Archive for female executives
Women Leaders and Male Partnership
Posted by: | CommentsIn any learning process, there is a tendency to go to extremes before finding middle ground. Take driving, for example. Most teens start by driving very, very slowly, learning when to accelerate and when to put the brakes on. Then there is a time when we all want to experiment with speed, until either fender hits fender, or a ticket is handed by an unsmiling policeman.
Most of us then find the safe space of the middle ground where fast and slow are dependent on the territory.
So it is with all relationships. Sometimes a hug is perfectly timed, in other situations a metaphorical “right to the jaw” is called for. In all partnerships, all life happenings, it is all in the timing.
Margaret Thatcher was a woman leader who had a great sense of timing. She was strong and gracious. She entered the territory of male domination early on and set the stage for women to follow, to learn the art of push and pull.
I am reminded of a Margaret Thatcher story: she was disappointed with her cabinet, one she felt was weak and unwilling to take stands. Her frustration came out at a dinner, so it has been told, when the waiter taking meal orders asked her “Chicken or Steak” to which she replied “Steak please”. Next question was “And what about the vegetables”. She looked up and said “Oh, they will have steak also”.
We are now in an era where the fine art of timing is even more important because the world is moving so fast. There is not the luxury to ponder, to hesitate. As women, we need to become experts in timing, when to hug and when to hit.
Patterns of behavior handed from generation to generation have kept many women in the “hug” category. Often, the extreme of “hit” has been indiscriminate. This is a major learning process for men as well as women, and what we can learn from leaders like Margaret Thatcher is not so much about policy perspectives as about the push and pull of power.
The most important learning for leaders is how to find that magic balance.
Work for a Jerk?
Posted by: | CommentsAt one point or another, we have all worked for a jerk. Trending analysis, client feedback and underground communication clearly indicate that mismanaged employees and boundary violations are on the rise. Managing through tough times and poor leaders is often time more difficult than the work itself. Poor leadership can range from an immediate supervisor to poor HR leadership. Noone is exempt.
Taking charge of your career and disengaging from negative forces, including a jerk of a boss is within your reach. As a Career Strategist with an organic and practiced track record of problem solving, I am focusing this weeks blog on the employee relations aspect of managing poor leadership, self preservation and maintaining your sanity.
5 Strategies to Activate NOW
#1 Document…Document…Document
Venting is short lived whereas documenting is soothing, has long range positive effects and will set you up for a chronicle of events if you need to take legal action.. Hand write your discontent in a strategy journal. This is a journal specifically dedicated to you, your work, your accomplishments and your discontent. Keep it is a safe place and use it daily. Date, time stamp and openly journal details of what is occurring. Always be sure to credit yourself for one or two accomplishments per writing. When leadership is lacking, you need to start truly leading yourself. This means crediting your daily accomplishments and cheering for yourself!
#2 Keep the Personal Out of Professional
Remind yourself that you accepted your position to offer professional skills in lieu of pay. That is it! Nothing more! While it is a bonus if you make a friend or two in the workplace, your primary focus must be on your skills and honing them. If you have a jerk as a boss or a leader who leads you to feel uncomfortable, steer clear. You are under no obligation to take part. If you think you can out maneuver the person…perhaps you can but you will be far better served if you develop a strategy focusing on your accomplishments and becoming successful than trying to “play the game”.
#3 Remove Fear from your Vocabulary
There is a reason the famous quote “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” has stood the test of time. Use it. Get out from behind your fears and exercise your courage. This does not mean randomly acting out, but rather, put a plan in place on making your move to either sustain the existing workplace dysfunction OR exit the company. Planning your work and working your plan is powerful. Have dedicated hobbies outside of work. This will give you something positive and productive to look forward to and feed your focus on you.
#4 Stop living above your means NOW
If you cannot quit your job due to financial restraints, start cutting back on your luxury spending and live beneath your means. Start paying yourself first by banking as much as you can. Make a game out of stashing away extra money. You will gain power over yourself which will bring a heightened sense of confidence into the workplace. Your boss may be curious about seeing a change in your however, never needs to know why the change. Remember Rule #2??? Keep personal to yourself.
