by Guest Author | Apr 29, 2014 | Leadership
Even the best of intentions sometimes go wrong. Leaders have an extra challenge in learning to manage compassionately without accidentally limiting options for their team. Leslie learns a lesson from Oprah’s challenges last year and gives us some great advice about leading from the heart. – InPower Editors
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time. Thanks to a Swiss store clerk who made a fateful decision about Oprah Winfrey, I’ve decided to write it now.
Recently, Oprah was shopping for purses in Zurich, Switzerland. She was well-dressed and shopping alone. She asked the store clerk to show her a high-end purse which was displayed beyond reach. Obviously not knowing that this was Oprah, the clerk refused the request, apparently because she felt this customer wouldn’t be able to afford the $39,000 bag. Despite Oprah’s repeated requests to see this particular purse, the clerk steered her only toward less expensive options. Oprah finally left the store, taking her business – and her considerable cash – elsewhere.
From all appearances, this is an interesting story about race. But it is a story that is being widely and ably covered in the media. I want to explore a different angle here: the story of ‘grace’ gone awry.
We cannot know this clerk’s heart or the content of her character. So for the sake of this post, I’m choosing to take her at her word. In an interview after the fact, the clerk said that her underlying intent was to spare Oprah from embarrassment. In other words, the clerk had made an independent assessment about Oprah’s CAPACITY (to pay for the purse), and took action to protect Oprah from the (assumed) humiliation from her (assumed) lack of wealth. Yet under the guise of an intent to help, the clerk took actions that inflicted real harm: a personal insult to a very public customer, a significant hit to the store’s reputation and revenue, and a world-wide PR nightmare for the Swiss government.
As this example shows, actions rooted in grace do not always have beneficial consequences, and this clerk is not alone in creating compassionate harm. I see this often among my grace-based coaching clients, in a wide range of situations, not at all limited to race. They make a private assessment of what would be difficult for someone else, and manage ‘down’ to that assessment in an attempt to avoid creating discomfort for the other person.
Here’s how that can go:
“Fred has been working so hard – I can’t bear to give him one more task. I’ll just stay late and do it myself.” Or…
“I decided to give that presentation to Emily, because Susan is so uncomfortable with public speaking.” Or…
“I know that Jim comes in late alot, but he’s got so much stress at home. I think it’s amazing that he gets here at all.”
There is a foundation of ‘grace-ful’ compassion in all these scenarios. To be sure, the ability to see or imagine the world from someone else’s point of view is a lovely and useful one. The problem comes when there’s an absence of accompanying grit, which contributes clarity, objectivity, and the impetus for direct engagement. Without grit to keep our actions grounded in fact and explicit agreement, our empathy can morph into private and pitying conclusions about what someone can or cannot do. It’s downhill from there, as those conclusions drive us to take actions that actually limit the other’s opportunities: to grow…to exceed expectations…to choose his own path…to make a purchase she can easily afford.
This is how an imbalance of ‘grace’ can give rise to its own special brand of disservice, disrespect and disempowerment.
So what’s a grace-ster to do? Here are a few ideas:
1. Become aware of the line between empathy and projection. Balanced empathy creates curiosity on our part – like “Gee, if I were he, I might feel…” Curiosity tends to cause us to engage, to find out what’s really happening. But projection causes us to impose our unverified conclusions on others, often causing us to limit people when we think we’re protecting them. “She’s too shy to make that presentation.” ”That would just create too much stress for him.” So ask yourself whether your empathy is opening up curiosity and dialogue, or causing you to draw and impose your own reality about someone onto him or her.
2. Check your intentions behind your kind actions. If you’re like a lot of grace-sters, cowardice often masquerades as kindness. If you’re avoiding a difficult conversation, ask yourself – “Am I avoiding this because it will harm the other person, or because it will be uncomfortable for me?” You may still choose not to confront that person, but at least you’ll be clear about who you’re really trying to protect.
