Category Archives: power

7 questions for figuring out your tolerance for risk


Posted by Jane Perdue

While discussing the push/pull polarities of influence styles at a workshop on Power, Persuasion and Influence I facilitated for a group of Fortune 100 executive women, one women shared a moving observation with the group:  while knowing which style of influence is best to use depending upon the situation is important, the real issue is one’s willingness to take the risk to influence, especially if the status quo is in question.

Her courageous workshop action item was to take that risk.  She said she owed doing so to her colleagues, the organization and herself.

What a powerful moment.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live. ~Leo F. Buscaglia

Sometimes the risk is being the square peg in the round hole, wearing kelly green when your colleagues are wearing charcoal grey, daring — albeit politely — to be the corporate contrarian, and/or dancing with the elephant in the room.  Risking your secure place in the corporate food chain by questioning new practices that run contrary to stated values is a high stake gamble.  Will you be rewarded, take a small hit or lose it all?

According to Julie J. McGowan, professor at Indiana University, “Risk taking is hard to adopt among leaders, because recognized leaders have the most to lose and aspiring leaders may be discounted as lacking in knowledge or common sense.”  Risk-taking can yield great rewards and possibilities for learning provided you’ve done your homework ahead of time.

7 questions for assessing your leadership readiness for risk taking

You must have high EQ, PQ (political quotient) and a thorough knowledge of your work culture to assess your tolerance for workplace risk-taking.  Consider:

  • Historically, how has your corporate culture reacted to those who challenged the status quo?  Are you prepared to accept possible negative outcomes?  Are you willing to see your credibility erode? Are you equipped to lose your job?
  • Is this an issue that’s important to you alone, or do others share similar concerns? Will others who think/feel/believe the same speak up after you’ve led the charge, or will your voice be the only one that’s speaking? Are you ready to forge ahead regardless?
  • Are you able to be the center of attention if your topic goes viral within the company?  Are you primed to be a role model and/or attacked?
  • Do you have solid solutions already in mind?  Are you disposed to collaborate with others and devise a solution that integrates the views of many?
  • Have you brainstormed possible unintended consequences, both positive and negative, of the stand you’re championing?
  • Are you OK, mentally and emotionally, with the possibility of failure?  Will your self-esteem survive the hit?  Can your ego resist the adulation of success?
  • Do you have the will to see it through? Do you have a support system that will nurture you throughout, regardless of the outcome?

Risk tolerance is extremely personal.  Only you can decide if high risk/high reward is your métier or if low risk/low reward represents the boundaries of your comfort zone.  Either way, be prepared, be thoughtful and do what’s right for you.

 

 

Share

3 incorrect notions about power


Posted by Jane Perdue
We’re guest posting over at the Lead Change Group blog today (a place where you’ll regularly find lots of good insights, especially into character-based leadership) so you’ll find this article there, too!

Like love, power is one of those words rarely uttered in the workplace.

And, when it is, those conversations happen in whispered tones, usually following a flagrant example of power gone wrong.

  • A CEO believing what leadership ethicist Terry Price defines as “something that’s wrong for others but OK for me.”
  • A newly promoted manager intoxicated with authority who bosses everyone about.
  • A quiet someone with a dissenting view who refrains from speaking up, believing they lack sufficient influence to affect outcomes.

Power gets a bad rap. It’s misunderstood or used improperly. Some say it corrupts. Others believe it to be evil and self-serving. Truth is, in and of itself, power is none of these things. It’s simply the neutral capacity to deploy resources to generate change and achieve results. It’s only in how one chooses to use, or not use, power that it becomes good or bad.

Looking back, no one ever taught me about power: what it was or how to use it effectively. No college class curriculum or leadership workshop addressed it. Bosses didn’t bring it up in performance reviews or staff meetings. As with many things that exist in the shadows, incorrect assumptions loom large.

3 incorrect notions about power

1) Because I am the boss, I am all powerful. It’s not quite true that absolute power corrupts absolutely. That only happens if you let it happen. Research shows that people who believe they have power become less compassionate, less connected, and see others as a means to an end. They view themselves as above the law and adopt an all wise mentality.

Rather than embrace such a kingly position, it’s best to remember that all work gets done by and through people, so staying connected and open to the input of others should remain high on a leader’s priority list. Resist the siren song of believing you’re above the law and better than others simply because you have a high responsibility, high authority position. Stay self-aware.

