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#CareerAdvice : The Essential Career Advice No One Tells You. A #MustRead !

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When it comes to career advice, the more you can get, the better. However, some pieces of advice are more critical than others. That’s why I’ve gathered some of the best career takeaways from successful creative female powerhouses.

In honor of Women’s History Month, I asked a group of powerful women entrepreneurs to share some unconventional advice they have for other women looking to advance in their career. Here’s what they had to say:

1- Jaclyn Johnson, Create & Cultivate CEO & Founder and WorkParty author 

Networking is one of the most crucial parts of building a career or business. One tip I always share on networking is to network horizontally. Networking doesn’t always mean attending events or trying to connect with someone you admire. Networking can also mean getting close with the people in the trenches with you as you evolve in your career. Over the years, those people will move on to other positions and you never know how you can help each other in the future.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2- Ginger Siegel, North America Small Business Lead for Mastercard

“You don’t need to do it alone. Access to mentorship programs and supportive communities are critical to career advancement.”

Paige Adams-Geller, Founder & Creative Director of PAIGE

“I believe the most important quality to have to move ahead in your career is to show passion in every job you have. Even if you are not in your dream job, you need to put your best foot forward.  You never know who you will meet or who will end up shaping your future. I would never be where I am today by taking my jobs for granted. I was able to build my dream team when I started PAIGE. Everyone I asked to come on the adventure with me said yes. I believe it is because I gave my best always.

“Remember that your career or business is a marathon, not a sprint.  Do not try to be an overnight success or a one-hit wonder. Slow and steady wins the race. Take your time to develop the skills you need. No one expects you to know everything out of the gate.”

3- Sophie Kelly, SVP North America Whiskey

“Be audacious!  Treat your career as an exciting story, one you want to tell, each chapter adding new experiences and capabilities to your professional and life journey.  Be passionate, show up and do what you love. Push  other women forward, too.”

4- Julie Smolyansky, President and CEO of Lifeway Foods

Go with your gut. Never doubt it. Nurture it. Make it stronger. Make listening to it part of your self-care routine. It will never lead you astray. Even if it tells you something you don’t want to hear, trust that voice; it will guide you to the right destination . If it recommends a career transition, a new job or circle of friends, trust it blindly.  Make that a foundation you can always turn to in moments of doubt or on hard days.”

5- Bruna Schmitz, Professional Surfer, Model, and Roxy Brand Ambassador

“Make realistic goals and surround yourself with people you admire. Learn to work hard and embrace setbacks as part of the process. Accept constructive criticism, but most of all, stay open to new ideas and different ways of doing things. Exploring the unknown and welcoming change is an enriching experience.”

6- Sami Fishbein, Cofounder & COO, Betches Media & Ship

“One of the most important career choices a woman can make is actually the type of life partner she chooses. It’s critical to have supportive relationships when chasing your dreams, so that you can feel confident and strong enough to move past obstacles.”

Author: Shelcy V. Joseph

I am what you could call a multipotentialite—someone with different passions and interests. I dabble in different things, but at the core of everything I do is creative …

Forbes.com | March 10, 2019

 

#Leadership : #CareerAdvice – Undermined at the Office? How Women Can Cope With Mistreatment From Female Colleagues…Mistreatment can Range from Humiliating Put-Downs to Intentional Sabotage, Experts say.

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Do some women undermine other women? It is one of the trickiest workplace issues.

Managerial women often hesitate to speak openly about female colleagues undercutting each other—and not just because doing so seems to reinforce a negative stereotype. Even those who have clashed with female colleagues say broader gender bias in pay and promotions pose bigger career obstacles. And such undermining appears less common than it used to be as more women reach higher management and actively mentor less experienced women.

Nevertheless, run-ins with undermining women at work can still happen, career advisers and recruiters say, and there are ways of coping. Among them: Find allies in the office who support you, says Gail R. Meneley, co-founder of Shields Meneley Partners, a career-transition firm for top executives.

“You must forge close enough ties that those allies can judge you and your work themselves,” she said.