3. Whatever your empathy is picking up about someone, check it out directly with the person before you act. ”Susan, you’ve talked often about how nervous presentations make you. My first instinct is to want to minimize your anxiety and steer presentations to other people. I don’t want to stress you out, but I also think you’d benefit from gaining visibility with upper management, and presentations are one of the best ways to do that. Given your career goals, what’s your sense of the right way to go?”
by Guest Author | Apr 22, 2014 | Leadership
GUEST AUTHOR: ANN TIMMONS
It takes a lot of humility to be a good leader. You have to be personally strong enough to hear bad news without blaming the messenger. Ann does a great job of helping us focus on this key leadership skill and reminding us why developing our own inner power is so useful when it comes to wielding external power in the world. – InPower Editors
I work in the area of inter-personal, real-time, non-virtual communications, i.e, Public Speaking. I specializing in helping women speak with their leadership voices. Earlier this year, I was trying to solve some specific communications problems for a client. Though I was pretty sure I knew what she needed to hear, I wanted to reinforce my coaching advice with a real-world, up-to-date example. So I looked to one of my favorite resources, Adam Bryant’s “Corner Office” interviews in the New York Times where Bryant shares insights from a variety of savvy leaders in business and management.
One column in particular jumped out at me, Penny Pritzker’s December 2, 2013 interview, titled “On Hearing the Whole Story.” It dealt with lessons Prizker had learned, as she ascended the leadership ladder, about the power, and importance, of listening. Pritzker, a highly successful business leader in the real estate, hospitality, and financial services industries, is currently serving as Secretary of Commerce. She answered Bryant’s question about improving her leadership over the years this way: “Probably the biggest mistakes I’ve made were when I wasn’t listening carefully enough. Sometimes you need help with that. I have often said to my closest advisers that your job isn’t just to tell me what you think, but you also have to get in my face and make sure I heard you. It’s hard to deliver bad news, and part of leadership is giving people permission to give you bad news, and making sure you really hear it.”
Probably the biggest mistakes I’ve made were when I wasn’t listening carefully enough. – Penny Pritzker
The thing that struck me was how much humility is packed in that statement. And the acknowledgement that true leadership skill means a willingness to deal with uncertain, or even negative, feedback. A reminder that when you are a leader it is not about you, but about the shared goal of the stakeholders in your venture. If your staff or team is reluctant to give you bad news, then how can you really find out what is going on? Their job in not to please you, but to give you the information you need.
As Shanti Atkins, President and CSO of Navex Global, said in Bryant’s January 2nd column: “Even now I like to have people around me who will disagree with me and who will tell me when they think I’m wrong or something is a terrible idea. If I get the feeling I have people around me who are managing up, I get very nervous. I just instantly start wondering, ‘What’s actually happening and why can’t you give me more of a balanced picture?’”
We all need to be ready to really hear what employees, co-workers, even family members, have to say–especially when it is something we may not want to hear! Let’s resolve to be better–and more open–listeners from now on. Mindfully practicing our listening skills will improve every facet of our lives, not just the bottom line.
Ann Timmons is an actor, director, writer, and teacher to share unique perspectives on presentation skills and communications training. Individual clients include solopreneurs, leaders in the private sector, government and non-profit spheres, as well as political candidates. She has designed and run workshops for the Department of State’s Emerging Women Leaders in Public Service Forum; The Embassy of Switzerland; The Ferguson Group; Ford’s Theatre; Georgetown University School of Foreign Service; Latham & Watkins LLP; and the Women & Politics Institute, American University, among others. Website, twitter: @annspeaks LinkedIn: Ann Timmons, Communications Artist FB: Ann Timmons
Looking for a place to find simple techniques to build your listening skills and become a better communicator? Look here!
by Téa Blake | Apr 7, 2014 | Gender Research
We hear a lot about the pay gap and there certainly is one. But what we’re learning is that the pay gap isn’t all about discrimination. The choices women make matter too. Nothing is all or nothing! – InPower Editors (updated May 13, 2016)
Finding: Everyone agrees there is still an equal pay gap between what men and women earn, but how big the gap is and how it’s measured – is still up for discussion.
