Leadership Information

Women in Leadership - How to Get Promoted


It is often much harder for women to get promoted than men. The most common characteristic of successful women is that they know how to express their excellence in a male dominated environment. How do they do it?

Most of us are promoted to due to our excellence expressed through one or two opportunities. These were usually based on 'hard issues' that contributed significantly to the business in some critical period.

In our promotion, was the assumption, that we could work out how to express our excellence universally. For most of us this has not been so straightforward. We have had difficulty getting our message to the right people at the right time.

The 'critical periods' of the business generally took care of either the soft issues - the people based priorities, or the hard issues-the projects at hand, and we took care of the other.

Now that period is past and our leadership is being assessed on a different foundation. We are expected to lead on the soft and hard priorities of the business with equal competence.

The stock exchange intimately understands extraordinary performance to be leadership driven. Not all stocks command the same premiums, leadership and communication of the company vision is reflected in its stock price. When company management changes, stock prices reflect the mass perception of this change in leadership.

There has long been intense interest in the competencies that consistently deliver outstanding performance! Our knowledge of what causes the differences has increased dramatically. However, our ability to impart the knowledge broadly, to enable more people to achieve these results, has remained about the same. There is some assumption we have about how people learn high-level leadership skills that is not true.

There are three personal disciplines required of us to competently deliver results. All three are common knowledge, however only two are widely taught, externally measured and impartially assessed. The other is taught one-on-one and is measured objectively and subjectively.

Firstly, physical discipline - the willingness to work hard. Most knowledge workers intimately understand this. They work long hours, continually strive to fit more into each day and achieve quality decision-making. Physical discipline can be readily assessed externally, it is what we might call the breadth or scope of the work; how many issues we can manage simultaneously and not lose sight of our contribution to the vision.

Secondly, mental discipline - to be able to deal with the issue or meeting at hand, and handle it once. This requires us to leave other issues at the door. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes it is not. Mental discipline is the productivity of our leadership; how many sound decisions we are making that consistently support the vision.

Both these issues can be measured quantitatively to assess performance. The measurements are impartial and allow considerable flexibility of leadership style. Both disciplines are well understood and we can develop them readily in others.

Thirdly, we need emotional discipline. The ability to enable individuals, teams, or a community, to contribute to, or comply with our decisions.

This requires us to:

* Step aside from our own emotional reactions and so become unattached to the personalities and problems associated with the outcomes.

* Understand the emotional nature of our team, community or Corporation, to enable communication of the meaning to each of them, and,

* Through this be able to engage them to the vision in a meaningful and consistent way for delivery of the results.

This is complex behaviour, with little common language. It has a powerful input to the results depending what is fuelled - engaging, disengaging or fence sitting!

Women therefore need to be able define their emotional intelligence to express their contribution.

Emotional intelligence is ability to express the above three competencies at the right time, the right place and to the right people. This expression is delivered through insightful moments.

Leadership is measured by our ability to command insight in the critical moments of projects and personal interactions.

This article may be reproduced in printed or web format, provided the resource box below is included.

Rosemary Johnston is a professional corporate and personal coach. Working with executives from some of Australia's largest and most successful companies for over 15 years.

Rosemary's new book, "How To Develop Your Leadership Style and Skills" is now available to download at her web site. Read about some of the success Rosemary has had coaching leaders in Australian blue chip companies. http://www.leadershipfirst.com.au


MORE RESOURCES:

Timecruiser Extends Executive Team to Build on Market Leadership ...
MarketWatch - 6 hours ago
"Jose is an experienced and high-energy executive with proven leadership ability running large-scale business development operations," said Allen Wang, ...


BBC News

New leadership planned to fight WMD terrorism
Boston Globe, United States - 12 hours ago
The shortfalls in prevention measures are due in large part to the lack of leadership at the highest levels of the US government, according to the ...
Obama to Appoint WMD Terror Prevention Coordinator Global Security Newswire
Fact Sheet: Defending Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism Whitehouse.gov (press release)
General public must do its part to prevent future terrorist attacks Atlanta Journal Constitution
AFP - KVBC
all 977 news articles


Sparta Systems Demonstrates Global Enterprise Quality Management ...
MarketWatch - 4 hours ago
HOLMDEL, NJ, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Sparta Systems, Inc., a market leader in enterprise quality and compliance management software, today announced the ...


LAist

Jockeying Begins for Leadership Slot as Becerra Weighs Offer
CQPolitics.com, DC - 2 hours ago
Hilda L. Solis of California is also said to be a possible contender for Becerra’s leadership job. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio lost to Becerra in an election ...
Congressman Becerra Likely to Join Obama's Team President-elect ... NBC Los Angeles
California Democrat considered for trade job The Associated Press
Obama bringing in members of Congress Politico
all 98 news articles


Sears Holdings Announces Additions to Executive Leadership Team
MarketWatch - Dec 2, 2008
Previous to Banana Republic, he spent 19 years within various divisions of Levi Strauss & Co in global leadership roles, most recently as Vice President, ...


MICHIGAN QUALITY COUNCIL (MQC) NAMES The Detroit Athletic Club ...
MarketWatch - 59 minutes ago
The Michigan Quality Leadership Award is the highest honor for organizational performance excellence in the state. It is awarded after a rigorous review by ...


MedPage Today(R) Wins Platinum eHealthcare Leadership Award
SYS-CON Media, NJ - 6 hours ago
MedPageToday.com), received the Platinum eHealthcare Leadership Award, one of the select honors in the largest Web-oriented awards program focused ...


Leadership conference unites students
Reno Gazette Journal, NV - 9 hours ago
By Leah Kennedy • Special to Dayton Courier • December 3, 2008 Twenty Dayton High School leadership students pulled into their school's parking lot at 8 am ...


CBS News

Gov. Henry lauds Obama's leadership
Tulsa World, OK - 20 hours ago
By AP OKLAHOMA CITY -- Gov. Brad Henry says he's impressed with President Barack Obama's grasp of state issues and willingness to work with governors on ...
Obama offers help with stimulus plan Seattle Times
President-elect, nation's governors meet here to discuss fiscal fixes Philadelphia Metro
Democrats in House Plan a Package of Up to $500 Billion to Help States New York Times
all 2,223 news articles


Governor Rounds's Budget: Leadership or Cop-Out?
KELOLAND TV, SD - 3 hours ago
I understand that political leadership, like good parenting, means saying no at least as often as saying yes. It means facing reality, recognizing our ...

Leadership - Google News

home | site map
© 2006