What Makes a Great Leader?
Category: Leadership
Apr
17
Words of Wisdom from WIT Leadership Awards Finalists –
Small Business/Entrepreneur
Filtered by category: Leadership Clear Filter
This month’s blog posting is an excerpt from Rayona Sharpnack, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Leadership which was posted on the Diversity Best Practices blog site on July 27th. Please see her bio after the blog post.
What Do Men Get Out of Advancing Women?
by Rayona Sharpnack, Founder and CEO, Institute for Women’s Leadership
"I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together."
–Jack Johnson, from Better Together on the album "Between Dreams"
There are many terms bouncing around the internet these days to describe the ideal state for men and women who work together: gender equity, gender equality, gender parity, and gender balance, to name a few.
To me, these terms have a regrettable tinge of separate but equal. What I envision is Gender Partnership, where men and women of all colors and backgrounds bring their widely diverse talents and skills to the table and work together in service of a common goal. (You might recall my May 4 article on the differences between men's and women's brains and how they make it vital to have both perspectives working on the same issue at the same time.)
Now, not everyone is a "team player" who wants to work in partnership. But I urge each of you to open your minds to the experience of trading some innate preferences or understandable pride in individual achievement for the greater results -- and greater pleasure – that come from truly cooperative success.
There's a catch, though. We know from research and past experience that in order for women to be given an opportunity to express their full potential at work, they need men speaking up for them. Men have the power to open more doors, make others listen, and enlist other men in the cause. They can serve as powerful, positive mentors for women wanting to move up the corporate ladder. They've got the clout, they've got the numbers, and when they support the advancement of women in their companies, they cannot be accused of self-interest. Their words carry weight.
I have seen this first-hand in the companies I work with. Gender Partnership goes from being a slightly suspect new concept to men to an exciting (and well-documented) path to increased profits, better problem solving, more innovation, higher customer satisfaction and increased productivity.
There has been much documented about the economic benefits corporations have yielded from higher percentages of women in leadership. Here are some of the specific benefits men reap from stepping up and speaking out in behalf advancing women to achieve full Gender Partnership.
• They can get better performance reviews
According to a recent study from the University of Colorado, when white men promoted diversity in hiring and advancement, they got a bump in their performance reviews. (Women and non-white executives who pushed for other minority candidates to be hired and promoted, however, got dinged when it came to their performance reviews. Women recommending other women were perceived as colder; non-white executives recommending other non-white executives were seen as less competent.)
• They can contribute significantly to talent retention among women at their company
A number of respected studies have shown that women are actively (unconsciously) discouraged from returning to work after having a child. The results of a large survey of Harvard's female MBA grads "suggest that when high-achieving, highly educated professional women leave their jobs after becoming mothers, only a small number do so because they prefer to devote themselves exclusively to motherhood; the vast majority leave reluctantly and as a last resort, because they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement."
The Los Angeles Times reported that qualified women are leaving the tech industry in droves. Women in tech say filling the pipeline of talent won't do much good if women keep quitting — it's like trying to fill a leaking bucket… A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments and male cultures, a sense of isolation, and lack of a clear career path. An updated study in 2014 found the reasons hadn't significantly changed.
The 200 largest law firms in the country are running into the same problem. Women make up just 17% of the equity partners in these large firms. "The reason for the female exodus from traditional law firm life," an article in the American Bar Association Journal said, "likely touches on… poor culture, inflexibility, and archaic and inefficient business structures."
• They can be heroes in saving their companies money
Let's take just one example: It costs $150,000 to $200,000 to replace a high tech worker. This includes the cost of recruiting, the hiring and vetting process and training the newcomer. It doesn't even include the losses incurred in terms of the talent relationships that walk out the door.
And consider this: How much does a company have to make on the top line to pay out a bottom line cost of $200,000?
