Women Leading the Future

This is a teleseminar I am conducting in early November, 2008.

I have been asked this question so often by women: How do I learn to say "no"? I remember a woman being very critical of me on an evaluation form after an assertiveness workshop because I hadn't taught her how to say "no". 

When we focus on that ability (or inability) it doesn't do us justice, as women. It raises the question that if we can't even say "no", how could we make the hard decisions that women need to make to lead and manage an organisation.

This is a teleseminar I'm conducting for women in October, 2008.

As women we are considered to have good soft skills. These are the people skills, interpersonal and communication skills that are seen to be increasingly important to people who want to grow and advance their careers.

In fact, some male managers and CEOs think we have them in abundance. That's why we often get promoted to leadership roles in soft skills areas like human resources, marketing or public relations. Have you ever stopped to wonder why women are rarely appointed to hard skills areas like finance, building and maintenance or corporate governance?

Yet, in spite of our supposedly strong affinity with soft skills, many women find them very hard to use to advance their careers. In fact, the way we use them often has the opposite effect - it damages our careers.

Time is a precious commodity, isn't it? Taking a whole day from work to attend professional development - even something we would passionately like to attend - is often a challenge. We think of what's going to be there for us tomorrow when we get back to our desk. Not to mention the emails.

Then there's the cost. Am I going to gain enough from the day to warrant spending so much of my professional development budget on one day workshop?

Of course, there's also the logistics of getting there - the travel, the parking. the organisation of children because you won't be home at the normal time.

This is why teleseminars are just so good.

If you’re reading this blog post, then you are one of the hundreds of women out there wanting to advance and grow their careers. I’m sure, however, that you all have a variety of motivations for doing that. I asked two groups of women, who did a workshop with me on “Growing Your Career”, why they wanted to grow their careers. Here are some of their responses.

“I know I have talent, expertise and potential and I want to develop it and use it.”

“I’m ambitious, and I have a vision for my life and goals I want to fulfil.”

"I’m a bit of a trail blazer. The idea of breaking through barriers, e.g., the famous glass ceiling, is a challenge that I find exciting!”

“I love the buzz of pushing the boundaries and discovering new challenges.”

“I want to prove to all the men in my family, who I don’t think really believe in my capabilities, that I have as much ability as they do.”

I came across this great blog this morning on Darren Rowse's Problogger.net. Actually Darren didn't write it. It was written by a guest writer on his site - Michelle Mitchell from Scribbit. Its captivating title was what caught my eye - "Five Reasons Why Mom Blogs Are The Blogs To Watch". Apparently on April 10, the prestigious Wall Street Journal interviewed Heather Armstrong, a mom blogger known to millions throughout the US as Dooce. The interview was widely reported in the print media around the country.

Michelle's Five Reasons to Watch Mom blogs are:

1. Moms can blog at home.

2. Moms need the sociality of the net.

3. Moms have a wealth of material to use.

4. Moms are record keepers.

5. Mom blogs wield economic power.

I recommend you go and read the full article at Problogger.net.

I came across this website for Women CEOs in Australia (see below) and thought I'd share it with you in case you were not aware of it. It is an organisation called "Chief Executive Women" and was established in 1985. It currently has 152 members who are women leaders from corporate Australia, the professions, academia, the public and not fot profit sectors.

"CEW's purpose", says the home page, "is to promote the development and effective use of Australia's leadership talent. We believe the whole community benefits if the talentts of women are fully utilised. CEW aims to accelerate talented women into senior leadership through:

• Influencing CEOs, Boards and Senior Executives,
• Fostering the development of talented women, and
• Building a supportive and collegial environment for CEW members"

There are resources on the site; especially worth noting is the kit they have developed for Women CEOs and the training that goes with the use of that kit.

So go have a look at http://www.cew.org.au

Happy International Women’s Day 2008! I realise I’m a day late, but I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that I was celebrating yesterday. In fact, because IWD was on a Saturday here in Australia, the celebrations took place on almost every day of the past week.

What a year it has been for the women of Australia. There are a number of events that have happened this year that make me feel especially good about being a woman in Australia. They have strengthened my identity as a woman and affirmed it. In fact these things have given me something to identify with that fits with my image of womanhood in 2008. I have confidence that there are other women leaders out there working to make the sort of difference I also am wanting to make.

1. There was the election of the Rudd Labor government and everything that   came with that for women.

2. There was  the media attention given to the Victorian Chief Commissioner of Police, Christine Nixon’s leadership style as she manages the cultural transformation of the Victorian Police Force.

3. There was the celebration of the centenary of Women’s Suffrage in Victoria.

So many of us have asked the question: "How did he ever get that job? I have much more experience than he has. He's only been here five minutes anyway! I know I interviewed well and I had to interview better than him. He does not communicate well at all. It is felt by many people around here, not just me."

