When It Comes to Women’s Leadership, Talk Continues But Action Remains Stalled

It was a familiar scene in Davos Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum took place in January: many men around the table and relatively few women. (Women represented only 18 percent of total delegates.)

What was a bit different, though, was the focus on the increasingly urgent need to achieve gender parity in organizations worldwide. CNBC reported that not only was the corporate gender gap among the top three hot topics discussed by the delegation, but the subject was also recognized as one of the most tweetable, generating 10,000 tweets during the conference.

Lessons on Leadership and Life From My Father

My dear father, Max Shambaugh, has passed, and I was by his side his last hours this weekend. He was my “hero” who inspired me in so many ways, both personally and professionally. He was so influential to me that I wrote about his impact on my life and career in the very first chapter of my first book, It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor, where I shared these thoughts about how he inspired me:

“I…began to reflect back on the conversations I’d had with my father, Max Shambaugh, at the kitchen table when I was a little girl. I was always fascinated by the fact that he had built a third-generation family business into one of the largest construction companies in the country. My father instilled in me an approach to work that I still value today. Specifically, he encouraged me to take risks but to be prudent about it, to build on my strengths and relationships, and to follow through on things I’m passionate about.”

Who You Know Matters as Much as What You Know—Why Women’s Sponsorship Still Matters

Do you expect that if you work hard to prove your value and differentiate yourself as a model employee that you’ll be automatically considered for career advancement? Research has shown that over three-quarters of women (77 percent) believe that long hours, hard work, and education lead to promotion rather than relationships and key connections.

This belief is simply false—and men know it. As I reported in my recent book Make Room for Her, Catalyst’s research has shown that 83 percent of men believe that who you know matters as much or more than your job skills and level of competence when it comes to corporate advancement. Men focus more energy than most women on building and intentionally leveraging a meaningful network to help them rise in their career. Women would be wise to follow their lead, since studies have shown that women are overmentored yet undersponsored.

An Important Part of the Equation for Your Women’s Leadership Strategy

It’s been a busy whirlwind of speaking engagements these past few weeks, where I’ve discussed what I refer to as “Integrated Leadership” at a number of conferences and executive forums. The reason that Integrated Leadership is so crucial is that it reinforces the already compelling business case for gender-balanced leadership.

I recently met with Henry Maier, President and CEO for FedEx. Henry spoke just before I did at a recent conference in New York, where he stated so well: “When it comes to gender-balanced leadership, we are all in this together—men, women, and the organization.” Henry’s perspective is exactly on point in that it emphasizes the importance of having an integrated strategy focused on advancing talented women in our organizations. To move the needle in that direction, we all need to walk the talk.

The Ultimate Mentor to Women: Dave Goldberg

As I heard the news about Dave Goldberg’s death last weekend, I joined many in feeling the sadness of this loss—to his wife Sheryl Sandberg, his family and friends, his colleagues at the company he headed as CEO (SurveyMonkey), and to the technology industry, where Goldberg inspired many.

The loss also extends to women in the industry, and to anyone who cares about women’s leadership development, because of the important role that Goldberg played in prioritizing women’s advancement over the decades of his career—long before it became fashionable to do so.

Strategies to Build a More Inclusive Workplace Culture

In my last post, I shared reasons why it’s important that inclusive cultures become the norm rather than the exception, both in corporations and the world. An inclusive culture, as defined by the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, involves “the full and successful integration of diverse people into a workplace or industry.”

BBI adds that while an inclusive culture encompasses a commitment to workplace diversity, it is not limited simply to basic representation. Instead, according to the Institute, “it indicates a climate in which respect, equity, and positive recognition of differences are all cultivated.” At the same time, the social and institutional response to various differences should pose no barrier to the positive employment experience of any particular group.

3 Habits of Ineffective Women’s Leadership Development

We’ve spent a lot of time in recent posts focusing on the best ways to approach women’s leadership development. But sometimes, knowing what not to do can be as instructive as guidelines on how to do things right.

In that spirit, I present to you the following three habits to avoid when it comes to developing and retaining your female executives.

The Missing Link: Approach to Women’s Leadership Must Be Multifaceted

My last post focused on common problems that companies face in realizing a meaningful return on their investment in attracting, retaining, and advancing women leaders. While many forward-thinking organizations have well-developed programs in place to support their women leaders, the desired results are just not being seen in a large number of these Fortune 500 organizations.

Problems are easy to pinpoint, evidenced by the large number of articles in the media elaborating on them. Solutions, on the other hand, have been elusive for this particular challenge. While there are several first-level strategies that women, men, and organizations can execute to improve the situation (as detailed in my last post), none of these approaches by itself is sufficient to truly solve the problem. The solution lies in consistently following through at each of these three levels simultaneously.

The Missing Link: Moving Beyond First-Level Solutions to Women’s Leadership

It has been a hectic but exciting fall packed with travel and speaking engagements at executive forums and conferences nationwide. At these events, I’ve continued to explore with companies this perennial question: “How do we attract, retain, and advance women leaders?”

My most recent talk engaged top executives from Fortune 500 organizations who are responsible for talent development, or play a key role in talent recruitment while running a significant part of their organization. Most if not all of these well-known organizations have invested significantly in their high-potential women and have developed programs to support women leaders.

How Women Can Learn to Stand in Their Power-and How Men and Companies Can Help Them

Remember the Goldilocks Syndrome? This is the one that pointed out the double bind that women leaders face: that unlike men, women who act too assertively in the workplace are penalized, but that women who fail to be assertive are also punished. Back in 2007, Catalyst called this dilemma “damned if you do, doomed if you don’t.”

We haven’t come very far since then, with studies within the last year and analysis within the last month continuing to point out the same problems. I think it’s high time that we move beyond belaboring the challenges, and instead focus on real solutions that can help free women from this pervasive double standard in Corporate America.

To address this catch-22 and help women stand in their power as leaders, it’s important to focus on a three-part solution.