• They can help fill the pipeline and ensure their company’s future
Within five years, more than 60 percent of all of U.S. college grads will be women – while simultaneously 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65 every day! Which companies will they choose to work for? Firms that practice full Gender Partnership and welcome their ideas, career aspirations, and collaborative approaches to problem solving? Or those with cultures that are unfriendly, dismissive of their talents, and slow to promote them to positions of authority?
• They can become better people, fathers, husbands and contributors by uncovering their unconscious gender bias
Few of us believe that we go through life having unconscious bias about women or ethnically diverse people. But one only has to take the Implicit Association Test to see that it's alive in us in every category. Even women are biased against women, blacks against blacks, and so on. Until we come to consciousness about the frame of reference from which we regard and judge others, this won't change.
I have worked with groups around identifying and shifting their frames of reference – their contexts – for more than 30 years. Here is the process for doing so: 1) Identify your current frame of reference (a belief you have that forms a conclusion) that isn't working for you such as “Women with small children won’t take jobs that require travel”; 2) Consciously choose a new contextual frame of reference (e.g. “Women can be trusted to make job decisions that work for their families”).
Another simple example is this. If your current frame of references sees people unlike you as "them" you can choose a new frame of reference that trades in “It's us versus them" for "It's all us." If you look for evidence to support your new frame of reference, I suspect you will find it as readily as you ever did "proof" of how valid you old frame of reference was.
Man or woman, young or old, Asian, African-American, Latino, Native American – I urge each of you to make the commitment to full Gender Partnership – and check your unconscious bias at the door!
Rayona Sharpnack’s Biography
Rayona Sharpnack is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women's Leadership, an organization renowned since 1991 for its groundbreaking initiatives in leadership and organizational effectiveness. Drawing from highly successful careers in education, professional sports, and business, Sharpnack is an inspirational teacher, coach and mentor to senior executives across industries. She is also co-founder of GenderAllies, an alliance of inclusion professionals committed to full gender partnership.
Sharpnack's clients include Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, universities and nonprofits, including Pfizer, Gap Inc., Hertz, Cardinal Health, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard and World Pulse. Her masterful approach takes complex theoretical concepts and distills them into memorable and easily grasped learning. More than 20,000 women and men – from mid-level managers to C-suite executives – have relied on her and the Institute for Women's Leadership to coach them to achieve breakthrough results both at work and in their personal lives.
Her pioneering work has earned her numerous awards and appointment as Chairwoman of Leadership Development on the Women's Leadership Board of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Sharpnack has presented her outstanding achievements in advancing women leaders and building high-performance organizations to prestigious institutions and associations such as:
What Makes a Great Leader?
Category: Leadership
Apr
03
Words of Wisdom from WIT Leadership Awards Finalists –
Government Category
Read More
May
04
“You can have it all, you just can’t do it alone,” Army Maj. Gen Patricia Frost told the audience during the March 22 AFCEA DC Breakfast featuring Women of the DoD.
“And balance and having it all doesn’t mean every day,” Lt. Gen. VeraLinn “Dash” Jamison added.
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Inspiration that Hits Close To Home: The 2017 Leadership Awards Large Market Sector Finalists
Category: Leadership
Apr
30
We all need a source of inspiration… something or someone that helps motivate us to get up out of bed each day, to keep us going even when things get tough, and to remind us to never give up. When we asked the finalists of the 2017 WIT Leadership Awards Large Market Sector Finalists who inspired them, we found a common theme that hit close to home. In fact, the answer was found in their own homes – their own mothers and daughters. Read what a few of the finalists had to say about the inspiration they found in their own families.
Teresa Carroll-Childers, Director of CSC’s Global Infrastructure Services: her mother.
“My mother worked her way up to an elected role in government as a Democrat in a Republican county.”
Lynne Chamberlain, VP of Business Development at Red Hat: her daughter.
“My daughter has been one of my greatest inspirations and is an exceptional example of someone who works hard and has amazing drive and passion. When she was 13, I took her to the Newseum, where she held a microphone for the first time and told me she wanted to be a sports broadcaster. It is incredibly inspiring to watch a young woman achieve exactly what she set out to do – she is now a college football broadcaster for ESPN.”