InPower Insight: Depending on which data you look at, there is hope for women to be paid equally with men, but it’s still an uphill effort that requires each woman to assert her own worth.
Summary:
The equal pay gap is somewhere between 7% and 23%, depending on how you crunch the numbers and which groups you look at.
The most often quoted statistic from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) analyzes annual wages and finds – on average – a 23% pay gap between what men and women make. It’s worth noting that white women fair better than other minority groups, including African-American and Hispanic men.
This research by the NWLC finds distinct wage gap differences based on age, with younger women experiencing a smaller gap than men.
Pew Research, which does their analysis based on hourly wages instead of annual wages, has also found that millennial women – who are less likely to be cutting back hours for child-care, share work values with their male colleagues and are the best educated group of people ever – are making about 93% of what the males next to them earn. Pew notes that this may change as these young women age and have families. In all age groups, three times more women than men report that having children makes it harder for them to advance in their careers (51% to 16%).
Pew also finds that the wage gap is narrowing in part because women’s wages are going up as compared to men’s wages, which are trending down. Based on their analysis of hourly wages, on average, women in all age groups are making 84% of the wages men make.
Taking yet another slice at the data, based on weekly wages, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) finds the average figures show that women early 19% less than men. BLS data shows interesting distinctions by race, also, showing that African-American and Hispanic women, while earning less than their male counterparts, have a smaller gap to close within their own communities.
Anomolies
There are some situations in which executive women benefit a “female premium” and earn more than their male peers. This is apparently due to the fact that they work in companies with meaningful diversity goals for executive leadership.
Career Coaching Tip: Left to its own devices, most companies and our society don’t seem inclined to pay you what you’re worth, which leaves the burden on you to ask for it. Make sure you’re asking for it and when you can, choose to work for a company that has demonstrated a commitment to meaningful diversity in it’s leadership programs.
Keywords: equal pay, pay gap, wage gap, pew research bureau of labor statistics
by Guest Author | Mar 26, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery
Sometimes people are simply annoying. Of course if they’re annoying us, it’s likely that we’re annoying them too. Mary Schaefer gives us some good perspective on how to rise above this downward cycle! – InPower Editors
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element… I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Yesterday I had a confounding discussion with a customer service rep about my car insurance. He clearly did not think what I asked for was in his job description. He didn’t hide his dismay. It seemed like from that point he chose to be deliberately uncooperative. I did not respond well to his “attitude.” Let’s just say we ended up being tools of each other’s torture, to use Goethe’s words.
I was left feeling befuddled and embarrassed at my own behavior. The rep couldn’t have felt very good either.
The secret our brains are keeping
So, what’s going on if someone is showing some attitude unexpectedly? The neuroscientist David Rock talks about social interactions and why they do or don’t go well. Rock says that in social interactions our human brains automatically move to determine “threat” or “reward.” Our brains are assessing whether our sense of status, autonomy, certainty, relatedness or fairness is being threatened. (You can find a really good summary of Rock’s work here, from Ed Batista.)
When people respond to us in a way that confounds us and we keep the threat/reward concept in mind, we can potentially thwart the escalation. We can slow down and cultivate some compassion with our conversation partnerand ourselves. In the situation with the customer service rep, I’m still working on how I could have been an “instrument of inspiration” instead of spinning out with him.
Rise above it
This is clearly not easy. When we are triggered it’s hard to slow the rising momentum. When at least one of us strives to treat people as they ought to be (Goethe again), we can indeed help them demonstrate their best selves. We help ourselves do this too, in addition to creating much more rewarding and effective interactions.
How do you work with yourself to consistently “treat people as they ought to be?”
A version of this post originally ran on the Lead Change Group site January 17, 2013.
by Dana Theus | Mar 18, 2014 | Coaching Advice, Personal Mastery, Work-Life Blend
There are plenty of the Debbie Downers who look at the exodus of women from the corporate ranks and see bad news. If your priority is getting women in to socially, politically and economically powerful positions, this IS bad news. But what if you just want to have a life? Be happy? Be self-actualized? Discover what work-life balance might mean for YOU? More and more, women – especially in their 30’s – are swelling the self-employed marketplace, and it’s no wonder. Until companies make it easier for all employees – women and men – to juggle their increasingly demanding responsibilities in a WHOLE life, more women will be tempted out on their own. That’s the new work-life “balance” discussion this summer was/is all about.