2) Because I’m not a boss, I don’t have any power. Au contraire! Just as one can be a leader even if one isn’t the leader, the same holds true for power. Power is readily available from a multitude of sources provided you have the courage and foresight to take it and use it.

You don’t have to sit in the corner office job or even supervise others to have power. Power can flow from your expertise, connections, access to information and strong interpersonal communication skills. Personal power is a state of mind in which you confidently believe in your own strength and competence. Character-based leaders walk the talk as defined by Rosabeth Moss Kanter when she writes “powerful leaders rely more on personal power than job title, or credentials, to mobilize their resources, inspire creativity, and instill confidence among subordinates.”

3) I don’t want power because it will corrupt me. Only if you let it. Formal and informal leaders influence others. Influence goes hand-in-hand with power (whether one wants to admit it or not). Shying away from any position or personal power leaves you powerless, without the ability to shape outcomes or make a positive difference.

“Power is required if one wants to get anything done in any large organization,” says Stanford University professor Jeffery Pfeffer. “Unfortunately, power doesn’t just fall into one’s lap: one will have to go after it and learn how to use it.” Positive use of personal power helps a business effectively realize its mission and goals.

Ready to get some positive power?!

 

Share

Research: Women in Business & The Paradox of Power


Posted by Jane Perdue

NEW REPORT REVEALS STEPS WOMEN MUST TAKE TO ATTAIN MORE SENIOR LEVEL POSITIONS

Researchers Also Detail What Corporations Must Do To Be Part of The Solution

A new paper, WOMEN AND THE PARADOX OF POWER, based on research by Jane Perdue of Braithwaite Innovation Group and Dr. Anne Perschel of Germane Consulting, reports that corporations are leaving money on the table and forgoing future success by failing to move more women into senior leadership roles. Perschel and Perdue also claim that businesswomen must prepare themselves to take on these executive roles by understanding and using power more effectively.

In their study, which involved hundreds of senior level businesswomen, Perdue and Perschel find that many women relate to power in ways that prevent them from attaining senior level positions, be it lack of confidence; cultural conditioning; or simply not understanding what power is. In-depth interviews with women who have attained the highest-level positions of influence reveal that they understood and used different approaches to gain power and make important changes to business culture and leadership practices.

Reshaping a male-dominated business culture, changing the ratio of women to men, and thereby improving bottom line results, requires a very specific set of actions by those currently in leadership positions as well as by women themselves.

What Women Must Do

• Know power and be powerful: Perdue and Perschel define power as the capacity to get things done and bring about change. Not so for many of the research participants who think of power as “being in control at all times,” or “deciding and announcing,” among other misconceptions. Sixty-one percent of survey participants hold mistaken views about how to advance their power (and themselves). The authors emphasize that women must study power, understand power, and use their power to change the culture of business.

• Ditch Cinderella: Over sixty percent of the participants preferred passive approaches to gaining power, opting to be granted access, rather than actively taking it. Unlike Cinderella, women cannot passively wait on the business sidelines, hoping business culture will change and hand them the most powerful decision making positions. Instead, they must seek power, advancing both the change agenda and their careers. As one executive vice-president who heads a $300 million dollar business advised, “The success police will not come and find you.”

• Show up. Stand Up. Voice Up: Fifty-two percent of the barriers to power that participants identified are personal and internal, e.g., “what I need is a constant drip-feed of confidence.” With women comprising nearly forty-seven percent of the entire workforce, holding forty percent of all management jobs, and earning sixty-one percent of all master’s degrees, they are uniquely positioned to work towards dismantling legacy organizational barriers and stereotypes.

• Forge strategic connections: Relationships are the currency of the workplace, yet sixty-seven percent of the women in Braithwaite & Germane’s study are not taking charge of building their networks. To fill more than the three percent of the Fortune 500 CEO positions they currently hold, women must become masters of strategic networking as well as building alliances and coalitions.

• Unstick their thinking: Thirty-eight percent of participants opted for being well-liked rather than powerful. Perschel and Perdue contend this need not be a choice. Based on research conducted at Stanford University, women are uniquely capable of moving beyond such an either/or mindset. Leaders, both male and female, too often limit solutions by framing problems as a choice between two mutually exclusive options.

