Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Women Manager Common Mistakes

Women managers bring uniquely feminine styles, motivations and skills to professional life and have learned to use some of their strengths -- like empathy, adaptability and strong verbal skills -- to their advantage. Unfortunately, another typically feminine characteristic, self-doubt, often follows women into the workplace.

"I don't know whether we're wired this way or taught it, but women want to please and to fit in. We care what people think and don't want to rock the boat, so we wind up underselling ourselves," says Ann Hambly, president of Prudential Asset Resources, a unit of Prudential Financial, in Dallas. "I've seen other women do it, and I've seen myself do it."

Ms. Hambly is working to eliminate this tendency. Meanwhile, she compensates for it by talking in the facts-and-figures language she knows her largely male team prefers and by taking on challenging assignments that demonstrate she isn't timid or risk averse.

Still, self-doubt and unwillingness to be aggressive can result in lower earnings, diminished stature and missed opportunities, even for women who are qualified and enthusiastic managers.

Are you making these four common mistakes:

Underselling your skills?

Fear of negotiating?

Not thinking strategically about relationships?

Being a worker bee, instead of the queen?

Source: Don't Let These Common Traps Keep You From Getting Ahead, The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2008

Why Women Don't Make it into the C-Suite

There is a scarcity of women in top leadership within Corporate America. 

Despite years of progress in the workforce, only 6% of women hold titles of chairman, president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer in Fortune 500 companies...and...only 15% of the seats on the boards of directors are held by women.

Resistance to Women's Leadership

Study after study has affirmed that people associate women and men with different traits and link men with more of the traits that connote leadership.  Many female leaders struggle to reconcile qualities people prefer in women (compassion for others) with qualities people think leaders need to succeed (assertion and control).

Kim Campbell, who briefly served as the prime minister of Canada in 1993, described the tension that results:

"I don't have a traditionally female way of speaking...I'm quite assertive.  If I didn't speak the way I do, I wouldn't have been seen as a leader.  But my way of speaking may have grated on people who were not used to hearing it from a woman.  It was the right way for a leader to speak, but it wasn't the right way for a woman to speak.  It goes against type."

People view successful female managers as more deceitful, pushy, selfish, and abrasive than successful male managers.  Men are associated with qualities which convey assertion and control.  They include being especially aggressive, ambitious, dominant, self-confident, and forceful, as well as self-reliant and individualistic.  These traits are also associated in most people's minds with effective leadership--perhaps because a long history of male domination of leadership roles has made it difficult to separate the leader associations from the male associations.  As a result, women leaders find themselves in a bind.

Do you measure up as a leader?

Most of us, in ways that we are not entirely aware of, automatically associate leadership ability with imposing physical stature. We have a sense of what a leader is supposed to look like, and that stereotype is so powerful that when someone fits it, we simply become blind to other considerations.

Malcolm Gladwell in his new bestseller, "blink" (Little, Brown), took a sample and found that, on average, male CEOs were just a shade under six feet tall. Given that the average American male is five foot nine, that means that CEOs as a group have about three inches on the rest of their sex.

In the US population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more striking, in the general American population, 3.9% of adult men are six foot two or taller. Among Gladwell's CEO sample, almost a third were six foot two or taller.

Of the tens of millions of American men below five foot six, a grand total of ten in Gladwell's sample have reached the level of CEO, which says that being short is probably as much of a handicap to corporate success as being a woman or an African American.

Chin Up?

A strong chin may be a plus for aspiring CEOs.  That's the conclusion of New York plastic surgeon Darrick Antell, who presented his highly anecdotal evidence at the 2007 World Congress on Liposuction Surgery and Advances in Cosmetic Surgery in Dubai.

Antell drew a line from the nose tip to the chin on photos of 42 CEOs from 2005's top 50 Fortune 500 companies.  Some 90% showed nonreceding-to-prominent chins, vs. 40% of the U.S. population.  People equate such jawlines with confidence and character, says Antell, who performed 20 chin augmentations in 2007.

Topping out at $7,500, the surgery's a bargain compared with, say, a $92,000 MBA from Harvard.

Source: BusinessWeek, January 14, 2008

Gender Divide @ Work

To bridge the gender divide at work requires a change in thinking about the glass ceiling.

