowed her to enhance her project management skills, working closely with IT and the business to develop specifications, test plans, identify, document and resolve issues and then ultimately implement the new system.
Based on that work and connections she had formed, she was offered a new role putting together an institutional shareholder recordkeeping unit for what was then Aeltus Investment Management (and became ING and now Voya).
This entailed learning the functions, hiring the team and then working with IT and Client Services to develop a proprietary recordkeeping system to handle the client level transactions for the funds the firm managed. The system was in place for more than 15 years, since replaced with a new operating model where an external service provider does the recordkeeping work and other back office functions and the Voya Business Support and Operations team oversees the work. Her team’s role has thus shifted from processing to oversight, analysis and problem solving.
Having been a member of an operational team for most of her career, Ozimek relishes her collaborative role – performing the day-to-day jobs to meet client needs but also supporting huge projects. “It’s fast paced, but what I love the most is the mentality of operations. The team always displays a can-do attitude. We know that no matter what the obstacle, we can figure out a way to get it done.”
She sees the industry as being a vibrant one for years to come, as baby boomers hit retirement age and need new products and advice as they segue from the asset accumulation phase to the spending phase.
Advice for Rising Stars
Ozimek had an excellent role model of a career woman in her mom, who worked at a time when many women didn’t. That gave her a good grasp on what the corporate world was like and how to mesh home organization, occasional late working hours and family needs, all while performing at her job.
Early in her career, she recognized that you may come into situations where you work hard and yet you still don’t get the acknowledgment you want or the job you want. At that point you have to assess what happened, determine if there was anything else you could have done differently, and then move on, making sure that you are getting the skills you need and connecting with the managers and mentors who are interested in making sure you succeed. She has had some great mentors over the years.
“If you’re not in a good situation for your skill set, recognize it and make a change,” she says. “Defining your world too narrowly is not a barrier in the business but in your mindset.”
Ozimek’s own personal philosophy on getting ahead is to work hard, and make sure you’re not getting caught up in an “it’s not my job” mentality. “If you go out of your way to help other people with their issues, you become a ‘go to’ person. Then the next time you need help, others around you are more likely to reciprocate. Every time you go the extra mile, you’re building those relationships and creating a situation where people are looking out for you.”
Saying yes is another crucial factor in a successful career ascension. “So many times, when someone approaches us to do something, we find reasons to say no. Instead, we should determine if there are good reasons to say yes,” she says, adding that it’s important to try to figure out why you were asked to do something. “Don’t discount that you just might be the perfect person..”
As the industry has evolved, Ozimek is no longer the only woman in most meetings and appreciates that change. She sees the benefit of having been involved in both formal and informal mentoring programs over the years and actively works with younger associates to provide that perspective. She knows that having a mentor offers a comfort level in talking through an issue or a problem and getting advice from someone who’s been there. She urges people to speak up if they want a manager to act as their mentor or coach. “Don’t be shy about what you want.”
Away From the Office
Ozimek has been married for 37 years and has two grown sons and two daughters-in-law. On the weekends she and her husband spend as much time as they can at their second home in Vermont, joined by family and friends. “This stage is a blast,” she says, “watching the ‘kids’ make their way in their lives and careers.”
“As a country, we are 80 years away from gender equality.” That statistic, which was shared during the World Economic Forum, caught Mike Jones’ attention, because as he says, “If that’s true, I won’t live to see it.”
Jones is CEO of Core Consulting, a technology and management consulting firm. His personal mission is reflected in the company motto: “Have a positive impact on the lives of others – do that and you’ll be ok.”
Jones’ varied career spans from his early years in banking to a stint in IT for an international insurance company to eight years with a large consumer electronics retailer. Along the way, he has had numerous career-defining moments that have underscored the importance of increasing gender equality.
He recalls an incident in the early 1980s when the bank president took a female loan officer to a customer lunch. The customer later called and said “If you replace my current loan officer with the woman you introduced me to, I am leaving the bank.” In Jones’ eyes, the customer was wrong, but the bank president wouldn’t stand up for his female loan officer. Jones recalls that he said that it was the customer’s choice, and the male colleague remained as the loan officer, even though the female had excellent credentials.
