DM Coaching and Development

Britain's 100 Most Entrepreneurial Women

This month, Bank of Scotland and Real Business published their report on Britain's 100 Most Entrepreneurial Women, many of whom are household names. In the publication, Real Business columnist Margaret Heffernan writes: “Entrepreneurial women make money – for themselves and for the country. But (just like their male counterparts) that isn’t what motivates them. Rather they seek the opportunity to discover, stretch and develop who they are. They set out in search of an adventure that’s both personal and public. And the 100 women profiled here have found it.” To download a copy of the report for yourself, visit http://www.realbusiness.co.uk/news/business-woman/5568296/britains-100-most-entrepreneurial-women.thtml 

Women Face More Redundancies but Men More Stressed by Unemployment

New research from the University of Cambridge suggests that men are hit harder by credit crunch stress. Earlier polls suggested that more women say they are worried about the possibility of losing their jobs than men, and indeed there has been a sharper decline in women’s jobs than men’s. However, the research suggests men may put on a braver face, as job insecurity causes more symptoms of anxiety and depression in men than in women. Dr. Brendan Burchell's team looked at thousands of people since 1991 and found that while men claim to be less concerned about job insecurity than women, they show more signs of being stressed, anxious and depressed. “In part there is a macho issue about men being the breadwinner,” Dr Burchell said. “Men, unlike women, have few positive ways of defining themselves outside of the workplace between when they leave school and when they retire. Despite several decades of more equal employment opportunities for men and women, men retain traditional beliefs that their masculinity is threatened if their employment is threatened.”

Attend "The Confident Manager" Seminar on March 25 for £10 donation

My colleague and friend, Kate Atkin, is running an evening seminar on themes covered by her recent book "The Confident Manager" at Borders Book Store in Cambridge (12 Market Street) on the evening of March 25th. The event is a great opportunity to learn more about management skills and the confidence needed to reach those positions. Plus, it's a fundraiser for the Papworth Trust, a Cambridge-based  charity.

As Kate says: "Worrying about how the credit crunch will affect you doesn't help, and can even be destructive". Get proactive and attend this seminar starting at 6:30pm for a suggested donation of just £10. 

Are Women of Wall Street Being Disproportionately Laid Off?

This month, Forbes magazine writes about the number of sexual discrimination class action suits that are piling up against banks ranging from Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America over the last year - as massive redundancies have been rolling out.  The article compares what is happening now to the class action suits of the 1990's: "This time the offenses are not the boorish behavior and outright harassment that gave rise to a total $400 million in industry settlements but something more subtle: making women bear a disproportionate share of the layoffs. In the worst financial crash since the Depression, financial services and insurance firms have cut 260,000 jobs. Seventy-two percent of the missing workers laid off have been women, even though they constituted 64% of employment before the crash began. As one plaintiff, Wan Li, bluntly puts it in a separate suit against Citigroup, which has been settled: Women "are unfairly selected for layoff over male employees with lesser merit or qualifications because of their gender."

If it isn't Illegal or Unethical, Find a Way to Get it Done

One tip for career success is to accept the project that intimidates you, even when everyone else says it can't be done. I once worked with a project manager in a major IT firm who had made her name by taking a few of the projects no one else thought would work. She was once asked to run a new technology adaptation for the whole of Europe, Middle East and Asia - a task that involved liaising with a wide variety of personalities, each with their own set of priorities - especially as she had been brought in half way through as the project had been destined for the scrapheap. It was given to her because people who were better known didn't want to touch the project and she was considered to have "less to lose". After re-prioritising her diary and a few sleepless nights, she pulled the disparate parts of the project together on time. This was a coup that quickly catapulted her into the leagues of those more senior with high profiles. It also taught her that she actually thrived under pressure and that coasting in a job that she was technically able to do, but no longer challenged her was no longer enough. The quickest way to become successful is not to wait until you feel you have taken every course, have every qualification or wait to opportunities to be given to you, but to proactively seek them out. The unofficial motto of the successful woman in these fields is to "just say yes". 

Women Less Tolerant of Women's Mistakes than Men's

  Women often tell me they prefer to work with male bosses than for other women. While I don't think one gender make better managers than the other, I did come across some research from the US journal Psychological Science and summarised in The Telegraph which goes some way to explaining why some women may have this preference. "The research team from Emmanuel College in Boston asked male and female college students to rate their room-mates under different scenarios. When asked to judge how they would rate their room-mates if they carried out a single fictional act of negative behaviour, after they had been otherwise completely trustworthy, women were far more likely to be critical of them. Men, on the other hand, were much more tolerant. Women were also more likely to switch to a new room-mate than men were, and were much quicker to form negative impressions of the other woman. The authors, led by associate professor of psychology Joyce Benenson, concluded that women were harsher on their peers because they expected more from their same-sex relationships than men did. While the study did not take place in the workplace itself, it would appear to back up previous surveys that have found women prefer to work for a male boss."  Sound familiar? We can be our own worst enemies.

MBA Programmes Try to Attract Women

With the economic downturn, many M.B.A programmes are struggling to attract students and are keen to attract more women, as they are in a real minority in most programmes. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal "Experts say fewer women attend executive M.B.A. programs for many of the same reasons they shun full-time programs. Some women are deterred because the programs' formats interfere with raising a family, something experts say men don't worry about as much. (Most E.M.B.A. programs require a nearly two-year commitment of two long weekends on campus each month.) Other women have a tough time securing company sponsorship for the costly degree. And women who see a glass ceiling in their company often believe the degree won't help their career. What's more, until recently, most efforts by schools to entice women to earn advanced business degrees have been aimed at flagship full-time programs." Have you ever considered an M.B.A. programme but were put off? What hindered you?

Women's Intuition - Why the Backlash?

I am writing a section on using intuition in the workplace in my upcoming book, and I found this recent online article about why intuition serves women in male dominated fields so well. I can only agree. As an executive coach for professional women, I hear many women tell me how intuition told them something was amiss with colleagues or on a new client project, before they had the hard evidence. That's why I was so suprised by the vitriolic comments that followed the article! Check out the article and post a comment on this site to let me know where you think resistance to women using intuition stems from? 

Criticism at Work...Don't Take it Personally

Women are often very passionate about their work. Pair that with the fact that we are raised to build consensus and it is no suprise we are more likely than men to take criticism on the job very personally. The thing to remember is that criticism is just one person's opinion, and often not even about us - but about the way they perceive something should be done or has been done in the past. In fact, it often sheds more light on the person giving it and their particular values than tell you anything about the recipient. Criticism is just information - feedback. Often the person giving it doesn't even know you well enough for them to like or dislike you - which means it can't be taken as a personal affront anyway. As a I have specialised in a niche area of coaching women who work in male dominated fields, people have criticised my specialism - but I have to stand by the courage of my convictions and know that I will never please all the people all the time. Plus, the further you climb professionally, the more criticism you will be open to because of your increased visibility. It comes with the territory of success. You will have to get used to it, learn from the gems that people pass on but not let criticism deter you from your path.