Are You Developing Enough Leaders?

One of the biggest things we’ve learned from the pandemic and the other challenges of the past few years, is that we all need to lead today. Leadership skills are critical at every level. But, in too many organizations, leadership development programs are still reserved primarily for employees already identified as “HiPo’s” – high-potential and high-performing employees. In other words, the employees who receive the most leadership development are the very ones who need it the least because there performance is already strong. In an influential article for Harvard Business Review, professors Navio Kwok and Winny Shen call this phenomenon “the leadership development paradox.” In the long-term, this approach affects the quality, diversity, and size of an organization’s pipeline of leaders. But we can address it by providing leadership training opportunities to a wider array of employees.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

How Strong Is Your Leadership Pipeline?

When a company decides whether to invest in leadership development for an employee, they directly shape that employee’s career path. Employees who receive leadership development are more likely to be promoted to senior level, high-exposure roles. Meanwhile, employees outside of that high-potential group are more likely to stay at their current performance level or even get worse — because they’re getting less access to the leadership development programs that could help them improve as well as opportunities for career advancement.                       

When only a select group of employees gets greater access to leadership development, organizations miss out on what others could potentially contribute. Although budget is a key consideration, can we afford to do this? Even small improvements across a broader population can have a big impact on overall company performance and cultivate a sustainable culture of growth and innovation.

According to DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2023, CEOs are already worried about how to develop the next generation of leaders — and only 12% of companies are confident that they have a strong bench of leaders who are prepared to step into key roles.

As a firm with a niche focused on developing women leaders, we’re also concerned about how the leadership development paradox may disproportionately affect women. Ambition has increased, as shown in the McKinsey/LeanIn.org Women in the Workplace 2023 report, which  found that eight out of 10 women want to get promoted. The numbers are even higher for women younger than 30 and women of color (93% and 88%, respectively).

However, the report also found that women are still under-represented at every level of leadership. They’re less likely to get that first promotion to manager than men are. (And the gap is even bigger for women of color.) With fewer women than men rising through the ranks, it only makes sense that fewer women reach the highest levels of leadership.

How to Develop More Leaders

To fix the leadership pipeline, we must offer leadership development more broadly — but in a way that satisfies each individual’s needs while addressing tight schedules and company budgets. 

We embedded those principles into our New Lens® learning platform, added the same expertise we’ve used to help 75% of our clients get promoted, and packaged it all into bite-sized lessons and collaborative learning that employees can easily fit into their days.

Beyond considering something like New Lens, use these strategies to strengthen your leadership pipeline:

• Rethink how you identify potential leaders. DDI recommends using digital assessments to identify hidden talent.  They explain that “leaders may not recognize potential if it doesn’t align with what leadership has traditionally looked like in the organization,” adding that in remote or hybrid environments, some leadership skills may be overlooked.

• Tap into your internal expertise. How are you making the most of the vast knowledge your people can share with each other? Mentorship and sponsorship are surprisingly underused tools for cultivating future leaders. Also look for opportunities to use peer-to-peer cross-training to build relationships and leadership skills.

• Make key experiences more accessible. It’s common for organizations to have roles that are seen as a springboard to higher leadership positions. Is your organization inadvertently funneling only certain groups to these jobs? For example, are women pushed toward marketing and HR vs. operations?

Your organization can unlock limitless potential by investing in more leadership development opportunities for your employees. We live and breathe these issues with our Fortune 500 clients. So, as you consider your company’s short and long-term development needs, schedule a call with us. We would be happy to discuss how you can strengthen your pipeline of talent by unleashing more employees’ potential.

Are You Underutilizing These Powerful Ways to Close the Leadership Gap?

I have some bad news and some good news about mentorship and sponsorship at work. First, the bad news: These two strategies are extremely underused. According to Gallup, only 40% of employees have workplace mentors, and 23% have sponsors. The good news? Improving these numbers is low-hanging fruit and holds huge potential for increasing the number of women in senior leadership, enhancing engagement and retention and even bolstering the bottom line at your organization.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic after serving as one of the mentors at the Dallas Business Journal’s recent Mentoring Monday, a nationwide event sponsored by The Business Journals that brings together successful female business leaders and women who want to tap into their advice and insights.

