Helping Professional Women Band Together and Build Strengths

From TheGlassHammer.com:

There has been a noticeable change in the way women help other women in the workforce.

“In the past 10 years, I have seen a huge push among senior level women who are passionate about mentoring,” said Jo Miller, Founder of Women’s Leadership Coaching “to help emerging women leaders gain access to networks, role models and opportunities.”

Read the article >>

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to be successful as an executive?

Find out by joining this year-long series of six webinars featuring senior executive women guest speakers, hosted by Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc:

Executive Women Leaders Webinar Series
Learn proven strategies for transitioning from manager to leader, leading high-performance teams, taking purposeful risks, and becoming a results-oriented visionary. This program is for ideal women who are corporate executives at Director-level or above.

Topics include:

• Being A Visionary
• Executive Presence
• Purposeful Risk-Taking
• Leading High Performance Organizations
• Transitioning from Manager to Executive
• Executive Work/Life Balance

Guest speakers include Liz Iversen, SVP, Mission Assurance, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Kelli Crane, SVP/CIO, Thomson Reuters, Sheila Carnicelli, Managing Director, UBS and other outstanding executive women.

Starts February 2, 2010. Learn more or register now for $399 >>

(Not an executive yet? Check out the Emerging Women Leaders webinar series)

Corporate Packages
Would you like to offer the webinars to a wider audience within your company? To learn more about discounted corporate partner packages, visit http://www.womensleadershipcoaching.com/execwebinar.htm

Why have womens' networks been growing in popularity recently?

After giving the same soundbyte to two media outlets in 2 days, I figured it was worth a blog post.

In the past, we heard too often about the senior executive woman who climbed the ladder in high heels, then kicked the ladder away, letting it fall on someone else! Their philosophy was "I got here without any special help, I never had any issue being a woman, so where would be the benefit of singling out women out for special treatment". This was demotivating for up-and-coming women who saw role models of a type of female leader they didn’t want to become.

This has changed slowly but surely in the last 10 years. I am seeing a big push among senior women leaders who are passionate about mentoring to help emerging women leaders gain access to networks, role models and leadership opportunities.

In practice, this looks like senior-level women founding or sponsoring their company’s women's network, and showing up to participate as sponsors, mentors and guest speakers. They are gaining the attention of leaders at all levels as they talk up a compelling business case: that companies with more women leaders do better, and that women now make up the majority of college graduates and the early-career pipeline of leadership candidates. As a result of their influence, more companies funding their women's initiatives.

If you're not a senior exec and you want to launch a women's network at your company, don't let that stop you. There are women's networks that have been founded and funded through the efforts of volunteers at all levels. What they have in common is energy and passion to drive the initiatives, and to influence their leadership to gain legitimacy and funding.

Ask Jo: How to build a leadership brand that your company values

Every month I write about a career or leadership topic for the Anita Borg Institute's web site.

For this month's article, I interviewed Titina Ott, Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness with a leading global software corporation, about how to build a leadership brand that demonstrates how you are adding value to your company.

Ott believes it is so important that every employee is able to create a direct “line of sight” between what they do each day to their organization’s bottom line, that she leads webinars for employees on how to do this.

Read about her 5-step approach to creating a brand that your company values >>

2010 Gender Equality is Here, and Other Media Myths

From Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of our partner blog The Glass Hammer:

The Economist kicked off the year with Rosie the Riveter on the cover, proclaiming “We did it.” What exactly did we do?

Well, we became 50% of the workforce, generally, across all industries. We can interpret that in two ways, either as a positive advancement for women as they are able to have economic freedom by earning their own wage or that that women have to work to support themselves and their families; it does not necessary mean that we are actually getting somewhere as leaders and managers in equal numbers to men.

I have to be honest. I had to check that I wasn’t reading an old copy of the Economist from January 1980...

Read the post at TheGlassHammer.com

Partner event: San Francisco Women in the Boardroom

Women in the Boardroom, formerly known as Women on Boards, is an executive leadership event designed to assist in the preparation of board service – better qualifying you and connecting you with the right people and resources. Our panelists are executives with for-profit board experience and a desire to share their knowledge and necessary tools for serving as a director. Although the focus is for-profit boards, much of the knowledge gained can be applied to non-profit service.

Having originated in 2002 in a single city, Women in the Boardroom has now become an annual event, scheduled to be in 15 cities in 2010. Don’t let the name fool you. All current presidents, directors and professionals in leadership roles – men and women – are encouraged to attend as an opportunity to mentor, learn from each other or find their next great executive or board member.

The event begins with a two-hour panel presentation and Q&A. Topics of discussion include:

• Role of being a director
• Differences of a non-profit, private and public board
• Board selection process
• Being an effective board member
• Positioning yourself for board service/taking the next step

The role of women on boards continues to evolve, as have all other leadership roles for women in business. In today's corporate climate of increased scrutiny of board governance, boards of directors are being held more accountable than ever. Composition is being closely watched and CEOs and directors are frequently broadening their search for new board members to include women and minorities.

Currently, women represent only 15.2% of Fortune 500 company board membership and Women in the Boardroom is out to change that!

Panel Includes: Nora Denzel – Senior Vice President & General Manager, Intuit’s Employee Management Solutions; Barb Allen – Retired President, Proactive Partners; Maria Sainz – CEO & President, Concentric Medical; Erika Williams – Board Member, VPEP Technologies, Inc.; Panel Facilitator: Wendy Beecham – CEO, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs

Monday January 25, 2010 – 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Hotel Sofitel San Francisco Bay at Redwood Shores – 223 Twin Dolphin Dr, Redwood City, CA 94065

Cost: $125 individual tickets. To register online: www.SanFranciscoWOB2010.eventbrite.com

Panel: Expanding Your Circle of Influence, January 13

When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series
Friday, January 15 from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. NetApp, Building One, 495 East Java Drive, Sunnyvale

Women who make an impact in business know that you do not need to hold an impressive job title to be a leader who makes a difference. Being an influencer requires:

- Knowledge of effective influencing techniques

- Finding your personal unique influencing style

- The determination to make great things happen.

Hear first-hand how our panelists establish credibility, gain buy-in for ideas, engage co-workers and lead business results regardless of whether you have direct authority.

Facilitator Jo Miller, CEO, Womens Leadership Coaching Inc.
Panelist Julie Cullivan, SVP of Sales Operations, McAfee
Panelist Kristine Gallegos-Haehl, Trade Professional Manager, PG&E
Panelist Gwen McDonald, SVP, Human Resources, NetApp
Panelist Titina Ott, Vice President, Organizational Effectiveness, Oracle

To register >>

New Year, New Habits, New Goals

Over at the Engineering Gal's Insights blog, Allison Goodman is making her career and leadership resolutions. They include working less, delegating without micromanaging, and improving her self-promotion skills.

Read her post here >>

What are yours?

I prefer to set goals, keeping the list as short as possible. Here are mine for 2010, in no particular order:

1. Double WLC's business revenue
   
2. Get fit (for me, that means being able to run easily for 2+ hours)
3. Get well (shaking off a bout of illness from last year)

Hopefully I do so well I'll only need 2 goals for 2011.