#5 Take Action.
If you have been spoken to inappropriately, asked to divulge personal information, felt emotionally violated to the point of crying or coerced to conform in what may be perceived as a borderline “touchy feely, cultish” environment, stand your ground and exercise your voice. The EEOC is always available to file charges especially if on the job allegations are not being dealt with. Environmental harassment is NEVER ok. Once you speak up, you are protected by the law from any further wrongdoing. Get Moving!
For more information: www.eeoc.gov.
Women Leadership and Mad Men
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Some revolutions are bloody, and some are flash-in-the-pan moments.
The women’s movement began quietly with a book “The Feminine Mystique”, moved to bra burning, and gained traction with consciousness raising groups.
All of that seems like it was centuries ago.
We now head large organizations, are in key positions in government, and have a say in just about everything. Yet some of the pleaser and martyr behavior patterns that were handed from generation to generation are still dying a slow death.
Just watch “Mad Men” and remember how it was. You worked if you typed and delivered. No not ideas – merely the coffee to the men. While much has changed, there is more work to be done.
This is a year of both celebrating change and dialoguing about what still needs to change. CELEBRATION: in the next few months women will cross the threshold and become the majority workers in America. CELEBRATION: women professionals are in the majority in this country. CELEBRATION: women have become economically powerful in their own right.
What is the next phase of the revolution toward equality, and even beyond that, toward partnership?
Perhaps we need to regroup and create consciousness-raising groups that mirror the 60’s. Maybe this time it needs to include both men and women. While we need to celebrate the successes, we really need to ask the hard questions that remain unanswered for ourselves, our children, and even our grandchildren.
My daughters are grown, and I am now watching the dilemmas and concerns about what it means to raise children in a world that is going at warp-speed. What does it mean to run a business, run a household, and still have time for the kids?
I believe the dialogues of today are around the unfinished business of the past. The issues are around motherhood, and fatherhood. The issues at the deepest level are about the children. If we have them, then who raises them? What kind of support is needed to bring out the best in the next generation?
This is where the pleaser and martyr patterns of the past, so deep in the neuropsychology of most women, kick in. Women still appear to be the ones who make the plans for the youngsters, take off the time if they are sick, and worry about grades, friends and drugs. Sure, dads are included, yet it still seems that mothers are carrying the heaviest part of the load. That has not really changed.
I am not suggesting we demand that our men vacuum and make the oatmeal. That discussion belongs to each couple to sort out. I am thinking way bigger than that. I am wondering if we can look at the countries that have offered families more help, looking especially at Norway and Sweden.
What do we need to do to change, so the next generations grow to be the best they can be? When do we as women take the pleaser and martyr parts of our personalities and transform them into their positive opposites – the truth teller and the integrator? What are the questions that need to be asked to sort out the dilemma of what we can do, what our businesses can do, and what government can do?
I’d love to hear from you with ideas about creating life-enhancing programs that can deter so many of the social problems connected with the new world of work we have helped create, and the burdens of parenting at every level of our society.
Let’s start a 21st Century rendition of consciousness-raising, and keep the revolution for healthy and balanced evolution at the forefront of our lives.
Women and Men: Different Perspectives
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We really are different. Our brains are different, as well as the outlook on what is important. I believe we can help each other see new and critical points of view. I also believe we need to give each other space to be ourselves.
Often the best way to say “vive la difference” is through humor. Stephen Kapustin, a lawyer in Philadelphia is a graduate of our Total Leadership Connections program. He is a seeker of truth through humor, and has sent me so many funny articles to get my laughter valve open on many a dreary day.
The following has so many elements of deep truth. Women love to explore the emotions of a situation, while many men want to get to the solution quickly and move on. Let me know if your male business partners remind you of this guy. I must admit that my business partner, who is also my husband, would respond like the man in the column.