Image by Sue Styles from Pixabay

As a longtime advocate for advancing women, I’m excited that we’re learning more about how to create meaningful results for individuals and their employers through relationships with mentors and sponsors. In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s take a deeper dive into this topic and make the case for your organization to invest in programs that integrate the power of both mentorship and sponsorship.

What Is the Difference Between Mentors and Sponsors?

Mentors and sponsors serve valuable, but not identical, roles in your network. Mentors typically serve as role models, providing advice and perspective to help you develop your skills and navigate challenging situations. Mentors can be at any level in the organization, with peer and reverse mentoring becoming more frequently used approaches. 

Sponsors, on the other hand, have clout and yield considerable influence on key decision-makers. Sponsors also give you critical exposure to opportunities and visibility to other influential leaders, and advocate on your behalf. 

As a longtime executive coach and the creator of a leadership development platform, I’m not surprised by how underutilized mentorship and sponsorship are. I’ve had many clients fall into the trap of thinking their good work is enough. It often takes people a while to realize that who they know is just as important as the quality of their work. They overlook how much their relationships give them access to resources, information and influence that they need to get work done and to advance their careers.

The Power of Support at Work

While mentorship and sponsorship are good for everyone, I’m especially intrigued by their potential to address an issue that many organizations struggle with: the leadership gap between men and women.

According to the Women in the Workplace 2023 report  from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org, women are underrepresented at all stages of the leadership pipeline. While 48% of all entry-level employees are women, only 40% of managers are. The gap keeps getting broader all the way to the C-Suite, where men outnumber women by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

That’s a problem on many levels. Researchers have found that companies with more female leaders make more money, are more socially responsible and have better customer service. Female CEOs can even drive stock prices. Companies recognize these benefits, and many are increasing their efforts around leadership development for women.

These programs must include opportunities to develop relationships with mentors and sponsors. When you look at data from Gallup, the Women in the Workplace report and other recent research, it becomes clear why these relationships can be so beneficial for women’s careers:

• Women are more ambitious now than they were before the pandemic. In 2019, about 70% of women wanted to get promoted to the next level. Today, that figure is 81%. (For women under 30 — your organization’s rising generation of leaders —93% want promotions.) In other words, high-potential women want to know that they have a future at your organization. Gallup found that when an employee has a mentor or sponsor, they’re much more likely to feel that they have a clear path forward.

• Learning and growth are deeply important to your workforce. More than 9 out of 10 employees said they would stay at their company longer if it invested in helping them learn. Mentorship and sponsorship help address that demand. According to Gallup, employees with mentors are twice as likely to say they’ve had recent opportunities to learn and grow.

• Perhaps the greatest potential for mentorship and sponsorship programs lies in helping more women find sponsors. Currently, 25% of men have a sponsor at work, while only 22% of women do. According to Herminia Ibarra of London Business School:

Too few women are reaching the top of their organizations, and a big reason is that they are not getting the high-stakes assignments that are prerequisite for a shot at the C-suite. Often, this is due to a lack of powerful sponsors demanding and ensuring that they get these stepping-stone jobs.

Ibarra has also found that men and women describe their relationships with supporters differently: Women talk about how these relationships increase their self-understanding, while men talk about others endorsing them and helping them plan their career advancement.

How to Improve Mentorship and Sponsorship

So how can your organization maximize the power of mentorship and sponsorship to advance women leaders?

• Examine how the rise of hybrid work has affected who receives mentorship or sponsorship in your organization. For example, men are more likely than women to receive mentorship and sponsorship when they work onsite, according to the Women in the Workplace report.

• Start thinking about how to weave elements of mentorship or sponsorship into existing programs without overburdening participants or executives. While support relationships that develop on their own are great, formal programs can create even more impressive results, Gallup found.

• Whether or not you have a formal program, make sure your organization is teaching coaching skills. Potential mentors and sponsors are more likely to help when they have the right tools to do so.

• Consider a tool like the New Lens® platform that facilitates mentoring conversations. Our app leverages the power of both peer learning and manager feedback.

Finally, remember that we understand the power of mentorship and sponsorship at Newberry Solutions and we welcome the chance to answer your questions and share how New Lens and our other tools can empower you to support women leaders. Schedule a New Lens demo now, or get in touch with us for more information.

Fixing the ‘Broken Rung’ for Women at Work

You’ve probably heard of the glass ceiling for women at work. But what we really should be focusing on is the broken rung.

