A Sneak Peak into My Forthcoming Book for Emerging Female Leaders

Friends, would you do me the honor of scanning though this rough outline of my forthcoming book and let me know what you think.  This book is designed for emerging female leaders who are shooting for the stars, either with their own businesses or within a large corporation. They aspire to senior level roles or as their own CEO, but they also are passionate about their life outside of work and more than anything, the sacred tribe that they surround themselves with for joie de vivre!

Would love feedback on any of these topics and am looking for quotes and anecdotes from YOU to include in the book. Enjoy!

First Phase: What do I want next?

Overview: Women face a vastly different set of pathways mid career than their male counterparts. I believe that the main reason for this differential is based on our contrasting values. Many mid career women value flexibility and intrinsic reward in their work life over role status and even salary.  Whether or not you are managing your own young family at this time, can often play a very critical role in where you most want to spend your time and resources.  Also, the deficit of positive senior women leader role models impacts many mid career women decisions to cease from climbing their company’s organizational ladder.  Why continue on a road where you are not seeing any like minded and like valued positive role models along the way?

In this section we will dig into some exercises to help you uncover what is your largest driver and how this motivation can help you determine what your career trajectory can look like.  Secondly, we will discuss ways that you can then assess whether you are in the right place and how objectively you can assess your skill set and our value in your marketplace.

Key Takeaways:

• Analysis of your values and how that impacts your career/life planning
• Clarity around your drive and motivations and what success looks like for YOU!
• Review of your role models/mentors/sponsors and why you admire them
• Assessment of whether you are in the right company (culture & growth) & right role
• Determination of your worth in the marketplace
• Completion of your career plan

 

Second Phase: What are the specific leadership competencies that women mid-career must develop in order to break into the next level of success?

Overview: Women have only been in the professional management realm for about three decades.  Thus, we are still negotiating what it means to be a female leader as well as figuring out ways to break through the ever constant glass ceiling. Of course there is a subset of women who are outliers, but in general women mid career can get stuck in mid management roles because they do not have the same leadership skill set as their male peers that is mandatory if they want to break into senior level roles.  In this section we will tackle those core competencies that will help you reach your career plan in a more effective and empowered way.

Key Takeaways:

• Consideration of your overall resilience and attitudes towards risks, change and failing
• Review of your ability to de-personalize work relationships
• A clear understanding of how confident you are based on varying contexts and relationships
• How to clearly communicate and effectively self promote at critical meetings
• How to increase your personal power base in order to have organizational influence
• How to effectively delegate and become less of a micro manager
• A plan to make sure you gain access to critical people and opportunities related to your career plan
• How to negotiate office politics
• Tools to help you and your team focus on visioning and strategy skills
• Guidelines for how best to negotiate your next role and compensation

 Phase Three:  How do I sustain my success?

 Overview:  Sustainability is just as crucial for women as reaching their career goals.  I believe the reason for this is two-fold: first, we are often juggling many other roles outside of our career and secondly, because there is not nearly as an established old girls network as there is for men, it can become a very lonely and isolated existence as a female leader.  In this final section, we will tackle what you need to guarantee your ongoing success as it relates to being a self-possessed and inspired leader both outside and inside your professional worlds.

Key Takeaways:

• How to be feminine in a male dominated work environment while still holding respect
• How to actively build and maintain your tribe (childcare, financial planning, social life, prof. network, extracurricular interests)
• Creation of ‘Signs and Symptoms of Your Impending Burnout’ worksheet for friends & family
• Ensuring a plan for personal development and nourishment
• Begin to flesh out your exit plan  (long term career planning)

Building High Performance Teams

Teams have proven to be a powerful vehicle for both achieving quantum improvements in productivity as well as implementing major organizational change. In today’s competitive marketplace, the need to accelerate the development of high performance teams is critical.

