Career Women Coaching

Dealing with Gender Issues

Many of today’s up-and-coming, eager professionals are articulate, talented, well-educated and technologically savvy, but many of them are also unaware of the nuances to manage their career and may become labeled as obtuse. They simply lack the political perception and professional skills to get ahead.

Author Jena Abernathy is a passionate advocate for women in executive and governing board roles. Inspiring, down to earth, and straight talking, “THE INEQUALITY EQUALIZER” is the mentoring guide that most of us will wish we had read a long time ago, much earlier in our careers. Abernathy shares her practical, proven real-world techniques to strategize your career, and gain the confidence, know-how, and respect to get results, make winning impressions, and build long-lasting success.

Regardless of how much we might like to think that everyone believes that men and women are equal, the truth is that every woman will face a variety of gender issues throughout her career. Among those challenges is simply getting to the top spot. We see this every day when we witness the dearth of women in leadership positions.

As women, we have to get down to brass tacks and claim what we want. We can’t be afraid of a desire to get ahead, of ambition, or of success.

Maybe it does mean that we have to work harder in general or even harder than men. Resolving gender bias won’t mean that we as women suddenly get to work less hard in order to succeed in business. We’ll still have to work hard and over-deliver, and so will men.

Source: Jena Abernathy: The Inequality Equalizer

Other Self-Coaching Guides for Career Women: 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions)   

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook and Workbook Edition in paperback at $13.41)  

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Gender Issues Won't 'Go Away'

Put Your Signature Talents to Work

Getting to Know You

Sex Differences in Leadership Style

Despite their best efforts, women still face obstacles pursuing a career and being a mother. Unconscious to the many limitations placed on their choices, women still believe that they face a stark choice of either their careers or a happy home.

Aspiring women deserve a solid "heads up." 

Women who ascend the corporate ladder are expected to give up, to go up.  This is a critical consideration for women with children. 

Countless mothers of young children have surprised themselves by creating professional opportunities while they've been home with children.  Others have impressed themselves and others when they demonstrate how their organizational abilities at work translate well on the home front, in locating the right support network and helpers to make both work and home function smoothly.

It was Gloria Steinem who said, "I've yet to hear a man ask for advice about how to combine marriage and a career."

“Women and False Choice: The Truth about Sexism,” by Muna Jawhary extends the logical conclusion of gender bias in society to the workplace, and shows how our unconscious sexist beliefs translate into a sexist behavioral reality. Throughout her book, Jawhary suggests powerful ways of creating a healthy work environment that is equally supportive for both sexes.

Leader stereotype leads to two forms of prejudice:

First, women’s potential for being endorsed as leaders is less than men’s, because the male stereotype is closer to the leader stereotype.

Second, women’s actual leadership is evaluated less favourably than men’s, because women’s assertive behavior is perceived as undesirable or threatening, particularly to men.

Women tend to employ democratic leadership styles that allow subordinates to participate in decision making. Generally speaking, women leaders more than men leaders tend to be inclusive and aim for consensus-building. Research also shows that women are more interpersonally oriented than men – more concerned with the welfare of the people they work with and with maintaining good professional relationships.

Compared with men’s directive style, therefore, women’s leadership style can be described as collaborative.

Source: “Women and False Choice: The Truth about Sexism” by Muna Jawhary

  Other Self-Coaching Guides for Career Women: 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions)   

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook and Workbook Edition in paperback at $13.41)  

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Gender Issues Won't 'Go Away'

Breakthroughs to Empower Women

Are You Overworked and Out of Time?

When Women Leaders Succeed

According to a recent study released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and EY (Ernst & Young), women in leadership positions are linked to stronger company profits.

In their new book, “THE NEW ADVANTAGE: How Women in Leadership can create win-wins for their companies and themselves,” Howard J. Morgan and Joelle K. Jay delve deep into what women, and the companies that employ them, can do to promote the advancement of women.

While many experts have explored the challenges of women in leadership, Morgan and Jay focus on solutions; what individuals and organizations can do to actually begin the transformation.

In the last several years, while coaching executive women, we began to see a trend. Organizations wanted to advance women and were trying but not succeeding….mainly due to the feedback input women got from the sources all around them.

Feedback remains treacherous for women.

The Center for Talent Innovation reports:

• Women are 32% less likely to receive any feedback from male superiors.
• When they do get feedback, 81% of women say they have trouble responding to it, because it’s so “distressingly contradictory.”

However, women have control over their ability to get good feedback. You can educate yourself about how good feedback should work and take the initiative to get it for yourself.

