Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Women Networking on the Internet

Women use the Internet nearly as frequently as men, but they spend 22 percent more time than men on e-mail, instant messaging and social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, according to a recent study by the digital-marketing firm comScore.  Women over 45 are driving the greatest growth. “Social networking is a new frontier that older women are embracing,” says Linda Boland Abraham, comScore’s chief marketing officer. “Men are doing so to a far lesser degree.”

In the U.S. and Canada, women spend 30 percent of their total time online in social networks, compared with 25 percent for men.  North American women are more likely than men to share photos online (for example, on Flickr), swap information about health (Medpedia), collaborate with their children’s teachers (Parentella), get fashion advice (Fashism), play social-networking games (FarmVille), grab coupons (Groupon) and find restaurant deals (Yelp).

In Seattle, MomsRising.org is fighting for change.  With one million members and a reach of three million people through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the media-savvy mothers’ advocacy group has made an art of collecting women’s stories.  Sheryl, from Ohio, posts:

The economy has certainly hurt our family. My husband is working (yeah), but he is still making the amount that he made on unemployment (which is barely enough to cover the bills for our family). I just had a stillbirth last March. Had it not been for Medicaid, I would not have been able to pay the medical bills incurred due to that loss.

And this, from a graphic artist in Wisconsin:

I have been told—to my face—no less than 3 times during my adult life that when a particular job I had applied for or wanted to advance to had come down to 2 candidates (me and a man), the man “had” to be selected because, after all, he has a family to support . . . The third time, I was the corporate art director . . . still married with 2 children and a 3rd on the way. A new male hire, 15 years my junior with NO relevant experience whom I had just 2 weeks to train to his new position, was suddenly and without explanation made the new art dept. head . . . I subsequently quit and filed a gender discrimination suit. Enough was enough!!!

“Often what we think ourselves and hear from our members is, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m the only one who this is happening to,’ ” says Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the turbocharged Seattle-based author who cofounded the group in 2006.  The group is widely credited with helping to pass the federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which makes it easier for women to sue employers who pay them less than they pay men for the same job.

Each of these social network sites has found ways to move women into direct, on-the-ground involvement.  But that kind of migration remains one of the biggest challenges for activists.  A new study says it takes four to six direct tweets from trusted friends to capture anyone’s attention on a political issue, and that doesn’t mean the person will get off the couch and grab a protest sign or visit her congresswoman or join her school board—all real-world actions that are still crucial to making change happen.

Ultimately, what draws women to these sites is: a camaraderie of the pissed-off and the passionate.

MORE, September 2011

To reclaim your time and life: "When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women" by Barbara McEwen & John G. Agno.  

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For more information, visit: www.WhenDoingItAllWontDo.com

The Greater Good: Character Matters

Leaders must strive to get people on board and promote enthusiasm, but many miss the mark.  Workplace statistics show that only 25 percent of employees are truly engaged.

Senior management’s goal is to develop an atmosphere of trust and generosity of spirit.  When leaders give workers something they can believe in—a cause greater than the common good—they engage both hearts and minds.

While there is an inherent desire to identify and bond with one’s leader, people instinctively defend their own interests and exercise caution before committing their careers and livelihoods to anyone.

Pay Disparities

Pay disparities can throw a massive wrench into the trust equation.  In 1990, the average American worker earned $27,000.  Adjusted for inflation, this figure remains constant two decades later.  But CEO compensation in the United States has increased 100 to 400 percent, and surveys show that 90 percent of institutional investors believe most executives are overpaid.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to predict that envy leads to divisiveness.  Such pay disparities undermine workers’ security and sense of well-being.  To make matters worse, the constant threat of downsizing and outsourcing magnify people’s fears.

 

80% Off - End of Year Sale. Subscribe to one year of daily coaching tips delivered to your desktop, laptop or smart phone for only $3.95.

More information at: www.CoachedtoSuccess.info

Woman CEO knows when to walk away.

Anne Mulcahy went from being "I just want to be a CEO" to understanding that she had to be an advocate for women.  She said, "There's a responsibility that comes with the position.  If you don't speak about the need to focus on the progress of women, who will?  Maybe we've reached a degree of parity at the entry level, but we clearly don't have that in the executive ranks—or in government, for that matter."

