by Guest Author | Sep 7, 2023 | Career Development, Coaching Advice, Featured
In a previous post about job interview tips, I outlined the findings of several research studies about advancing your career – especially for professional women in leadership who want to land a C-suite executive job. The research basically pointed up the following:
- If targeting a C-suite job, you won’t get there by doing what got you to where you are now. Specifically you need to gain a strategic perspective, business acumen, a global outlook and maintain high integrity.
- Once you’re there, you need to excel at making decisions about the business more than running the business in any functional specialty.
Career coaching: 3 tricks to getting out of the weeds
When you’re targeting the top executive jobs, you need to broaden your perspective, act strategically and think globally before you go for the top spot – to help you get noticed, rock the interview and to help you survive when you’ve got the coveted slot. But this can be tough because it requires refocusing and spending energy in places that don’t always feel like they’re helping you get your current job done. When you’re getting yourself ready to leap from middle management to the executive suite, how do you stop focusing on what you’ve spent your whole career becoming good at?
Here’s some practical coaching advice for how to do this.
#1: Be Good Enough
The first thing to do is to accept that you’re good enough at your functional skill set and start actively expanding your perspective, exposure and knowledge of the interdependencies your function has with other parts of the business. Sometimes we women struggle a lot with this acceptance. We’ve succeeded so far by refining our skills and knowledge of our chosen area of expertise – and we never feel that we’re good enough – so we just work harder. But this approach keeps us in the weeds of our jobs and saps our energy from learning to fly over the treetops to get the broader view an executive needs.
If you want to move on through the glass ceiling and into a C-suite job, you’ve got to get over the “not good enough” thing and stop letting those negative thoughts trigger you into inaction or playing small. As an exec your scope of responsibility will be so broad that you can’t possibly know every detail, and you don’t have to. The data says that at the executive level you’re not getting paid to know every detail. You’re getting paid to have good people working for you (like you, now!), trust them and know when and how to cross-check their work. Before you make the move up, learn how to detach from the details and weeds, accept that you’re good enough at them and start expanding your perspective.
If this feels challenging, it could be because you’ve got to invest in activating more of your own internal power more before you take on the challenge of going after, and managing, more external power.
The secret to getting an executives job: beginner’s mind. – Click To Tweet
#2: Get “Educated”
Start working on problems and opportunities outside your area of expertise. Suck up the insecurity while you work on building your own InPower reserves, and start vying for committees and task forces where you’ll work with colleagues from other parts of the company or industry. Do a stint overseas if you can.
Going back to school is certainly an option, but before you do that ask yourself if you really need more book-learning. If you already have a master’s degree, look even harder and ask others – including HR and your mentors for an opinion on education vs. experience. The way you’ll succeed – especially in the top slots – is by having experience to draw on. Experience helps inform your “gut” so your instincts and intuition become better. That’s hard, if not impossible, to get at school.
You also need to get smart about your industry and “upskill” yourself on a regular basis in order to stay competitive and future-proofed today for the job you’ll have tomorrow.
The point is that you have to expand your understanding of the business. You have to work on strategic projects because strategic thinking is different than being in the weeds, where meticulous research and detail focus score you the points.
#3: Ask Questions!
To become an executive you have to interview like an executive. To interview like an exec you have to be noticed by the execs. To be noticed, you have to think like they do, provide information and statements that answer questions they haven’t even articulated (to you). How do you think like an executive? This is pretty easy.
Ask yourself why they do what they do. If you aren’t 100% sure you know why they do something – or ask for something to be done – then ask them! Asking demonstrates that you want to learn how they think. Most of the time they’ll be glad to tell you. Always, they’ll notice that you asked. Listen to their answers and take it in so that the next time they do something, you have a hypothesis about their reasoning. Tell them your hypothesis and see how close you were. Sometimes you’ll even give them some good ideas (a great way to be noticed!)
Here’s an example. The VP of Sales sends down a request for a new kind of analysis on the numbers. Instead of looking at revenue per sales person, which is in her normal weekly report, she’s asking for number of sales per sales person, in addition. You think she might be planning to give some spiff bonuses to some high performers at the upcoming awards luncheon. When you deliver the report, you ask her why she wanted the additional data. She tells you that the VP of Product Development is considering a new product at a different price point and it would require a higher volume of sales. She wants to give him the names of the sales people who are already selling at a higher rate for an internal focus group on the new product idea. You tell her you’d be interested in sitting in on the focus group to expand your knowledge of product-sales team interaction, and you tell her about the bonus idea. She nods and says she’ll ask about your meeting attendance; she likes your spiff idea too and thanks you. Together you brainstorm a new productivity metric, which combines both the number of sales and revenue per sale to add a new commission bonus level into next year’s sales compensation plan. She tells you she’ll talk to the CFO about it.
You made it! Now what? Multiply your impact and not your stress.
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In this example, here’s what that one question did for you:
- You learned that Product Development is looking at a new offering.
- You learned that one way to choose internal focus groups is based on the specific aspect of sales productivity required.
- You share a good idea with the VP.
- You create an opportunity to broaden your experience and exposure to the product development group.
- You work with the VP to refine the comp plan to incent more sales productivity.
- The VP notices you and is likely to mention you to both the VP of Product Development and the CFO.
- If she’s not already your mentor or sponsor, this interaction creates the potential for you to ask her to be and increase the chances she’ll say yes.
Of course, not every question is going to be so productive, but you might be surprised how often they are, especially if they help you establish relationships with the executives you have a chance to interact with. See one sitting alone in the cafeteria? Sit down and start a conversation. Ask them about the hardest decisions they’ve made, the best product launch they’ve been through and why, the most surprising board meeting they’ve attended. Just get them talking. They’re people and they like to share their knowledge. They will absolutely notice that you take the time and have the interest. If your questions are good, you’ll be on their radar.
What is your experience with the weeds and how to get out of them? Do you find it challenging to believe you’re good enough? Are you easily intimidated by people with big titles? Do you see other ways you can learn about other parts of the business or industry you’re not taking advantage of? Do you have some broadening experiences you can share with us? When is school education enough? What does “education” in this context mean to you? Talk to your execs and tell us what they say too!
One of the best ways to be invited into the C-suite is to gain an executive sponsor who will promote you behind closed doors.