What Corporations Must Do

• Make gender balance real: Having more women in senior leadership roles is correlated with a substantial increase in total return to shareholders, which is a performance metric for most CEOs. Why, then, do so many heads of companies fail to hire, develop, and promote women for clout positions on senior leadership teams? Executives at the highest levels must move beyond positioning gender balance as politically correct and giving it perfunctory lip service on the corporate agenda. If they are serious about gender balance, they must position it as a business imperative.

• Remake leadership: Despite decades of efforts to increase the number of women in senior leadership roles, the needle on this corporate metric has barely moved. Gender bias is prevalent in the very way leadership is defined – a take charge, have all the answers, aggressive style. Corporate leaders must change both the definitions and practices of leadership. Women will help them do so.

• Walk the talk. Develop women leaders: Seventy-one percent of firms responding to a survey conducted by Mercer, the world’s largest human resource consultancy, do not have a clearly defined strategy or philosophy to develop women for leadership roles. As some of the approaches that work for men do not work as well for women, corporate leaders must invest in modifying these programs to develop women and then follow up with promotional opportunities.

About the authors. Jane Perdue is the Principal of Braithwaite Innovation Group, a female-owned professional development organization, and the creator of the new Women’s Leadership Institute for the Charleston, S.C. Center for Women. Dr. Perschel is known as “an unstoppable force advancing women leaders.” She is president of Germane Consulting – an executive coaching and organization development consultancy. Both have been featured as leadership and women’s issues experts in newspapers and magazines, as well as on television and radio.

Utilizing their research and relative corporate experience, Perschel and Perdue lead and advance aspiring professional women through mentoring, sponsorships, coaching, and development programs. By identifying key obstacles such as those uncovered in WOMEN AND THE PARADOX OF POWER, they help women and organization leaders identify the issues they must resolve to ensure cultural change and enable women to reach the highest pinnacles of success.

 

Share

This Week’s Leadership Favs


Posted by Jane Perdue

Our Friday leadership favorites are an eclectic collection of articles, blog posts, quotes, pod casts and whatever else engages our interest. Some items are recent, others aren’t. Some are mainstream, others are off the beaten path. Enjoy! Be inspired!

Power Corrupts Sooner than You Think (Michael McKinney, LeadershipNow)

Having positional and/or personal power can be seductive, if we choose to let it do so. Here, Michael reminds us of some history and business lessons relative to power. He also underscores the truth that letting power have the upper hand is a choice we make whether we choose to acknowledge that fact or not.

Sheryl WuDunn: Our century’s greatest injustice (TED Talks)

Ready to get fired up? Sheryl, co-author of Half the Sky (a fascinating and frightening read), talks about gender inequality, calling it the moral challenge of this century. She recounts the unequal access to education many women face in third world countries and how remedying this improves economic conditions.

Fast Friday with Ayn Rand, author and philosopher (Round Table Talk)

Many leadership practices still in use today have their roots in philosophies long past their expiration date. The authors challenge leaders to take off the gloves and aim “to have a highly successful organization that makes money without needing to grind people to pieces.” Yes, yes, yes!

The Trust Edge (Jim Estill, CEO Blog - Time Leadership, scroll down to the December 24, 2011 entry)

Here’s a sad, sad research finding: 60% of the participants in a 2009 international study trusted a stranger more than they trusted their boss. Jim shares his take on some recent reading on how leaders can build and maintain trust.

Make an Introduction, Tip #4 (Becky Robinson, 12 Minute Media)

Relationships, alliances, coalitions and connections are the new currency of the workplace, may be even the globe. Building those bonds between and with others, whether male or female, can only help advance one’s personal and/or professional standing. Becky offers some simple yet really meaningful ways to connect people.

A lovely truth to remember throughout the year: “As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” ~Audrey Hepburn

 

Share

6 ways to get your leadership big on


Posted by Jane Perdue

The team at BIG isn’t big on new year’s resolutions. They’re gone faster than the time it takes for us to munch our way through a bag of gumdrops. We are big, however, on commitment. Commitment to personal improvement, ongoing learning, exploring, making a positive difference that lasts, and developing others. Why? Because when people feel confident, involved and valued…magic happens.

People build connections, character and confidence to lead BIG. They learn, take risks and work BIG. They inspire themselves as well as others to grow wings and embrace possibilities beyond what they thought or dreamed possible. They give back, believe in themselves and live BIG.

This kind of BIG has nothing to do with size and everything to do with heart…with meaning…with caring…with thinking more about we and less about me. 