“Life might not be fair, but I realized that some of us could play referee and arrange the game so it’s a better playing field,” Jones said.
He sees gender inequality heightened by the lack of role models. At the electronics retailer, Jones said that only one of the 16 decision makers were women. “When she left, we became an all-male society, and we all knew we needed more balance.” He knows that the problem can be self-fulfilling. “How do we give our female middle managers someone to aspire to be and learn from? Who will they turn to for mentoring opportunities and to discuss the issues with which they are wrestling?”
A Strong Commitment to Giving Back
As a seasoned volunteer, Jones has spent ample time in the non-profit world, which he finds to be more balanced with women in key positions.
As part of his work on the board for the United Way, their Women’s Leadership Initiative held a breakfast attended by 600 women leaders. He said it was empowering to see how people will flock to support something when you establish the support mechanism.
He has also been supportive of Women in Technology, a subgroup within RichTech (Richmond Technology), which regularly meets to tackle relevant issues facing women in leadership. His company also organizes a dinner every other month that helps support and encourage women executives in technology.
Diversity in all areas is important to Jones. As he says, he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In 1990, he began working with Partnership for the Future, a non-profit that pairs CEOS with potential interns from the inner city. “We work with them to help them rise above the hand they were dealt, and give them a lift. We provide interviewing skills; match what they save dollar for dollar; help them get scholarships and essentially give them the tools they need. Many in this group would be lost if we didn’t lend a helping hand.”
Jones says he was inspired by his boss at the time to become involved. “He taught me you have to stand up for things that aren’t fair and give people a chance they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Promoting the Best Person
At the boutique firm he leads, he tries not to draw a distinction between men and women, but always hires the best person for the job. The controller and the vice president of recruiting and staffing are women, but he says that he can only draw from the pool that he is offered, which is why he knows that women need to be reached earlier.
He sees that the problem starts young, noting that there’s a point in middle schools where boys continue to pursue STEM endeavors and girls drop out. “I believe we have to reach young women earlier in their school career if they want to be ready for the boardroom,” he says. We are seeing that young girls are lacking confidence and don’t have seat at the table. We have to start earlier, to find ways to increase and maintain their interest at a young age and in the tech and science industries and then help they see how they can be leaders like Carly Fiorina.”
A Lifelong Mentor
Mentoring is part of the fabric of Jones’ life. He is part of an organized group at the
Virginia Commonwealth University’s graduate school, where he mentors one or two students a year.
He also lends a hand to anyone who asks or with whom he interacts, particularly helping those who need an injection of confidence. “My goal is to ‘encourage greatness,’ he says, adding that he mentors anyone who transitions through his life who needs encouragement. He even compiled his advice into a book, called “Hello Old Friend,” designed as a resource for career development.
“My mentoring is mostly not part of a formal program; I just live it. People have to care,” he says.
His mantra is to exceed the Golden Rule with what he calls the “Platinum Rule,” which focuses on paying it forward.
“I have never turned away someone who wanted to network or needed a hand, because we’re all one step away from needing that help.”
Advice for other Leaders
He firmly believes that promoting diversity is everyone’s job, and that you can’t be caught up in your own myopic world. “You have to engage and listen and recognize the need and then do something about it. Be the change agenda, and have the courage to stand up for what you believe in.”
In his view, a career is composed of two halves – the first half, which is when you’re taking and learning and building, and the second, when you find out what you’re called to do.
“Everyone should have their own personal ‘why,’ and mine is to inspire others to find what inspires them. We can be both a student and a teacher at every level of our career.”
By Cathie Ericson
By Aimee Hansen
“Countless books and advisers tell you to start your leadership journey with a clear sense of who you are. But that can be a recipe for staying stuck in the past. Your leadership identity can and should change each time you move on to bigger and better things,” says Herminia Ibarra, professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD.
In an article entitled “The Authenticity Paradox” in Harvard Business Review’s January 2015 issue, Ibarra challenges the predominant views and momentum on authenticity to assert that “true to self” approaches can hinder leadership growth. She argues “a too rigid definition of authenticity can get in the way of effective leadership,” often keeping leaders from evolving as they gain new insight and experience.