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by Guest Author | Mar 3, 2014 | Gender Research
Do women have more opportunity to close the gender gap in entrepreneurship than we’re taking? This data seems to say “yes.”
Originally on: kauffman.org
by Guest Author | Feb 13, 2014 | Commentary
Sometimes leadership advice for career success sounds like so much gobbledegook. We agree with Paula that simple and positive is best, and we agree that Greenberg and Maymin’s new book, “Profit from the Positive” offers some good advice to leaders and high-achievers alike! – InPower Editors
What type of leader are you, and how well do you develop others? Maybe you have explored some of the thousands of management and leadership development courses, books, webinars and seminars that are offered in the marketplace; but, I don’t know about you, but so many of the tips and techniques offered just don’t resonate with me. They sound too corporate-like and stiff or they lack the research showing they actually work.
The science has shifted in the past couple of decades, however, to focus on “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey would say, including topics like resilience, strengths, motivation, and emotions to help you become a more complete leader. How can you manage your emotions? How quickly do you bounce back when things go wrong? What are some ways you can exert more influence among those you lead?
These are just some of the questions Margaret Greenberg and Senia Maymin ask you to consider in their new book, Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. Based on decades of research in the area of positive psychology, Greenberg and Maymin describe more than 30 skills that actually help make you a better leader – skills that many traditional leadership development resources don’t discuss.
Here are five such strategies to help you boost your productivity and transform your business:
If you’re stuck, just start somewhere. A coaching client of mine, a successful businesswoman, found herself dragging her feet and procrastinating on certain projects. This was having a negative impact on her career because her procrastination was causing her to turn projects in late. In order to get her moving forward, we first had to uncover a very deep mindset that was holding her back. On certain projects she felt that she simply wasn’t good enough to be working on them (this is one of the ten mindsets I’ve discovered that often undercut happiness and resilience for many professionals).
With that barrier removed, I then asked two key questions that Greenberg and Maymin highlight. First, I asked her, “What would you do if you had just five minutes to work on the project?” While her projects usually required hours to complete, she was stuck and this question helped her to inch forward. Then, I asked her, “What else could you do to move the project along by only 1 percent?”
Work less, accomplish more. When I was practicing lawyer, I was a card carrying member of the 60-hour a week (at least) club. After all, wasn’t I supposed to work long hours in order to be successful? Greenberg and Maymin discuss a four-year study conducted by Harvard Business School professor, Leslie Perlow in which Perlow found that scheduling time off rather than working more hours actually increased organizational and personal productivity. Additional studies show that for industrial workers, productivity dramatically decreases after eight hours a day. For knowledge workers, productivity drops after six hours (Alcorn, 2013). Simply put, more hours don’t automatically lead to more productivity; in fact, it’s usually the opposite.
Develop a learner’s mindset. Using a learner’s mindset means putting yourself in the position to likely make a few mistakes, get a little confused, probably feel a little dumb at times, but ultimately learn something useful – either about yourself, your co-workers, or a process. With a learner’s mindset, people focus more on effort and gaining competence rather than ability and demonstrating competence. Greeberg and Maymin offer these coaching questions to encourage a learner’s mindset:
** How can your past experiences help you with this current challenge?
** What do you hope to learn from this project?
** What are some mistakes you might make? And what would you say to persuade yourself that it’s okay to make mistakes like these once in awhile?