Daniel Maher said “confidence is courage with ease.” Achieving this level of personal grace requires getting your BIG on. That means:

  • Understanding your strengths and knowing how to use that knowledge for leading, guiding, teaching and encouraging others
  • Knowing that the small things do make a BIG difference, so don’t be afraid to start small. The important thing is getting started
  • Recognizing that you may be holding yourself back from BIG things because you’re thinking small. Don’t be afraid to take the BIG leap forward toward your dreams - jump and grow your wings on the way up

Audrey Hepburn once said that “the best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” To help others get their big on,

  • Let them know that it’s OK to fail, but it’s not OK to hold back from trying because they’re afraid of failing.  That’s a lot like spending your life in a rocking chair. The ride may be comforting but you won’t get very far
  • Agree to be their accountability partner. Meet up periodically to learn what they’ve done, then encourage them to keep going
  • Help them embrace and practice the polarities of life: things like being both confident and humble or focused on both task and relationship

Grab some big, bold, brave thinking and start living your best life, full of confidence and courage…and help others do the same.

Here’s to you!

 

Share

Women: 3 ways to master the positive power of speaking up


Posted by Jane Perdue

As a woman in business, have you heard yourself saying these things?

“I just hate it when an interviewer asks me to tell them about what I’ve done. It makes me so uncomfortable to talk about myself.”

“I couldn’t possibly put that on my resume. It’s bragging.”

“I know my work is better than several of my colleagues, but ask for a raise – no way!”

A University of Arizona study showed that both men and women speak an average of 16,000 words a day. Yet getting most women to use some of those daily words to talk about their accomplishments and abilities is, well, darn near impossible. Linda Babcock, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon, observes “I saw women accept the status quo, take what they were offered and wait for someone else to decide what they deserved because…as a society, we teach little girls that it’s not nice or feminine or appropriate for them to focus on what they want and pursue self-interest.”

Learned behaviors can be unlearned, relearned and applied in positive ways. As part of their Centennial Women in Leadership Series, Ashley Hall (an all female educational institution in Charleston, SC) presented a panel discussion on women’s compensation in which I participated. Emily Hollings, a 2005 Ashley Hall graduate was in the audience. Moved by the messages shared that evening, she took a hard look at her professional situation, prepared her case, asked for a raise – and received it!

Emily offers this advice to women in similar circumstances, “I can relate to those polite, modest girls, especially when it comes to money, but it’s important to realize and to keep telling yourself it’s not rude to ask for more and to play up your strengths. Be relentless about your strengths because that’s the ultimate factor in getting your raise.”

Making your voice heard is learning how to be your own tactful and professional PR firm. Clay Shirky, an associate professor at New York University, observes, “Self-promotion is a skill that produces disproportionate rewards, and if skill at self-promotion remains disproportionately male, those rewards will as well.” Remember, we’re talking assertiveness here – clear, direct, calm, truthful and thoughtful discourse – not aggressiveness or arrogance.

Amp up your personal courage and learn a few techniques to make your voice heard:

  • Say you’re sorry when you truly have something to apologize for instead of making statements like “I’m so sorry to take up your valuable time with this” or “please forgive me for having to bother you with this.” Instead be direct and say “Let’s schedule some time to talk” or “There’s an issue we must discuss.”
  • Lose the wimpy words that weaken your message and/or diminish your authority, e.g. saying things like “I think I have a question” or “hopefully I’ll be able to get the job done.” Demonstrate your confidence in your abilities by simply declaring “I have a question” or “I can get this job completed, and completed well!”
  • Make a list of your accomplishments: every successful project you’ve handled at work, praise your boss has given you, awards and recognition, processes you’ve improved, money that you’ve made for the company, promotions, etc. This list isn’t bragging. It is simply facts – facts about your performance that you must be comfortable discussing in job interviews, at work and while networking. A key element of many jobs is promoting the organization. If you can’t promote yourself, a prospective employer is right to doubt your abilities to promote them.

Jill Muti, Head of School at Ashley Hall, sums it up best, “When a woman enters the workforce today, it’s imperative that she be confident and capable of advocating for herself.”

What other advice would you offer?

Share

It’s all about the numbers, silly goose


Posted by Jane Perdue

My bad for getting behind in responding to my Twitter follow back messages, yet what an enlightening experience that turned out to be.