To retire at the age of 57 is a gift. 

"I became head of Xerox at 47...but the more relevant gauge is time in the job.  I was there 10 years.  That's long enough.  To have stuck around until I was 65 would be a disservice to Xerox, a disservice to my successor [Ursula Burns]. It's inappropriate to suggest a single individual is the driving force of a company.  You need a good dose of ambition, but it has to be tempered by humility.  If you wait for the perfect set of circumstances to leave, you will stay too long."

Hobbies?

"I have none.  I used to make them up when people would put together those lists, just so I could sound more interesting.  My life has been invested in this job.  It's bittersweet, but I feel really fortunate."

What's Next?

"I don't know yet what the word retirement means.  I've always said I wouldn't be head of another public company, and I'll stick to that.  I'm a one-trick pony.  I've got other things I want to do.  I'm chair of the board of Save the Children.  I'm not looking to make any more money."

Source: Bloomberg BUSINESSWEEK, April 26, 2010 

Here are links to more information regarding executive women challenges:

WomanLeadership.com  -  A social network of women leaders mentoring womenS 

SoBabyBoomer.com  -  Life Tips for Boomer Women

WomenExecutives.info  -   Personal Executive Coaching Experience

CEOleadershipcoaching.com  -  Leadership Onboarding Coaching & What makes a good executive coach.

CoachedtoSuccess.com  -   Why does a CEO need a coach?

Leadership401.com  -  Typical personal and corporate coaching plans and costs 

GlassCeilingTips.com  -  Articles about breaking through the glass ceiling

The-Leadership-Blog.com  -  A series of leadership tip postings for women executives

Why do 40% of New Leaders Fail?

Most executives think it is important to "go it alone" due to their belief in the myth of individualism; they hold tightly to the idea that everyone succeeds or fails on the basis of individual efforts and abilities.

This assumption is so powerful that when an alternative view is suggested (that success depends on our relationships with others as much as it does on us) the usual reaction is denial. Denial of the role of relationships in the executive's success preserves the self-enhancing illusion that we are masters of our own fates and, therefore, deserving of all the credit for our successes.

The myth of individualism can negatively affect our chances for success.

Consider that four out of ten newly promoted managers and executives fail within 18 months of starting new jobs, according to research by Manchester, Inc, a leadership development firm in Bala Cynwyd, PA. "Failing" includes being terminated for performance, performing significantly below expectations or voluntarily resigning from the new position. When newly recruited, the following types of executives experienced the highest failure rates within the first 18 months: senior-level executives (39%), sales executives (30%), marketing executives (25%), and operations executives (23%).

Here are the major reasons for failure in the new job: 

They fail to establish a cultural fit……………......................75%

They fail to build teamwork with staff and peers…...........…52%

They are unclear about what their bosses expect….............33%

They don't have the required internal political savvy…..........25%

There's no process to assimilate executives into the firm…...22%

Two out of every five new CEOs fail in the first 18 months (HBR, January 2005).

During the second half of 1999, when statistics began to be compiled, nearly 270 chief executives were forced to leave their companies or simply resigned, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based outplacement firm that follows employment issues. Since then, the pace has quickened--in 2004, 663 chief executives departed and turnover doubled to 1,322 in 2005, according to the firm.

CEOs are now lasting just 7.6 years in office on a global average, down from 9.5 years in 1995, according to consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

Leaders often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

John G. Self of JohnGSelf Associates, Inc., an executive search firm in Dallas, TX, said, "When I first read L. Kevin Kelley’s comments in the Financial Times – that 40 percent of 20,000 executives that Heidrick & Struggles placed quit, were fired or forced out in 18 months – [I] was astounded.  As a recruiter, I have never had that kind of failure rate.  But I have since read other studies and apparently, between the poor recruiting processes and the refusal of executives to reach out for help, Heidrick’s experience is apparently an industry average."

Executive onboarding coaching (of the newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this high rate of failure).

Here are some of links for self-coaching on leadership issues:

CoachedtoSuccess.com -   Executive & Business Coaching

Leadership401.com  -  Typical personal and corporate coaching plans and costs 

CareerWomenCoaching.com  -  Blog for career women.

