I attended an event this morning for a foundation’s 10th anniversary. Each table participated in the breakout session, assigned with a specific topic. My table’s topic was leadership. Everyone around the table was asked to share how they show and facilitate leadership and had already been asked to share something recent they are proud of. The last woman to speak at the table said she wasn’t really a leader in any way. Ironically it was she, who for me, is the one that showed the greatest leadership. The last speaker at the table shared what she was proud of, prior to sharing she wasn’t really a leader. She shared, very authentically, that she is proud of addressing the issue of caring for her mother in a manner that made her self manage her own fears, expectations and projections and come to a place of acceptance and positive forward movement, along with a positive outlook with the entire new dynamic she was facing with her mother. She perfectly articulated and is modeling every quality a good leader has. Leaders are not defined by a career path or vocation. We all know or have experienced people in management positions who are not good leaders. Leaders are those who can self manage their needs and their ego, placing the greater goal, be it professional or personal, in front of their singular vision. She is a leader.
The More Women In Leadership Roles, The Better The Company Does
I saw the following earlier today… I wondered if this was an opinion or a fact. I came across the following, Women In Leadership=Better Company Results . Within the article, I found the following most compelling, “They examined 16 different “competencies,” like taking initiative and driving for results, and found that women rated higher than men in 12 of the categories. When it came to total leadership strength, “at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows.”” So the question is, in a world that places high value and great demand on corporate and organizational profits along with return on investment, why aren’t we hiring more women to up our game?
Are Women In Government Stuck?
In a recent article from Governing magazine, “Why Women’s Presence in Politics Has Stagnated,” I was unpleasantly surprised to see female legislators are still at the same percentage level, roughly, as they were in 1997. What an unpleasant discovery it was to read that. I believe a lot of us just assumed progress was going on. And unfortunately legislative positions do not seem to be the only areas of lag. Of the over 9,000 International City/County Management Association members only 23% are women. Even more depressing is that the percentage of women in those chief administrative positions have reminded dismally consistent at 13% since 1981. I feel I am part of the problem as without organization’s such as The Legacy Project in Illinois or other data gathering entities I would still be rolling along feeling it is all getting better. Sadly, without a conscious, focused effort and review of government culture, either as individual entities or overall, along with data mining, progress will not magically come. How do we know this? Numbers don’t lie. And just in case equity isn’t a motivator within your organization, women bring a dynamic into an organization’s culture that is often extremely conducive to increased positive customer service, increased return on investment, etc. So if you are not motivated by social progress, there is certainly enough data out there showing more women in leadership positions equate to increased profitability and in the case of government, wise use of tax payer dollars. The graph below is going on three years old, but based on the figures I’ve seen lately is a fair visual representation providing a great overview of where the U.S. stands internationally when it comes to government and non-government female management. It is an additional indicator demonstrating how far U.S. government entities have fallen behind.
Productivity… TED Talk: Yves Morieux: How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done
Very interesting TED Talk on rules, the workplace and productivity. What is the real goal and where do we focus in our processes – finding someone to blame if failure happens or do we focus on success? Is your company culture shaping a dynamic making it a positive for personnel to collaborate outside of their individual duties? Click here to watch.
Urgent vs. Important
It is true, many of us work and/or live in environments that are fueled by doing what is ‘urgent’. The question is, who defines what is urgent? It is important to occasionally take a step back and review your own mission, goals, etc. and determine if your daily actions and activities are leading you towards your definition of positive outcomes and success, that which is important. Or, are you trapped in someone else’s cycle of urgency?
“A Stalled Revolution”
The following is from and interesting article on women in the workplace. The full article can be found here. “In recent years, however, the percentage of women in top management positions and on corporate boards has stalled: As recently as 2011, their presence in top management positions in S&P 1500 companies was less than 9 percent. Although there has been a slow but steady increase, progress for women is uneven; while 19 percent of S&P 500 board directors are women, only 15 percent of directors of S&P mid-cap companies are women, compared to 12.6 percent of directors of S&P small-cap companies. Overall, just 15.8 percent of directors of S&P 1500 companies are women. Companies with female CEOs tend to have more female directors; however, as of October, 2014, there were only 67 female CEOs in the S&P 1500.”