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by Guest Author | Sep 6, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Leadership
Out of the mouths of 7 year olds . . . Who says that leaders have to do it all – perfectly? Too often we talk ourselves out of taking on more responsibility because we don’t want “that” job. Mitch reminds us that we have control of what leadership looks like to us. – InPower Editors
My 7-year-old daughter is one of my BEST teachers. One day last December I was driving her home from school, when out of nowhere she said, “Mom, I want Santa to bring me pixie dust. Not the fake stuff. The kind that ACTUALLY makes you fly.” Luckily, I was focused on the road, so she couldn’t see my expression—equal-parts amused (big smirk) and searching (hmmm, what am I going to say to this?). I said, “Wouldn’t that be cool! I know Santa makes toys, but I’m not sure he can do pixie dust.” To which Adi replied, “Well, Mom, maybe no one’s ever ASKED before.” Touché. She had a point.
Last week, I was reviewing the org chart I’d written up on my whiteboard with my assistant, Darcy. Before me were all of the roles I’d identified to help WiRL scale and reach the maximum amount of women: Marketing, Business Development, Technology, Services, Operations, Contract Management, etc. The box at the top read, “CEO.” I told Darcy, “I may hire a CEO at some point. After all, it’s never been my goal to work 60-70 hours a week and be on call 24/7. That sounds hellish.” Darcy simply said, “Oh, really?” She has this great way of asking me a seemingly innocent question that seeps into my heart and brain over the next several days, and wakes me up at 3am.
So, I got to thinking. I recalled what my daughter said: “Maybe no one’s ever asked before.” Well, maybe no one’s ever defined the role of CEO before, so it’s fit for human habitation—particularly female human habitation. Seriously, do you know a single CEO (male or female) running a large company who feels good about their work/life balance? There’s this old paradigm we’ve bought into (myself included, until now) that the job of CEO requires long, exhausting hours with a stay-at-home partner and/or the help of a team of nannies. Does it have to be this way? No, I don’t believe it does.
I’ve always been a rule-breaker, I don’t fit easily into a box, and my next great mission is to prove it’s possible to be CEO of a successful business while working 30 hours a week, spending awesome quality time with my family, and taking 6 to 9 week’s vacation per year. The question isn’t, “Can it be done?” The question is, “How can it be done?”
Only Change Begets Change
Some of you may be saying, “Well, that’s easy for you to say, you run your own business.” I believe change can originate at ANY level in an organization—not just at the top. That’s why WiRL caters to women at all levels. When you bring your FULL value and gifts to the table, companies will move mountains to keep you. Whether you’re in middle management or you’re just starting out, ask yourself how you can change things from YOUR position. Is there a way to create additional roles, or levels, to ensure all critical functions are covered, including the leadership of these functions—so it doesn’t roll up to one single individual? Is there a way to job-share more roles, including that of CEO? Seriously.
Make it Appealing & Sustainable
We’re never going to achieve leadership parity if we continue to operate under the old, all-consuming, I-have-no-life-except-my-job, I-have-a-stay-at-home-partner-or-I-could-never-do-this, I-have-to-be-a-superhero paradigm. Frankly, I don’t know many women who would sign up for that. So, rather than asking, “How do we ‘get’ more women into leadership positions?” we should start asking, “How can we redefine the job of leader so it’s an appealing and sustainable existence?”
Here’s my definition of an appealing and sustainable existence:
- I love what I do, but I don’t feel chained to it
- I often make time for yoga or a walk before or during my workday
- I eat breakfast and dinner with my family
- I make guilt-free time for friends
- I trust others to make critical decisions
- I rarely utilize heroics in my leadership style
- My business grows only at a pace that’s healthy for our employees; nobody’s being constantly asked to do more, with less.
- I model the way: We offer positions that are both full- and flexi-time (for real!)
- I help get my kids ready for school at least a couple days a week, and I get to pick them up and hang out at least a couple days a week
- I sometimes choose to work longer hours because I’m driven by passion and dedication, yet this is the exception rather than the norm
- The amount of overwhelm I feel is rare and low, rather than frequent and high
- I would generally describe myself as confident, happy, healthy and fit
- I’m having an epic life—on my terms!
You Can Have it All
If we, as a society, keep emphatically stating the impossibility of “having it all,” then this will continue to be our reality. Take Hillary Clinton, or at least the media portrayal of Hillary Clinton. The fact that it’s considered inconceivable to be both a leader and a grandmother is telling about the culture of leadership we’ve established. Political affiliations aside, imagine if instead of asking, “Should I be president or focus on being a grandmother?” Hillary Clinton was to instead consider, “How can I lead this country while being an exceptional grandmother?” Is not the true test of leadership doing what’s never been done before?
When people ask how I “do it all,” I tell them I do the things only I’m uniquely qualified to do—and get help with the rest. I consider myself uniquely qualified to be the main visionary behind WiRL, wife to my husband, mom to my kids, and exerciser of my body. Everything else is partially if not fully achievable by another person.
Believe it & You Will Achieve it
I’m currently in Luxembourg to spearhead a leadership offsite for a global tech company. Last night, during dinner with a colleague, I got on my soapbox about my vision of redefining what it means to be a leader. I told her about my fear of sharing it: that people might say, “OK, miss la-la land, how about you step into reality!” Her response was brilliant. She said, “Those with ears will hear you.” If you have ears for this topic, then take it upon yourself NOW to help me prove leadership CAN be done differently. Until we can believe it and conceive it, we cannot achieve it. You don’t have to know HOW; you just have to know it’s your heart’s TRUE desire (not to mention a sure-fire way to make our companies more successful). If you believe it’s possible, then it’s possible to make it happen.
If Hillary Clinton reads this post—and I hope she does!—she herself may scoff, “Oh, sweetheart, you just don’t get it.” And she’d be right. My single biggest asset is that I DON’T GET IT. I have the audacity to think differently. I’ve often heard leaders who’ve taken on a role in a new company say, “I just don’t get why they do it this way. There must be a reason, so I’ll wait until I understand before opening my mouth and risk being seen as ‘not getting it.’” I tell them, “Be careful. The next thing you know you’ll be inducted into their way of thinking!” There’s a fine line between being seen as crazy-town and holding up a mirror to ludicrous practices that have become ingrained and unquestioned. If you want to be a leader, you have to question everything—especially anything labeled “simply the way we do it.”