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Women Who Inspire: The 2017 WIT Leadership Awards Small Business & Entrepreneur Finalists
Category: Leadership
Apr
26
Diligence. Integrity. Excellence. Humble. Grateful. These are the words used to describe this year’s WIT Leadership Awards finalists in the Small Business and Entrepreneur category. This group of women inspires us on a day-to-day basis, but who inspired them to take the leap, become a risk-taker and rise to the top? We asked these women… who inspires you?
Jennifer Mellon, Founder & President, Trustify: Hillary Clinton
“Hillary Clinton is a woman for whom I once worked and who has always inspired me and my work. She is a pioneer who does not quit when it gets difficult and who has used her status to advocate for the most marginalized populations in our country and abroad.”
Meagan Metzger, Founder, Dcode42: Margaret Hamilton
“Margaret Hamilton wasn’t an exceptional woman programmer, she was an exceptional programmer, period, and she was the ‘founding mother’ of software itself. She was also a working mother in a time when that wasn’t common, and she had a true entrepreneurial spirit.”
Lisa N. Wolford, President & CEO, Constellation West: Margaret Thatcher
“Margaret Thatcher led Britain as Prime Minister during some very difficult years. She used her brain and exceptional work ethic to get things done and to influence people. She was a political leader when there were very few female leaders, and she was not afraid to blaze a new path with economic reforms. A favorite quote from her is, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
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Apr
17
Women in Technology (WIT) of the Greater DC Region had a vision 17 years ago and began recognizing the women who made contributions to the DC tech scene. Now, all these years later, the WIT Leadership Awards remains the one event where women of all levels are identified and honored for their contributions in a high-profile, meaningful, career-building way.
WIT has now awarded 152 women with a Leadership Award. Their upcoming Leadership Awards event on May 11th of 2017 will bring that total up to 162. The annual event is attended by hundreds of executives from companies that want to recognize their women leaders before a broader audience. One can tell from the award categories, especially the Unsung Hero and Rising Star award categories, that WIT believes it’s important to recognize those who lead in both large and small ways. “We’ve heard amazing stories of young women demonstrating leadership by taking initiative with things that fall outside their job description but that have a huge impact. Examples like young women being a go-to person for new employees, to women leveraging their company’s technologies to give back to the community, to women mentoring up by teaching older employees how to use new technologies” says Trish Barber, President Elect of Women in Technology.
Read More
Apr
07
The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “leader,” as a person who leads or commands a group, organization or country, but is leadership really so black and white? What qualities, characteristics and traits comprise a true leader? Since there seems to be no one answer to this difficult question, we decided to ask the 2017 WIT Leadership Award nominees to get their thoughts. What do you think? Did they hit the nail on the head?
What Makes a Great Leader?
Read More
Apr
01
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, this blog is part of a Women in Technology (WIT) series honoring women doing amazing work across technology roles and organizations. As we move towards WIT’s May 11, 2017 Leadership Awards event, we are featuring real life stories and insights of women who are rising, leading, and paving the way.
This final installment of the “Best Advice I’ve ever received,” shows once again the diversity and wisdom emanating from our 2017 Leadership Award Finalists. Take note and take some of this great advice to heart…..
Read More
Mar
27
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, this blog is part of a Women in Technology (WIT) series honoring women doing amazing work across technology roles and organizations. As we move towards WIT’s May 11, 2017 Leadership Awards event, we are featuring real life stories and insights of women who are rising, leading, and paving the way.
This year, from our Women in Technology 2017 Leadership Awards Finalists, we have a rich treasure trove of “Best Advice I’ve ever received.” As began in an earlier blog post, today we continue with some diverse insight from our Finalists. Enjoy these snippets of advice….