That’s according to the Women in the Workplace 2023 report, from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org. The report debunks workplace myths about women (I wrote about its findings regarding women and ambition recently.) One of the biggest myths is that the glass ceiling is the biggest obstacle women face in reaching senior leadership. But what McKinsey and LeanIn found — and what we’ve observed firsthand here at Newberry Solutions — is that the barriers to women start far earlier in their careers.

Photo by RDNE Stock project

The broken rung discussed in the report is the fact that fewer women than men get that first key promotion to manager. That puts fewer women in the leadership pipeline, which ultimately leads to a shortage of female candidates for senior leadership positions. As the report states:

Because of the gender disparity in early promotions, men end up holding 60 percent of manager-level positions in a typical company, while women occupy 40 percent. Since men significantly outnumber women, there are fewer women to promote to director, and the number of women decreases at every subsequent level.

How big of a problem is the broken rung? McKinsey and LeanIn found that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 87 women were. The gap is even bigger for women of color: 73 were promoted to manager for every 100 men who were. This problem is not new. The Women in the Workplace report has flagged it for nine consecutive years. But we clearly need to do more to address it. As a firm that’s passionate about helping women succeed — and that has a strong track record of helping them get promoted — this is one of our top priorities. So we want to highlight McKinsey and LeanIn’s recommendations on fixing the broken rung — and add some of our own.

How to Help Women Get Promoted

• Realize that the problem is not with women and their ambition. Some leaders may brush off the broken rung by claiming that women don’t want promotions and are more likely to step away from work. But that’s outdated — and inaccurate — thinking. The Women in the Workplace report shows that women are actually more ambitious now than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic. (We’ve seen the same thing in our work with high-performing women.) Roughly equal numbers of women and men want promotions. That’s even true for women who work remotely or on a hybrid schedule.

• Address performance bias. All too often, women are hired or promoted based on what they’ve done, while men are hired or promoted based on potential. In their report, McKinsey and LeanIn recommend taking “de-biasing” steps. For example, require that managers give their rationale behind performance evaluations and recommendations for promotions.

• Make development more equitable. Do the current learning and development programs at your organization include enough women who have the potential to be promoted? And does the content of those programs focus on what women need to get promoted? For some inspiration, check out our case study “Empowering Women to Reach Their Leadership Potential.” It tells the story of how a Fortune 50 company used our New Lens® learning platform to prepare more women for promotions.

Research is clear that companies benefit from having women in senior leadership roles. But to accomplish this goal, you have to take action much earlier in the leadership pipeline. This is one of the reasons we created New Lens, and we’re excited that it’s becoming part of the solution for the broken-rung problem. To learn more and set up a demonstration, visit newlensleadership.com.

The Truth About Women and Ambition

True or false? During the Covid-19 pandemic, women have become less ambitious than men are.

False. Very false.

But if you answered “true,” I can understand why. Perhaps you’ve seen news articles about the “lazy girl jobs” trend or women leaving the workforce.

Photo by Jopwell

Those headlines, however, tell only part of the story. The Women in the Workplace 2023 report, from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org, fills in some gaps in the narrative. This report debunks myths about women at work, including the one that they lack ambition.

Because we’re a firm with a special passion for developing women leaders, the Women in the Workplace report is always required reading for us. We believe it should be for your organization as well. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a closer look at the report’s findings, compare them with what we see firsthand through our work, and share recommendations on cultivating women leaders in your organization. And we’ll start with the myth of women’s declining ambitions.

8 Out of 10 Women Want Promotions

The pandemic was an enormous blow to women at work. More women than men lost their jobs, and women experienced more stress and burnout than men did. But the Women in the Workplace report found that women are actually more ambitious now than they were before the pandemic. In 2019, about 70% of women wanted to get promoted to the next level. Today, that figure is 81% — identical to the percentage of men who want to get promoted. Younger women and women of color are even more ambitious. Among women under thirty, 93% are aiming for a promotion, while 88% of women of color are.

The report also refutes the perception that women who work remotely or on a hybrid schedule are less ambitious. In fact, they’re a little more likely to want promotions than women who work fully on-site. Furthermore, across all types of work schedules (remote, hybrid, on-site), women are just as likely to want a promotion as men in comparable arrangements.

