Tag: career success

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The Leadership Professor is back

It’s been a long year since The Leadership Professor has been active online. The reason: a time of major transition, change, learning, relearning, and settling into a new job, institution, city, home, life, and career stage.

The good news: not just surviving, but thriving and with a range of experiences that have deepened understandings of how and why we lead – and how we can (and must) better manage the inevitable stresses and strains in daily life.

From this last year, I am convinced more than ever that:

1. One person can change the world – and we’ll only solve those nagging, audacious problems when we each accept and act on that reality. 

2. The heart of leadership rests in the heart of the leader: we lead best when we find jobs that use our true talents and issues to which we can bring passion and energy.

3. We are stronger than we think – and accepting that gives us the courage to lead and the grace to manage the inevitable challenges along the way. 

As I prepare to work next week with a group of higher education leaders, I ran across a quotation from Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky (Leadership on the Line, 2002) that captures the essence of leadership: offering hope, insights, possibilities, encouragement, and learning. 

“The hope in leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignore it or kill the messenger.”

Onward!   

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For Shame, Forbes: Tarnishing a Gem in the Crown of Social Progress and Gender Equity

As I write, 104,778 people have viewed the Forbes article on the “10 Worst Stereotypes about Powerful Women.”

I’m curious. What did people learn from reading this? And what will they do with this information so that we never have to see another article about this topic again?

If you have been reading my blog this week, you know about mounting evidence of the links among gender, career success, and professional confidence. A quick summary for new readers: you need confidence to succeed!

I fear women will read this article and – tacitly or explicitly – find reasons to doubt that they have the right stuff for leadership and lose more of the confidence they need to craft careers of success and significance. Who wouldn’t if you thought that half the folks around you (and most of the folks in power above you) were still projecting all this old negativity on you?

Men who read the piece can have seeds of doubt planted – or reinforced – about their female co-workers.

In a week when men and women should celebrate another symbolic gem in the crown of social progress and gender equity as IBM appoints its first woman as CEO – Virginia Rometty joins the growing ranks of mega-corporation leaders that now include Ellen Kullman at DuPont, Meg Whitman at Hewlett-Packard, Ursula Burns at Xerox, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo – 104,778 (and counting) people are having a refresher course on how to dismiss half the world’s population – and hold back progress on a host of fronts for us all.

All the traditional stereotypes are on the Forbes list – and Forbes Online kindly provides a slide show for those who don’t want to read the full article. The slides are a mix of actresses in their portrayal of fictional characters from movies and TV (e.g., Meryl Streep as the “frigid magazine editor” in The Devil Wears Prada and Glenn Close as the “back-stabbing boss” in Damages) with real women who are doing really important work. Each picture represents one of the negative gender stereotypes. Here’s where my blood began to boil.

It includes an unattractive photo of our successful, current Secretary of State (emotional), as well as associations of negativity with the photo of our First Lady (angry), the Head of the International Monetary Fund (masculine), our former Secretary of State (token), the President of Costa Rican (weak), a former Vice Presidential candidate (cheerleader), and the list goes on.

If I thought people were reading this article and standing in outrage that these associations were still happening in the year 2011, I’d feel better. But why do I fear snickers as the pictures of Hillary Clinton and others are passed around the water cooler instead?  And I am not going to even touch the racial issues in all this.

Enough Forbes! Enough media!  Seriously. We need stories that build the confidence and capacities of men and women so that they can bring their full talents to the range of contributions needed to succeed – and for our economy to rebound – in a fast-paced, global world.

Planting seeds of doubt reinforces the very thing this article hoped to counter! 

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Women need to see themselves in a role before they can succeed

An article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education confirms what those who have studied gender and leadership know from research — and what many women know from personal experience: women need to be able to see themselves in a role before they can succeed in it.

I assert the same is true for people of color and for first generation college graduates.  