At Deloitte & Touche USA, the Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women, known as WIN, has been lauded for its success in promoting women to the most senior ranks: 19.3% of partners are women, the highest percentage among the Big Four public accounting firms.  That's up from 7% since WIN was started in 1993.

Two years ago, Deloitte came up with a new program, Women as Buyers, to specifically help men with what mattered to them (winning more clients) while improving understanding between men and women at the firm.   

The four-hour sessions remind men of simple differences such as client entertaining (women prefer breakfast to dinner, since they often have more evening responsibilities at home) and communication styles (just because a woman is nodding doesn't mean she agrees with you).  While male executives may prefer consultants or accountants to sit by their side, women are more visual than men and partners should face women executives in client meetings.

And because women tend to see leadership roles as positions of responsibility rather than power, partners should think carefully about whom they parachute in to help sell services.  "If it's a guy, you might want to bring your big mucky-muck in," says Paul Silverglate, an audit partner who went through the training.  "Women partners are more focused on who's going to do the work with their team day-to-day.  That was very interesting to me."

"If you really want to make a difference for women," says Silverglate, "it has to make sense for all partners."

Source: BusinessWeek, June 18, 2007

New Women's Coaching Club begins in October 2007:  www.SameWorkplace-DifferentRealities.com

Visit www.ExecutiveTeleclasses.com for the Same Workplace, Different Realities teleclass series especially for women executives.

Diversity Fatigue?

Catalyst, the pioneering women's research organization, is now 45 years old and losing ground in making a difference for executive women hoping to breakthrough the glass ceiling.

Broadening its membership may have something to do with Catalyst's kinder and gentler middle-aged doldrums.  The nonprofit has increased its membership to more than 340 multinationals, including Amgen, Dell, FedEx and Whirlpool, all four of which have no women among their top-paid corporate officers.  Each pays $10,000 to $100,000 or more annually, in part to associate themselves with the Catalyst name.  Perhaps, in serving its broad base of members, Catalyst is becoming fatter and, if not happier, less than a forceful change agent in helping executive women move up the corporate ladder.

Women in Corporate America are losing ground in breaking into the Men's Leadership Club and are dramatically underrepresented at the highest levels of business.  The percentage in corporate officer and director positions fell, to 15.6% and 14.6%, respectively, from 16.4% and 14.7% according to a short report of America's 500 largest companies posted on Catalyst's website.   

Former Catalyst president Sheila Wellington points out that when it comes to looking for top women at each company, "there's a lot of power in the word 'none.'" 

The day before Jeffrey R. Immelt became chairman of General Electric Co. in 2001, he told BusinessWeek that he'd cringed at a photo in The New York Times showing no women among GE's top 31 officers.  "It haunted all of us."  Immelt consulted with Catalyst, got more women into the senior ranks and, in 2004, won a Catalyst Award. 

Don't look to Catalyst to help spot the worst corporate offenders today.  Current president Ilene H. Lang says, "We're not in the shame game.  We don't find that publicly embarrassing people achieves anything."

Source: BusinessWeek, April 16, 2007   

Perhaps, some of the women executives you know are ready to start doing things slightly different in order to achieve the success they deserve.  These days, they are not alone.

Glass Ceiling Remains Unbroken

If you're feeling incapable as a woman in the workplace these days, you're not alone. 

A poll by Roper Public Affairs shows that three out of five women working in the high-tech industry want to leave because of a perceived glass ceiling - a perception that they are less knowledgeable and qualified than men.  At a time when 50.3% of all managers and professionals are female, women still comprise fewer than 2% of Fortune 1,000 CEOs and just 7.9% of Fortune 500 top earners.  The glass ceiling remains unbroken.

Last year, women held 16% of Fortune 500 corporate officer jobs.  That was a rise of just 0.7 percentage point from 2002, according to a survey by Catalyst, the New York research group.  The survey also found that women made up only 6% of the top five earners among corporate officers, a rise of 1.2 percentage points in the same period.  These are smaller gains than Catalyst found in prior surveys, done every three years over the past decade.  Three decades after droves of women started business careers, the challenge is to help women climb the corporate ladder with leadership development programs, flexible work arrangements and other practices that recognize their unique talents and needs. 