What We’re Hearing from Women

The Women in the Workplace report’s findings on ambition track closely with what we’ve observed firsthand. Our work frequently involves helping top organizations cultivate women leaders. (For some examples, check out our case studies on how companies are using our New Lens® app to invest in women’s development.) We’ve coached countless women and spoken at events for women (such as the D CEO Emerging Women Leadership Network Program). Beyond  Newbery Solutions, I’m also involved with nonprofits and other entities that focus on elevating women, including Texas Women’s Foundation, the Senator Jane Nelson Institute for Women's Leadership at Texas Woman’s University, the United Way Fund for Women and Children, and 50/50 Women on Boards. So I have a lot of conversations with women about what’s happening in their careers and in their workplaces.

And what I hear from them echoes what McKinsey and LeanIn.org found. Women care deeply about their work and are constantly looking for ways they can make a bigger impact. They’re excited about flexible schedules that help them manage their personal lives without shortchanging their careers. The McKinsey/Lean In statistics aren’t the only findings that demonstrate women’s ambition. Women are starting more businesses than they did before the pandemic. Women are also more likely to attend college and obtain their degrees than men are.

Build a Pipeline of Women Leaders

As we celebrate women’s growing ambitions, we must also look for ways to translate these ambitions into gains for women at the top levels of leadership. While we’ve made some progress in closing the C-suite gender gap, women still hold less than one-third of these roles

The problem, according to the Women in the Workplace report, is a broken leadership pipeline. Women are less likely to get that first promotion to manager than men are. (And the gap is even bigger for women of color.) With fewer women than men rising through the ranks, it only makes sense that fewer women reach the highest levels of leadership.

 This discrepancy ultimately hurts organizations. We see in the McKinsey/Lean In report that there are great numbers of ambitious women out there who are eager to lead. When these women don’t get promoted, their employers miss out on untold potential. 

So how can we make our workplaces more equitable and help women get the promotions they aspire to?

• Talk about the Women in the Workplace report with your team. This discussion can help surface any misconceptions about women and ambition that your employees may have.

• Make leadership development training accessible to more employees. Companies rarely have budgets to provide coaching to everyone who wants it. It’s more likely to be reserved for senior leaders. That leaves out vast numbers of high-potential employees who could benefit. This was one of our main motivations for creating New Lens.

• Implement employee resource groups (ERGs) for women and women of color. According to the McKinsey/Lean In report, 93% of companies with strong pipelines of women leaders had ERGs with content tailored for women. That’s compared with 83% for companies overall. For women of color, the difference is even more dramatic: 61% of companies with strong pipelines have targeted ERGs, compared with 44% of companies overall.

Increasing the ranks of women leaders is a big topic, and one we’ll continue to explore in upcoming articles. Got questions? Please share them with me on LinkedIn. You could help shape our future content. In the meantime, check out the full Women in the Workplace 2023 report and explore how New Lens® democratizes access to leadership development.

10 Things Successful Women Consistently Do

March is Women’s History Month, and an important time for us here at Newberry Solutions. One of our passions is developing high-performing women leaders. We’re proud to have been recognized for this work. And we’re excited that the tools we’ve created to make leadership development more accessible (like the New Lens app) are helping women thrive and make a bigger impact.

In honor of Women’s History Month, I wanted to reshare a list of the 10 things that successful women consistently do. Everything on this list is based on what I’ve observed over thousands of hours of coaching leaders. As much as we’d like to think the playing field is similar for men and women, women typically face different types of challenges at work and they play different roles at home. So, naturally, we would expect to see some differences in what successful women do. 

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

So many of you have told me that this list has been helpful to you or that it’s helped you to mentor or support other women. I hope to keep that momentum going today with this updated version of that list.

Successful women …

1. Realize that they’ve already earned their current role and fully assume the position. They pay attention to their executive presence and the messages they are sending about their confidence and authority.

2. Recognize that their own behavior plays a huge role in “teaching” others how to treat them.

3. Own their value by accepting and appreciating positive feedback. They know their strengths and look for ways to maximize them.

4. Authentically invest in cultivating sponsors — leaders with power and influence. They understand that mentorship is not the same thing as sponsorship.

5. Don’t shy away from office politics. Instead, they ethically engage in it to give them access to resources, information and influence they need to get things done.  