I’m dying to hear your thoughts! Please share your comments and opinions—and any examples you’ve seen of people (women or men) successfully modeling leadership in ways you believe are fit for human habitation!
Originally on: WIRL
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by Dana Theus | Sep 5, 2023 | Carnival, Leadership
It’s time for another installment of the Leadership Development Carnival! Thanks to Weaving Influence and the Lead Change for organizing some great posts from some remarkable leadership writers. Oh, and yes, they were kind enough to include one of mine as well!
If you’re new to blog Carnivals, these represent a collection of posts from a variety of writers, organized by major themes and presented for your professional and inspirational pleasure.
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Change
Do I have to go? I Don’t want to go by Brenda Yoho @BrendaYoho
Change is a constant in life, and even the most steadfast leaders will eventually face the question of when it’s time to step down or pass the baton to someone else. This dilemma often comes with a myriad of emotions and uncertainties. Recently, a conversation with a friend of mine sparked this profound question: How do you know when it’s time to go as a leader?
Communication
Let’s Talk About It: How to Have the Conversation You Would Rather Avoid by Karin Hurt and David Dye @letsgrowleaders
It can be tempting to avoid a courageous conversation at work. After all, it takes energy to initiate it, and you can’t predict exactly how it will go. Practical questions to inspire you to have it anyway.
When Employees Complain: 5 Different Leadership Responses by Jennifer V. Miller @JenniferVMiller
As a leader do you dread employee complaints? Here are five scenarios and the different ways to respond when someone airs a concern.
What, You Won’t Help Me With This? – Tip #66 by Steve DiGioia @stevedigioia
Yesterday, I went to a local coffee shop that offered dozens of flavored and other fancy boutique coffees, some from the far reaches of the world. If you wanted one of those the shopkeeper would personally make it for you. But I wanted “regular” coffee. He told me regular coffee is self-serve and pointed to the “pots over there”. WHAT? Should the service you receive be determined by the product you purchase?
Navigating Workplace Conflict and Communication: Insights From My Podcast Appearance on Leading Through Crisis by Diana Peterson-More @DianaPMAuthor
In the world of leadership, two skills stand out as particularly vital yet challenging to master: effectively managing workplace conflict and communicating in a way that resonates. These skills have become even more crucial in today’s fast-paced and interconnected business landscape. In a recent episode of the “Leading Through Crisis” podcast, I engaged in a thought-provoking conversation with host Celine Williams. We dug deep into the nuances of conflict management and communication strategies within workplace dynamics.
Development
How to Have the Courage to Grow by Marcia Reynolds @marciareynolds
In order to grow, you have to override your protective brain to create more empowering stories to live by. Use these six steps to change your life by changing your mind.
Is There a Difference Between Right and Wrong? by Frank Sonnenberg @FSonnenberg
Our society has standards of acceptable behavior. But the rules of decency are meaningless if they aren’t reinforced daily. Wrongs committed by enough people become the norm.
The Two Things a CEO Must Know by Jon Verbeck @jonverbeck1
A recent CFO survey shows that although inflation concerns have decreased some, it continues to rank as a high concern for business owners – as it should. The trick is to ensure that your business outpaces inflation with profit and growth so that you keep building value.
A Leader You Can’t Trust by Bill Treasurer LinkedIn
Let’s start with the obvious: if you don’t have the trust of the people you’re leading, you will fail as a leader. Given these trust realities, it’s head-scratching that some leaders still make leadership all about themselves and not the people they’re privileged to lead. You can’t afford to be a leader who can’t be trusted.
A New Change Management Model: Change From the Inside-Out by Dana Theus @DanaTheus
When a change effort goes awry, the change management model is often pinpointed as the problem. The next most blamed element? The people who “resisted” the change. While we’re fairly good at designing processes to bring people into change, we’re not very good at preparing people to participate in these processes, and thus we end up right back where we started, encountering resistance.
Human Resources’ Top Priority? Retaining Talent by S. Chris Edmonds @schrisedmonds
A 2023 Global Workplace Insights survey by Unispace (Returning for Good) lays out how difficult it is for companies to retain, attract and develop talent and to build a healthy work culture in these times. Keeping talented, engaged employees is a huge opportunity for companies around the globe today.
Moving Beyond Mirrors by Ken Byler
The daily image we present is often quite different from the person we really are. If every mirror also reflected our fears, anxieties, and self-doubts would we behave differently?
Go Ahead, Leaders. Let Yourself Off the Hook by Sara Canaday @saracanaday
Our current business environment is so intense that leaders today are forgetting they are ……human and this trend really concerns me.
When leaders lose touch with their own humanity, they often misconstrue failure or a mistake as a setback rather than recognizing it as a key part of their leadership journey. In this article, Sara shares her commentary on how three authors hit the mark when it comes to embracing our mistakes, unapologetically changing our minds, and modeling what it means to learn from failure.
Engagement
Why a pink flamingo is an essential leadership tool by Lisa Kohn @ThoughtfulLdrs
In the post, Why a pink flamingo is an essential leadership tool, Lisa Kohn from The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog shares that there are many essential leadership skills, and bringing a sense of lightness to the teams and organizations (and families) we lead is certainly one of them.
Lessons from the Barbie Movie on ‘Kengagement’ and Upskilling by Julie Winkle Giulioni @Julie_WG
I found unexpected insights watching the Barbie movie on ‘Kengagement’ and the power of upskilling. Discover how this unlikely source sheds light on fostering engagement and staying ahead through skill enhancement.
You’re Not the Boss of Me by Bev Kaye @BeverlyLKaye
I first wrote about jerk bosses 20 years ago after reading multiple exit interviews from employees who had recently left their jobs. I then followed up with them and asked, “What did you NOT say in that exit interview?” The most frequent answer? “My boss was a jerk.”
Missing from the Oppenheimer Movie: The Connection Catalyst by Michael Lee Stallard @michaelstallard
The Oppenheimer movie left out one interesting detail that contributed to the success of the Manhattan Project, writes Michael Stallard. That detail is a best practice that leaders in all industries can use to engage and motivate their teams.
Application Process 2023 by Taylor Simmons @donothavetwitter
A couple of years ago, we worked with a client who was having difficulty filling positions. They were using all the right avenues to get the word out to potential candidates, but the pipeline was not working. After surveying several candidates, we discovered the issue was with their extensive application process.
