How To Take The Lead - Day 9

One of the greatest disappointments I had in my corporate career was watching what happened when a woman was put in a high enough position that she might have an influence on the corporate culture.

The first time I was naive and idealistic. The second time, encouraged but ultimately disheartened. I'd like to tell you about the third and fourth but in twenty-five years there wasn't any third or fourth.

Each time it was the same thing. I would be optimistic that the glass gate surrounding the boys' club would be cracked. Women would be given a voice that would be listened to, not simply a seat at the table.

But it never happened. Instead, the newly minted executives didn't lead as women. They led as men. They didn't bring their inherent attributes to the table, their sense of perspective and intuition and attunement. They didn't mentor and support other women. They dug their heels in deep into the patriarchal model they had inherited. They didn't change the corporate politics. They played the existing game. 

My experience was not unique. 

I've heard it again and again and unfortunately I still hear it today. Women telling me the woman they report to does nothing to change things and everything to maintain the status quo. Many will say they find them less reasonable and supportive than any man they ever worked for.  

It saddens me but I understand why.

No one taught them how to lead as women. They were taught to lead as men - by men. 

They didn't know any differently. Plus those positions of power they had arrived at were tenuous. One wrong move and out they go. So instead of really trying to make a difference, they led so as not to  upset the apple cart.

The good news is things are changing. There is something very different in the air today than there was five years ago when I signed those corporate divorce papers.

It seems as if everywhere I turn I meet women who are committed to changing the paradigm and to supporting each other. One of them is Gloria Feldt.

I met Gloria just a few months out of the corporate world at one of the first 85Broads events I ever attended. Gloria has done a lot of amazing things since then. The most recent is co-founding Take The Lead Women, an organization dedicated to preparing, developing, inspiring and propelling women to take their fair and equal share of leadership positions across all sectors by 2025.

One of the things Take The Lead does is teach women  leadership skills and how to access their power so that they can drive the change needed in the workplace. These types of organizations and resources did not exist before. The good news is - they do today.

Interested in learning how to take the lead?

You can sign up for the next Take The Lead webinar right here. Use the code ttlead2 and you'll get a 20% discount.



note: This is Day #9 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

Why I Will Vote Tuesday And You Should Too

There is only one thing that makes me crazier than when I hear a woman claim she is a Romney/Ryan supporter. It’s when a woman says she may not vote. Actually it makes me crazy when anyone tells me they may not vote. Ask the Greek on the corner of Broadway and 62^nd Street who owns the coffee cart where I buy my Christmas tree every year.

Friday morning when we were catching up on how we made it through Sandy, he interjected how he had a fight with his wife that morning. He told her he was so mad that there wasn’t enough aide getting to his neighbors, he wasn’t going to vote. She kept telling him he had to. I did the best I could, telling him she was right, reminding him that if Romney gets elected it wouldn’t be an issue to get angry about because there would be no aide to get there. Ever. There would be no FEMA. Romney would get rid of it.  By the time I left him I made him promise he would vote. He said yes, but refused to look me in the eye. So I’m not convinced he will. But I did start to worry about something other than Sandy and the destruction and upset she has left in her wake.

I started to worry about people voting. Which is unusual because as a rule, I am not a worrier. I prefer to trust and turn things over to a power greater than myself. But when I do worry, I write. And today it is about why you should vote.

I can’t profess to understand why any woman would cast a vote for a man who represents a party that does not support women’s rights, one who changes his opinion more often than he changes those expensive shirts he wears. A man who reminds me of that charmer with a nice smile we’ve all fallen prey to at sometime in our lives. The one who will tell you anything you want to hear. Until he gets what he wants and then he is back to his old ways.

In the case of Romney, we can’t be sure what those ways are, he changes his views so often. But his party doesn’t nor does his Vice Presidential running mate. They are clear that they do not support women’s issues. They think they, as policy makers, should determine what a woman should do with her body. Forcibly. They think we should all do what their God says is moral and right, even if ours might be saying something different. They claim to believe in less government intervention, except when it comes to a women’s body. They say they want job growth and a balanced budget yet they made their priority for the last four years that President Obama not be given a second term.  They are the party of hypocrisy.

But to not vote at all. To not exercise our right as free citizens in a democratic society.  That to me is the most immoral act of all.

So yes, I will vote on Tuesday.  And I will vote for President Barack Obama.

• I will vote because I can.  In 1912 just one hundred years ago, women were not allowed to vote. Which meant my grandmothers did not have the option as young women. They would be angry with me not to.
• I will vote because I’ve been given a voice. I will use it. We all complain when we are not heard. A vote is our chance to exercise that voice.
• I will vote because my vote does count. And so does yours. And the next person and the next. Collectively we make a difference.
• I will vote because apathy is not an attractive quality. Thinking my vote will not make a difference is a cop out. It does and it will.
• I will vote for all of our daughters, nieces, sisters and every generation to come. As the Dalai Lama has said, it is Western Women who will heal the world. That can’t happen with people in power who want to set women back fifty years and suggest placing an aspirin between ones knees as an effective method of contraception.