In fact, when I showed this to Herb, he looked at me and said “So, what’s funny about that?” What answer would you give to that question???
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Leadership and “Process till you Puke”!
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In every business, in every life, it is vital to process all information and even emotional content to make sure that you are making the best decisions you can make. Yet, there are extremes and when you get caught at one end point of the spectrum or the other, there is a tendency to either deny what is going on, or indulge in over-thinking the process.
One of our best consultants at Creative Energy Options, Inc. (CEO), Dianne Moore, who covers the Midwest for us, had an amazing “aha” moment about too much process time and what it does to us. An eloquent writer, she talks for so many of us, especially women who do tend to be the queens of analyzing and looking over and over again at what life holds, both at home and in the business world.
I’d love your comments on what you do when you get stuck in a place where you begin to over think what you are doing.
“The Pity Pot”
Let’s hear it for process! Yes, let’s give it some well-deserved, rousing applause….clap……..clap………..clap……..clap.
I am sick of process.
Process grinds you down, beats you up, gives you the run around, wrings you out, slaps you sideways, and pulls you under.
Process halts life, sidetracks dreams, curbs joy, and blocks creativity.
Process addles the brain, amplifies pain, and arrests gain.
Process destroys, dumbfounds, and demolishes. Process disconnects, disturbs, discourages and disengages.
Plain and simple….PROCESS SUCKS.
I am sick of the journey. I am fed-up with faith, have had it with hope and checked out of charity ten days ago. I feel like molasses and look like shit. I am bored with my whining, irritated by everyone, and sick to death of living in brain fog.
I am plagued by idiots, pained by idealists and just plain out of idioms (thank goodness).
I want a process-free life. Where is the potion, the pill, the process to be process-free? (Now that is just plain silly.)
It is time to give this pity pot A ROYAL FLUSH!
Healthcare and Women
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One of the most well-run and informative meetings I went to last year was the HBA conference in San Francisco. The Healthcare Businesswomen Association is a class act.
What impressed me was the juggling act done to show the strong side of women in a mostly male dominated industry, as well as the feminine side that we, as women, need to maintain for our own sanity.
The women who represented the major pharmaceutical and biotech companies were key players, with long resumes down to the newbies just starting out. There was a sense of “we’re all in it together”, a desire to mentor and an equal desire to learn from the “elders’.
At one point, I stood on the side watching the buffet lunch line take shape and loved the musical sounds of people connecting with each other. The male manager of the hotel happened to stop next to me and we had a brief conversation. I was curious, so I asked what was it like to be surrounded by 800 women? His answer was telling. He said there was something different than many past meetings he had witnessed. He was not sure he could name the difference. I urged him to give it a shot.
“Well, for one thing” he began tentatively, “these women seem to really like each other”. He stopped to analyze his statement. I prodded with “How can you tell?” and he continued, almost in a stream of consciousness, “not sure….I always see women as one upping each other…..looking at what they are wearing and talking about that or where they got the dress or shoes….these women…..they seem focused on wanting to make a difference ….I don’t mean to listen in, yet can’t help hearing them…..they are talking about not just healthcare in general…..they are really talking about how to make their work settings better for everyone…. I even stopped in yesterday morning and there was session about how to develop trust at work…. They were in small groups and they were really working the issue, not just giving it lip service….I thought about it last night, women are really making a difference in the workplace and somehow, I just saw the power of what they, you, all can bring to the table from a deeper perspective.”
He stopped, embarrassed and excused himself to check on the wait staff. I saw him later and he waved, still embarrassed by the amount of self disclosure. He made sure not to get too near, for I might ask another open-ended question that would get him going again.
I thought about this male perspective in a women’s conference. There were a few men in attendance, certainly no more than a dozen at most, and I hoped they had a similar experience. We have come a long way and we certainly are on the road for bringing trust into the work setting as well as compassion and a sense of camaraderie. As women, we excel at relationships and mentoring and we can be partners to help our male colleagues pay attention to and benefit from our natural abilities.