“Because going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what’s comfortable,” she explains. “In my research on leadership transitions, I have observed that career advances require all of us to move way beyond our comfort zones. At the same time, however, they trigger a strong countervailing impulse to protect our identities.”
Misunderstanding the Leadership Journey
How did we all come to revere “true to self” approaches? In her book ACT LIKE A LEADER, THINK LIKE A LEADER, Ibarra states the “holy grail of leadership development” that says you must navigate your way to leadership from a clear inner compass of who you are (inside-out development) is a fallacy derived from a research tradition of profiling highly effective leaders NOT the journey they took to get there. Ibarra’s research on the “development of leader identity” suggests that people become a leader by acting like a leader, which necessitates acting outside of your self-perceived identity rather than within it.
According to what she calls the out-sight principle, when it comes to leadership, what we do changes how we think, what we value, and who we see ourselves as – not the other way around. She writes, “Simply put, change happens from the outside in, not from the inside out.”
The Danger of Staying “True to Self” for Women
Ibarra spoke to us about how latching onto authenticity plays out for women. “The more common trap I see women falling into is not acting like a man but sticking too long to an authentic but outdated way of leading.”
She shared a scenario of role-transition in which both men and women were clearly out of their depths. “Women were more likely to try to prove their competence by demonstrating technical mastery over the long term; while men are more intent on making a positive first impression to create relationships.”
She explains how latching onto authenticity back-fired, “The women cited their reliance on ‘substance rather than form’ as a more ‘authentic’ strategy and thus as a source of pride; yet they were also frustrated with their inability to win their superiors’ and clients’ recognition.” She observed, “Despite the value they placed on authenticity, their cautious and protective behavior wasn’t necessarily true to self either, and they had a harder time enlisting others’ support because they were perceived as less adaptive and flexible than their male peers.”
Ibarra strongly emphasizes however “the divergent strategies of men and women are not due to issues of confidence or personality, i.e. women being more cautious, prudent or less risk taking and bold than men. What explains women’s heightened authenticity concerns is ‘second generation bias,’ defined as the powerful yet often invisible barriers to women’s advancement that arise from cultural beliefs about gender, as well as workplace structures, practices, and patterns of interaction that inadvertently favor men and accumulate to interfere with a woman’s ability to see herself and be seen by others as a leader.”
The antidote to that self-perception gap, of course, is leading. INSEAD research has shown that the more leadership experience women have, the less identity conflict they experience as a woman and a leader.
The authenticity paradox is especially acute for women in male-dominated companies. Ibarra told us, “Stepping up to leadership in male-dominated cultures is particularly challenging for women because they must establish credibility in cultures that equate leadership with behaviors that are more typical of men and where powerful female role models are scarce… If they ‘don’t look like a leader; to the seniors who evaluate their potential, they are less likely to get the assignments and sponsorship that are the heart of the learning cycle involved in becoming a leader.”
The Importance of Being “Adaptively Authentic”
In her HBR article, Ibarra encourages leaders to view themselves as works in progress with adaptive professional identities evolved through trial and error, acknowledging “That takes courage, because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous. But the only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic sense of self would keep us from doing.”
This takes more courage for women, because it can lead to a catch-22 as Ibarra shared with us, “When women are authentic, leading in less prototypical ways — crafting a vision collaboratively, for example, rather than boldly asserting a new direction — their contribution and potential is more likely to go unrecognized. But ‘chameleon’ strategies, that involve emulating the leadership styles of successful role models – as men are more apt to do – are less effective and less appealing to women in male-dominated leadership companies: they are evaluated negatively if they appear to be ‘acting like men’ and the styles that work for men are less likely to be a good fit for and appealing to them.”
In HBR, Ibarra proposes being “adaptively authentic”, a leadership approach that comes from embracing a playful attitude to identity rather than a protective one, a willingness to try out possible selves to figure out what’s right for new challenges.