Manage your emotions – they are contagious. Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler write that, “Social networks have clusters of happy and unhappy people within them that reach out to three degrees of separation…Each additional happy friend increases a person’s probability of being happy by about 9%.” Research being done in the field of neuroscience also shows that emotions are contagious. “Mirror neurons” in our brains literally catch another person’s mood, much like catching a cold. To avoid spreading your bad mood to others, try one of these techniques referenced by Greenberg and Maymin:
** Actually label the emotion, which helps to diffuse it. I recently appeared on a national talk show with a panel of six other women. We were all excited, yet nervous about the appearance. As we were waiting offstage getting last minute make up and hair touch ups, one brave member of our group said, “Man, I’m nervous.” You could immediately see the rest of the group let out a collective sigh of relief and it prompted a very healthy discussion about how we were feeling.
** Get out of your office and go for a walk and talk with a colleague or friend to blow off steam.
Give control back to your employees. As a high-achieving professional, one of the things I hate most is a micromanager. Too many bosses seek to control too many aspects of their employees’ work, and we know that employees are at their productive best when they have autonomy, or control over their work. According to Greenberg and Maymin, when employees control their own work, they find ways to improve how work is performed, they take calculated risks, and they are able to continue their work even in their bosses’ absence.
Stress and burnout aren’t going away in our workplace, and as employees and businesses continue to manage in a culture of doing more with less, new, cutting edge tools are needed to help drive productivity, engagement, and results. Implement just one of the strategies outlined above, and not only will you become a more productive, better leader, but you may also notice a smile returning to your workday!
Originally on: psychologytoday.com
by Dana Theus | Feb 12, 2014 | Career Development
Do you hate networking? Meeting strangers and having to promote yourself – or your business – from scratch? Join the club! Dana is something of an expert in helping us learn authentic personal promotion techniques. Her secret? Authentic strategies that don’t feel like self-promotion! – InPower Editors
Most people wilt at the thought of going to a networking mixer. The idea of meeting new people, answering the inevitable question of, “So… what do you do?” is daunting. The vast majority of us – extroverts included – would prefer not to have to engage in self-promotion.
Well, too bad. Self-promotion, in all its forms, is shown by research and common sense to be the most effective strategy for getting ahead – especially for women!
The problem most of us have when confronted with these “cold” networking situations is that the image in our mind of how we’re supposed to promote ourselves looks like a used car salesman. We naturally resist objectifying ourselves and don’t want to “pitch” ourselves (or anything) to a reluctant audience. No one likes being sold unless they’re ready to buy – and at networking events, no one is buying!
Selling yourself feels icky…
So here’s the secret. Don’t sell yourself. Or your business.
Not “selling” yourself can be equally difficult if you’re feeling desperate, however. For entrepreneurs you sometimes feel desperate to land a new customer. If you’re looking for a job, you feel desperate to find someone looking to hire you.
The reality is that at a networking event, you are much more likely to find some who will refer you to customers and hiring managers. And they’re not going to refer you if you’re desperate and selling yourself too hard.
Quite a conundrum.
Conquering the conundrum of self-promotion
So what do you do? There are many strategies for authentic self-promotion, actually, but I’d like to tell you about a little secret I’ve discovered in helping entrepreneurs and professionals alike develop their personal brand, I always find one single thing that everyone can do more of to be authentically promoting themselves – and feel good about it! This technique gives everyone a natural and authentic way to talk about yourself, and your business, in a very positive light, and almost always encourages others to lean in and say, “tell me more!” If it doesn’t stimulate an interesting discussion that let’s you strut your stuff enjoyably, then you know the person you’re talking to can’t help you, so you don’t feel bad saying, “nice to meet you,” and moving on.
The strategy is simple. Don’t advocate for yourself, advocate for a big, important, interesting, not-obvious idea – an idea you care about a lot and which positions you and your business goals exactly the way you want to be seen.
I call these special, naturally promoting, ideas “big ideas” because they are more than just simple opinions that sound good in sound-bite form. They do make great sound-bites, but because they’re also designed to attract exactly the kind of people you need – customers, referrals/sponsors and even media opportunities – they are naturally self-promoting.
Show, don’t tell…
The power of big idea self-promotion, however, runs more deeply. You’re not telling people you’ve got talent, you’re demonstrating it. You’re not selling yourself, you’re advocating something that matters to you, and so you exude an authentic passion that’s very attractive to others. They’re more likely to be “infected” by your enthusiasm and want to work with you and help you.