6. Negotiate for what they want.

7. Proactively share their positive business results in a way that others can learn and benefit from. (If you have trouble with this, check out our guide to tasteful self-promotion.)

8. Design a “sustainable model” that honors their personal and professional priorities. This is especially important now that hybrid work can make it harder to unplug while you’re at home.

9. Drive for results in a way that maintains or strengthens relationships. Results and relationships are inextricably linked and an investment in both is necessary.

10. Pave the way for other women. They look for the potential in others and find ways to support their growth.

As you read through this list, what resonated for you? What one step can you take this week to bring it to life for yourself or for another woman you work with? As always, we’re here to help, with several resources including our newest tool to make leadership development affordable and scalable, the award-winning New Lens® app.

Retain Women Amid ‘the Great Resignation’

I’ve written before about “the Great Resignation” — the record number of people who have been leaving their jobs this year. Now we’re seeing more and more headlines that women are driving this phenomenon.

Photo by Alexander Suhorucov from Pexels

The Women in the Workplace 2021 report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In highlighted the growing crisis:

One in three women says that they have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year, compared with one in four who said this a few months into the pandemic. Additionally, four in ten women have considered leaving their company or switching jobs—and high employee turnover in recent months suggests that many of them are following through. … The risk to women, and to the companies that depend on their contributions, remains very real.

As we look toward the new year, I wanted to share some ideas about how organizations can turn this situation around in 2022. Hopefully, you’ll find at least one strategy on this list that you can bring to your own workplace.

Offer More Flexibility

Remote work and flexible schedules skyrocketed during the pandemic. Now some companies, including tech giants, are making those changes permanent. For example, Microsoft now allows employees to work from anywhere for half of their work week, and even 100% remotely with manager approval.

Flexibility is especially important to women. That makes sense, considering that women make up 75% of caregivers. However, simply offering remote or hybrid work options is not a cure-all when it comes to retaining women. Such changes must be implemented thoughtfully to ensure that women who are working remotely are not penalized for being less visible at the office

Promote Mentorship and Sponsorship

Understandably, women are leaving their jobs when they don’t see opportunities for advancement. And one reason that women don’t move up the ladder at the same rate as men do is that men are sponsored more often. 

What’s the difference between a mentor and a sponsor? While both provide valuable career advice, sponsors also connect you to opportunities and advocate for you.

A program that connects women to mentors and sponsors sends a powerful message. That’s what companies like HERE Technologies have found.

Emphasize Wellbeing

During the pandemic, more organizations began to embrace the idea that employee wellbeing isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s essential for sustainable success. Because women are more stressed and burned out than men are, wellbeing initiatives are a powerful tool for retaining women employees. 

Your company can support employees by offering wellness subsidies, as Deloitte and DocuSign do. Or you could help employees access mental health services, as Starbucks and Target do.

Resources You Can Use

At Newberry Executive Solutions, our focus is providing resources that organizations can use to engage and retain the women leaders that are so crucial to their future. As your company makes plans for 2022, I invite you to explore our programs, books, New Lens app and other offerings that can help you invest in women.

The Great Resignation: How Leaders Can Respond

The headlines just keep coming about a phenomenon that’s being called “the Great Resignation.” A record number of Americans have been quitting their jobs. In August alone, the number was 4.3 million. With this trend showing no signs of reversing anytime soon, what can you do as a leader to retain employees in your organization?

Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels

Why Are So Many People Quitting?

First, it’s important to understand what’s driving this wave of resignations. The reasons vary across different fields. But there are a few common themes among professionals:

• Necessity. Childcare has long been expensive and, in some regions, scarce. But now the field is experiencing its own labor shortage, which makes it even harder for families to find workable options. As a result, some moms are forced out of the job market.

• Burnout. According to the Women in the Workplace 2021 report from McKinsey & Company and Lean In, 42% of women often or almost always feel burned out. 

• Flexibility. Many of us got used to working from home and having more autonomy to control our own schedules during the pandemic. Now some professionals would rather quit than return to the office full time.

• Changing values. The pandemic has made us take a new look at what’s really important to us. That’s led some people to shift their focus away from work and seek new careers that offer them more balance and meaning.

How to Improve Retention

So what should leaders do to retain employees amid these rapid changes in the work environment?