Read More
Mar
17
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, this blog is part of a Women in Technology (WIT) series honoring women doing amazing work across technology roles and organizations. As we move towards WIT’s May 11, 2017 Leadership Awards event, we are featuring real life stories and insights of women who are rising, leading, and paving the way.
Good advice is hard to find and not all advice is created equal. Yet, at Women in Technology, we believe that it’s worth listing to the things that the women being honored as finalists in this year’s Leadership Awards celebration have to say….
Read More
Mar
07
In the spirit of Women’s History Month, this blog is part of a Women in Technology (WIT) series honoring women doing amazing work across technology roles and organizations. As we move towards WIT’s May 11, 2017 Leadership Awards event, we are featuring real life stories and insights of women who are rising, leading, and paving the way.
Shining a light on women at all stages and in a variety of roles in the technology industry is part of what we cultivate at Women in Technology. We take our our mission seriously to walk with women “from the classroom to the boardroom.” That’s why, in addition to honoring pillars of industry in the DC region, like Kay Kapoor of AT&T, we also shine a light on women who are carefully and methodically working hard and working their way up, showing great successes early-on in their career journeys.
Read More
Mar
02
Today, across the United States, the UK, and Australia, Women’s History Month recognitions begin as the month unfolds. Combined with the commemoration of International Women’s Day celebrated around the world on March 8, it is a time of year to reflect on the vast contributions of women to global culture, economic vitality, history and society.
Read More
Mar
06
This month’s blog posting focuses on integrated leadership and why it makes good business sense. This is an excerpt from Rebecca Shambaugh, President of SHAMBAUGH, which was posted on her blog site on March 4th. Please see her bio after the blog post.
Building a Business Case for Integrated Leadership
Read More
Aug
05
What Do Men Get Out of Advancing Women?
by Rayona Sharpnack, Founder and CEO, Institute for Women’s Leadership
"I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together."
–Jack Johnson, from Better Together on the album "Between Dreams"
There are many terms bouncing around the internet these days to describe the ideal state for men and women who work together: gender equity, gender equality, gender parity, and gender balance, to name a few.
To me, these terms have a regrettable tinge of separate but equal. What I envision is Gender Partnership, where men and women of all colors and backgrounds bring their widely diverse talents and skills to the table and work together in service of a common goal. (You might recall my May 4 article on the differences between men's and women's brains and how they make it vital to have both perspectives working on the same issue at the same time.)
Now, not everyone is a "team player" who wants to work in partnership. But I urge each of you to open your minds to the experience of trading some innate preferences or understandable pride in individual achievement for the greater results -- and greater pleasure – that come from truly cooperative success.
There's a catch, though. We know from research and past experience that in order for women to be given an opportunity to express their full potential at work, they need men speaking up for them. Men have the power to open more doors, make others listen, and enlist other men in the cause. They can serve as powerful, positive mentors for women wanting to move up the corporate ladder. They've got the clout, they've got the numbers, and when they support the advancement of women in their companies, they cannot be accused of self-interest. Their words carry weight.
I have seen this first-hand in the companies I work with. Gender Partnership goes from being a slightly suspect new concept to men to an exciting (and well-documented) path to increased profits, better problem solving, more innovation, higher customer satisfaction and increased productivity.
There has been much documented about the economic benefits corporations have yielded from higher percentages of women in leadership. Here are some of the specific benefits men reap from stepping up and speaking out in behalf advancing women to achieve full Gender Partnership.
• They can get better performance reviews
According to a recent study from the University of Colorado, when white men promoted diversity in hiring and advancement, they got a bump in their performance reviews. (Women and non-white executives who pushed for other minority candidates to be hired and promoted, however, got dinged when it came to their performance reviews. Women recommending other women were perceived as colder; non-white executives recommending other non-white executives were seen as less competent.)
• They can contribute significantly to talent retention among women at their company
A number of respected studies have shown that women are actively (unconsciously) discouraged from returning to work after having a child. The results of a large survey of Harvard's female MBA grads "suggest that when high-achieving, highly educated professional women leave their jobs after becoming mothers, only a small number do so because they prefer to devote themselves exclusively to motherhood; the vast majority leave reluctantly and as a last resort, because they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement."
