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Newsletter October 19, 2010                         Women Can Be The CEOs
                                                                              of Their Own Success.     


You are the CEO of your own success. I often remind my clients of this and constantly say it in workshops that I conduct. I especially say it to those people who always have a reason why every suggestion someone makes won't work for them. I'm sure you all know those people. They sabotage their own opportunities and deny their talents and potential.

20% of women want to stay home and not work.

20% want to work and not have children.

60% want to work and have children. These are primarily the group of women I'm talking to in this issue of the newsletter.

There are many external things provide challenges to women's careers.

  • There is the lack of equal pay.
  • There was the lack of paid maternity leave. Australia and the US were the only OECD aligned countries not to have mandatory paid maternity leave. Hopefully things are going to improve and change here in the future.
  • There are workplace cultures that are hostile to women, where their voices are not heard around the table. There are blokey networking nights and women are stereotyped - damned if they do, doomed if they don't. These workplaces often believe that women 'take care' and men 'take charge'.
  • Some workplaces do not offer sufficient  flexibility to allow women to get the work/family balance they need to both have a career and have children as well.
When all this gets too much many women often choose to prioritise success in terms of their important relationships instead of their careers. They opt out of the workplace.

Often though it is women themselves that sabotage their career success. They don't do it deliberately, in fact, they often think it is the "right" thing to do. They do it with a sense of commitment, loyalty and out of a strong value system. It works against them, however.

In this newsletter, is an hour long interview I did with Jayne Jennings and Val McDougall from Guilt Free Business Mothers where we looked at some of these issues and alternative approaches women can take to grow their careers.

Make a coffee or pour a glass of red and enjoy the interview.
                                                                                                                


                                                    

Maree Harris. PhD.

Are Our Leadership Traits As Women Letting Us Down?

Jayne Jennings and Val McDougall are two colleagues of mine from Queensland who share my passion and commitment to wanting to make a difference to the lives of women.

They have an online business called Guilt Free Business Mothers that provides tips, information, interviews with experts and a range of resources to make the lives of mothers in business easier.

They recently did an hour long interview with me exploring the question as to whether the leadership traits we demonstrate as women are actually letting us down.

Some of the issues we discussed in the interview were:
  • The differences between how men and women do leadership,
  • The rules of the game that women need to learn to be successful,
  • The difficulties women have in self-promotion,
  • How women’s communication styles often work against them.
  • 3 important skills women leaders need to develop to be successful.

Here is the link to listen to the interview:
http://www.guiltfreebusinessmothers.com/audioplay.php?id=lc

After you’ve listened to the interview, go and have a look at Jayne and Val's website: www.GuiltFreeBusinessMothers.com



Today's Tip

What to do during a downturn or downtime in your organisation or business?

In almost every business there is a down time - or sometimes, as we experienced recently, a down turn. It's a quiet time when a business slows down. It may be cyclical, happening at the same time every year. The Christmas-New Year period is that time for many businesses in the professional sector. It may be due to economic factors as many businesses experienced recently during the global financial crisis.

What businesses often do at that time is go out and try and get new clients, new business. This is extremely hard work and it is questionable whether the amount of time and energy expended is commensurate with the return we get.

It is far easier to service our most loyal and long term clients and that downtime/downturn is when we have time to do it.

Find ways to give them service over and above the call of duty during this time. It will be the most inexpensive marketing you will ever do. They will do your marketing and promotion for you and do it much more convincingly.They will go and tell everyone about the great service you offer. We all know that the best referrals come from existing clients who tell their friends.

So brainstorm in your organisation how you could do this during your next downtime/downturn.
  • Offer a client information night.
  • Prepare a report, information document or something you can send to your clients,
  • Give clients a phone call to see how they are going. Make sure they know there is no charge for the call or they may be reluctant to engage with you.
  • Similarly, meet some of your key clients for a coffee, but again make sure they know there is no charge.
  • Have an "open house" at the firm to have them meet the staff. As you walk them around the office, introduce them to key staff in various areas who can offer them additional services they presently aren't availing themselves of in your firm, maybe because they don't know about them.
This tip is equally applicable to all range of organisations - professional service firms, businesses of all kinds - big and small.

Copyright © People Empowered-Maree Harris 2010
All articles in the People Empowered newsletter by Maree Harris are copyright, but they can be reproduced as long as they include on the bottom the following short biography- "Maree Harris PhD. is the Director of People Empowered. She is a coach, consultant and facilitator of professional development, specialising in the development and enhancement of soft skills- http://www.peopleempowered.com.au "
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