If people can’t believe at their core that folks like them can do whatever they are setting out to do, that tiny kernel of insecurity can gnaw at their self-confidence. And guess what? They may not be able to do what they fear they can’t. It’s a tacit, self-fulfilling prophecy.

The message to educators in all this is clear: teaching skills and knowledge is not enough. Quality education is identify work and personal development, and we short change our students – undergraduates, graduate students, and executive audiences – when we design programs assuming facts, figures, and models are enough. We do students no service either when we think we know why they don’t succeed or persist.

Look at what the researchers found.

Research from Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research in the October issue of the American Sociological Review found that women who begin college intending to become engineers are more likely than men to change their major and choose another career. The interesting gender twist: they do it for lack of confidence, not competence.

Women lack what the researchers call "professional role confidence" — a term that loosely describes the outcome of a complex self-assessment on whether a person feels s/he has the right stuff for success: the core intellectual skills, the right expertise for a given profession, and a fit in interests and values with the expectations of the field’s career path.

Women’s family plans and concerns about their math skills have been traditional explanations for their low representation in engineering. The researchers, however, found otherwise.

Women’s family plans had little bearing on their career planning once they entered engineering training. Surprisingly, men were more likely to leave engineering if they had plans to start a family.

Women’s views of their math abilities were not significant predictors of persistence toward an engineering degree or entrance into the field. "Once students matriculate into this math-intensive field, more complex, profession-specific self-assessments appear to replace math self-assessment as the driving social-psychological reasons for attrition," the researchers concluded.

The authors suggest their findings about professional-role confidence may be relevant in other fields. I know they are. That’s why mentors, role models, and caring sponsors are so important.

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Expand Your Professional Networks: Ten Tips

A strong professional network is essential for career advancement. How deep and broad are your  networks? How are your networking skills?

For some, the art of networking comes naturally. They enjoy reaching out and are comfortable developing diverse relationships across interests, cultures, industries, and countries. For others, it’s a skill to be acquired and deliberately practiced. For all, professional networks are indispensible sources of learning and career opportunities.

Here are ten tips for expanding your networking skills:

1. Be patient. Rome was not built in a day and neither will your professional networks. Relationship building is not linear, and good networkers enjoy meeting people. The more open you are to learning about someone, the better the odds that individual will remember you and your talents when opportunities arise. Let go of wondering whether someone can help you and enjoy the process of getting to know lot of interesting people. 

2. Be proactive. Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer Furlong, career professionals and authors of The Academic Job Search Handbook, suggest “informational interviews” as a way to ramp-up your network building. Reach out to people who can provide information about an industry, job, or company. The benefit is a chance to broaden your understandings about the work world – and perhaps learn about new opportunities.

3. Be prepared. Take interactions, no matter how informal, seriously. Prepare, if possible. Identify, for example, contacts or experiences you share: social media sites like Linked In can help. The people you end up speaking with may be helpful down the road in ways you can’t envision now. Leave a positive impression – and burn no bridges. Have a brief “elevator speech” about yourself ready: two or three sentences that tells others who you are, your work interests, and the reason for your call or meeting (if applicable).

4. Be persistent. Good relationship builders bring courage and determination. They initiate, introduce themselves to others, make cold calls, and work the room. They don’t take rejection or unreturned phone calls personally.

5. Be an asset, not a drain. All relationships are based on reciprocity: both parties must benefit from the exchange. People will remember you if they learn something, see shared interests, and/or enjoy you. Remember, first impressions are lasting: make a good one. Ask people to suggest others who might be helpful for the information or access you seek – and if you can use their name in making the new connection.

6. Be courteous. Send an immediate thank-you note after a meeting. Invite your new contact to join your Linked In network. Let others know how things they have suggested turn out. Follow up in simple ways that seem appropriate for the relationship. Pace your follow-ups: don’t seem desperate.