The Los Angeles Times reported that qualified women are leaving the tech industry in droves. Women in tech say filling the pipeline of talent won't do much good if women keep quitting — it's like trying to fill a leaking bucket… A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments and male cultures, a sense of isolation, and lack of a clear career path. An updated study in 2014 found the reasons hadn't significantly changed.
The 200 largest law firms in the country are running into the same problem. Women make up just 17% of the equity partners in these large firms. "The reason for the female exodus from traditional law firm life," an article in the American Bar Association Journal said, "likely touches on… poor culture, inflexibility, and archaic and inefficient business structures."
• They can be heroes in saving their companies money
Let's take just one example: It costs $150,000 to $200,000 to replace a high tech worker. This includes the cost of recruiting, the hiring and vetting process and training the newcomer. It doesn't even include the losses incurred in terms of the talent relationships that walk out the door.
And consider this: How much does a company have to make on the top line to pay out a bottom line cost of $200,000?
• They can help fill the pipeline and ensure their company’s future
Within five years, more than 60 percent of all of U.S. college grads will be women – while simultaneously 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65 every day! Which companies will they choose to work for? Firms that practice full Gender Partnership and welcome their ideas, career aspirations, and collaborative approaches to problem solving? Or those with cultures that are unfriendly, dismissive of their talents, and slow to promote them to positions of authority?
• They can become better people, fathers, husbands and contributors by uncovering their unconscious gender bias
Few of us believe that we go through life having unconscious bias about women or ethnically diverse people. But one only has to take the Implicit Association Test to see that it's alive in us in every category. Even women are biased against women, blacks against blacks, and so on. Until we come to consciousness about the frame of reference from which we regard and judge others, this won't change.
I have worked with groups around identifying and shifting their frames of reference – their contexts – for more than 30 years. Here is the process for doing so: 1) Identify your current frame of reference (a belief you have that forms a conclusion) that isn't working for you such as “Women with small children won’t take jobs that require travel”; 2) Consciously choose a new contextual frame of reference (e.g. “Women can be trusted to make job decisions that work for their families”).
Another simple example is this. If your current frame of references sees people unlike you as "them" you can choose a new frame of reference that trades in “It's us versus them" for "It's all us." If you look for evidence to support your new frame of reference, I suspect you will find it as readily as you ever did "proof" of how valid you old frame of reference was.
Man or woman, young or old, Asian, African-American, Latino, Native American – I urge each of you to make the commitment to full Gender Partnership – and check your unconscious bias at the door!
Rayona Sharpnack’s Biography
Rayona Sharpnack is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women's Leadership, an organization renowned since 1991 for its groundbreaking initiatives in leadership and organizational effectiveness. Drawing from highly successful careers in education, professional sports, and business, Sharpnack is an inspirational teacher, coach and mentor to senior executives across industries. She is also co-founder of GenderAllies, an alliance of inclusion professionals committed to full gender partnership.
Sharpnack's clients include Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, universities and nonprofits, including Pfizer, Gap Inc., Hertz, Cardinal Health, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard and World Pulse. Her masterful approach takes complex theoretical concepts and distills them into memorable and easily grasped learning. More than 20,000 women and men – from mid-level managers to C-suite executives – have relied on her and the Institute for Women's Leadership to coach them to achieve breakthrough results both at work and in their personal lives.
Her pioneering work has earned her numerous awards and appointment as Chairwoman of Leadership Development on the Women's Leadership Board of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Sharpnack has presented her outstanding achievements in advancing women leaders and building high-performance organizations to prestigious institutions and associations such as:
- Harvard University
- Stanford Business School
- U.C. Berkeley's Hass School of Business
- State of the World Forum
- Canadian Federal Government
- Australian Federal Government
- Leadership America
- Professional and Business Women of California
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