• Adapt and evolve. We aren’t going “back to normal.” The pandemic-driven changes in how we work are here to stay. To retain employees (and recruit new ones), organizations must embrace this new reality and update their policies on things like flexible schedules and working from home. 

• Focus on results. As a leader, as much as you have autonomy to, emphasize outcomes instead of processes. In other words, evaluate your team members on what they accomplish vs. when or where they do their work.

• Prioritize well-being. This was one of the three key recommendations from the Women in the Workplace report. Promoting well-being goes beyond offering flexible schedules. It also involves understanding what else employees really need to honor both their professional and personal priorities, whether that’s a childcare stipend or quarterly mental health days.

• Collaborate, align and adjust. The solutions that will most improve retention are those that you develop with your employees to address both their needs and your organization’s. This isn’t a situation you can address once and then consider everything solved for good. Instead, check in with your team members regularly to see what’s changed for them and how their work arrangements need to change in response.

As you lead during these challenging times, products and services from Newberry Executive Solutions are a great way to support yourself and others. You can learn how to bring out the best in your team and stay centered yourself, even amid constant change.

Share Your Ideas

“One in three women says that they have considered downshifting their career or leaving the workforce this year, compared with one in four who said this a few months into the pandemic. Additionally, four in ten women have considered leaving their company or switching jobs—and high employee turnover in recent months suggests that many of them are following through. … The risk to women, and to the companies that depend on their contributions, remains very real.”

-Women in the Workplace 2021

How can companies hold on to their female employees? In an upcoming article, I’ll be sharing examples of strategies that work. And I’d love to hear from you about what’s happening at your organization. Drop by my LinkedIn page to share your ideas and join the discussion.

Women Leaders Shine at Two Events

As a board member for Texas Women’s Foundation, I’m passionate about the organization’s mission to make Texas a better place for women and girls. These past few weeks, it’s been especially exciting to be part of the foundation, thanks to two events that addressed some of the major challenges of our times.

Leadership Forum & Awards

On April 29, TWF presented its Leadership Forum & Awards Celebration to celebrate the impact of women leaders across Texas.

The keynote speaker was Adriana Gascoigne, the founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, a nonprofit organization that empowers, educates and engages women in the tech industry.

Gascoigne talked about how we've lost 50 years in gains for women during the pandemic. The time to invest in women is now. She also shared research from her organization about the tech industry. Findings include a high rate of burnout among women with male bosses.

Gascoigne left her audience with this advice:

• Every failure is an opportunity to learn and build resilience. Fail fast and be open to change.

• Keep your voice. Find your passion and purpose and stick with them.

• Partner with the right people and get advocates.

Congratulations to co-chairs Hattie Hill and Jana Etheridge for this meaningful and valuable event. I also want to extend warm congratulations to the award honorees: Trisha Cunningham, Jin-Ya Huang, Rani Puranik, Judy Treviño, Cheryl Polote Williamson, Diana Mao and Kim Roxie.

Orchid Giving Circle POWER Leadership Forum

Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation is an Asian sisterhood that provides grants and fosters philanthropy primarily within and for the North Texas Asian community. On May 7, the Circle hosted the POWER Leadership Forum. I was honored to be on the planning committee for this event and to serve as one of the conversation leaders. Sponsors also receive access to my New Lens® app. I’m excited to share that we had almost 600 attendees and 100% of the funds will go to nonprofit organizations.

One key component of the forum was the Fireside Chat with Anne Chow, CEO of AT&T Business. Anne addressed the recent rise in bias against Asian Americans. A few of her key points:

• Asian Americans are often talked about as the “model minority” (successful, overachievers). Remember to lean on the power of your core cultural values — to serve, achieve and perform.

• We have to take care of ourselves. Have people in your life with who you can talk to truthfully. Let it out.

• We all own a part of helping each other be better.  We all have biases. Start with yourself by understanding and reframing your own biases.

Anne also talked about how to manage your energy in challenging times:

• It’s not about achieving work/life balance. Balance is bogus — you have one life to live; not separate personal and professional lives.  In your time-pressed life, focus on the quality of time you spend with others, not the quantity.  Optimize your life to the success measures that you define.

• We all face choice points about where to put our time and energy. When you are making a choice, think about whether it is a “no do-over” moment  — one when you or the other person would always remember that you weren’t there. 