This may involve:

• Revitalizing an Executive Team that is consumed with turf issues
• Forming a new team from consolidated departments
• Integrating cross-functional teams to improve productivity across boundaries
• Partnering for process improvements with vendors or customers
• Implementing major change with a consultant/client engagement team

In order to master the art of the team:

• Teams need to learn how to grow up quicker and get well sooner
• Most teams struggle needlessly through a series of predictable challenges
• Some teams get stuck along the way and never achieve high performance
• Some teams achieve high performance but cannot sustain it

Not all groups that work together need to be teams. Four essential elements of a team are:

• Common goals versus individual goals
• Commitment of members to common goals
• High degree of interdependence among members
• Team accountability to a higher level

The following model applies to the development of team:

• Teams have a very predictable life cycle. Just as people develop in stages (childhood to adulthood) so do teams.
• Each stage has its challenges which must be overcome to allow the team to develop. Teams grow stronger as they solve the challenges of each stage.
• Team leadership needs to focus on two objectives in each stage: The task (the work itself, achieving results) and the relationship (working together, getting along, the process)

1. First stage is FORMING. The team challenge is orientation. The task objective is clarifying goals and structure. The relationship objective is getting to know each other.
2. Second stage is STORMING. The team challenge is conflict. The task objective is confronting systems conflicts. The relationship objective is confronting people’s conflicts.
3. Third stage is NORMING. The team challenge is cooperation. The task objective is open communication and involvement. The relationship objective is understanding and respecting individual differences.
4. Fourth stage is PERFORMING. The team challenge is productivity. The task objective is solving problems. The relationship objective is promoting interdependence.

There are no short cuts. Teams that are poorly formed will experience more conflict and may never move beyond the storming stage, while teams that seem to move effortlessly from forming to performing are vulnerable. They have not learned how to deal with adversity (storming) nor have they developed norms to sustain during difficult times.

• Teams that do not resolve the challenges of each stage get stuck and rarely achieve high performance.
• Just as teams can develop in readiness, they can also regress with changes in goals, the external environment or the membership.

There is a close parallel between leadership styles and team stages. Teams need a lot of structure and direction (styles 1 and 2) in the forming and storming stages and alot of involvement and empowerment (styles 3 and 4) in the norming and performing stages.

Team Building Strategies:

• The quickest and most effective way to develop a team is to provide it with the leadership it needs based on its readiness. As suggested earlier, teams need different leadership at different stages in their development.
• High Performance Teams share seven common dimensions: Common Purpose-Stretch Goals, Results-Driven Structure, Competent Membership, Customer-Focused Leadership, Single Minded Commitment, Team Accountablity and Team Collaboration.

(Courtesy of Curran Consulting Group)

Tips for a Successful Launch

Heidi's Heavenly Cookies

Heidi Nel, owner of Heidi’s Heavenly Cookies, suggests the following ‘tried and true’ tips for a successful launch since beginning a cookie business out of her home in 2001:

BE GENEROUS

In addition to sending her product to her immediate network of friends and family, she also sent them to business leaders and the media.  Assuming you have a great product coupled with beautiful packaging, garnering media acclaim will quickly move your business into the spotlight.

BE PATIENT

Building a brand takes time, hard work, sacrifice and long hours.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Think strategically and practically as opportunities arise for your business.  Some public relation/advertising invitations may not always be well-time for your business’ developmental time-line.

PRIORITIZE

First, get clear on your priorities (both professionally and personally).  Then, be sure that you are always able to gage whether your current goal meets your larger priorities.

CULTIVATE YOUR PERSONAL RESERVES

If you don’t take the time out to build up your personal reserves (i.e. engaging in your hobbies, recharging), your business and your family life will suffer.  Be sure to schedule time to unwind, get away from your business and do things that make you happy.

LEARN HOW TO LEAD

Don’t get stuck down in the trenches. You will never be effective if you don’t take the time to plan for the future of your business. It is critical that you delegate out your original roles and focus on the higher aspects of running your company.

UNDERSTAND THAT CHANGE IS GOOD

In order to move forward, you must grow and let go. Every transition moves you into a new dynamic that you must embrace.