7. Be invested. Care is at the heart of a good relationship. Show that you care – again in professionally appropriate ways. Computers and social networking sites facilitate keeping track of your contacts. Make  notes for yourself about each individual (and your meetings) so that you remember history accurately. Periodically email an article that your contact might enjoy. Send a note of congratulations for an accomplishment. Acknowledge a birthday. Let people know about events potential interest and that you are thinking about them. They’ll reciprocate.

8. Be respectful. Here’s where emotional intelligence and the art in networking enter the picture. Be open, not pushy. Demonstrate care, not inappropriateness. If someone offers you 10 minutes of time, take no more. If someone says no to a call or meeting, so be it – and thank people for the consideration.

9. Be open. Every event or experience is a chance to network. Enjoy getting to know people better. I’ve done some of my best networking (and fund-raising) at the grocery store or school sporting events.

10. Be confident. Networking asks you to display your strengths and executive-level presence even when you may not be feeling either. Today’s strangers or information sources can be tomorrow’s co-workers or bosses.   

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10 Tips for Finding a Sponsor, Part 2: Managing the Sponsorship Relationship

Doing your homework is an important first step in securing the sponsor you need. To recap the last post, you’ll want to:

1. Clarify your preferred career path.

2. Decide what you want from a sponsor.

3. Define your personal style and communications preferences.

4. Determine your assets and demonstrate your contributions.

5. Identify possible sponsor candidates.

Once you know who you are, who and what you want, and why, you’ll need strategies for building and sustaining a sponsorship relationship. The final five tips, provided below, should help.

6. Think small, go slow, and test the waters. You may be ready to dive into the surf, but your potential sponsor may not be considering a swim or be a very good swimmer. How can you find ways to test whether the fit is right? One strategy is to ask for advice on a specific topic or project. The response will give you helpful data about the quality of the counsel and the way it was delivered. Did the interaction energize you? Empower you? Fit your need? Did it make you want to continue the conversation?

7. Be clear and direct. This should be easy if you’ve done your homework (see above). Be prepared to make a compelling and brief request. Think elevator speech!  Busy people appreciate your respect for their time. Be specific about what you want and why you want the person you are approaching. Flattery – sincere and tastefully done, with specifics, and in small doses, as in “I asked for this meeting because I so admire your ability to do X, Y, Z …” – works. Bring a resume or written materials to leave. Be sure to say thank you, whether the sponsor signs on or not.

8. Don’t be a drag. You may want weekly meetings, long emails, regular lunches, or monthly phone calls. The key is to find out what works for your sponsor. Ask – and always remember, this is a favor!

9. Reciprocate and show your appreciation. For this to work, it’s got to be a two-way street. That requires you to listen and to be savvy about how you can support your sponsor and demonstrate your gratitude. Keep your sponsor updated with a quick email when good things happen. Send an occasional small gift – maybe flowers, a book, or a bottle of wine (if appropriate) to mark a special occasion or accomplishment. When you can, find ways to promote your sponsor to important others.

10. NEVER LET YOUR SPONSOR DOWN. This may go without saying, but it’s important enough to say loud and clear. Deliver as promised. Better yet: deliver more than promised – and behave in ways that reflect positively on someone who has faith in you.

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10 Tips for Finding a Sponsor, Part 1: Doing Your Homework

Previous posts explored the importance of a good sponsor for accelerating your career. How do you find one?

To over-simplify, there are four steps: (1) figure out what you need and want from a sponsor, (2) find someone who matches your needs, (3) find ways to demonstrate your competencies, and (4) ask persuasively for his or her support.

A sponsor is different from a mentor. Mentors offer informal advice and coaching, while sponsors are high-power, high-credibility people in positions to open doors for you. Both can be important for career success, but you’re asking a sponsor to lay his or her reputation on the line for you.

For that reason, sponsors are harder to come by. Don’t let that discourage you. With preparation, time, and effort you can find one – or more – and the process of proactively cultivating a sponsor itself can be helpful and growth-filled. Research [see preceding posts] indicates it’s worth the investment.