And if you are reflective you will go on: "What more do I have to do to be able to advance my career in this place? Or do I have to leave and try somewhere else? But then would it be any different? Is this about me or is it about the system in which we, as women, are trying to grow our careers?"

Good question, and far from feeling empowered in our workplaces, we begin to feel so disempowered. I'm always trying to find answers to these dilemmas. In fact, this is what this blog is about. So, when surfing the net one day, I came across this great organisation - Catalyst - I had to tell all of you about it. It's a good one to bookmark. I'll put the link on the bottom.

Just this morning I heard about this new directory that is being established by Heidi Richards (Founder of The Women in E-Commerce Association International) and her team at "WE Magazine For Women". I've just added my name to the directory.

It's called the "Who's Who of Women in E-Commerce Directory". It will list women who have an online presence either with a website or business blog and who either promote a product or service via them.

The Basic Listing includes Name, Company Name, Company Slogan or tagline, website (or Blog) URL. That is free.

The Enhanced Listing costs $25 USD and can be paid with PayPal. This allows expanded contact information, address and phone number, your logo and one additional URL.

Heidi can be contacted at heidi@wecai.org.

For more information go to the following address;

http://wemagazineforwomen.com/whos-who-directory-of-women-deadline-extended/

Climbing the ladder – is it really worthwhile? Or is it more the way we do it? I began to wonder after I read a sobering article – “Heartstopper” – about heart disease in professional women, in the latest issue of PINK, a US magazine for professional career women.

Darren Rowse at Problogger.net recently asked what you do with your blog when you go on holidays. I'm wondering what you do with your blog when you are sick which I've been since October. When something had to give it was my blog, but now I'm back and ready to make up for lost time. Darren suggests we invite key people to be guest bloggers for the time we are away - a great idea for another time.

I did do quite a bit of thinking about sickness though. I was especially reflective on how we relate to it as women because in the end, after multiple tests came back clear, I self-diagnosed and began to improve. Due to a whole lot of biological and physiological experiences that characterise our lives - menstruation, pregnancy and birth, lactation and menopause, for example - we are forced to be very in touch with our bodies if we want to live richly and feel in control of our lives. We have the capacity to go into ourselves and connect, intuitively often, with what is happening there.

Today is the day people with blogs from all over the world are focusing on the environment. I want to tell everyone about this exciting initiative of the women of Victoria in Australia on water reform.

In 1992 the Dublin Water and the Environment Conference identified four principles that have come to be known as the Dublin principles. The first states that "water is a finite, vulnerable and essential resource that should be managed in an integrated manner." The third states that "women play a central role in the provision, management and safeguarding of water."

We need to be assertive in negotiating with our men around the shared care of our children. It is a negotiation, not a fight. It is a conversation, but an important and crucial one if you both want a career and a family. So how do you start that conversation?

1. Chose an appropriate time to initiate this important conversation.

Timing is all important with these types of conversations. You both need to be relaxed and able to focus. You need to choose a time when you are unlikely to be interrupted. Sometimes it can be good to foreshadow the discussion by saying early in the week: "Over the week-end I'd like us to find some time when we can talk about how we can work together in sharing our work and the children." That way, it is not sprung on him.

2. Approach the discussion with a positive attitude.

Believe in what you are doing. Believe in yourself. Believe that the two of you can work this through and that the outcome will be good for everyone.

3. Be clear about your position.

I recently conducted a workshop for women on networking. One of the exercises we did was around evaluating our existing networking as to whether they met our goals. A number of the women had attended a particular breakfast meeting and found it helpful. As we discussed it quite a few women in the group said that, no matter how useful a breakfast meeting might be, they couldn't attend because they had children to organise. Their response was automatic. They did not even stop to think about whether it would be possible or how it could be organised. I asked if their men ever went to breakfast meetings. Many of them indicated that their men often did. Did their men ever stop home from a breakfast meeting they wanted to go to because they had children to organise? No, not really. Did they ever talk with the women about what they could do before they left to make things easier for her, e.g., making children's lunches? No, not really. So why do the men feel that they can go to breakfast meetings without considering what is going to happen to their children, and women can't?

A Philippino colleague contacted me recently about some of the work I was doing with work/family balance and women leaders, especially in regard to the issues that were raised in the March 2007 newsletter which celebrated International Women’s Day. She alerted me to the Grant Thornton International News Release of 8 March 2007 that indicated that 97% of businesses in the Philippines have women in senior management positions. In fact, the Philippines was the only country where women have parity with men in senior management roles. A number of other Asian countries are also at the top of the Grant Thornton list. The link to this news release is below.
http://www.internationalbusinessreport.com/main/index1.php?page=133&lang=&id=&country_id