I hate Women’s History Month. Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s vitally important to keep remembering that – and why - women matter. It’s crucial that we keep examining and updating our perceptions of women, so that we see them in ways that are ever-more complete, current and correct. I just don’t...
This year on International Women's Day I am sharing a story about a woman and how she leads differently from the men around her, and is highly effectively in the process. I'm hopeful that in dialogs like these we're finally moving beyond the question of "are woman better leaders than men?" and...
Want to take the 24 out of 24/7? I was at lunch the other day with a friend who is a senior leader at her company. She was talking about how many junior women seriously consider opting out of high powered careers as they think about having families. This, despite all the work her company, a...
The cohort of leaders who will reclaim leadership to achieve great things in the world won't succeed out of idealism, an extreme sense of perfection or personal heroism. We will succeed because we see ourselves and the world for what is and because we master the ability to motivate groups we lead...
Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in the Atlantic, Why Women Can’t Have it All, has reignited crucial issues of advancement and balance that women continue to face in the workplace. As a male executive in business for over forty years, I have worked with many women who have consistently performed at...
When I interviewed Mike Howard, Chief Security Officer at Microsoft, on the subject of leadership, we also had a great conversation about the role he sees gender and diversity playing in modern organizations. I listened to understand Gendership – the partnership of women and men working and...
Women are good for business. Studies have made it clear that women are excellent leaders, creating “The Woman Effect” to produce meaningful, measurable and often dramatically improved results for companies that sustain a relative gender balance in their leadership team. But it’s important to...
By: John Keyser As many of my clients and other readers know, I believe we need a societal change in order to gain a great many more women in leadership roles. I read two articles in the past few days that prompt me to want to write about this today. The cover story in this week’s Time Magazine,...
Meg and I were lunching, as we often do, and I was being a good ear - only putting my executive coaching hat on occasionally for an old friend. The young company she’d joined a few years ago – that had allowed her to break the glass ceiling into the inner executive ranks – had just been acquired....
I’ve recently chatted with some women that left a “women’s business networking group” frustrated that no one wanted to talk about business issues. Are we getting good at networking, but not using it to build our business and mentoring skills? What I’m wondering is whether many women are missing an opportunity to really mentor each other on the business of business. Are we giving each other a leg up or are we just empathizing and listening sympathetically?