Ibarra shared two thoughts with us for women under biased pressure to prove themselves as leaders, “First, often time you can play around with different ways of being in your side projects and extra curricular activities first, where the spotlight isn’t so bright. Second, you can’t underestimate the risk of doing just as you always have. At different points in your career you reach inflection points where the only way to ‘prove yourself’ is to just try new stuff because the old way clearly isn’t working.”
In HBR, she argues that being too internally focused can limit us, “Without the benefit of what I call out-sight — the valuable external perspective we get from experimenting with new leadership behaviors — habitual patterns of thought and action fence us in. To begin thinking like leaders, we must first act: plunge ourselves into new projects and activities, interact with very different kinds of people, and experiment with new ways of getting things done…Action changes who we are and what we believe is worth doing.”
Women and Adapting to Influence
Ibarra shared perspective on how women can influence leadership as they adapt to become better leaders, “Christine Lagarde (Managing Director of the IMF) has a lovely phrase for women: she says you have to ‘dare the difference,’ meaning dare to be different, to bring to your company your unique gifts, values and perspective as a woman and an individual. I can’t agree more.”
“But,” she cautions, “that doesn’t mean you don’t adapt to essential ‘leadership demands’ to think more strategically beyond your narrow area of expertise, to develop a full arsenal for selling your ideas to the people who have to buy in to make them reality, and to stretch your style so that you can inspire and persuade a more diverse audience. Being authentic doesn’t mean you just say ‘It’s not me to go out on a limb;’ it means you experiment until you find new ways of leading that work and also feel authentic.”
Seble Tareke-Williams describes her professional path as nontraditional, but each step has been vital to creating her current career, which combines her real estate investing acumen with her passion for community development.
She started her post-college career at a social policy think tank before running an economic development program at Pratt Area Community Council, a neighborhood-based community development organization. That’s when Tareke-Williams realized it was necessary to acquire solid business experience for her next career step, whether she decided to transition to the private sector or progress to a more senior management level in the nonprofit sector.
She decided the most expedient way to make a professional pivot was to earn a graduate degree in business and chose Harvard Business School because of its strong focus on leadership across disciplines, combined with the opportunity it provided to network with people across a broad spectrum of professional and cultural backgrounds. “As a career changer, I also felt it was important to attend a top-tier school; that I would benefit from that extra stamp of approval,” she says, although she adds she doesn’t think this route is necessary for everyone.
While at Harvard, Tareke-Williams was named a fellow by the Robert Toigo Foundation, which works to advance the development and careers of minority MBA talent seeking careers in finance. Toigo allowed her to build a greater network with peers across business schools. “Toigo has such a great reputation in the industry for its strong caliber of fellows so I felt the Foundation offered an extra level of credibility.” She says the Toigo Foundation was influential in landing her internship at GE, and later for the number of interviews it helped coordinate, including with Emmes, where she has been since graduation.
I find that women are naturally bolder when we’re representing the interests of others, including our firms’, because it’s how we’re built. We feel more comfortable in that role. But we need to exude that same level of confidence and boldness when representing our own interests
Real Estate Fund Combines Her Interest in the Public and Private Sectors
Tareke-Williams decided to focus on real estate based on the exposure she had received at the community development organization prior to business school.
Emmes acquires, manages and sells commercial real estate on behalf of institutional partners, primarily domestic pension funds. While at Emmes, she’s been involved in asset management, capital raising and acquisitions and takes pride in the depth and range of her professional experience.
“The diversity of assignments I’ve undertaken has made me a better leader; it’s allowed me to be able to have meaningful context when making decisions. And ultimately, that’s just as important as your innate abilities. Your experiences are what make you an expert in your field.”
She currently manages the Emmes Interborough Fund that is solely focused on markets across New York City that have historically lacked institutional investment, namely Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and pockets of Manhattan.
“When you think about the attributes of these markets within the context of the entire United States, there are tremendously positive fundamentals, including density and cultural value.
“I’m going back to my professional roots as we bring institutional dollars to these markets. It’s exciting to think about the economic development implications of investing in these markets, while still working within the private sector,” says Tareke-Williams. She notes that while the primary goal, of course, is to make money on behalf of pensioners who are investing, there is also the secondary positive impact on these communities. “It is a great marriage of the two phases of my career.”