A number of people who had followed me on Twitter had unfollowed me - and a gazillion others - by the time I reached their Twitter home page to follow them. Their follower and following ratios were quite lopsided. They were following a small handful of people (normally in the two-digit range), yet had numbers in the hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people who were following them.

Hmmm,  how interesting.

While I wonder whether or not they care enough to be interested, here’s the story their actions tell me.

  • Others are simply a means to achieve my ends. I’ll fake some interest in you by following you but all I really want is you following me to boost my numbers.
  • Don’t expect any reciprocity from me ‘cuz it’s all about me. I’m not gonna follow you, yet I know you’ll be watching your Twitter stream to see what I have to say.
  • Superficial appearances are important. My follower/following numbers tell my elite story. What else is there to say?
  • Who wants real connection anyway? It’s messy. Takes time. Might require an adult conversation from time-to-time.

I know I’m climbing the ladder of inference here, drawing conclusions that are based on my perception of reality. If you’re one of those folks I’m talking about here, do enlighten me! I’d love to know the reasons behind all the work you do to build a following and then drop them.

Lead BIG tip: be mindful of the stories your actions create in the minds and hearts of those around you. And, if you’ve created a story as I have, be mindful it’s your story: you wrote it based on your perception and view of point which might be correct…or dead wrong.

Share

Ready to dance the people/principles/profits tango?


Posted by Jane Perdue

A small company, in economic distress, engaged a research firm to help explore options for salvaging the business. The research firm suggested a series of small group meetings with employees to gain their perspective.

The company was somewhat reluctant to do so,  yet decided to give the employee sessions a try, hoping to hear suggestions for improving productivity which they considered key to their survival.

The first question asked in the employee sessions was “tell us how to improve (name of the firm) so they can remain in business.” A few concrete suggestions for improvements to work flow and production schedules were offered. However, employees at all levels of the organization – from administrative assistant to warehouse to shop floor to management – were fixated on talking about how badly they believed the were treated by top management.

Consider these comments, illustrative of 80% of the feedback:

  • “My boss makes me feel like a piece of equipment, something to be used and discarded at his whim.”
  •  “The only thing senior leadership cares about is the numbers. If your results are good, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are; and  some of them are pretty despicable.”
  • “When I reported a safety problem, my boss said I could quit if I didn’t like it. She said there were plenty of other people who would be happy to take my job.” 
  •  “The guys in the ivory tower don’t even know us folks on the shop floor exist. We’re just a way for them to get their bonuses.”

When the research firm relayed the interview results to the company’s senior management team, the CEO quickly ended the meeting and fired the research firm on the spot, saying they had obviously botched the assignment.

Beware the warning signs

If you’re a manager in an organization where company performance needs improving:

  • Try to remember the last time someone in senior management walked the shop floor, asked questions of employees and really listened to their answers. If it’s been more than three months, schedule a walk around asap.
  • Ask yourself if you have been ignoring the early warning signs of employee distress — things like turnover. Employees not sharing information with you, their boss. Low morale. Whispering that stops when you walk by.
  • Explore how senior management truly thinks about employees:  are they viewed as assets or a means to drive profit?
  • Are employees who share bad news dismissed as tidily as the research firm?
  • Do you feel valued?
  • Do you trust your superiors, your CEO? Do they trust you?

What say you?

Share

Tackling imposter syndrome


Posted by Jane Perdue

Eden held a senior director job title, received glowing reviews, and her educational credentials and reputation were impeccable. Yet she felt like a failure. She lived in constant fear that her lack of ability would be discovered. That she would be exposed as the incompetent fraud she believed herself to be. Eden was surprised there was a name for what she felt – the impostor syndrome, a term was coined by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978.

Image by Corbis

While not an officially recognized condition, imposter syndrome is defined as “a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen field of work or study or what external proof they may have of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced internally they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are actually frauds. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.”

Eden, an amazing woman, lacked self-efficacy. She didn’t believe she had the ability to pull together her social, physical, thinking and behavioral skills to accomplish her goals. The presence, or lack, of self-efficacy determines how you feel, think and motivate yourself as well as how you behave.

Confidence is courage with ease. ~Daniel Maher

Without confidence in our own abilities, it’s very hard to have courage. Having confidence in what you accomplish can remove the sense of failure and the irrational fear of being found out that so plagued Eden.