Women who undermine other women sometimes do so when they feel precarious about their own position and view the other woman as a competitive threat, experts say. This attitude can stem from the belief that there are limited avenues for women to advance in an organization. In other instances, women who may be perceived as undermining could actually be trying to help by doling out the same tough advice given to them earlier in their career.

Mistreatment can range from humiliating put-downs to intentional sabotage, and targeted women tend to be outspoken and are often chided for making their voices heard, career advisers and university researchers say.

Leadership coach Perry Yeatman advises the female chief executive officer of a family-owned consulting firm whose board chairwoman belittles her in front of her management team, Ms. Yeatman said.

“My client’s boss makes her feel like she’s underperforming, and so she wonders if she really is as good as she believed and her results indicate,” Ms. Yeatman said. “Women shouldn’t tolerate bad behavior just because it comes from another woman.”

Workplaces, of course, abound with examples of supportive women helping other women succeed. Mary Barra became the first woman to head a major car company in 2014 when she was named chief executive at General Motors Co. Ms. Barra has several female executives reporting to her and is expanding that pool. Dhivya Suryadevara, GM’s vice president of corporate finance, will advance to chief financial officer next month.

There remains little agreement on the extent of the problem of women undermining other women, but recent research sheds some light on such misbehavior. Women are 14% to 21% more likely than men to report experiencing uncivil treatment from female co-workers, according to a study led by Allison S. Gabriel, an associate professor at University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

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The study, which reflects three surveys covering 1,340 male and female employees in the U.S. in a variety of occupations and industries, defined incivility as being ignored, interrupted, mocked or treated disrespectfully. It found that women mistreated by female counterparts reported lower job satisfaction.

“We are the first to help clarify that it [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][incivility] seems to be more of an experience women are experiencing from other women than from men,” Ms. Gabriel said.

Most women at a 2016 program on female rivalry hosted by the National Association for Female Executives reported that other women had undermined them, yet only a handful admitted to acting that way themselves, said Betty Spence, president of NAFE.

“Women don’t see themselves as undermining other women,” she said.

For some women who feel undermined, the only recourse is to change jobs. Kerry Jordan, a financial-services industry veteran, said a female executive she reported to in a past position repeatedly undermined her, including criticizing her public-speaking skills to their colleagues behind her back. When the female supervisor nixed Ms. Jordan’s request to accept an outside directorship on a board, she left the company.

Rayona Sharpnack, an organizational consultant, said she counseled a vice president at a Fortune 500 health-care company who told the consultant that another female VP stole customers and territory from her.

Ms. Sharpnack persuaded her client to signal the other woman’s importance by occasionally praising her competitive prowess during meetings. The complimented vice president subsequently approached her colleague and “created a couple of things that they could collaborate on,” Ms. Sharpnack said.

Such moves don’t always work. An executive recruiter tried—and failed—to mend a strained relationship through respectful chats after placing a longtime friend in the highest human-resources job at an East Coast hedge fund. The friend soon turned on her, lambasting the recruiter’s judgment and fees in front of the fund’s CEO.

“I was being betrayed and undermined by the very person I had introduced to the firm,” the recruiter said. During one face-to-face encounter about her mistreatment, the recruiter said the HR chief blamed work-related stress and said, “Don’t take it personally.’’

A New York lawyer at an Asian bank curbed her female mentor’s unsupportive behavior by divulging less. In 2013, the lawyer told her mentor that she planned to take advantage of their company’s policy and work from home one day a week once she returned from maternity leave. Her mentor cautioned that “you really are giving up your career plans,” she said, and mocked the altered schedule, joking sarcastically that she’d “love to work in my pajamas once in a while.”

The lawyer stopped discussing her personal life with the executive. “I don’t want to share things that can be used against me,” she said.

Despite her mentor’s dire prediction, the attorney advanced to director from vice president the year after her maternity leave ended.

—Ms. Lublin, former management news editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of “Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World.” (HarperCollins).

Write to the author Joann S. Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com

 

WSJ.com | August 22, 2018

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#Leadership : #WomenOlderWorkers – Let’s Stop Letting #Women Age Out of the #Workforce Worse Off than Men…We try to prepare girls to be successful women by plotting their career paths early. But women heading toward retirement get little support and often pay the price.