No.
“No” is a complete response. I had the great pleasure of spending sometime this week with a friend and colleague, Deborah Siegel, PhD. While talking with Deborah, she shared something amazing. She said she has a place in her office where she marks down when she says ‘no.’ So why is saying no a big deal? Because most of us, especially women, struggle with saying ‘no’, and saying no without having to explain why, etc. The ramifications can be significant when we fail to draw, and stick to the boundaries we need to be successful on our own terms. Here is a perfect example involving my own lapse. I over committed in the last few months. Some of the stuff I committed to I love and would do anytime I was asked. Some of it was because I felt I ‘should’ even though time wise I knew it would mean 4am or 5am starts to the work day and 11pm ends to the work day. What happened was due to being over committed, over worked, and under rested I began to slip up on things. Specifics…The May TEDx event I organized and ran required a lot of work pre, during and post event work with caterers, budgets, social media, ticket sales, accounting, speakers, etc. I LOVED doing that event, and deeply enjoyed the speakers that come on board. Being over committed I was not able to fully entrench myself the way I wanted to. Also updating TEDx web site required text often happened prior to 5am or after 10pm, or even on the fly via my cell phone, not ideal. And yes, I did it at 100 mph and managed to misspell one of the speaker’s name, not only in the original program for the event, but also on the TEDx video bio. I guarantee you this would not have happened if I had not over committed to things that really weren’t as meaningful and/or valuable. I got lucky, the speaker, Katy Hansell, caught it prior to the program going to print, and on the web site, which I then updated. Even luckier for me, is Katy is truly a generous person and made me feel like I was not an idiot for screwing it up. But we all know that doesn’t always happen, and very often people will zoom in on the 1% you missed rather than the 99% amazing stuff you got done. All this is to say, saying ‘no’ not only supports you, your mission, your business/employer, your family, etc. by empowering you to give your best, it is also a necessary thing to do. The word “no” does not require an explanation, nor does it need to involve feeling bad. One of the greatest lies in our culture is that we should be able to do everything, all the time and be the most amazing person in the history of the world at it. WRONG. You should do what you do best, and leave the other stuff to someone else who can do it best. Saying ‘no’ not only helps you up your game, it allows someone else to shine with the opportunity you are turning down. And yes, I am now proudly tracking when I say ‘no.’ Want to check out the two amazing women noted in this post? Visit Deborah Siegel, PhD, she does amazing things, by clicking here. And visit Katy Hansell, who also does amazing things by clicking here.
Set Your Goal, Listen To Yourself
This TEDx video from the TEDxWomen event I organized has one of my favorite thoughts within it…Marcia, who swam the English Channel, notes when people discourage a goal, call it crazy, etc., it equates to “leveling the field” – the notion that if they can’t do what you are aiming for, then you can’t either. View Marcia’s TEDxWinnetkaWomen talk.
Ignore Them
Setting a goal is the easy part. Staying focused is when the challenges kick in. And perhaps one of the biggest distractions on the path to achieving a goal is when others question your goal. Recently I coordinated a TEDx event. One of the speakers, a successful English Channel swimmer noted the feedback she often got/gets in regards to such an accomplishment is negative feedback. You see people tend to belittle or deconstruct your goals, for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Bottom line, if you succeed in doing whatever amazing, juicy, courageous thing you’ve set out to do, it reminds others that setting and reaching goals is possible. Expect a direct correlation between the size of your goal and the negative pushback you receive, the greater the goal, the greater the pushback. Expect it, but do not accept or internalize it. Other people’s criticism most of the time, close to all of the time, has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.