She finds the real estate industry to be in a fascinating phase given several economic trends such as technological growth. Technology is changing where and how people work: technology increases worker mobility and productivity which impact space utilization as, for example, the average square footage dedicated per worker is decreasing. And the growth of technology firms, as well as other high-growth industries like media, are attracting workforces that value working and living in culturally relevant urban markets that foster creativity and business development such as the ones that the Emmes Interborough Fund invests in. These residential population and workforce shifts are creating resurgence in the outer boroughs of New York City.
“Real estate is fascinating because it touches every aspect of your life- where you live, work, and play.”
Confidence Will Lead to Success
Tareke-Williams knows that the No. 1 asset a professional needs is confidence – in your own work, ideas and perspective.
“I find that women are naturally bolder when we’re representing the interests of others, including our firms’, because it’s how we’re built. We feel more comfortable in that role. But we need to exude that same level of confidence and boldness when representing our own interests,” she says.
She notes that the men with whom she interfaces are more transparent about their own interests – they tend to be clear about their personal intentions, including making money. She finds they’re not shy about it, and in return they more often get what they want.
“When we represent ourselves well internally, that also raises our value to the firm. The assumption being that if you can represent yourself well, that you will also represent the firm with conviction.”
Striving for Balance – In All Areas
Though her company, as a boutique firm, doesn’t lend itself to having robust, scaled programs dedicated to diversity, she has always felt supported by the firm’s leadership who encourage her to develop and retain a strong external support network. She is active in WX, a group of women executives in real estate, as well as the Toigo Foundation.
Tareke-Williams has three daughters, soon to be ages two, four and seven. She spends as much time with them as she can, but considers balance to be about more than work and family. She is proud to have come full circle and be engaged at a deep level as the board chair of the non-profit where she worked prior to business school. “No matter how busy I am with my work and family, I won’t feel complete unless I’m also involved in community.”
And even with all that on her plate – or maybe especially because she has all that on her plate — Tareke-Williams knows that she has to make a little time for herself. She does that through training for races and is especially looking forward to an upcoming all-women half-marathon.
By Cathie Ericson
By Aimee Hansen
“Show me how to run, like a girl.” On Sunday February 1st, millions of Superbowl viewers watched a 60-second ad from Procter & Gamble’s Always campaign, which powerfully demonstrated that doing something “like a girl” implies weak and wimpy performance is an association girls learn. From puberty, girls become divorced from their self-confidence and evidently self-perceived ability.
Calling the ad “groundbreaking” for its placement in the Superbowl, the Huffington Post stated it won kudos “for changing the conversation about what it means to run, throw, and do pretty much any activity ‘like a girl’.” A Washington Post blog referred to it as a “PSA for all womankind” – summing up what was revealed by how young girls behaved in response before they internalized the negative gender stereotype of weakness:
“…throwing ‘like a girl’ is the same as throwing like a person, right?”
If negative gender identification contributes to dropping a female’s self-confidence by the time she hits puberty, it’s no wonder that marrying the roles of “woman” and “leader” too often creates an identity conflict for professional women.
Leadership Stereotypes & Gender
Researchers Alice Eagly and Anne Koenig stated in a Footnote article last year that while it’s slowly changing, “the characteristics people typically associate with leadership are often stereotypically masculine” – especially when it’s men making the association. A prevalent gender stereotype, which it has been argued in the Financial Times, business schools perpetuate.
Drawing from their own and other studies, they wrote “The alignment of the stereotypical characteristics of men and the stereotypical characteristics of good leaders makes it easier for men to be perceived as successful leaders, a phenomenon known as role congruity. In contrast, women are perceived as less fit for leadership because traditionally feminine characteristics are less consistent with our perceptions of successful leaders.”
Add “perceive themselves” to that dynamic, and the case for internal conflict becomes clear – leaving women in a bind when they attempt to be a leader in a male-dominated environment where their gender is a perceived liability.