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When your father or grandfather retired, his company might’ve thrown a little get-together, complete with toasts by backslapping colleagues, a cake, and an engraved watch. If he was lucky, he walked into retirement knowing he had a company pension or ample retirement savings to see him through the rest of his life.

Today? Not so much. Especially not for women.

Women who are approaching retirement in the U.S. today face a trifecta of challenges: They’re living longer (an average of 20 years past age 65), have significantly less money saved (an average of just $34,000), and face ever-increasing costs, especially for health care (an average of $5,503 a year out-of-pocket). This adds up to far greater economic insecurity among women as they age. In fact, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security, women aged 65 and older have incomes that are 25% lower than men’s, and they are 80% more likely than men to be impoverished past age 65.

Women of color face even deeper disparities as they age. African American and Latina women earn less from Social Security, assets, and pensions than do white women, and they rely on Social Security for a larger portion of their income, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The good news is that employers have a unique opportunity to turn these numbers around, by thinking proactively about supporting working women today so they can age well later. Here are three ideas.

CLOSE THE PAY GAP AND EXPAND MENTORING

Women begin retirement with a hurdle that’s followed them their entire careers: the gender pay gap. Labor Department statistics show the gap is as stubborn as ever, with women earning 21% less than men, a disparity that worsens among women of color and in certain industries more than others. Lower pay means less money saved, both in personal retirement accounts and Social Security benefits. Overall, women receive nearly $4,000 a year less in Social Security than men.

Employers can level the playing field by eliminating the gender wage gap among their employees now, so their women employees don’t leave the workforce already disadvantaged once they retire. This is not an impossible goal. Starbucks, for example, has reached100% pay equity among its employees. One part of the solution is to widen women’s participation in STEM fields; another is for employers to offer more flexible schedules and remote-work opportunities.

Companies also need to do a better job of nurturing and mentoring women to move up into leadership positions that offer greater opportunities and more pay. Staff development and performance management are critical to ensuring that women keep learning and developing over the entire course of their careers–this way they can retire from them on a more secure financial footing.

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LET WOMEN PHASE INTO LIFE AFTER WORK

Few women today want to work one day and stop the next. They want and need to continue working, but other responsibilities may be tugging at them. By one recent estimate, for example, up to 20% of working women are also caring for an elderly loved one.

Employers need to create organizational climates where women approaching retirement don’t feel it’s risky to have conversations about phased retirement options. Working part-time or moving to a position that requires less responsibility can be a solution–and employers should be game to offer that. In the latest Transamerica Retirement Survey, only 23% of workers said they plan to immediately stop working at a specific point in time. However, 25% also said that their employers do nothing to help employees enter retirement. Organizations need to step up and change that.

ARM WOMEN WITH KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT’S AHEAD

As a society, we try to prepare girls to grow into successful women; think Girl Scouts, STEM initiatives, and Girls on the Run. But how do we help women prepare to age well? We don’t teach them how their bodies are going to change as they age, or how to manage their savings so it will last an extra 20 years.

Just as we counsel younger women to make informed decisions about their education and careers, we need to support older women in planning for a successful third phase of life. My organization, the National Council on Aging, created an “Aging Mastery Program”to provide this kind of unbiased guidance, complete with small steps people can take to chart their own paths toward aging well.

While the days of engraved watches and pension plans may be over for most (and were never equitably available to all to begin with), a secure retirement should be a right for every person who has put in a lifetime of work–especially women. Forward-thinking employers need to help women plan not just for successful careers but for successful lives after work. And they need to start right now.

Anna Maria Chávez is Executive Vice President and Chief Growth Officer at the National Council on Aging.

Rich Bellis is Associate Editor of Fast Company’s Leadership section.

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FastCompany.com | July 27, 2018

Your #Career : How #Women Can Build Their #ProfessionalNetworks … #Networking is Tougher for Women for Several Reasons, but There are Ways to Make it Work.

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Networking is crucial for advancing a career, building relationships and getting knowledgeable about a range of subjects.  And women have a much tougher time of it than men.