It feels really good to share your big idea and discover people who get turned on by it like you do. Really good. You’ll find yourself developing friendships and having meaningful conversations at “cold” networking events. You might even start to enjoy them!
I’ve recently created a video series for entrepreneurs and a webinar for corporate leaders to help you understand your big idea opportunity for networking, personal branding and even media exposure (social media and otherwise). I’d be honored if you’d watch them and share your big idea with me!
Have you ever noticed how putting big ideas “out there” has attracted people to you? Have you been able to turn that into a marketing or self-promotion strategy? If so, please share your experience in comments!
Take charge of your personal brand and explore authentic strategies that will help you get ahead in your career and your life.
by Guest Author | Feb 11, 2014 | Commentary
We all want to be indispensable employees, to ensure job security. These days there no such thing as a truly secure job, but there are things you can do to increase the likelihood you’ll have the job as long as you want it. Enjoy Mary’s powerful advice for taking your career into your own hands. – InPower Editors
Is it possible to make yourself indispensable?
You often hear the word “indispensable” when it comes to distinguishing yourself at work. What does it mean? How do you make that happen?
Whether you are feeling the pinch of job insecurity or you want to boost your performance rating, it’s always worthwhile to enhance the value of your “currency” at work so your boss and co-workers wonder how they ever got along without you.
Three Tips to Increase Your Indispensability
1. Nail Down the Fundamentals.
Take steps to get clear on the baseline for what is expected of your position. Only then can you make realistic choices about how you are going to enhance your performance in a way that works for you and your employer both. Making this happen includes:
- Knowing what success looks like for your position —Ask your boss and others you trust what they think, and then deliver on what’s expected.
- Cleaning up your own messes. Know when to notify your boss and when to ask for help. Being a hero doesn’t always work out in your favor.
2. Make Your Relationship With Your Boss Work FOR You.
Whether you have a boss you can work with, or not, it is valuable to consider how to make the best of it. After all, despite the fact that you might not like or respect your boss, your boss’s opinion matters. His or her opinion has a significant impact on your earnings, your enjoyment of your work, and your future employment.
As you look at the list below, you may find yourself resisting some of the points. Before you totally reject any of them, consider what you might learn by discovering where your boss stands. Some key points to get clear on when navigating this working relationship include:
- Get agreement on your work objectives and how they will be measured.
- Know your boss’s hot buttons, e.g. what she always looks for, what he never asks about.
- Address any proposal/concern you have in terms that influences your boss to buy-in. In other words, make it clear what is it in for them and the organization.
Just because you get your boss’s opinion on any of these items, it doesn’t mean you have to agree. You may not like the conclusions you come to (new job? new company?), but knowledge IS power and you will be making more informed choices.
3. Distinguish Yourself.
People like to work with people who are helpful and low-maintenance. Become the person that your manager and co-workers know they can count on to get things done, on time and well, without requiring them to give it another thought. Here are some suggestions to make this happen:
- Don’t complain about the non-negotiable. For example, if you don’t like the rule about submitting travel expense reports within 10 days, then comply, or work to change it, but don’t only complain.
- Don’t make people come after you about perfunctory requirements, like taking your turn to run the staff meeting.
- Quietly volunteer to do conventionally unattractive tasks, e.g. organizing a safety meeting, presenting work environment training, etc.
Yes, these points seem like common sense, and…
As you know, analyzing your behavior objectively and changing it is easier said than done. Try out some of the suggestions listed here and give yourself an edge.
Originally on: ReimagineWork
by Dana Theus | Feb 4, 2014 | Leadership
We are thrilled to announce that InPower Women partnered with TaketheLead.com to host a keynote speech by Sheryl Sandberg – right here on InPowerWomen.com! Sheryl was joined by other heavy hitters in the women’s empowerment movement. Together they discussed the challenges we face, and the opportunities we have.
For a taste of Sheryl, enjoy this interesting TED interview with Sheryl about what has happened since Lean In was published.
FREE PDF
Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