I’ve got ten tips for facilitating the process. Five outline the homework you’ll need to do to get things started. Those are discussed below.

Five others help build and sustain a mutually satisfying sponsorship relationship. Those will be discussed in my next post.

Let’s get started. You have everything to gain – and little to lose – if you approach the process thoughtfully and professionally.

Part 1: Doing Your Homework

1. Get clarity about your preferred career path. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What jobs and organizations best fit your needs? It’ll be easier to identify significant others and talk with them persuasively when you have clarity about where you’re heading.

2. Decide what you want from a sponsor. Are you looking toward a job in someone’s department? Do you want a broader perspective on your industry? Do you seek a recommendation from a power player? Do you want access or an introduction to some movers and shakers? It’ll be easier to ask when you know what you are asking for.

3. Define your personal style and communications strategy. The more you know about how you relate to others and how others see you, the better your chance of finding a sponsor with whom you easily click. Mentors and sponsors can take pleasure in helping someone whom they see as like them.

4. Define your assets and demonstrate your contributions. Where are your skills? What career experiences best demonstrate your capacities? Where are your competitive advantages? You’ll need to develop a compelling narrative about yourself before approaching a sponsor, and you’ll only be able to do that after you’ve taken an honest inventory of what you’ve done, what you enjoy doing, and what you bring to the table. It’ll help if your sponsor has already seen you in action at work or in the volunteer community or if someone your intended sponsor trusts has already sung your praise. How can you make that happen?

And remember, all relationships are reciprocal: what are the professional benefits for a sponsor in supporting you? That’s something you’ll want to share.

5. Develop a broad list of possible sponsor candidates. Who do you know that you admire? Who has the clout or contacts you seek? Who could serve as a role model? Who exhibits the values you respect? Think broadly and beyond a boss or people you already know well. Finding a sponsor is a good way to network with powerful people – and that in itself is valuable.

Be prepared to approach multiple people. Not everyone may be ready or willing to help. You might even want multiple sponsors in different parts of your life – a workplace sponsor, for example, and one to provide connections to important civic boards and key volunteer activities. Expect refusals – and don’t take them personally! Good sponsors are busy people – and can be terrific sources of referrals.

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Oprah Retires: May We All Go That Way

Oprah Winfrey retires with from her long-running daytime talk show today – and with plans for her next big challenge.  

After taping more than 5,000 episodes, she’s relieved to be moving on. In good Oprah fashion, however, she’s down-playing the pleasure out of respect for her show’s staff of 464 people (many of whom are now out of a job) and for the fans who adore her current venue.   

“I literally curb my enthusiasm for the end, because I realize that for the other people that are part of this experience, the end is a different experience than it is for me,” Oprah noted in a recent New York Times interview.[1]

Oprah is saying good-bye to a talk show, but not heading into the sunset or out of the industry. She’s moving to her next career phase: building her fledgling five month-old cable channel, OWN.

We can all learn something from Oprah about career self-management. She’s a self-made billionaire; a legend known to millions by her first name alone; a woman who understood the importance of creating and managing her own life, brand, and enterprise; and probably the most influential African American women in the United States.

Here are the lessons I’m taking from Oprah as she leaves network TV after 25 years.

Run your own race. No matter how good you are at something or how many people want you to continue doing what you do, when it’s no longer fun, have the courage to move on to something that is.

Be authentic. Oprah’s success has been attributed to her empathy, warmth, genuine curiosity, and humor. She morphed her talk show format over the years as it fit her interests and those of her evolving audience. She found ways to bring others along as she tackled tough issues that were deeply important to her, like racism, literacy, AIDs, women’s empowerment, sexual abuse, and more. Oprah wasn’t afraid to preach, confront, learn, or cry – and she transformed television and the lives of millions of viewers by some combination of all four.