It comes down to numbers, my research shows. There are so few women in positions of power that it is difficult for women to find sponsors to make introductions and referrals, and models of effective leadership are geared toward men. And because of that, women begin to believe not only that the cards are stacked against them but also that there is something wrong with networking itself.

Bonding problems

Of course, it can be daunting for both men and women to reach out to people who are more senior and outside their immediate area. But women’s difficulties with workplace networking go beyond that. People form and maintain relationships easily and spontaneously with others like them, decades of research shows. When an organization’s senior ranks and an industry’s power players are mostly male, the “likes attract” principle means that women often have to work harder to build relationships with decision makers and influential stakeholders.

At the same time, there are few other women around for women to build professional relationships with. The result? Women are consistently excluded from male-dominated social gatherings, which let businesspeople talk shop and bounce ideas in an informal atmosphere that builds camaraderie and trust.

Compounding the problem is that men and women tend to favor different leisure and extracurricular pursuits. So men find it much easier to mix play and work in the first place, with pursuits such as golf, while women often struggle to combine the two spheres of life.

In my research, I ask people to list all the contacts they consult for work matters, as well as the friends they hang out with outside of work. Men often have some people on both lists—they’ll play squash or go to dinner with some of those work contacts. Women, in contrast, are more likely to have two separate lists. This difference is most pronounced for women who have children, when outside-of-work relationships tend to become more driven by school activities and family.

All of which means it takes longer for women to achieve influence. It also increases the likelihood that women will have unfavorable views about networking. The more we differ from key stakeholders, and the more we have to go out of our way to interact informally with them, the more likely we’ll view networking as disingenuous and calculating. So women begin to see networking as being about selfish gain and using people.

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Breaking barriers

Aspiring women leaders can start taking charge of their network with three tactics.

Be a bridge. The best way for women to expand their professional relationships is by making connections across the diverse circles that make up their network.

For example, one marketing executive for a large manufacturing firm found herself attending events in which ideas were presented on which she knew could help her colleagues. She started writing up what she was seeing in a LinkedIn blog, and that raised her visibility in the company. When she met the author of a new book on agile working, she knew his methodology could potentially transform her firm’s operations. So she introduced him to a manager she had gotten to know through the LinkedIn column. Five years later, the methodology was in place across the organization—and she landed a promotion.

Limited Access

Women are less likely than men to say they have substantive interaction with a senior leader at least monthly, and the difference grows as they move up the career ladder.

*Vice president and above

Source: LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. Women in the Workplace 2017 survey of 70,000 men and women

Do it your way. Effective networking usually involves investing time in extracurricular activities. But many women balk at what seems to be limited choice among things they are not very interested in, such as playing golf or attending sporting events. I have seen many savvy networkers, however, leverage a personal interest into something more strategic in the workplace.

Take, for instance, one investment banker who was passionate about the theater. Frustrated that she kept missing plays she wanted to see, she made her passion part of her business development. Four times a year, her secretary booked tickets, organized an informal buffet dinner at a restaurant near the theater and invited her clients, prospective clients and other key people she wanted to get to know better. The stage became a backdrop for developing her own business and facilitating connections among people in her networks.

Join a women’s professional network. Because women’s informal networks tend to have separate work and social spheres, it can be harder for women to achieve their potential. Joining a women’s network, such as the Wing, is a great way to bring the two spheres together. A women’s network can be a supportive setting for women to compare notes and reinforce one another’s learning. One website founder from New Zealand told me, “Coming here, there is a sense of comfort; you can fully relax.”

Ultimately, it is women’s misconceptions about networking that hold them back. If you believe you will never be any good at it or that you are wasting time, if there is a voice in your head telling you it is self-serving and political, you won’t commit to breaking your usual routine.

The only way to debunk such limiting assumptions is for women to try it and learn from their own experience that networking is one of the most valuable ways to invest their time.

Ms. Ibarra is the Charles Handy professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Appeared in the May 21, 2018, print edition as ‘What Women Need to Do to Network.’

