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Leading Women
January 02, 2009
The women who rise to the top of your organization in the coming years may have a few things in common.
By Martha Carlson
As women in the workforce, we live in historic times. No matter what side of the political fence you sit on, the achievements of Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin had the country watching closely to see how a woman can not only handle, but also succeed in a top leadership position.
Women are staking their claim on and shaping the workplace as never before. According to the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2007: First, 71 million women accounted for 46 percent of the total U.S. labor force. Second, the largest percentage of employed women (39 percent) worked in management, professional, and related occupations. Third, those women accounted for 51 percent of all workers in high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. And finally, those women outnumbered men in such occupations as financial managers, medical and health services managers, accountants and auditors, budget analysts, property, real estate, and human resources (to name a few).
However, as women in senior leadership roles, we have a way to go. A disproportionately small number of women are found in the top earner, board member, or corporate officer levels in many sectors of corporate America. While social change over the past 50 years was widespread, research shows it was not followed by a change in gender stereotyping.
There is a double standard for women in the workforce. If they act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft. If they swing to the other side of the pendulum and take on traditionally male characteristics, they are considered too hard. When women exhibit traditionally valued leadership behaviors such as assertiveness, they tend to be seen as competent but not personable. This is coupled with the fact that women often face higher standards of performance expectations at lower levels of reward.
Clearly, we are at a critical juncture for the future of women in leadership. As a female executive coach specializing in women in leadership, my job is to understand and communicate the characteristics that will help sustain their effectiveness and fulfillment as they navigate the waters of leadership. Here are some of the characteristics they need to succeed:
Authenticity
Authenticity is being self-aware and doing something about it. This trait allows a woman to understand at a very base level her strengths, weaknesses, desires, and fears. The key factor is her ability to convert this self-awareness into a business tool and intentionally choose how she will leverage the positive and compensate for the negative. Success is achievable if she is comfortable with the fact that she does not need to be a man or act like a man to be effective. She needs to understand that she must be herself and act with integrity. An authentic woman leader sometimes recognizes authenticity itself may be veiled by tact and judgment. A successful woman recognizes and acts accordingly to the fact that things left unsaid often are more powerful than what is said.
Fearlessness
As human beings, there are two motivators behind our behavior: to fulfill our needs for satisfaction and to defend our sense of security. When we are motivated by defending our sense of security—whether with respect to our relationships with others or our sense of competence and self-worth—we are acting out of fear, and compromise our effectiveness as a result. When we are motivated to fulfill our need for satisfaction, we set aside our fears and focus on what we want to achieve, and are much more likely to attain it. Fearless leaders take calculated risks and are able to discern the cost/benefit of those risks. If (and when) a successful woman leader fails, she realizes a closed door only opens different windows of opportunity.
Focus
As women, we may believe we are the consummate multi-taskers doing good work for our business, our family, our community, and friends. I argue that to be effective and to sustain our progress towards whatever aspirations we hold dear, we must stop the Herculean job of multi-tasking and make a deliberate choice to focus.
While we may be able to do many things at once, we can only do justice to one thing at a time. By being clear on the activities and actions that are essential to our success and fulfillment, and maintaining singular focus, we increase the odds of achieving our goals tenfold.
Energy
We cannot achieve success by burning ourselves out—working longer hours, compromising sleep, and depleting our wellness. We must know and attend to what brings us energy in the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual sense. This includes getting adequate sleep and exercise, dealing with negative emotions and fueling positive emotions, prioritizing tasks and activities, and allocating time and energy to those considered most valuable.
We don't have to go far to find an example of these characteristics acted out by an exemplary woman business leader. On the local Minneapolis business front, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chairman and former CEO of Carlson Companies, continues to be showered with lifetime and career achievement awards from a number of business associations and media outlets. She has just come out with a book on leadership. Marilyn both understands and embodies the characteristics of authenticity, fearlessness, focus, and energy. She was not driven to write a typical leadership book that gives insight on how to wring the most out of employees or how to woo more customers. Instead she wrote the book to let her grandson understand more about the things she fought and cared for in her dynamic business career.
As you look at the list of characteristics above, you will notice they apply equally to women and men. None of these characteristics are inherently feminine or masculine—they are gender-neutral. This leads me to conclude neither sex has a lock on effectiveness and fulfillment, and that gives me infinite confidence in the future of a growing force of women in business leadership.
Martha Carlson, MBA, CPCC is a co-principal and executive coach at The Bailey Consulting Group, Inc. She also facilitates The Exchange, "A Forum for Women Leaders," which meets in live groups and in online forums and discussions. For more information, visit www.thebaileygroup.com.
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