Most employers don't realize they're pushing some women out of their jobs.

The Center for Work-Life Policy's Hidden Brain Task Force produced a report, "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success," that was published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) in March 2005.  The article notes that "pull" factors, such as the demands of young children and aging parents, often combine with "push" factors, such as a lack of opportunity at work, to make women head for the door.

The main problem is that the prevalent notion of a committed employee---one who can work long hours, travel and be accessible 24/7---doesn't match many women's lives, says Lisa Levey, senior director of advisory services at Catalyst.  The HBR article says, "The trick is to help them maintain connections that will allow them to come back....without being marginalized for the rest of their careers."

"In focus groups, we heard the disappointment and discouragement of women who had reached senior levels in corporations only to find the glass ceiling still in place, despite years of diversity initiatives," the HBR article reported.

Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles.

A report, "Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities?", by Catalyst found that 81% of women said that "adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable" is an important or very important strategy to advance one's career.

Communication styles rooted in childhood training or unconscious beliefs can be tough to change.   A first step is becoming aware of how you talk at work.

Our perceptions represent the way we see the world works and they also strongly influence those we live and work with.

Catalyst asked 296 executives of both genders to rate by percentage the effectiveness of female and male leaders on ten different leadership behaviors.  Both genders said men are better at networking, influencing upward and delegating.  "Women as well as men perceive women leaders as better at caretaker behaviors and men as better at take-charge behaviors," says Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst.  "These are perceptions, not the reality."

Do these 10 terms describe you? 

Professional, credible, assertive, capable, intelligent, direct, articulate, politically astute, self-confident and self-marketer? 

If not, it's makeover time. 

Seeing ourselves clearly does many things:

• It allows us to control impulses and select the most appropriate behaviors.

• It shows us how to avoid reacting in negative and potentially self-limiting ways.

• Knowing our strengths and limitations makes us more understanding of others.

• Gaining an understanding of issues reduces conflict in ourselves and in others.

Being aware of the affect of our personality and default behavior on the people in our life helps us to engineer a better communication and leadership style.  People seek out personal coaches for an infinite variety of reasons, but there are two typical categories: people navigating some significant transition in their life or career and those who have some inkling that something, like their leadership style, personality or assumptions and beliefs, are holding them back.

Driving the trend for executive coaching makeovers is the business reality that managers need help to address difficult performance or behavioral issues in a time when there is a constant need to stay competitive.  Eighty percent of Fortune 500 companies now offer executive coaching.  By hiring external coaches, companies can assure their people of the confidential nature of learning through a one-on-one approach.  They have also found that coaching is essential for creating change and moving people towards their highest productivity and potential.

In their role as executive and personal development coaches, Barb McEwen and John Agno see a number of highly skilled women executives who are in need of some fine-tuning when it comes to be recognized and supported for their abilities.  McEwen says, "These are intelligent, committed and hard working women.  They are valued for their technical expertise but miss some of the nuances or "invisible rules" that are required to be chosen for further advancement."

Coaches McEwen and Agno have assisted numerous women executives to take a look at ways in which they can improve.  They have helped them focus on their communication and listening skills, hone their leadership abilities, learn to manage and delegate more efficiently; key into the importance of influencing up, gain improved negotiating skills, deal with difficult people and handle conflict better.  In the process, these women executives have become more politically savvy, able to recognize and appreciate gender, cultural or generational issues, and at the same time gain new personal insight.

Perhaps, the women managers you know are ready to start doing things slightly different in order to achieve the success they deserve.  If so, please suggest that they get a "taste" of an executive coaching makeover by joining Barb McEwen, Certified Master Executive Coach & Organizational Strategist and John Agno, Certified Executive & Business Coach, in one of their women-only teleseminars.  The link for full details, including all Weekly Topics, can be found at:

http://www.executivewoman.info 

This makeover experience is an ideal opportunity for both companies and individuals.

Same Workplace, Different Realities

Julie Roehm, 36, as director of marketing communications at Chrysler Group, is no ordinary executive.  When Wal-Mart came knocking, Roehm had been working at Chrysler for nearly five years.  It was a company that all sides agree fit her temperament perfectly.  "We're probably the edgiest automaker in terms of the things we try.  And the times Julie went over the edge have been well documented," says Jason Vines, the automaker's chief spokesman.