 

 

#Leadership : Actually, Women Do Ask For Raises As Often As Men—They Just Don’t Get Them…A Recent Study Shows that Women Know What they’re Worth and Aren’t Afraid to Ask for It. It’s Their Employers that Don’t.

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 Almost a decade ago, Carnegie Mellon professors Sarah Laschever and Linda Babcock found that men ask for raises and promotions four times more than women do. Their research has now been cited so often that it’s just about become popular wisdom.

free- women at meeting

But a new study by researchers at London’s Cass Business School, the University of Warwick, and the University of Wisconsin analyzed a random sample of just over 4,500 workers across 800 employers in Australia and found something surprising: Women aren’t afraid of asking for raises and promotions. Women ask as often as their male counterparts, but they get what they want less often—25% less often, in fact.

NEW RESEARCH, NEW REACTIONS

Using a detailed series of questions, the researchers tackled two stubborn yet widespread beliefs surrounding the gender pay gap. The first—that women aren’t as ambitious or pushy as men—was found to have no basis in the study (which focused on Australia, because it’s the only country that gathers data on employees’ raise requests). The second—that women are more afraid of upsetting their bosses or hurting their relationships with their employers—was also thrown out.

These findings shift the burden from professional women to the companies that employ them. These days, it appears that closing the pay gap may be less about changing the ways women have been raised to understand the value of their work and more about how their employers react to women’s improving negotiating skills.

Social and political climates may have something to do with that shift. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) issued its annual report on the gender gap, and it didn’t just fall into the void. Just last month, in Iceland, where women earn an average of 14% less than men, women left their desks at 2:38 p.m., leaving their workdays 14% unfinished—right at the point where that pay discrepancy kicked in.

Taking to the streets and leaving desktops unwatched might not catch on in the U.S., but the metaphor is instructive. The WEF report looked at 144 countries and measured the gaps not only in economic opportunities but also in access to education, health care, and political representation. The U.S. ranked 45th on the list. At the current rate, researchers believe, women worldwide are not going to see these gaps close completely in their lifetimes—it will take 170 years at the current rates of progress worldwide.

 

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But as one of the coauthors of the Cass School study points out, that research “potentially has an upside. Young women today are negotiating their pay and conditions more successfully than older females,” says Amanda Goodall, “and perhaps that will continue as they become more senior.” Women aren’t just negotiating more aggressively than in the past. They’re now more aware that they aren’t being rewarded equitably for doing so.

Knowledge is power, in other words, and it spreads almost exponentially over time. It’s findings like Goodall’s and her fellow researchers’ that don’t just document a problem but empower those who are hurt by it to demand change in the right places.

WHAT WORKING WOMEN CAN DO STARTING NOW

With that in mind, there are a few steps women can take right away to begin pressing to earn what they’re worth.

Know your own value. Do the research and honestly assess your talents, skills, and experiences—because your boss won’t do this for you. Get the data on pay for the same or comparable jobs in your community, so you have objective (or at least less subjective) information with which to build a case for yourself.

I was so proud when a former intern of mine was offered a position at a major tech company and asked me what to do before accepting. She’d done her research, and the firm’s salary offer was toward the top for comparable positions. Still, she said, “I know I should negotiate something.” She was right; I advised her to think about non-salary compensation that she’d value, and she ended up getting her new employer to pay for her move.

Be your own advocate. Investigate the culture of your company, how decisions are made, and what’s valued most (and least). It’s one thing to do the “hard” research—salary benchmarks and so on—and another to get a “softer,” qualitative feel for an employer’s mind-set around compensation. This holds true as much for a company you’re considering working for as one you already do work for.

Go on Glassbreakers to get or become a mentor, and LinkedIn to connect with others in your field. Read reviews on Fairygodboss. Talk to trusted coworkers. Reach out to past employees who’ve since moved on, and ask their experiences. Then use your research to help you speak up—not just about your salary offer or about that promotion coming up, but about ways in which women’s leadership can add value to their bottom line.

Outside of work, too, it’s important for professional women to understand policymakers’ priorities; change happens in both big and incremental ways. The keys to more opportunities and important social shifts can often be found in the details of all kinds of bills, from the municipal to the federal level.