Be smart, not beholding. Gender scholar Deborah Kolb has published widely on the topics of how poorly women negotiate for themselves and for the conditions to assure their success – and on what to do about that. Her book, Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success, is a classic. Oprah was a master at negotiating for her success. She understood the importance of artistic control – and wasn’t afraid to demand it at a time when women worried about losing media opportunities by rocking the boat (or gaining a few pounds).  

Believe in yourself – but stay grounded. Oprah demonstrated confidence in herself and her vision from the get go – even in the early days when she described herself as “just producing by the seat of my pantyhose.” [2] More important, she never let that confidence blind her to the work that needed to be done or what she still needed to learn. Star that she is, Oprah has always been a savvy business woman wed to the consummate student. That combination has served her well.

Take risks. Early ratings for Oprah’s OWN channel have been disappointing. What if she’s now lost the Midas touch? Undeterred, Oprah’s going to give it a try and give it her all. That’s all anyone can do.

Leave at the top of your game if you plan to continue in the sport. Oprah is a sensation on network TV. Her fans adore her. What a boost to spirit and creative juices to know that others love what you do – and want more.

[1] Brian Stelter (2011). Oprah Moves on to Her Next Best Life. New York Times. May 23, 2011, p. B1.

[2] Brian Stelter (2011). Oprah Moves on to Her Next Best Life. New York Times. May 23, 2011, p. B2.

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Global Leadership: Conquering the Fear of Differences

Days have been filled preparing for our Executive MBA international residency which begins in three days.  We’re going to China. Part of my preparation involves enabling 40 experienced leaders, most with little international experience, to appreciate and respond to cultural differences without paralysis. 

It’s key to their career advancement and professional development. It’s essential for all in a global world. 

As we move closer to the departure date, students have begun acknowledging their fears of anticipating a vastly different world and of the unknown. Some report dreams of not knowing what to do or of being lost in the China-size crowds, others feelings of losing the control over their lives that they have at home.

These are powerful admissions – and they are right on. We all fear the unknown. Human nature loves predictability, and we all want to believe that everyone thinks and sees things just like us. They don’t and that’s OK – and we’ll be OK in a world where that is true. Accept that, and you’ve got the global citizen piece down cold.

How do we take in and use all the knowledge about cultural differences that we can gain through reading and studying without freezing our capacity to act?  The quick answer: with patience, persistence, and humility. It’s like learning and integrating anything new into effective practice.

Preparation helps – the better you know something, the better able you are to call it into play when you need it. So does remembering the Joan Gallos 2 Rules of Thumb for Learning Any New Behavioral Skill:

  1. 1.  go slow. Add anything new and you’ll need to be more deliberate – less automatic – in doing it. It will feel awkward, and you will feel clumsy and ineffective. It may be counter-intuitive – to slow down and to do something that’s awkward and uncomfortable in order to be more effective. But it’s the only way.
  1. 2. be patient with yourself. This is especially hard for successful people: you’ll make mistakes, feel lost, or be scared. It’s OK. Stay open. Figure out what works and doesn’t. Keep trying. And have a sense of humor. You are the only one taking yourself so seriously!

And remember: people are people are people.  When we talk about an increasingly diverse and global world, we tend to focus on differences. Comparing and contrasting how other cultures are different from ours is a good way to recognize and break out of our narrow mindsets about life and the world.  But bottom-line: people share a common humanity. 

Approach any meeting with authenticity and an open heart, and you will connect well with others – even if you struggle with language or customs. Be curious – ask. Relationships are built on connection and conversation.  Make a mistake?  Step on a cultural toe?  Stay alert and respond as you would to any friend.  An honest and humble “Oh, my apologies, please” will go far.

You know more than you may realize about conquering the fear of differences. 

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Becoming a Roz Savage: Leading Like You Want to Be Remembered

Roz Savage is a fascinating woman. Next month, if all goes well she will become the first woman to row solo across the Indian Ocean and the first to solo “the Big Three:” she already has the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans under her belt .