The-Leadership-Blog.com  -  A series of leadership tip postings, including this one, for women executives.

If there was just one thing you could do for your customers....

Ask a Las Vegas cab driver, 'What's the best show in town?'  He will probably reply with something like this, "Oh, Jay Leno!  My wife and I just went to see him. He gives a special show for taxi drivers at two in the morning.  Otherwise, we could never afford to go.  Kenny Rogers does the same thing when he's in town."
 
You wouldn't think that anyone as big in the entertainment field as Jay Leno and Kenny Rogers needs to give away their performances, but they do.  Both realize that some of the best word of mouth advertising they could have would be taxi drivers raving about their shows.
 
If you could do just one thing to help your customer and your business, what would that be?  The short answer is to give more of what you have away. 

Female Executives' Leadership Labyrinth

Many female executives are "getting lost in the leadership labyrinth."

No matter what you call it, the problem of gender inequality persists, but today more corporate leaders and employment consultants are offering programs to help women finally reach their goals.

Mentoring and coaching is crucial for women who need to see how others have navigated their way through the leadership labyrinth.  Mentoring helped her rise to her present position, says Rosa Berg, director of the Tax Shelter Annuity Contact Center of the Minot, ND, division of ING, headquartered in Amsterdam with its main U.S. office in New York.  "Four years ago, a career development manager and I looked at areas where I should further expand my skills and reached out to an individual who had those qualities to be my mentor," Ms. Berg says.

Their mentoring relationship lasted two years, during which time she provided Ms. Berg with help navigating the organization, introduced her to others and provided guidance and support.  Today, Ms. Berg herself is a mentor to three ING employees.

Those efforts drew the attention of Catalyst, a New York nonprofit research and advisory organization that works to expand opportunities for women in business.  ING was one of its 2008 award winners in business.  Julie Nugent, Catalyst's director of research, says, "Women still face many barriers in our workplaces.  We showcase organizations that have excellent women's initiatives, in hopes that they will become models of best practices that will lead to changes for women across all our businesses."

Then, perhaps, the leadership labyrinth itself will disappear and be replaced by a smooth and equal route to the top.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2008

The Glass Ceiling

While 95 percent of 2,521 American workers believe women have made important advancements in the workplace over the last ten years, 86 percent also believe that the glass ceiling is still in place, according to the Women in the Workplace survey by Harris Interactive, Rochester, NY.

For women mentoring other women, go to: www.WomanLeadership.com

For the Career Women Coaching blog, go to: www.CareerWomenCoaching.com

Business Blog Tips for Busy Bloggers

Ever wonder if you're getting the best results you can from your business blog?   Would you like some tips on how you could get more people reading your blog postings?

My friends, The Blog Squad (Patsi Krakoff, Psy.D. and Denise Wakeman), say most business blogging professionals don't know what they really need to know to get better results from their blogging efforts.

They say, "Most bloggers leave their blog parked in the garage and only take it out for a drive on Sundays!"

Patsi and Denise have been studying what works in business blogging since 2004. That's why you'll benefit from their free report, "Better Business Blogging: 4 New Concepts for Getting Spectacular Results!"

What will you learn from this free report?

* How to get faster at blog posting so it doesn't eat up so much of your time

* How to come up with great blog content that "WOWs!" your readers

* How the design of your blog can inspire trust with readers

* How to vastly improve the number of subscribers and readers through a blog outreach program

* How to get readers to take action that turns them into loyal customers

Download the Blog Squad's free report and learn what you need to do to take your blog to the next level.  I did....because I love to get free advice that I can put into action right away.

Click here to get your copy of the free Better Business Blogging Report: 

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2411813

News to You?

A dwindling number of Americans who buy and read a daily paper are spending less time with it; the average is down to less than fifteen hours a month.  Only nineteen percent of Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four claim even to look at a daily newspaper.  The average age of the American newspaper reader is fifty-five and rising.

Taking its place is the Internet which is about to pass newspapers as a source of political news for the post-literate society of American readers.  For young people, and for the most politically engaged, it has already done so.   According to "Abandoning the News," published by the Carnegie Corporation, thirty-nine percent of respondents under the age of thirty-five told researchers that they expected to use the Internet in the future for news purposes; just eight percent said that they would rely on a newspaper.

Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two percent of their market value in the past three years, according to the media entrepreneur Alan Mutter.  Few corporations have been punished on Wall Street the way those who dare to invest in the newpaper business have. 

Public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line.  A recent study published by Sacred Heart University found that fewer than twenty percent of Americans said they could believe "all or most" media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than twenty-seven percent just five years ago.

Marketing Through Blogs

How do you know what new trends to embrace, and which to ignore?

One trend that can improve your business results is to write more often on your business blog...plus...read, comment, and ask for product reviews on blogs within your market niche. Without doubt, your readers will let you know what they want to learn.  Ask them what they need and give it to them.

Bloggers can help your business blossom

Businesses of all types and sizes are focusing on the power of bloggers as opinion shapers.  Harnessing that power is particularly important for small business owners.

Andrew Milligan, of Sumo Lounge International of Los Angeles, CA, like many small business owners was looking to gain exposure and boost sales through the blogosphere.  He sent an email to the popular technology blog, www.Engadget.com, asking the editors to review his product.  While they declined his request, they agreed to trade three months of advertising on their site for 20 Sumo bean bags to outfit their new office.

Within 48 hours of the Sumo ad's appearance on Engadget.com, an editor from Playboy magazine clicked on the ad and liked what he saw.  He featured the bean bags in the magazine, and within about a week, Sumo had sold 500 bean bags.

Pleased with the results of that effort, Mr. Milligan began to pitch his bean bags to bloggers on a daily basis, sending them emails with links to Sumo's website and offers to send bean bags to review.  Two years later, after more than 250 blogger endorsements or posts about Sumo's bean bags, the company's annual profit had tripled.  "This approach saved my business," says Milligan.  "It took Sumo from nothing to a fairly large and profitable company."

For blog marketing ideas and other effective approaches to blogging, check in with the Blog Squad today.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2008

Innovation through Virtual Conversations

Companies derive value from social networking tools that allow employees to share ideas and make global connections. 

With Web 2.0, blogs, wikis, networked CAD and VoIP, information technology's internal communication infrastructure has expanded to embrace enhanced conversations within the enterprise.  In reality, a company's global competitiveness potential is a function of how well people utilize these technology assets.

Social networking tools gain a foothold because they enable people to engage in discussion on a global scale and break through organizational silos.  They create a virtual water cooler where conversations can take place asynchronously but still efficiently.  People can say, "This is what I'm thinking about, and this is what I'm working on." 

As with personal computers, cell phones and instant messaging, blogs and wikis tend to thrive in organizations not because they are blessed by management but because they are introduced and used by employees.  Internal blogs start as a grassroots effort set up by employees.  Internal blogs allow employees to communicate about what's going on within the company and learn from peers they might not generally have encountered.  Better ideas are created when an employee has come up with the concept, fleshes it out in a blog posting, and then seeks feedback.

Discussion across geographies and departments helps build momentum for projects because you get input from people with different perspectives beyond the traditional silos.  The blogs coalesce knowledge that you simply couldn't get before.  They mine value, expertise and passion that you would not have been able to get in a top-down approach.

If you're a C-level executive thinking about communicating using blogs and wikis (or allowing employees to do so), you need to detach yourself from the notion of controlling the information.  Management must realize three things.  First, it would be impossible to stop such discussions were they held verbally.  Second, the blog represents an important safety valve for employees' feelings.  And third, you can gain valuable knowledge about employees' perspectives (in a safe space for constructive confrontation) that would help in managing through transitions.

It's important that these blogs and wikis be accessible only to internal employees so that confidential or sensitive topics can be discussed freely.  Management can be sure that basic guidelines are followed by having voluntary "blog ambassadors" who monitor posts and have the power to remove items that are inflammatory, defamatory or violate corporate confidentiality policies.

Note: There is a logical progression of information---from blog to wiki---because the latter is designed to maintain fact rather than opinion.  Wikis differentiate themselves as a repository of captured knowledge about specific subjects.

Source: Premier Fit, Winter 2008, www.Intel.com/info/ipip