Identity Conflict
A recently published report, “Me, a woman, and a leader: Positive social identity and identity conflict” by INSEAD’s Natalia Karelia and ESMT’s Laura Guillén, explored the consequences of positive social identity for women in leadership roles, across over 600 leaders.
From the INSEAD working paper behind the report, identity conflict is when women perceive an incongruity between their gender and professional identity. The study proposed that when women leaders see the identity roles of “woman” and “leader” as holding conflicting norms, meanings, and demands, they feel at odds inside while trying to live up to the standards of each of them, and this creates the feeling of inauthenticity and internal problems.
The research found that especially in male-dominated organizations, women leaders experience significant identity conflict, which increases stress, decreases a sense of well-being, and turns leadership into a duty they have to persist with rather than a joyful and motivating role. These women felt under pressure to conform to male-associated leadership qualities and expected behaviors, at a sense of violating their female identity.
The researchers propose that women in male-dominated workplaces may struggle to integrate leader into their identity because female leadership is not being legitimized, “For women, the road of developing a self-concept as a leader may be especially bumpy in the environments where women are numerically underrepresented.”
The researchers write, “Our results indicate that in male-dominated organizations, women leaders may be more often ‘reminded’ of the incongruity between their professional and gender roles.”
Positive Gender Identity
The research found that what powerfully reduced identity conflict for women leaders is this: feeling positively about belonging to the social group of woman.
The research found, “Compared with women in more male-dominated organizations, women in organizations with proportionally more women held a more positive gender identity and experienced less identity conflict.” Working in organizations where being a woman, and evidently the associated strengths, is seen as explicitly positive left women more motivated to lead.
The researchers asserted that “holding a more positive gender identity reduces women leaders’ perceived conflict between their self-views as women and leaders. Thus, cultivating and maintaining a positive gender identity helps women leaders to improve their well-being not only directly, but also indirectly — by reducing identity conflict.”
In simplest terms, what the study found was that women that feel more positive about being a woman feel better being a leader, closing the gap between them within. A significant contributor to that is seeing females reflected in numbers around them.
Self-Affirmation
Embracing our social identity as woman can also help to free us from the confines of stereotypes and perceived incompatibilities.
Drawing from past studies, Karelia and Guillén pointed out that a positive social identity links to a stronger self-worth which can spill across roles and indirectly build self-affirmation. “Therefore, the more positive social identities woman leaders hold, the more freedom they will feel about the way they can lead, and the more likely they will be to develop their own way of leading that makes them feel comfortable and authentic.”
“Leader” and “woman” need not imply an inherent divisiveness, when women embolden themselves to find their own way.
Who defines what it means to lead “like a woman”?
Well, ultimately, you do. Lead.
Contributed by Aoife Flood, based in Dublin, Ireland, Aoife is Senior Manager of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Programme Office at PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited.
Saturday, 8 March, marks International Women’s Day. As we celebrate the achievements of women in the workforce and beyond, my advice for leaders is don’t limit your focus to the gender leadership gap.
We know that organisations the world over are currently challenged with a lack of women in leadership positions, and concerned with the competitive and financial toll this could mean for their organisation. However, to achieve sustainable change CEOs must be committed to driving parallel efforts which tackle enhanced leadership diversity in conjunction with systemic change efforts targeting their workforce from day one. Organisations need to be focused on developing talented junior women now for future leadership roles – because when talent rises to the top, everyone wins.
At PwC Diversity and Inclusion is a strategic priority. We recognise that diversity is fundamental to the success of our business strategy and with the sponsorship of our Global Chairman, Dennis Nally, we are working hard to get this right. But we also recognise that to do this PwC, like other organisations, must first understand how to attract, develop and retain female millennial talent.
We are passionate about this, so to mark International Women’s Day this year we are launching the research based report Next Generation Diversity: Developing tomorrow’s female leaders which focuses on the attraction, development and retention of the female millennial.