Albert Bandura, a Canadian psychologist and author of Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, regards the self-efficacy as:

the foundation of human motivation, well-being and personal accomplishments. Unless people believe that they can bring about desired outcomes by their actions they have little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of difficulties. A wealth of empirical evidence documents that beliefs of personal efficacy touch virtually every aspect of people’s lives – whether they think productively, self-debilitatingly, pessimistically or optimistically; how well they motivate themselves and persevere in the face of adversities; their vulnerability to stress and depression, and the life choices they make.

Bandura identifies four sources for building self-efficacy:

1) Mastery experiences, best described as your successes. Success is the most robust source of self-efficacy. As Oscar Wilde says, “Nothing succeeds like success.”

How do you get more successful experiences?

• Evaluate your performance just as you would another’s – looking specifically for accomplishments. Don’t be modest – apply an objective eye toward successful outcomes, e.g. when you improved an operating process, when someone you mentored was promoted, when your management resulted in significant bottom line improvements, when your involvement improved a community function, when you helped someone see through the darkness and regain their footing. These are all successes.

• Write down your past successes as well as the knowledge, skill and/or abilities involved. Know, and accept, that you do have the requisite competencies to make things happen.

• Establish specific, short-term goals that challenge you, yet are still attainable, and work diligently to achieve them. Move past thinking into action and results. Give yourself credit for making the results happen.

2. Modeling experience, defined as observing other people who are similar to you succeeding at a task. Seeing their success can strengthen your belief in your abilities to affect a similar successful outcome.

How do you get more modeling experience?

• Surround yourself with people committed to making their goals a reality.

• Select well-known people whom you respect and whose interests, career goals, etc. track with yours, and watch what they do to make success happen for them.

• Avoid the “Debbie Downers” and being sucked into their downward spiral of belief that comes from talking only about failures or what’s wrong.

The final two elements of Bandura model – persuasion and emotional state – coming up in part two!

What say you about lacking belief in your achievements? How have you helped others believe in their abilities?

Share

Teeball, leaders and reweaving the fabric of business


Posted by Jane Perdue

Ah, work/life boundaries — so tricky, so necessary, and so darn hard to manage for many reasons both personal and professional.

A female business colleague/friend and I were sharing personal insights for how we set (or don’t) boundaries for work and personal time. (Before I go on, I must raise my hand and confess, “I, Jane, am a workaholic” because this tendency plays a role in how my story unfolds.)

Insights from the stands

Over the last  six weeks, I attended twelve teeball games, two a week, all with 5:30 PM start times ( isn’t 5:30 PM the middle of the afternoon?!). There I saw my six-year-old grandson smile shyly yet proudly at us on the sidelines after his triumphant runs to first base. I could cheer him (and others) on in the process one charming little fellow so creatively named “first we hit, then we glove.”

To my second act of life way of thinking, this encouragement and our presence were acts of leadership development for those small girls and boys. We were helping them build self-confidence. Learn teamwork and sharing.  Begin to appreciate that others to have different skills and outlooks, and that is OK.

Going to those teeball games was also a commitment of time, I’m sad to say, that wouldn’t have happened in the first act of my life.

In that Corporate America part of my life, there was the ever-present, yet albeit covert, belief that individuals — especially women — who left work early for family reasons (things like 5:30 PM teeball games) “weren’t giving it their all” or were “unwilling to do what it takes.” Given my desire to succeed and those workaholic tendencies, I drank the corporate koolaid by the gallon. Not wanting anyone to say I wasn’t willing to do what it took, 70-80 hour work weeks were the norm. I used to joke that a 40-hour week was a part-time job. Ah, sick puppy.

Time for a new direction

Having emerged from my “corporate detox” period, I can more objectively look bac. Today I see the error of my ways. Back then, I set no boundaries. All work, very little play.  I allowed my work schedule and life to be influenced by those covert stereotypes. I own letting that happen.

But now, I also see how badly frayed the fabric of business practices is.  Spoken and unspoken expectations that enabled, no - encouraged, my nose-to-the-grindstone, crank-it-out work ethic. Organizational cultures where taking time away from the office to participate in activities like cheering on the next generation of leaders wasn’t valued. Where doing so, in fact, is negatively rewarded at review time for those bold and smart enough to set boundaries. I’m taking ownership to change this.

Along with Anne Perschel, I’ve been researching women in business and power. We’re ready to start reweaving the fabric of business so those teeball acts of leadership development and other changes can happen. For women. For men. For anyone interested in transforming the paradigms of business.

Ready to play?

Share