Thank you, Satya Nadella! Leadership Lessons from CEO of Microsoft and Pope Francis

Last October, when the Karma-gate exploded at the annual Grace Hopper conference, it was a true blessing for women in corporations everywhere! It was as if two world-class leaders who are passionate about making a difference and leaving a legacy of transformational innovation had staged a cosmic theater play for shifting the consciousness of corporate leaders everywhere.

President of Harvey-Mudd College, Maria Klawe is also one of the two women on board of Microsoft Corporation. This gives her unique access and powers to talk to important leaders like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who agreed to Continue reading Thank you, Satya Nadella! Leadership Lessons from CEO of Microsoft and Pope Francis

Do Women Have a Relationship Advantage In Business?

A study by Pepperdine University shows that women leaders in top positions continue to break industry records in terms of profitability and productivity. While more women than ever are obtaining professional degrees like MBAs, we are still far from gender balance in leadership in America’s top corporations. Gender balance can be achieved when there is 40-60 percent of either gender.

Some (controversial) studies show that the ways female and male brains are wired are ideally complementary. According to this view, women are naturally wired to act, think and innovate in ways that men are not.

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Managing Great Leaders Into Leadership: Stepping Up From Management To Leadership

Managers are expected to lead their teams, take responsibility for fixing issues and even make sacrifices in order to create value and show “leadership”. What does it mean to show “leadership”, though? Leaders are not just managers, they manage and lead. While a manager deals with the practicalities of getting things done in the most efficient manner (or the what and the how), a leader communicates why the work must be done. Whereas managers plan and coordinate, leaders inspire and motivate.

A manager administers while a leader creates conditions for innovation; a manager focuses on systems and processes to maintain the structure of the organization while a leader focuses on developing the people in the organization. A manager often works on short-range tactics, while it’s the job of a good leader to focus on the long-range perspective in order to create sustainability and legacy. Managers are under increasing pressure to grow into leaders and be able to fulfill expectations for both their managerial and leadership duties at the same time. They are expected to continuously prove their credibility by staying current and competent – and also be visionaries who inspire by modeling the way with integrity.

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Leadership Traits of Women and the Qualities That Make Them Excellent Leaders

Conversation about leadership traits can be dangerous because it presumes that people possess inherent and immutable personality traits that make them leaders. I strongly disagree with that view because I believe that anyone can learn attitudes, skills and behaviors that make them a leader in their unique ways. In addition, nobody is a leader by themselves. The time for a lone hero leader is gone. Leaders emerge in team or group environments, and as such leadership can shift from person to person and even evolve into co-leadership. However, the popular magazines among leaders and leader-wannabes regularly publish lists about the three, five or seven traits that make a leader. Obviously, there continues to be a yearning to know what qualities one has to groom in order to become an effective leader.

As the conversation about women as leaders has exploded, the interest in what makes an effective female leader has also become popular. Often the results of studies in which a handful of successful women have been interviewed are reported in popular literature with generalizations about the leadership traits of women. Again, dangerous ground. Generalizations that are based on stereotypes are a way for us to categorize things we don’t understand. This kind of a meaning making mechanism simplifies matters and makes things seem black and white. The more we understand, the more shades of all kinds of colors we’ll find.

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How to Prepare Leaders for Your Business

As your company grows, you need to grow your people, too. If you have been investing in developing your subject matter experts or people with a special skill set within the company, they will be ready to step into new, expanded responsibilities of a manager. There are many good reasons to promote from within rather than go hunting from the outside. The transition is usually smoother because the internal experts already know the product, people, procedures and performance expectations. They have tacit knowledge about how things are done, how the organization is structured and how people are expected to behave.

Every time you hire a new person, it is a strategic decision. You should hire them with your eye for the long-term; what future positions can they grow into as your company grows? Groom the future leaders now. This grooming means that you must invest in mentoring, coaching and training them. Without a continuous development plan for your employees, you cannot expect your employees to become superhero supervisors over night. If you do, you set them up for failure. And that will cost you time, money and relationships.

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Getting Noticed: Another Key to Gaining That Leadership Position

Moving up the management ladder takes more than hard work. Those who put in the endless hours can find themselves frustrated as find themselves skipped over come promotion time. While it is safe to assume that hard work does get noticed, it’s those who stand out that get promoted. Women know this very well – because “if workplaces were like school, women would run the world”. Getting noticed and promoted takes more than being a diligent, “good girl or boy”.

In order to stand out among your peers you need to know how you are perceived by others and of your impact on others. Who is paying attention to you and why? Stand out by being outstanding. The better you know your strengths and weaknesses, the better chances you have to focus your strengths and move ahead to a leadership role.

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Equality in the Boardroom: Why Female Leaders are Good for Society and Business

Companies that fail to invest in their female populations are underinvesting in the human capital needed to assure sustainability. While women around the world account for more than half of the talent, as a group, they remain marginalized with their social, economic and environmental contributions unrealized.

Female participation in the labor force is on the rise. In OECD countries, on average, only 60% of women are employed but in Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark, women already make up more than 70% of the workforce. Finland has the highest number of women in full-time employment, 84 % of total female employment. However, the pay gap remains even there. While Finnish women earn 19% less than male wage earners, the wage gap in Norway and New Zealand is 6%. On average, women around the world still earn 18% less than men performing the same job.

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A Great Leader Versus An Average Leader: Which Are You?

Watching charismatic leaders at work can make one wonder whether such leaders are natural born leaders or if there is a secret formula to be learned to being an effective leader. While there aren’t any real secrets to being an effective leader, there are, however, capabilities that differentiate a great leader from an average leader. These capabilities mixed with experience, hard work, resiliency and a little bit of luck can make a unique and powerful leader.

Perhaps you know some people who have hit their leader stride early in their careers while others find their path a little later in life. It’s also likely that you know people who just simply never seem to get their leadership footing. The differences in these leadership levels are often character related. Here are a few of the characteristics that differentiate average leaders from great leaders.
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What Friendship-Making Teaches New Managers About Leadership

Can you tell I have been busy? When there is a long gap between blog posts, it’s a sign of busy times. Not only have I been working with organizations that are investing in new manager leadership training and coaching, I have also had additional invitations to speak at conferences. Most recently I was invited to speak at an international women’s leadership conference in Singapore. It was a wonderful experience – sharing and exchanging ideas and perspectives with thought leaders from around the world. Exciting! Inspiring!

In the next few blog posts I will share some key points of my thinking based on my talk in Singapore. Here is the first installation.

Friendship-Making Leads to Trust

Most of us have a best friend. Even Oprah has Gail. Heidi is my best girl friend. I learned to trust her so much through the years we worked together and became such fast friends that I often told her that if I ever divorced, I’d move in with her because I so trust her. There is hardly anything we have not shared Continue reading What Friendship-Making Teaches New Managers About Leadership