A New Era of Female Talent
Born between 1980 and 1995, female millennials make up a significant proportion of the current and future talent pool. Female millennials matter because they are more highly educated and are entering the workforce in larger numbers than any of their previous generations. The female millennial has likely outperformed her male counterparts at school and at university and is the most confident of any female generation before her. She considers opportunities for career progression the most attractive employer trait. When it comes to the female millennial we really are dealing with a new era of talent; both in terms of the make-up of the workforce she enters and the career mind-set with which she enters.
The female millennial sounds pretty amazing, right? But how will organisations lean in to this new era of talent so they are successful in capitalising on these stellar traits? The Next Generation Diversity report shares six key themes that matter to the female millennial and positions the difficult questions that employers need to be cognisant of when it comes to this significant cohort of talent.
Female Millennial Demand for Global Careers
Let me delve a little deeper into one of the themes: ‘Global Careers’. I choose this theme because I am a millennial woman who was lucky enough to undertake an international assignment to PwC’s Boston office in 2006. This experience was life changing – throughout my 14 year career it is un-paralled as an experience in driving such an intense level of both personal and professional development. In essence, I know the impact an international assignment can have on a woman’s career.
Millennials have a strong appetite for working abroad, with PwC research telling us 71% are keen to do so at some stage in their career. What’s compelling – and critical for employers – is to realise that this is not a male phenomenon.
Donna Parisi, a Partner at global law firm Shearman & Sterling, recently sat down with theglasshammer.com to share her thoughts on the future of the derivatives industry. Donna was profiled on the site in 2010 when she participated in our “Top Women on the Buyside” management event, which she will be chairing again this year. Since 2010, Parisi has assumed the roles of co-head of Shearman & Sterling’s Asset Management Group and head of the Derivatives and Structured Products team. Over the past few years, Donna has been focusing on financial regulatory reform matters. At London’s Chatham House Conference on Global Financial Markets on March 17, Parisi will be discussing cross border derivatives harmonization.
The Glass Hammer: What is the outlook like for the derivatives industry at large?
Donna Parisi: The OTC derivatives industry, which has only been around for about 30 years, has constantly innovated and I believe will continue to do so. Over time products become commoditized and profits compressed, but new products have been introduced to meet customer and market demand. The inherent power and beauty of a derivative instrument is the ability to link it to an unending supply of asset classes limited only by a financial professional’s creativity. I believe the outlook is bright – different from what it has been in the past – but one of opportunity.
TGH: What impact does the most recent regulation have on the industry?
DP: The three central tenets of Dodd-Frank are improving transparency, mitigating systemic risk and protecting against market abuse. The regulations attempt to improve transparency in what has been called an “opaque” derivatives market by requiring exchange trading of more liquid derivatives instruments and requiring reporting of all derivatives transactions. Systemic risk is addressed by requiring liquid derivatives transactions to be centrally cleared and providing for higher margin requirements for uncleared instruments. Registration and regulation of major market participants such as swap dealers are intended to prevent market abuse and give regulators greater enforcement powers. Both the sell side and buy side are well past debating the need for or efficacy of new regulations and instead are fully focused on implementation and getting back to business. One major implementation challenge is compliance with regulations across multiple jurisdictions that are substantively similar as a policy matter, but differ in the details, presenting compliance complexities in what is a global marketplace. Related to this is the need for major infrastructure build-outs, including on unrealistic timeframes imposed by regulators on the technology side.
TGH: What do you think is keeping senior execs in derivatives up at night?
DP: What worries senior industry professionals are liquidity and capital. A perhaps unintended consequence of the new regulations has been fractured pools of liquidity largely resulting from cross-border issues such as broad extraterritorial scope, differing regulatory implementation timelines and a lack of mutual recognition of regulatory schemes in other jurisdictions. What does this fractured liquidity mean for the market? Who will the winners and losers be? What will be the impact on pricing and spreads? In some ways, capital considerations instead of regulatory requirements are driving business decisions. What capital is needed to support my business, and do my returns justify this allocation? I expect that in the next few years banks will be scaling back or even abandoning more capital-intensive businesses, perhaps creating opportunities for other credit intermediaries.
By Nicki Gilmour, CEO theglasshammer.com
This week The Glass Hammer is profiling successful women in the derivatives industry.