Roehm was flattered when headhunter Spencer Stuart contacted her in September of 2005 about the possibility of joining Wal-Mart.  She saw an opportunity to head a marketing communications department and be part of a potentially exciting effort to transform the company and its image.  However, Roehm and her husband, Michael, who looks after their two boys, age 5 and 8, wondered about moving from suburban Detroit to Bentonville.  And from the moment she arrived at Wal-Mart on Feb. 6, 2006, Roehm recognized that fitting in would be harder than she had imagined.

A leadership onboarding coach would have worked with her to keep a low profile and spend her first 100 days listening to build productive relationships within the company.  However, that's not her default behavioral style.  "I get overly excited," she acknowledges.  "I wanted to hit the ground running.  Go, go, go."  Unfortunately, no one told her to back off.

Roehm acknowledged mistakes, among them moving too quickly and not adapting to her new workplace.  But she also paints a picture of warring fiefdoms and a passive-aggressive culture that was hostile to outsiders.  Wal-Mart, she says, "would rather have had a painkiller [than] taken the vitamin of change."  What has she learned?  "The importance of culture.  It can't be underestimated."

When Julie Roehm was fired in December 2006, a legal combat ensued.  An alleged affair, improper gifts of fancy meals and booze, and a big pink diamond were all part of the mix of charges and countercharges.  In November 2007, Roehm acknowledged that some of her allegations were inaccurate and said she was dropping her suit for wrongful termination without getting a dime.  In return, Wal-Mart agreed to dismiss its claims against Roehm.

Women executives can shoot themselves in the foot when they lack contextual knowledge due to not really getting the corporate culture.  This knowledge gap can lead to difficult problems from direct reports to the board of directors.  Every department, business unit, division and enterprise has a culture that the leader must respect or the culture will push the leader out.

Are you ready to start doing things differently to achieve the success you deserve?

In our role as executive and personal development coaches, we see a number of highly skilled clients who are in need of some fine-tuning when it comes to be recognized and supported for their abilities.  These are intelligent, committed and hard working people.  They are valued for their technical expertise but miss some of the nuances or "invisible rules" that are required to be chosen for further advancement.

Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women can be at a disadvantage when it comes to picking up on gender-based differences and subtle cues.  A report by Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit, "Women and Men in U. S. Corporate Leadership:  Same Workplace, Different Realities," found that 81% of women said that "adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable" is an important or very important strategy to advance one's career.

If the women in your organization are feeling some insight would be helpful to advance their careers, they are not alone.

At a time when 50.3% of all managers and professionals are female, women still comprise fewer than 2% of Fortune 1,000 CEOs and just 7.9% of Fortune 500 top earners.  The Glass Ceiling (www.GlassCeilingTips.com) remains unbroken.

Perhaps, you know of women managers, where you work or within your personal network, that are ready to start doing things slightly different in order to achieve the success they deserve.

If so, join Barb McEwen, certified master executive coach, and me every Wednesday for a teleclass series on the subject of Same Workplace, Different Realities.  More information at: www.ExecutiveWoman.info

Source: BusinessWeek, February 12, 2007 and November 19, 2007

The Baby Handicap

A recent decision by Europe's top court rules that male workers can be paid more than similarly employed women who have less time on the job because of maternity leave.

The ruling came in the case of Bernadette Cadman, 44, a health inspector in Manchester, England, who filed suit when she learned that her annual salary was as much as 9,000 pounds less than male colleagues doing the same job.  The company justified the discrepancy by nothing that Cadman had taken maternity leave, and therefore, had fewer total hours on the job than her male counterparts.

Cadman initially won her case at an employment tribunal in Britain, but lost when her employer appealed the case to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.  In rejecting the claim, the court noted that length of service was a fair way of deciding pay because experience "enables the worker to perform his duties better."

Jenny Watson, chair of the United Kingdom's Equal Opportunities Commission, suggested employers should "err on the side of caution and ensure that length of service is only used in pay where it can legitimately be justified."

Supporting Working Moms

While women are still scarce at the highest levels of management, some companies have adopted noteworthy initiatives to change that.  Last year, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP created a program called Full Circle designed to keep new mothers "connected" with the firm for up to five years while they are home raising their children or providing care for elderly relatives.