The rowing the distance in solitude, ambiguity, and potential danger is inspirational. It takes a lot of planning, courage, persistence, and self-confidence. Equally interesting is the process that got Roz out of her business suit and into her small boat.

“I worked as a management consultant for my entire adult life, despite knowing from the very first day that this was not the career for me.”[1] Her peers were all becoming consultants or investment bankers after college graduation, and Roz followed the crowd. “The pay was good, and it would do as a stopgap until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.”

You guessed it. Years later – eleven to be precise – Roz was still a consultant and increasingly unhappy by her own admission.

“Who I was on the inside didn’t match the besuited management consultant I had, almost inadvertently, become on the outside.”

She decided to take stock and engaged in a classic life clarification exercise. She wrote two versions of her obituary: the first as she would like to be remembered, and the second as she would be if she stayed on her current life course. Comparing the two gave Roz courage to make a change.

“So I pared life down to the basics to find out what really mattered to me, to find out what was left when I was defined by who I was, not by what I owned or who I was with.”  Roz experimented with different businesses and projects, but none fit quite right – and she knew this time around to let go of those. In the process, she discovered her passion for extreme rowing and environmental work. The rest, as they say, is history.  

Are you living the life you want? Are you doing things that really matter to you? Are you excited and happy to get to work each day?

The answers matter to you. They also matter to those you lead.

Leadership is about passion and commitment. It’s about inspiring others to find that in your shared work. If you are just pushing the papers, playing the role, or waiting for a paycheck, others will know. Your capacity to influence diminishes, and the days go by.

So what’s your leadership legacy going to be?  What do you want to be remembered for? Are you on a track that will get you there?  If not, what are you waiting for?

[1] Roz Savage (2011). “My Transoceanic Midlife Crisis (I quit my job and ended my marriage to row the Atlantic. Adrift and alone, I found a woman I never knew). Newsweek Online. March 20, 2011. Accessed March 28, 2011 at http://www.newsweek.com/2011/03/20/my-transoceanic-midlife-crisis.html

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The Soul of Principled Leadership: The Road to Success and Significance

I spent a day earlier this week reading and providing feedback to a colleague on a book manuscript dealing with leadership and spirituality issues. In the academic world, that’s what professors do for one another. It’s always a plus when we learn something important from the collegial support.

The book basically asks readers to think about the inner growth needed to drive principled, high-impact leadership. I’m not doing justice to the complexity of the work because it triggered a number of profound questions that have stayed with me all week.

What are the leadership contributions that I hope to make over the course of my lifetime – the things that I want to accomplish so as to have made a real difference by the time destiny comes calling? How do my hopes fit my true leadership gifts? What do I need to do to stay focused and balanced as I steer through these uncharted waters?

These are not simple questions, and we can never answer them fully. But grappling with the larger life issues implicit in them gives us the best shot at designing and managing a career that we can be proud of and that is both successful and significant.

We live at a time that predisposes us to gloss over the need for this kind of deep reflection. There is growing research on the long-term decline in happiness in increasingly affluent and democratic societies where people are misled by a materialist culture to put money and possessions at the center of our lives. They equate success with big paychecks and ignore the growing evidence that those who focus their lives on tangible goods grow demonstrably more miserable over time than those who set out to make other, deeper contributions – and profit from the success of their energizing efforts.

If you have ever felt the golden handcuffs of a well-paying job that drained a little bit of your soul everyday – made going to work as exciting as pushing heavy rocks uphill – you know exactly what I am talking about.

Striving to make a difference feeds the soul, and nothing is more energizing. Successful business leaders confirm that inner growth matters.[1]

So, what are the contributions you want to be remembered for? What are your gifts and talents – the things you do well and really enjoy? How can you fashion your life and work to stayed focused on all that?

Answer those questions, and you are well on the road to a career of success and significance.

[1] See Andre Delbecq, Nourishing the Soul of the Leader: Inner Growth Matters, in J. Gallos (2008). Business Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.