Being unaware, we unconsciously engage our default behavior. Only when we become aware of something, are we able to make choices as to the action we wish to take. Sometimes, just being aware, allows the problem to solve us--rather than requiring us to solve the problem.

For example, self-assessments are research-based quizzes that reveal your attributes. Each assessment will yield different information. Another form of self-assessment is ongoing reflection during the conversations you have with your executive coach and/or mentor.

All you need to succeed is three simple questions:

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not working?
3. What do I need to change?

Ask these questions often and you’ll have an ongoing gauge as to how you’re doing and where to focus your attention.

When you receive feedback and are seen to be acting on that feedback, your stock goes up in the eyes of others.

Feedback is essential for developing your self-awareness and without self-awareness, how will you know where to direct your efforts at self- improvement?

Source: Howard J. Morgan: The New Advantage: How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for Their Companies and Themselves

  Other Self-Coaching Guides for Career Women: 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions)   

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook and Workbook Edition in paperback at $13.41)  

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Do You Have a Mentor and Personal Coach?

Elements of Personal Coaching

Are You Overworked and Out of Time?

Breakthroughs to Empower Women

  Books on women’s leadership are having a major cultural moment, but can you overlook the question of how women make decisions?

The research is making increasing clear that when a man faces a hard decision, he needs to make a judgement; when a woman faces a hard decision, she needs to make a judgment and navigate being judged.

Why is it still the case that of the 195 independent countries in the world, only 11.2% of them are run by women?

Drawing on voluminous research and the vivid experiences of women, from diverse industries and backgrounds, author Therese Huston Ph.D unpacks the mechanisms with which women make decisions and the unconscious biases underlying how the world reacts to their choices.

Decision-making, especially at work, is a different process for women. “HOW WOMEN DECIDE” is a remarkable book in that it gives the reader insight into how to improve decision-making skills, creates options, and makes optimal choices.

Women’s Confidence Advantage

Things to remember:

Men and women alike find it hard to believe that they’re average. But compared to women, men tend to think they’re much better than average. The confidence gap is largest on skills that society considers masculine or feminine. Women underestimate their knowledge and abilities on masculine skills, but men still believe they’ll be proficient in skills deemed feminine.

Things to do:

Think of confidence as a dial, something you can turn up or down. You need to keep your confidence turned down when you’re making a decision, when you are weighing your options and need to hear more.

Dial up your confidence when you’ve already make a decision and the task at hand is more about persuading others to accept it and follow you. Pay attention to your body, your self-confidence. To provide a quick injection of confidence, strike a high-power pose or lower the pitch of your voice. To lower your confidence, assume a low-power pose.

Source: Therese Huston: How Women Decide: What's True, What's Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices

Other Self-Coaching Guides for Career Women: 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions)   

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook and Workbook Edition in paperback at $13.41)  

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Would it surprise you to know...?

The Logic in Our Emotions

Assumptions Drive Your Behavior

Leadership is.....

 

 

When You Are New

For most of us, the prospect of having to meet new people, learn new skills, and take on new roles provokes uneasy, anxious feelings.  For some, that anxiety escalates into dread, resulting in missed opportunities, disappointment, and failure.

Empowering newcomers to push past their anxieties and take action, "WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU'RE NEW" opens the door to exciting new worlds.  "Put yourself out there, try new things, meet new people," author Keith Rollag, Ph.D., "urges the reader to seek the success, energy, and joy you deserve."

Every time we change jobs, move to new neighborhoods, take new classes, or join new clubs, we find ourselves surrounded by strangers and unfamiliar social situations.  Most of us have had hundreds or thousands of these newcomer experiences in our lifetime.  Occasionally, we might truly embarrass ourselves, or find ourselves snubbed by strangers.  But most of the time, we have a relatively good newcomer experience.

Who needs a personal coach?  Maybe you do--whether you know it or not?

New job. New employer. And new headaches when staffers resist your new approaches. How can you champion enough change to justify your hiring -- without rocking the boat so much that you endanger your career prospects?

Leaders in new positions often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

Onboarding coaching of the newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this high rate of failure.

Source: Keith Rollag Ph.D.: What to Do When You're New: How to Be Comfortable, Confident, and Successful in New Situations

 

 

 Can't Get Enough Leadership

 

 Develop Leadership Skills: A Mobile Reference Guide

 

 Ask the Coach 

- See more at: http://www.coachingtip.com/2015/09/why-high-professionals-leave.html

Women on Corporate Boards

More women joined S&P 500 boards during the 2015 proxy year, but at a slowing pace, data from the 30th annual Spencer Stuart Board Index shows.