Face the chaos with courage. When I left my first CEO position, a member of the board asked me what I thought was one of most important qualifications for the job. Courage was the answer that came out of my mouth before I had a chance to think. I still believe that courage is what it takes to act in the midst of chaos and against long odds that you shouldn’t have to surmount but are forced to. It takes courage, too, to own the responsibility for fixing something, even if you don’t have total authority to—and to make decisions even when you can’t guarantee the outcomes.

It’s possible to see the latest research as different fragments of the same picture. Women have changed—even in the past decade—but the world at large has not, and 170 years is too long to wait for parity. The U.S. has just fallen short of electing its first female president, but it’s worth remembering that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. That means that a majority of American voters still wanted a woman to represent them, and that desire doesn’t vanish.

Whatever the next four years turn out to look like, it’s clear that the social tide is turning. Younger women are asking for their due when their older colleagues didn’t dare to (often as a result of wholly valid fears). It’s heartening to know that the data confirms what many of us have long hoped: Finally, women know their worth. Now it’s time for everyone else to catch up. Don’t worry—we’ll show you the way.

 

FastCompany.com | GLORIA FELDT |  11.10.16 5:00 AM

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#Leadership : How Women Leaders Emerge From Leaderless Groups…Women are More Likely to Take Command in Collaborative Work Environments—Including Those that are Predominantly Male.

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 In spite of a significant imbalance between male and female leaders in business, new research from the University at Buffalo’s School of Management suggests that in collaborative work environments where women are outnumbered, they often emerge as the natural group leader.

smileprofessionalwork

The findings fly in the face of the reality of the U.S. workforce, where many fail to recognize the extent of the female leadership gap. Women represent just 3% of new CEOs in the U.S., 5.1% of Fortune 1000 CEOs, and 4% of Standard and Poor’s 500 CEOs. A recent survey by the Rockefeller Foundation also found that nine in 10 respondents thought there were more female business leaders than there really are, and further research by the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University found that those women are more likely to be targeted by shareholder activism.

“We tend to see the man as more leader-like than the woman,” says lead author Jim Lemoine, in a video interview by UB School of Management. “What we were interested in in this research were exceptions to the rule.”

In the study, researchers assigned nearly 1,000 participants to small groups and asked them to complete a series of tasks, later polling them on who emerged as the natural leader of their group. The study was replicated with participants of varying ages over both long and short-term periods.

 

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When the groups communicated a lot, or were more “extroverted” in Lemoine’s words, women were more likely to emerge as leaders. They were also more likely to emerge as leaders when the groups were predominantly male.

“When a group is composed of lots of extroverted people, they talk more,” he says. “They’re actually getting to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and who may be the better leader beyond this diversity demographics stuff.”

 

This getting-to-know-each-other phase is key to gender leadership balance, says Lemoine. “It makes the environment less masculine, more balanced, and gives everyone a chance to play on equal footing,” he says.

Lemoine adds that when he advises companies, he often encourages them to ignore strategy talk at first and instead spend some time getting to know the other people in the room.

“When we think of men, we think independent, aggressive, competitive risk takers, which is for a lot of people a stereotypical view of a leader,” he says. “When we think of women, we tend to think—true or not—more helpful, more cooperative, more caring.”

Lemoine explains that in spite of centuries of gender imbalance, he finally sees the tide beginning to turn in favor of female leaders. That is because when people are asked what kind of leader they want to work for today, the typical answer has evolved to describe stereotypically female characteristics. As he puts it:

People tend to answer this more now, ‘I would like to work for someone who is ethical,’ ‘I would like to work for someone who really cares about me, who understands me, who trains me, who puts me first, who’s very authentic. As our ideas of what a leader is changes, so do our ideas change of who a leader can be, so really the future is looking bright for more gender equality for who becomes a leader.

In other words, one of the key strategies for breaking the gender leadership gap in the workplace could be simple conversation between team members, in a setting that gives every member of the team a level playing field.

 

FastCompany.com | JARED LINDZON  | 09.12.16 5:25 AM