Full Circle members, whether they are taking a temporary leave or have left indefinitely, get coaching and keep up training and credentials on the firm's dime.  They also participate in such events as "moms' nights out" to allow for an easier transition back into the firm.  By 2006, the firm's turnover rate among female employees had declined to 17% from 26% in 2001.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Guidelines

Pregnancy-discrimination filings have risen 23% in the past ten years to a record high last year.  More mothers are claiming their ability to work and advance is hindered by employers' stereotypes and assumptions, not only during pregnancy, but for years thereafter.  In a pattern some people call "the maternal wall," some mothers say they're denied jobs or promotions by managers who assume all mothers should stay home, lack job commitment or don't want to advance.

Female plaintiffs have traditionally had to prove they were treated worse than men in comparable positions to press charges of sex discrimination.  Now, the EEOC says managers' biased statements and behavior may be enough to warrant charges by mothers over job setbacks without any comparative evidence.

Sources: Human Resource Executive, January 2007 and The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2007 and May 24, 2007

Women Getting to the Top

The overall number of women in senior corporate ranks has barely budged lately.

Last year, women held 16% of Fortune 500 corporate officer jobs.  That was a rise of just 0.7 percentage point from 2002, according to a survey by Catalyst, the New York research group.  The survey also found that women made up only 6% of the top five earners among corporate officers, a rise of 1.2 percentage points in the same period.  These are smaller gains than Catalyst found in prior surveys, done every three years over the past decade.

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling

Some women may be missing out on the executive coaching that equally experienced men get at work.

A recent survey by Novations Group Inc., a consulting and training firm in Boston, found that at 20% of companies offering such coaching, women receive it less often than men, while women get more coaching than men at only 5% of businesses that offer it.

Senior management (usually men) typically chooses who receives coaching, often selecting up-and-comers to whom they relate best, says Deborah A. Felton, a director of consulting in New York for Novations.

What are women managers missing out on?

Developing a pressure-proof demeanor.

Eliminating fidgeting and other subtle behaviors, such as finger tapping, that can detract from a person's authority.

Tending to concentrate so much on getting the job done that they may neglect big-picture thinking.

Not being able to point to where they made a difference.

Not finding time by handing off some tasks to others.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2006

Executive Communication Style

If you're feeling incapable as a woman in the workplace these days, you're not alone.  A poll by Roper Public Affairs shows that three out of five women working in the high-tech industry want to leave because of a perceived glass ceiling - a perception that they are less knowledgeable and qualified than men.

In fact, the 2005 Women's Leadership Index - conducted by Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and the Inforum Center for Leadership - reported top female executives earn an average of 49 cents to the dollar compared to men.

In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that women are at a disadvantage when they communicate "like a woman" in a male-shaped corporate culture, and 81 percent of women are now "adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable."

Sound like some ridiculous regression of feminism, catering to male-chauvinism?

Not to John Agno, an Ann Arbor-based executive coach. To him, acting more "like a man" is savvy business sensibility.

Talking like a man matters

"A woman needs a male coach," says Agno. "Otherwise she won't have a good idea about how the other gender thinks and feels.  It's still a man's world in business.  Women need to learn how to talk like a man.  They need to learn how to brag. They'll get what they want out of the situation by molding to the environment."

Women have, characteristically, been conditioned to speak a certain way, according to Agno.  "They tend to end sentences on a high note, which implies, 'We really want to talk this over,' instead of a low note, which is more of a command."

Along with shaky vocal inflections, Agno says women aren't specific enough about their contributions to the company.  They use too many words, downplaying their abilities.  In the male mind, this behavior creates doubt.

Communication styles rooted in childhood training or unconscious beliefs can be tough to change.   A first step is becoming aware of how you talk at work.  Here are some pitfalls that women especially can encounter in the workplace: 

--using too many words to deliver serious messages
--downplaying your contributions
--using vague language
--phrasing statements as questions
--using an upward inflection at the end of statements, which indicates doubt.

Working with an executive coach can help you to be clear on the communication style at your level within the company and to confidently practice this style so you will be heard at work.

Source: Lansing State Journal, June 22, 2006, www.LSJ.com