• No one needs to know what your “no do-over” moments are or should tell you what they should be.  You can frame it as an “immovable commitment.”

• Science shows that we are not truly happy unless we are helping others. Pick your head up, get involved in your community, and lift others up.

I also appreciated the takeaways from other panelists:

• Be intentional with your time. Manage your moments.

• Ask for what you need; wish out loud.

• Do not just focus on tasks; take time to consistently invest in relationships.

• Learn from your mistakes and quickly move forward.

• Strategically use your energy.

• Your voice matters, especially during this challenging time for the Asian community.

• Volunteering in the community is a way to grow your skills in a safe environment and build your network of influence.

I hope that you’ll consider joining in Texas Women’s Foundation’s work to drive change for women. To learn more about donating or volunteering, visit the Get Involved page on the organization’s website.

How to Speak Up in Meetings (Best of the Blog)

Meetings can be tricky to navigate for anyone. But women often have some extra challenges that men don't face. Researchers have found that women speak less than men do at meetings, and, as a result of this, their contributions are often underestimated. But they can also be judged more harshly than men if others perceive that they speak a lot.

Today, I want to give you both the confidence and the practical strategies you need to be heard.

What Keeps You From Speaking at Meetings?

In your next meeting, pay attention to your comfort level voicing your ideas and opinions. If you find yourself not saying much, take a few minutes to reflect about what's really holding you back. Here are some common reasons I see time and again in my work with leaders. Which ones resonate with you?

• You feel like you don't know enough about the topic or that you know less than everyone else. This is not your area of expertise.

• You're not comfortable speaking off the top of your head.

• Putting your idea out there feels risky. What if they reject it?

• You hesitate to speak up around people with more experience or tenure than you have.

• You feel that it's rude to talk over or interrupt others, especially if they're more senior than you are, and that’s what it would take to share your idea in this setting. Or you don't want to seem pushy.

How to Speak Up More

Now that you have a better sense of why you don’t speak up in meetings, you can work on reducing your hesitation. For many people, this involves shifting their mindset and expectations of themselves.

If you're not comfortable speaking off the cuff or putting your ideas out there, realize that you're expected to do both more and more as you advance as a leader. Consider making these areas a focus of your leadership development, and look for safe ways to practice, such as volunteer opportunities.

If talking over others or interrupting feels rude to you, remember that you can be heard while still honoring your value of respecting others. First, hone your ability to read the room (even if the "room" is on video) and adjust your style accordingly. In a meeting where everyone is being loud, passionate and outspoken, you can "amp up" your typical approach without stepping on others' toes. In a meeting with this kind of crowd, it can be helpful to make your points early before everyone really gets charged up. 

Also consider whether any beliefs from your culture or your family might impact whether you speak up. For example, "I should always defer to people who are older and more experienced" or "No one likes women who talk too much." These ideas can be so deeply engrained in you that you're not even aware of them until you start reflecting about your underlying assumptions or values.

One of the biggest shifts you can make is realizing that you can add value to a meeting even when you don't have expertise or experience in the area being discussed. Sometimes your fresh perspective is the very thing that makes you valuable. When everyone else has been immersed in a topic, they may be unable to "see the forest for the trees" the way that you can as a relative outsider. 

You don't always have to have the answer or solution, either. Others can benefit just from hearing how you think about the problem. Your approach might be one that they had not considered. You can even add value just by synthesizing and summarizing what you are hearing. When you make statements like "Here are the key opportunities and roadblocks I'm hearing …" or "Kevin, it sounds like you and Debra actually have similar goals here, but you're just stating them a little differently …" you help keep meetings on track and focused.

Don't Go It Alone

As with so many other aspects of developing as a leader, speaking more in meetings gets easier when you enlist an ally in your cause. Ask a trusted colleague to help you enter the conversation. They can say something like "Mona, you've handled situations like this. I'd love to hear your insights."

I also have a variety of products and services to help you build your confidence around speaking up. A great starting point is the title "Communicating With Impact from my Leadership EDGE Series℠. 

The First Step to Making Your Career Pandemic-Proof

As an executive coach who specializes in working with high-performing women, I've closely watched how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting women's careers. 