Productivity
How Team Leaders Can Improve Problem Solving Skills With a Clear Process – by Sean Glaze @leadyourteam
Effective problem-solving is a critical skill for any successful leader. However, all too often, teams rush to find solutions without taking the necessary time to define the problem clearly. By overlooking this crucial step, teams may only address the symptoms of the problem, leading to ineffective or short-term solutions. Successful team leaders look beyond symptoms and define problems clearly before seeking solutions.
Seven Things Management Teams (Repeatedly) Get Wrong with Strategy Work by Art Petty @artpetty
A healthy organization is one that can align, execute, and renew rapidly. That’s the needed outcome from your strategy, plus the bets on or off and the mechanisms to bring them to life. If you’re at the core of your organization’s strategy work, take the above as a cautionary tale. Forewarned is forearmed.
Strategy
Maximizing Strategy Rollout with Your Company’s Top Leaders by David Grossman @ThoughtPartner
Our SVP & Head of Client Service, Jason Greenspan, details a methodology that transforms leaders and employees from skeptical bystanders to inspired catalysts of your organization’s new strategy, vision, and path forward.
How to shift to a healthy future? by Marcella Bremer @MarcellaBremer
Does your organization contribute to a healthy future? Do you prepare your organization for change? Explore the options that Jason Hickel offers for the future.
Team Building
Is Your Team Connecting, Whispering or Shouting? by Priscilla Archangel @prisarchangel
Only 1 of 5 employees are Thriving. The remainder are Quiet Quitting or Loud Quitting. As a leader, learn how to pay more attention to their emotional needs so that they can be psychologically present in their roles. Learn how to improve engagement.
Bullies Belong in Bull Pens—Not Cubicles by Eileen McDargh, CSP, CPAE @macdarling
Research also indicates that performance and productivity actually increase when bullies are eliminated. You can start today by creating a no bully rule in your organization.
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by Dana Theus | Sep 5, 2023 | Gender Equality, InPower Women Blog, Women in Leadership
Over a decade ago, when I began writing about women in leadership and gender bias, I was very hopeful. Up to that point I had, what I thought, was a good experience working in mixed gender workplaces. I felt welcome and generally appreciated as a female leader. When I opted off the leadership ladder to pursue work as a consultant and, later, executive coach, I saw it as an act of personal and career agency.
I read the new-at-the-time research on the benefits of women in leadership as empowering and enlightening. I was sure we’d turned a corner. I was sure that women, as well as their unique and success-enhancing leadership styles would be more and more welcome into the higher ranks of power.
Today, I am less hopeful, but more determined.
While not representative of all gender bias issues, the data below are some of the most current. These points are highlights taken from our most recent, biannual update on the InPower Women Guide to Women in Leadership. For a complete review of the data and how to think about it, plus over 150 source links, regular data updates and perspectives, download the entire report here.
The numbers on gender representation in leadership aren’t moving fast enough
For a complete list of our data tracking on women in leadership, check out The Facts.
We’re looking more closely, and learning more as a result, about the gender bias problem
- Research shows that men get more specific, actionable feedback than women do.
- Ever had someone express surprise that you’re in charge? It’s called “role incredulity” and it happens (irritatingly) more than we’d hope.
- Research shows that women are 41% more likely to experience toxic workplace culture than men.
- Here’s what does work to reduce bias: Hiring women into senior leadership positions, which mitigates stereotypes and even evolves the vocabulary used to talk about leadership within an organization.
For a complete list of sources we track on gender bias, check out Gender Bias.
Women and men are both part of the solution, and the problem
As pernicious and stubborn as these gender bias issues appear to be, there are things we as individuals and companies can do. For a start we can all reprogram the tropes we use to advise, mentor and coach women with, to find more INpowering and gender neutral mindsets.
What are you doing to counteract your own gender bias? (I guarantee you have some!)
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by Dana Theus | Aug 31, 2023 | Corporate Culture, Mentoring
Mentoring is often thought of to help younger employees develop by passing on the wisdom of more experienced leaders. And it is! But that model ignores all the wisdom that many people have to give those of us who sit in leadership positions.
And there is a lot that early career employees have to teach us. Getting the information and insight flow moving “up” the age/experience ladder and an organization is called reverse mentoring. It offers a fresh perspective on mentoring that flips the traditional dynamic, empowering younger employees to share their expertise and perspectives with senior colleagues and bridging generational gaps in the workplace. The purpose of reverse mentoring is not only to facilitate the acquisition of new skills by senior colleagues, but also to cultivate a connection with the younger generation.
These are some of the tangible benefits of reverse mentoring, but I personally think the single biggest benefit is to help experienced leaders maintain fresh perspectives, challenge themselves to learn new things, stay humble and refine their coaching skills. When they do this, mentors become more effective leaders, and they also contribute to building a subtle sense of confidence in their mentees.
The origins of reverse mentoring
The origins of reverse mentoring can be traced back to the 1990s when Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, introduced a formal reverse mentoring program. The initial objective of this program was to help senior executives gain knowledge about the internet and adapt to new technologies by connecting them with younger mentors. While Welch focused on technology skills development, he also created a new mentoring format that has gained widespread recognition and adoption in organizations across various industries.
Reverse mentoring has become an increasingly popular way for organizations to bridge the generational gap in a number of areas beyond technology, making reverse mentoring important in today’s diverse workforce. By establishing a reverse mentoring relationship, multiple age groups can benefit from shared knowledge and experiences.
Reverse vs traditional mentoring
Traditional mentoring involves senior staff guiding junior employees on their career paths and skill development. Mentors often help their mentees in focus areas such as:
- Deciding on career objectives
- Identifying technical skills to develop
- Learning how to navigate office politics and interpersonal dynamics
- Practicing how to advocate for themselves and take appropriate credit for their work
- Understanding different stakeholders’ motivations and roles to play in the work
- Finding resources to help them overcome challenges they face in the workplace
- Gaining context and perspective on business models and dynamics underlying their work
Reverse mentoring flips this dynamic, allowing junior employees to share their expertise and perspectives with senior staff. This unique mentoring relationship emphasizes reciprocal respect and two-way learning, providing junior individuals with the opportunity to hone their leadership abilities and share their knowledge with more senior personnel. Mentors often help their mentees in focus areas such as:
- How new technologies affect customers and employees
- Changing values, motivations and trends that affect customers and employees
- How front line and early career employees view the company (and it’s products/services)
- How different socio-economic, racial, demographic and other groups view the company (and it’s products/services)
- How company policies affect employees’ day-to-day work and lives
Reverse mentoring has been shown to help senior managers improve diversity and inclusion, bridge generational gaps, and increase digital capabilities.