If you are a woman or as Nicholas Kristof stated so well in The New York Times, one of  “the men who love them” you should be voting too.

If you live, like I do in the areas hit by Sandy, it may not be as easy to fit in your day.  But that is not another excuse not to vote. It’s another reason why it is so important.

Vote Tuesday, November 6, 2012.



Note: A version of this article also appears on The Huffington Post

A Confession And A Warning

I haven't been blogging as much as I normally do or I would like to. Today was the day I was going to do it. Sit myself down in the very expensive Herman Miller Aeron chair I invested in when I first embarked on life as a solopreneur. The one  that is supposed to make it more comfortable for my bottom to stay in one place for an extended period of time, set my famous egg timer and get to it.

But I strayed. Every time I opened up Safari and logged into my blog I had to endure the latest headline of the moment flashing across CNN. Politics. Politics. Politics. The Polls say this. The Polls say that.

And I realized why I hadn't been blogging. It wasn't that my chair is really not comfortable. It is. It wasn't that I had nothing to say. I always have something to say. Sometimes it just makes more sense than others.

It's that I've been trying to stay away from commenting on what I think about the incessant commentary. The drama of the political theater. All those people saying ridiculous things and acting like they have divine insight into what the outcome of this election will be, when the truth is the only powerful source most of them are connected to is their bank account.

I've been trying to stick to my subject matter. The stuff of living and working as a solopreneur with a post-corporate view. But I confess. I cannot. If this blog is going to thrive on new content in the next month, my political viewpoints are going to sprout up. That might make some of you happy. And others not so.

But I have to. Especially since my opinion will never be counted in a Poll. You see I don't answer the phone if I don't recognize a number. Just to prove my point I broke my rule this evening.

The phone rang. I saw it was an 877 number but I picked it up anyway. Just in case, one of those 'poll of polls' was actually going to ask for my opinion.

It wasn't. It was a solicitation for money. But if it had been a poll  this is what I would have said.

One debate does not make a President. Especially when the best of show is someone with multi-personalities and opinions that change as often as he does his nicely pressed shirt.

And then I would have asked why so little is being said about  the glaring omission of women's issues in the debates. How can a conversation include health care and not bring up women?

Of course, my marketing background knows that even if I did answer the phone, the kind of questions asked leave no room for open-ended answers, much less my questions. Which is just one more reason for me to express them here.  And of course, on Election Day.

Cracking The Code On Business Casual

If you are like me the phrase "business casual" conjures a picture of pleated khakis and a golf shirt, neither of which I would  be caught dead in. That term cropped up often in my corporate life, whether  on a memo for "casual Friday" or an off site meeting.  If was followed by "Jeans OK" I relaxed a bit. But mostly it caused me to break out in a sweat over what I was going to wear.

The definition is pretty clear if you are a man.  No tie, the dreaded khakis, sports coat, and for those really daring men, perhaps sockless as long as those feet are tucked inside an expensive pair of loafers. Definitely no sneakers and a pressed, pulled together look. But how does this translate for women?

I'll tell you it doesn't. In the post Mad Man era, this to me has always been one of those unspoken reminders that we women are relative newcomers to the business world and femininity has little place.

My closet never contained  "business casual" mostly because I never really figured out what that meant for women.  I had my work clothes, the suits and dresses that I collected that fit into my fashion mantra of look good and feel good with style. Then I had my play clothes, that for the most part would be looked upon as too distracting at a conference table.  So when "business casual" cropped up on the menu I mixed and matched some concoction that fit in with my mantra and made me feel  "casual".  There is no doubt that the longer my seniority and the higher up I went on that corporate ladder, the more I pushed the conventional envelope. I had, after all earned it.

When  I saw "Attire: Business Casual" on the agenda for a seminar I attended yesterday I felt that old famaliar twisting angst in my stomach. If I didn't have a lot in my closet that fit the bill when I was in the corporate world I have less now. And as a Personal Coach, Author and Blogger who works from her home "business causal' might mean yoga pants and flip flops.

I struggled until I found something that would work with temperatures hovering near 90 in NYC and worries about how high the air conditioning might get. I read a feature in  The Times on how New York women dressed to deal with the heat, but none of the suggestions would be deemed appropriate in any office I worked in, business casual or not.  I went with my fashion mantra, what I felt good in, was comfortable, looked pulled together and stylish and perhaps stretched the limit of what others might deem appropriate. If I am reinventing my business life, I can reinvent how I dress for it.

But I did giggle when I saw the speaker hit the stage, the same one who had written in the clothing attire suggestion, a self made millionaire, stood in a sleeveless magenta dress with a plunging neckline and strappy sandals that would be deemed worthy of Carrie Bradshaw. Clearly she too has struggled with what the term "business casual" means for women.

The bigger issue is that even in a new century  what women should or should not wear in business remains unclear and controversial, something that is not true for men.  For me what I wear is a statement of who I am, how I am feeling on a given day and where I am off to, business or otherwise. I dress  to please only myself with the caveat that I am pulled together and wearing clothes that fit well. Or as my friend Lori Sutherland,  soul stylist and founder of Dame Lori Ltd  says in a way that taps into "the essential life force spirit within each of us."