In both news reports and conversations with clients and other leaders, I'm hearing that professional women disproportionately handle the added domestic work (like managing kids' online learning) caused by the pandemic. As a result, some have decided to leave the workforce while others are approaching burnout as they try to juggle it all. Those who remain in the workforce face the added challenge of making their accomplishments more visible in a virtual environment.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

As the pandemic continues, it poses a threat to the gains women have made in the workplace during recent years, especially in pay and promotions.

What can you do to protect your career amid these difficult circumstances? Let’s start by talking about how to manage things on the home front, to keep you showing up at your best personally and professionally. In my next article, I’ll share what strategic self-promotion can look like in today’s environment.

Managing It All

Even in normal times, women take on a greater share of responsibilities at home than their male partners do. Women spend more time on childcare and housework, and are more likely to interrupt their careers to care for a family member. The pandemic has only exacerbated that situation, especially with so many women working from home.

So how can women shift to a more sustainable way of working and living? It all starts with the strategic pauses that I recommended in a past article. During one of those essential pauses, answer these key questions:

• What does the full picture of your life look like right now? Getting a clearer picture will help you notice what is and isn’t working. How chained are you to your phone and computer, especially if you’re not commuting to an office anymore? How much do you work in the evenings or on weekends? How big is your role in your kids' schooling? How many added responsibilities, like grocery shopping or taking care of elderly parents, are you managing? How much time do you allocate to people and activities that energize you?  And, even more importantly, how is all of this affecting you — your sleep, diet, exercise, stress level, and how you’re showing up with colleagues and loved ones? 

• What do you want life to look like? Be really specific. What do you really want for yourself? For example, you may want to carve out 30 minutes to an hour of time just for you each day to recharge or unwind. Or to have quality time with your family from 6-8 every weeknight without any work distractions. Or to get help with the most time-consuming tasks that eat into your personal time. Or to reduce the high volume of email, instant messages and texts from your team so that you have time to focus on priorities.

• What needs to change? Once you’ve defined the picture of what you want, it should lead to conversations about how to make it happen. At work, it could mean helping others understand how your schedule works, arming your team with the strategic questions they should ask themselves before they fire off a request to you or delegating in ways that develop your team. Or it could be about resetting expectations about reasonable turnaround times on requests.

At home, identify some simple changes you can make. Sit down with your spouse or partner and other family members to manage and more equitably share the domestic workload. For example, ordering out a little more often could mean that both of you have some evenings where you don’t have to cook – and that you can reinvest the time in something else that matters to you. Online grocery shopping may make it easier to delegate grocery shopping to someone else in the family. Remember to add some fun in there for all of you together, like doing something active outside (to get more exercise and quality time). Get creative.

If some of the changes you’re contemplating bump up against your high standards for yourself, remember that time is a finite resource. Saying “yes” to doing something means saying “no” to doing something else. Over the course of a week, freeing up just 15-30 minutes each day could mean gaining a few hours for bigger priorities, so be intentional about your choices.

Small steps can lead to big results, so let’s get started. Take five minutes right now to clarify two or three things what you want for yourself and one action you will take this week to move in that direction. You can find more strategies like these in "Staying in the Driver's Seat," one of the booklets in my Leadership EDGE Series℠.

The Top 10 Things Successful Women Do

I’ve spent thousands of hours coaching leaders over the past twelve years, which has given me the opportunity to get an “up close and personal” look at what impacts their success.  As much as we’d like to think the playing field is similar for men and women, women typically face different types of challenges at work and they play different roles at home. So, naturally, we would expect to see some differences in what successful women do. 

Successful women:

1. Realize that they’ve already earned their current role and fully assume the position.

2. Recognize that their own behavior plays a huge role in “teaching” others how to treat them.

3. Own their value by accepting and appreciating positive feedback and by speaking up.

4. Authentically invest in cultivating sponsors — leaders with power and influence.

5. Understand the importance of ethically engaging in vs. opting out of office politics.

6. Negotiate for what they want.

7. Proactively share their positive business results in a way that others can learn and benefit from.

8. Know the importance of designing a “sustainable model” that honors their personal and professional priorities.

9. Drive for results in a way that maintains or strengthens relationships.

10. Pave the way for other women.

As you read through this list, what resonated for you? What one step can you take this week to bring it to life for yourself or for another woman you work with? If nothing else, keep this list handy as a quick reminder and share it with other women. 

And always remember that small steps can lead to big results.