The Inclusion Advantages of Implementing a Reverse Mentoring Program
Anyone can engage in reverse mentoring simply by engaging with people in different generations or demographic groups. On a company scale, when programmatically supported, reverse mentoring offers many more systemic and scalable benefits, such as:
- Enhancing retention of millennials, women and racially diverse employees
- Fostering diversity acceptance in the culture
- Creating greater sensitivity about the impact of various company policies on different demographic groups
Promoting generational inclusivity is only one type of reverse mentoring opportunity available to senior management, which is often a homogeneous demographic group in most organizations. Reverse mentoring can be enhanced by structuring programs that intentionally pair different age groups and demographic groups. This can give senior white leaders greater access to the lived experience of employees of different genders and racial groups.
When senior employees connect and collaborate with those unlike them on a one-to-one level, they often gain insights into how other groups experience everything from the commute to work to a company policy on work-at-home options.
Enhancing diversity and inclusion
Reverse mentoring across demographic boundaries can significantly improve diversity and inclusion within the company culture by providing underrepresented employees with opportunities to share their perspectives and experiences with senior staff. When senior employees become exposed to perspectives and experiences outside their own life, their appreciation and understanding of employee challenges can expand.
For example, one senior executive, upon learning the cost of commuting to the suburbs for city-dwelling employees, became an advocate for public transportation reimbursement and company shuttle programs. Another became more sensitive to some of the vocabulary the executive team members used, such as the use of the term “non-American” to refer to products sourced globally, and the way it made international employees feel unwelcome. The executives made an intentional shift to refer to “global” products, which built a feeling of inclusivity–and commitment to international markets–which had not existed before.
Bridging the generational, gender and racial divides
Reverse mentoring helps bridge generational, gender and racial divides by fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing between employees of these groups. Perhaps even more importantly, it can help build greater respect between people in these different categories.
Examples of pairings to help bridge these kinds of divides include:
- Older women with younger men (and vice versa)
- Black women with white women
- Asian employees with black employees
- Hispanic employee with black employees
- Leaders from higher socio-economic categories with employees in lower socio-economic categories
The kinds of one-to-one relationships that can be built this way improve the individual’s personal understanding of what different groups experience, and when engaged systemically also contributes to the overall success and adaptability of the organization.
Designing an Effective Reverse Mentoring Program
To get these kinds of benefits from a reverse mentoring program, it is important to design the program with clear objectives, participant recruitment, and ongoing monitoring of success. With such intentional design, organizations are more likely to build reverse mentoring programs that effectively support the development of both mentors and mentees, while also aligning with company goals.
Setting clear objectives
Establishing clear objectives for a reverse mentoring program is essential to ensure that it is in line with company goals and focuses on particular areas of development. Some objectives for a reverse mentoring program may include:
- Assisting senior employees in developing new perspectives and refining coaching and mentoring skills
- Exchanging specific skills and knowledge with younger colleagues
- Stimulating new viewpoints on how to achieve corporate objectives
- Recognizing biases and learning to counter them
- Promoting engagement
- Enhancing established leadership practices
Recruiting and matching participants
Even if part of your goal in creating a reverse mentoring program is to improve diverse relationships, it’s important that the participants receive specific, personal benefit from the program as well. Recruiting and matching participants based on their career needs and business expertise is a crucial aspect of designing a successful reverse mentoring program. Organizations can identify suitable mentors and mentees through internal company communication channels and match them using a process that considers their:
- Career and business objectives
- Expectations
- Skills and abilities
- Preferences
To promote the program and encourage participation, organizations can utilize internal company communication channels such as emails, newsletters, and intranet sites. When pairing mentors and mentees, it is important to consider the mentor’s skill set and the mentee’s desired improvement areas, as well as any shared personality traits and interests.
Monitoring and evaluating success
Monitoring and evaluating the success of a reverse mentoring program, like any mentoring program, is essential to ensure its effectiveness and optimize it for future use. By tracking progress, gathering feedback, and measuring outcomes against set objectives, organizations can gain valuable insights into the overall success of their program. Key performance indicators that can be used to monitor and evaluate success include:
- Satisfaction scores for the program and the company (including inclusion scores)
- Engagement activity
- Learning and development targets
- Retention rate
By closely monitoring these indicators, organizations can continually refine their reverse mentoring program to better address the needs of both mentors and mentees.
Overcoming Challenges in Reverse Mentoring
Implementing a reverse mentoring program is not without its challenges, such as resistance from senior employees, concerns about time commitment, and ensuring the program remains relevant to participants.
Resistance from senior employees
Resistance from senior employees can be a significant challenge in implementing reverse mentoring programs. To overcome this resistance, organizations can highlight the benefits of reverse mentoring and demonstrate how junior colleagues can fill knowledge gaps and provide valuable perspectives on current technologies, trends, and best practices. This kind of information is generally important, but it’s often critical to personally recruit individual leaders by learning their personal motivations and appealing to them.
It’s also important for senior leaders to hear from their peers, who have participated and benefited from the programs. Sharing success stories helps mentors and mentees believe their time commitments will be rewarded. By emphasizing the value of reverse mentoring and fostering a culture of open-mindedness and mutual respect, organizations can effectively address resistance and encourage senior staff to embrace the learning opportunities presented by reverse mentoring.
Time commitment concerns
Ensuring time commitment for a reverse mentoring program can be challenging, as senior employees often have tight schedules and may be hesitant to allocate time for mentorship relationships. To address time commitment concerns, organizations should outline a clear schedule for the program and emphasize its benefits for both mentors and mentees. Providing training that helps participants set expectations around time commitments can also be very helpful. Usually when the mentors and mentees jointly agree on time commitment, concerns about this factor reduce.
Relevance to participants
As in any recruitment program, it’s important to ensure that the program provides real benefits to all participants. In particular, many mentoring programs fall victim to a belief that mentors only need to feel the “joy of giving back” to want to stay engaged in the program. While this motivation is strong and can work for a certain period of time, it’s rarely enough to make up for the extra time and energy commitments required when things get busy and stressful.