Thirty-one percent (117) of new independent directors were women, an increase of one percentage point — representing just seven more women than in 2014. Women now represent 20 percent of all S&P 500 directors, compared with 16 percent five years ago yet are underrepresented in leadership roles. Only 16% of nominating committees are chaired by a female director, 13% of audit committees and 10% of compensation committees.  

With turnover of S&P 500 boards averaging about 7 percent annually and women representing less than a third of those new directors, change in the composition of boards is likely to be slow. Lack of director term limits and high mandatory retirement ages contribute to the low turnover.  Only 13 S&P 500 boards, 3%, set an explicit term limit for non-executive directors. Seventy-three percent of boards have a mandatory retirement age for directors. Of those, nearly all, 94 percent, set the retirement age at 72 or older. 

Meanwhile, a survey of corporate secretaries conducted as part of the report shows a decline in the number of boards prioritizing the recruitment of women. In contrast with last year, the percentage of respondents prioritizing the recruitment of active CEOs (65 percent) topped the number prioritizing the recruitment of women (58 percent). In 2014, 71 percent said they wanted to add a woman, while 60 percent said they were looking for an active CEO.   

“Given the current pace of turnover, it will take a long time before we see meaningful progress. Particularly when boards limit the pool of new directors to CEOs, women will have fewer board opportunities,” said Julie Hembrock Daum, who leads Spencer Stuart’s North American Board Practice. “Increasing the presence of women on management teams, corporate boards and board leadership roles requires a multi-front effort. That’s why our work with the WCD Foundation is so important.”

 

"At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite."  Sheryl Sandberg 

 

Here are some self-coaching books to get started in shifting gears:

 

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41) 

 

 

 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

 

 

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

Networking is Crucial for Success

“Networking is like exercise,” says Candace Corlett, president of WSL, a retail strategy consulting firm. “You know you must, but do you?  And you know if you do, you’ll feel better.”

According to data collected in a study of 118 companies by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., 10% of senior women executives said they had the aid of four or more executives helping them advance, compared with 17% of senior men executives.

Work and Home

Making connections is often challenging for women who want to maximize their time at work and get home for dinner, say executives. Others fear looking like they are bragging or inappropriate for seeking favor and guidance from a male superior, even though it is likely that any executive above them will be a man, they say.

Women often think of their network as social contacts.

Friendships can happen naturally, but it isn't essential for a network to be built on close, intimate ties, executives say.  Networking isn't always easy but it is crucial for business success.  Although networking is important for women, they have fewer connections than men.

If you hate networking, then stop networking and begin to share knowledge.

Effective corporate leaders recognize that there is an 'invisible' structure of personal and business networks within their company that define the true influences and interdependencies -- and they know how to access and leverage those resources. Effective leaders are strategic in the way they share knowledge. They use their knowledge to earn trust and build their reputation within the company.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2015

"At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite."  Sheryl Sandberg 

Here are some self-coaching books to get started in shifting gears:

 When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41) 

 

 Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.  (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

 Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions) 

 

Women, Men, Work, Family

The struggle many women who want to have children go through while trying to keep their careers on track fuels a robust industry of books, paid speeches, and symposiums. College-educated women, the frustrated consumers of these products, lurch from guru to guru, wondering why each new best-seller or TED Talk changes little.

After years of being told they can do anything they want while men still behave as if it’s the 1950s, women are ready to hear the truth: Nothing is going to change for professional women in the realm of work, life, and family demands until men get on board.

Everyone, male or female, parent or not, may at some point have caretaking obligations for another person. The assumption that there isn’t likely to be a “wife” at home to deal with it, should be built into the system.

If it were, you would have fewer promising women (and men) dropping out of the workforce after having children. And then you might see more female Fortune 500 CEOs, surgeons, and law firm partners.

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, September 28, 2015

Books---Self-coaching guides for Career Women:

Anne-Marie Slaughter: Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

Pamela Stone: Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home  

Sheryl Sandberg: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

  When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook edition $0.99, Workbook Edition in paperback $13.41)  

   When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback $13.41    

Improving the Quality of Your Life   By  Author M.B. Tosi   on April 1, 2013

Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Do is to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.

 

It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.

 

Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals.  A great read! 

 

 

 

Women's Leadership Retreat

November 14-15, 2015. I'm inviting you to Vision Quest Consulting’s 9th annual Women’s Leadership Retreat at the Viking Hotel in Newport, RI. 

This Women's Leadership Retreat is for women who want to create a powerful future as a leader and start making bold moves towards it.

This is NOT your typical women's conference.  It is a delicious community of women supporting women as we grow and expand ourselves, together!

Register now here!