In additional to personal recruitment efforts mentioned above, where the program leaders take the time to help program participants find their personal connections to the program, there are other things that can be done to help everyone find meaning in the reverse mentoring efforts:
- Providing structured introductions/training
- Providing personal feedback and support opportunities
- Offering reminders and accountability check ins
- Celebrating successes
- Recognizing participation and achievements made through the program
In addition, organizations can tailor the program to address the specific needs and interests of different departments and groups within the organization, focusing on areas such as skill development, knowledge sharing, and addressing biases.
By continually refining the program based on feedback from participants, organizations can ensure that their reverse mentoring program remains beneficial and engaging for all involved.
Reverse mentoring is a powerful tool for fostering collaboration, bridging generational divides, and promoting diversity and inclusion within organizations. By designing effective reverse mentoring programs and engaging people individually, organizations can unlock the full potential of reverse mentoring and create a more inclusive, innovative, and competitive work environment.
NOTE: This post was written with the help of an artificial intelligence research assistant. Comments? Please share.
candid insights and soulful partnership
by Guest Author | Aug 30, 2023 | InPower Women Blog, Working Moms
I am on vacation. Right now. It’s great sitting on the beach each day with the kiddos digging hole after hole. But sometimes while gazing out at the ocean I begin to worry about things in my life. I don’t want to spend my vacation worrying about anything. I want to spend my vacation enjoying myself, playing with the kids, and relaxing! This is the dilemma of working moms everywhere.
Your summer vacation is a time to release your fears. You take a break from the daily grind, leave your house, and walk away from worries.
Changing gears is challenging. With downtime comes time to think. You kick back to relax and not think about anything but then you may start worrying about paying the bills or start to feel unease about the project you left behind.
Working moms, worrying can feel like a job and you need a break from that, too. Depending on the type of fear you have here’s five tips on how to release yourself from your fears so you can take the vacation you deserve.
What are your personal goals? Did you set any at the beginning of year? If not, it’s never too late to set a few goals that excite you. If you did set goals, how’s your progress? To avoid worrying or negativity focus on what you have accomplished. What is within your control that you can start working on when you get back from vacation?
In Arianna Huffington’s latest book, The Sleep Revolution she talks about dreams incubators. Your dreams are a glimpse at your destiny. If your fears are about your future try this:
Place pen and paper by your bed. Ask your guidance in what ever is worrying you. You can write down this question then keep thinking about it while taking slow deep breaths. They key to remember your dream when you wake up is laying still when you wake up. Then slowly move to your pen and paper. If you begin to forget lay still again. It may take a few nights practice to get a clear message.
Learn How To Play Again Through Your kids
All you do is work because you’re an adult! That’s what we excel at! Well, kiddos excel at playing. Instead of sitting with fearful thoughts, get up and start digging for buried treasure with your kids. Get moving to move your focus away from your fearful thoughts.
Do Something Kid-like Without The Kids
Adult coloring books are popular for a reason! Grab one and some colored pencils and admire your creativity. Grab a fiction book and get lost in someone else’s story instead of your own. Play a competitive game of cards with your significant other and enjoy the win. You are on vacation, do something fun!
Be Still
Yes, so far I’ve been suggesting to move your body and do things that are fun to get your mind off things. On the other hand though, sometimes we just need to stop in our tracks and be still. If this means that fear comes into our thoughts you can practice meditation. Do you know how to meditate? If not, check out the InPower personal meditation coaching for different ways to meditate depending on what challenges you’re facing.
Face The Fear And Then Move On
View your fear from the perspective that it is a False Expectation Appearing (to be) Real (F.E.A.R.). This perspective is great for when you are facing a fear that is blocking you. Like when you are getting in your own way. When you recognize the fear as this acronym write down the fear such as, “I’m worried about my work project.” Then put it in this context: “When I get back from vacation I’m going to work my hardest on the project by working on a, b, and c. Then I’ll take it from there”. This taking of a negative fear and turning it into an actionable truth is something that you can follow through on after vacation.
Fear can ruin a good time. When you work on your emotional intelligence and recognize that what you’re experiencing is fear – that is half the battle! To help you work out your fears, come on over to the working moms forum and chat about how you are releasing your fears this summer. It’s the best vacation when you can be fully present and leave your fears behind.
If worry and fear are too-constant a companions, you may be dealing with triggers beneath the fear. Learn to detrigger your negative emotions and let your fears go.
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by Guest Author | Aug 29, 2023 | Gender Equality, InPower Women Blog
By: Rob Sterling
It’s not often a fresh new voice enters the women’s inpowerment movement, but today we have one. Meet Rob Sterling, male homemaker, feminist, and advocate for women’s and men’s rights to make careers out of what makes them happy. Rob believes that powerful women need powerful men working alongside them at home and at work and as our newest InPower Blogger, he will be sharing his journey with us. Please welcome Rob to the InPower Women family! – InPower Editors
What’s a Male Feminist?
Whenever I meet someone new, I always dread being asked the inevitable, inescapable question, “… so what do you do? “. That question makes me cringe with anxiety as I somehow summon the courage to answer truthfully with, “I am a professional homemaker”. Suddenly, an uncomfortable silence halts the conversation and seems to linger for an eternity, as I wait in total fear of rejection or even ridicule for their reaction to my chosen profession.
One can never predict who will accept you or who will reject you for being a male homemaker until the very moment their “what do you do” question is answered. Unfortunately, people either seem to welcome the concept of a male homemaker or they find it offensive. Such unpredictable and diverse reactions make me feel wary, even vulnerable, in unfamiliar social settings until I sense that I am accepted or at least tolerated.
It has taken me years to get to the point where I can finally admit that I love being a homemaker. I believe that being a homemaker is one of the most important jobs in the world, and yet it is still considered a woman’s domain by society overall. Even in the year 2023, most men are fearful of disclosing in public that they are homemakers, or male nannies or even househusbands. In general, men are terrified of being thought of as weak, passive or gay so they learn to hide their giving, caring and paternal side. This sentiment has been hammered into our minds since childhood. As a result, we feel wholly inadequate if we don’t adhere to the old fashioned, patriarchal and ideal image of manhood. I feel I have to spend my life acting a role that society expects me to play, simply because I am a white male.
Men have made some social progress – at least in numbers. Today there are over three million, full-time, male homemakers in the United States and growing. Men are just now starting to enter into traditional female professions like nursing, office secretaries and airline flight attendants. However, we have a long, long way to go towards full equality. It sounds almost comical for a white male to desire and long for equality; but in truth, many men like me are as much prisoners of the patriarchal culture as women.
Unfortunately, there is no place to turn to for reassurance when you are a male homemaker. There are no support groups or organizations where men can participate in meeting like-minded men and exchange ideas, experiences and feel like a member of a close-knit community. Instead, male homemakers today are isolated at home and from each other in a society that discourages men from pursuing careers in the home. In fact, the male homemaker movement has never gotten off the ground as there are just too few of us in numbers. So we suffer silently on the sidelines and helplessly wait for society to evolve.
Why Men’s Equality Matters
My only hope for men’s equality is the women’s movement for equality. This may sound ironic, but I feel the two goals are intertwined. Today, career women only make 75 cents on the dollar as their male counterparts with the same education and experience. Modern society is still culturally biased against women who choose to pursue both advanced degrees and a professional career, by misleading them to believe that they can either pursue a career or a family but not both simultaneously like millions of career men. The concept of a househusband does not even enter a professional woman’s mind as a possible solution to her career-versus-family dilemma. I wish women would realize that guys like me exist who would love to support their wife’s career dreams and aspirations from the home.
Despite cultural oppression, our sisters are bravely and defiantly leading the charge for equality, and I am thrilled at their rate of progress. I support strong female role models like Hilary Clinton who fight hard for equal consideration for women in leadership positions. For not until we finally have a female president in the white house will society also truly accept me for being a professional male homemaker. That is why my heroes are Terry O’Neil (President of NOW), Gloria Steinam, and the everyday woman who strives to reach her full potential whether that is raising a child at home or being a CEO running a company.
I consider myself a male pro-Feminist and I have a dream too. I feel that my cause is the same as the feminist cause, and the greater human cause. When women gain their equality, I am hoping that society will also embrace men who choose to pursue homemaking careers. I want to live without fear of revealing my profession in public. I want to be appreciated for my role as a homemaker just like women are finally being recognized for their immense value as career professionals. Wouldn’t this be the perfect society if we were all just accepted for who we are and what we enjoy doing as a career? On that day, I will walk without anxiety and insecurity of my social environment.
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by Dana Theus | Aug 26, 2023 | Insights & Inspiration
One person this week is annoyed at me and the other isn’t, despite on-time delivery to both. The difference? Expectation I set with them.
“Set expectations intentionally. That way you always get better results.” – Click to Tweet
How can two people have such different experiences of the same performance? It’s all in whether that performance was what they were expecting, better or worse. The actual result sometimes matters little.
Some people are just going to expect too much no matter what. But every time I find that other’s expectations are too high, I can identify at least one thing I did to help set them up there.
So next time I don’t do that one thing! The key is in being able to pause and reflect and give myself an opportunity to notice my own actions and patterns of behavior, so I can change them going forward.
How about you? Can you become a master of expectation setting? Give it a try. See what happens.
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Rewriting the narrative on women and power
by Jennifer Miller | Aug 24, 2023 | Emotional Intelligence at Work, EQ & Soft Skills Research
At InPower Coaching, we look for workplace trends that impact both the individual and the organization. The InPower team has covered the story of the “fluid career” for individuals, and in this post, we explore the flip side of that workplace trend: what business leaders need to know about “workplace fluidity.”– InPower Editors
It’s a familiar refrain in the workplace: just wait a minute and something is bound to change. And although many leaders agree their organizations need to take a page from the Agile Movement to address the onslaught of change, many of those same leaders are stuck in a mindset that keeps them tethered to outdated views of employee retention and workplace culture. To illustrate, Ultimate Software, a leading provider of human capital management (HCM) solutions in the cloud, recently commissioned Forrester Consulting for an October 2016 study on an emerging trend in organizational life: the fluidity of the workforce. The fluid workforce, like the fluid career, encourages us to think about how to manage our employees with more flexibility, not just to meet their personal needs, but to also meet the needs of our rapidly changing businesses.
“We were observing, through conversations with our customers, as well as media coverage, that something was happening in the world regarding the way people identify themselves in relation to their employment,” says Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of HCM Innovation at Ultimate Software. Where someone works is much less relevant to employees’ identities, reports Alper-Leroux. For many employees, fitting into a pre-existing structure, be it an organizational chart or a job description, is too confining. She sees this rejection of a “job” as a source of affiliation as part of a larger societal trend in which people resist being categorized, citing examples like fluid gender or ethnic identity.
Fluid Workplaces: Shift Your Leadership Mindset – Click To Tweet
When you overlay these societal trends onto the workplace environment, interesting insights occur. Just as employees seek out fluidity in their lives outside of work, they want more fluidity at work as well. “When we began to explore the idea of ‘job fluidity’, we realized organizational structures simply don’t keep up with the pace of change and innovation requirements that they face today,” observes Alper-Leroux.
Today, many workers have adopted a “gig economy” career path; even those who work inside an organization desire the fluidity and flexibility that independent contractors have typically enjoyed. Employees today don’t align their identities with their employers as closely as they once did. Instead, they see their identities as separate from their employers’ and want job assignments that stretch them. Similarly, many people seek success off the career “ladder”, preferring a career track that takes them around the “jungle gym” instead, stringing together work experiences based on variety and interest. All of this leads to a workforce that expects a more dynamic work arrangement than in decades past.
But not all employees have completely bought into this “freelance” mindset. InPower Coaching founder Dana Theus, in writing about the “fluid career,” observes that many employees are stuck with “old stories we tell ourselves about how long we ‘should’ be in a job,” which leads to a feeling of limited career development options when there are no promotions available within their current employment situation. When individuals shift their mindset and see the benefits of embracing a more fluid career (which may be marked by a variety of traditional jobs interspersed with “gigs”), they will also see the employee-employer relationship in a new light. This can lead to a feeling of more personal empowerment over one’s career.
As Theus points out, it can take a while for the reality of a situation to catch up with a person’s perception of it. Just as employees are reluctant to proactively embrace a more fluid career, organizational leaders often fall into the same outdated mindsets of what it means to have a “job.” Case in point: Alper-Leroux cites research from the Forrester study that nearly 90% of the 200 HR and business leaders surveyed acknowledged that the workforce is becoming more fluid, but fewer than half have specific plans in place to address workplace fluidity.
Leaders need to wake up to the reality of the fluid workforce and learn to use it to their advantage. As Cy Wakemen, author of Reality-Based Leadership said in her presentation at the WorkHuman conference, “the circumstances in which you find yourself aren’t why you can’t succeed . . . your circumstances are the reality in which you must succeed.” And this is where the “employee retention” conversation within organizational walls needs to shift: from “getting people to stay” to “helping them be their best selves for as long as they’re here.”
The reality of the modern workforce is that people won’t stay at your organization as long as they used to, so the notion of “retaining” them has to change as well. It might not be a reality you’re happy about, but as Wakeman points out, it’s the reality you’ve been dealt.
Shifting your leadership mindset on employee retention can help you respond to today’s fluid workforce. Here are three suggestions to help do so:
- Are you operating with an “abundance” or “scarcity” mindset? Not sure? Examine your decision-making. If you’re saying, “We can’t afford to lose her to another department” as your justification for denying a project to a valued team member, you’re seeing the situation as “scarce.” Think instead about the valuable skills your team member will gain– and how that plum assignment may actually encourage her to stay with your company longer, even if it’s not within your department.
- When hiring, look for talent, not tenure. If you’ve found the “perfect” fit in a job candidate, but hesitate to make the offer because you think he’ll pursue new opportunities within a couple of years, hire him anyway. The value he adds for those two years will far outweigh hiring a less-qualified candidate. Yes, it’s a pain to go through the hiring process again, but that’s the reality of today’s work environment.
- Make peace with fluidity. Although difficult, when you accept that many employees won’t stay for much more than 2-3 years, you can recalibrate your expectations. Look at positions that are already outliving their usefulness and need to change and evolve. For example, if you’ve already reorganized the marketing department to factor in new digital positions over the last ten years, can you accept and advertise that these jobs will continue to shift and change as the market and technology they focus on changes? Can you hire people for jobs that are expected to evolve with them?
If some of these ideas feel uncomfortable, then you know you’re on the right track. Learning to shoot the workforce rapids will take some practice, but it can be done. Learn to step up to managing the discomforts of change by learning to let go of your triggers and manage your personal productivity more intuitively. Your business, and your life, will be the better for it.
Updated: Original post June 2017
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by Guest Author | Aug 23, 2023 | Coaching Advice, Commentary
by: Tanvi Gautam
Climbing the corporate ladder is a competitive affair—just as competitive as football, basketball, swimming, or whatever your favorite sport may be. Just like in the world of sport, the key to winning is to make the most of your opportunities and to avoid mistakes.
That’s why the cardinal sin of letting others claim the credit for your hard work is extremely damaging. Not only does it represent a missed opportunity to improve your prospects at the next big promotion or advancement, but in most cases it also gives the individual you are competing with an unfair boost.
In a recent blog entry, we discussed the importance of tactfully yet clearly taking credit for the work you have done. Today we are going to focus on a related topic: how to respond when others claim the credit for your hard work.
As always, there is a balancing act that must be maintained. Your “competitors” are also your co-workers and in many cases your friends, so it is important that you don’t jeopardize these important relationships. On the other hand, you can’t be so concerned about maintaining relationships that you let others walk all over you and leave you behind while they advance their career. (Useful link: Tactfully Confronting Conflict)
1) Calmly confront your co-worker and share your frustration
It is important that you speak to the offending co-worker about the situation. However, don’t do so until you have your emotions under control and are able to have a calm conversation. Explain that you worked hard on the project and that you don’t appreciate his/her attempt to take the credit. State that you are glad to collaborate with them, but firmly explain that if the situation repeats itself you will be forced to speak to HR or to your boss. (TIP: Begin this conversation with an open mind. It’s possible that your co-worker made an honest mistake and didn’t intend to steal credit for your work. If this is the case, urge them to do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are properly credited.)
2) Don’t share more information than necessary
Be proactive when it comes to protecting your work. When you’re discussing an idea with your boss or with a co-worker, for instance, don’t spill everything. Keep some of your thoughts, data, or work to yourself so that if the individual does try to take credit, you’ll be able to prove your involvement by revealing additional details and information.
3) Leave a paper trail and spread the word
Documenting your work, particularly when you know that you’re working on something that others would like to claim credit for, is perhaps the most effective way to eliminate this problem. Include dates and time spent working on a project, as well as specific details of what you’ve accomplished. Thorough documentation will serve as deterrence for co-workers that may be considering claiming your work as their own—and in the event of a dispute, it will serve as important evidence. It’s also a good idea to keep your boss up to date—by sending a short written update as you complete milestones, or even by sending a casual “FYI” email just to keep him or her posted. You can also mention your progress in casual conversation around the water cooler. If problems continue, you may have no choice but to explicitly discuss matters with your superior. However, keep in mind that your boss will have a dramatically different perspective on the situation than you will. His/her primary concern is team performance—not ensuring that each employee is treated “fairly” at all times. So while you present your concern, explain the negative impact that it is having on your own job performance. Explain that having your co-worker steal ideas is making it difficult for them to be effectively implemented. Give your boss a compelling reason to take action—otherwise you risk looking childish and immature. (Useful link: How to Deal with Difficult People at Work)
In today’s competitive corporate environment, it’s all too common to see individuals attempting to claim credit for the work and ideas generated by others. If you experience this reality, keep in mind that you must take action. If a co-worker has reason to believe that he or she can get away with claiming the credit that you deserve, it will happen over and over. Take action and put a stop to this behavior. The four steps we’ve covered today will help, but feel free to get in touch with us if you’d like to learn more!
Originally posted on: wowfactor
Dr. Tanvi Gautam, the managing Partner of Global People Tree aims to inspire a new generation of women leaders through her writing and podcasts. She is also an academic, a storyteller and a mother – all on a single day ! Dr. Tanvi is on the board of the Asian Region Training and development organization, and was recognized as women HR leaders to follow by the Business Manager magazine. She also a sought after speaker at national and international conferences. She blogs at www.wowfactor.asia and loves to share ideas on twitter @tanvi_gautam When it comes to women and leadership she asks: If not now, then when. If not you, then who?
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Tropes and truths to help mentors and proteges navigate workplace biases and outdated advice.
