Emerging Leader Spotlight: Pragati Ogal Rai

Name: Pragati Ogal Rai
Current title: Mobile Technology Evangelist
Company: X.commerce (an eBay Inc. Company)
Location: California
Favorite quote: “Learn to love yourself first and everything else will fall in place.”

1) What is the most important thing you have learned that has been critical to your career success?

Believing in myself and having a can-do attitude has been critical to my success.

a) What key steps did you take to get to the role you are in today?

I started networking with people who inspire me and started discussing my aspirations and ambitions with them. They not only encouraged me but also guided me to take the next steps in my career.

2) What is your leadership style? (Self-described and/or how others might describe you.)

I trust and believe in people I work with. I listen to what they want and how I might be able to help them. This helps me make great connections and makes work fun and interesting.

3) What tools or resources have you used that have been crucial to your success?

I am a technologist and enjoy learning new technologies. So I am a frequent visitor to websites that cater to my interests. I am also a big fan of websites/webnairs/coaching seminars that provide tips for self-improvement.

4) What steps are you currently taking to improve yourself, professionally?

I am following a three pronged approach: build strategic contacts, improve upon and learn leadership skills, and increase visibility within the company and externally.

5) What are some top tips you can recommend to other women who want to be recognized as a high potential emerging leader?

First and foremost, believe in yourself: you can do it. Build a network. Get a mentor.

6) What professional accomplishment or result have you achieved in the past year that you are proud of?

I am a frequent speaker at technology events and conferences. Most of the times, I am the only woman or one of the very few women who are on stage talking technology. This gives me immense satisfaction and inspires me to keep going.

From the Article Archive: How To Influence Without Authority

Question: I am in the difficult situation of being the unofficial project lead, responsible for team performance to schedule and budget. How can I influence and motivate the team to get the job done, when I do not have a job title that commands their respect?

Answer: Welcome to the tricky world of influencing without authority.

Leadership text books make a point of advising up-and-coming leaders not to accept responsibility for a business outcome without first negotiating a job title and hierarchical authority. This is great advice in principle, but here in the real world you may have an organization structure that is in a constant state of flux and management structures that are highly matrixed, not to mention a freeze on promotions. There are times when an emerging leader needs to roll up their sleeves, engage the team, and get the job done.

At a women’s leadership event, Dr. Cecilia Kimberlin, Vice President, QA, Regulatory Affairs and Compliance with Abbott made a point of saying “There is a myth that the higher you go in the organization and the more positional authority you gain; that you can just to say “do it” and people get it done. I hate to bust your bubble.”

Learning to influence without authority is one of the most valuable skills you can learn. It is similar to motivating a volunteer army, as you do not have hire/fire authority, just your ability to influence, persuade, motivate, and engage. Learning these leadership soft skills is a vital step in the transition to make on the journey from employee to manager.

As a senior-level woman in a manufacturing organization remarked recently “In my company, influencing skills are the single most important success factor after knowing your job.”

So while positional influence is something to aspire to, until you have it, remember that there are five other highly useful forms of influence that technical women can take greater advantage of:

Your Six Sources of Influence

1. Positional influence: The authority that comes inherent in a job title and role.
2. Relationships influence: The influence that grows as you build good working relationships and coalitions with others in your organization.

When people know, trust, and respect you, you are less likely to need to influence, cajole, or persuade. It can be as simple as just asking for what you want.

3. Expertise influence: The influence that comes with your background, experience, qualifications, and career accomplishments.

Technical organizations place a high premium on this form of influence, so make sure your academic achievements and technical accomplishments are known to others.

4. Resources influence: Having the ability to attract and deploy the resources you require to get your job done.

When budgets and headcount are tight, it is important to demonstrate that resources allocated to you are invested well. It is a mistake to turn down additional resources that could help you perform your job. Negotiate for the resources you need, then use them well to show that you are a good custodian.

5. Informational influence: Having a finger on the pulse of what is going on in the organization.

Seek out information about changes before they become officially known, e.g. new projects, opportunities, re-orgs, resource allocations, budgets, or long-range plans. Having a heads up on this information helps you make better decisions, sooner.

6. Direct influence: Being firm, fair, and professional when someone’s behavior is out of line.

You need to be able to have those “tough-love” conversations, in the rare instance when someone’s behavior is unacceptable. By fully using all of your sources of influence, you can gain credibility, get buy-in for ideas, and make a larger impact in business, with or without the positional authority of a job title.

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching, Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars and coaching programs.

From the Article Archive: How Can I Break Into Closed Networks?

Question:

Given that I have always worked in a male-dominated industry (very often I am the only woman in the room or one of very few), in an engineering capacity, how can I break into the closed networks? It seems that people are just not treating me as one of the "guys". With my most recent layoff I get the opportunity to start from scratch, so I want to do it right from the beginning.

Jo Miller answers:

Viewing workplace coalitions as a "closed network" or "boys' club" will only disempower you.

Resist the temptation to write it off as a "boys’ club". Instead, you may gain a lot by understanding what drives and sustains all of the informal social networks around you.

When starting a new job, one of the most valuable exercises you can undertake is to understand those informal networks in your new workplace. Do this well in your first few months and you will find that navigating the "networks" and office politics become much easier. Consider acting as though you are a "cultural anthropologist", closely observing the communication and relationships playing out around you in your new organization.

Aim to identify:

• Individuals who have formed strong one-on-one working relationships
• Groups that have formed tight coalitions, where everyone works well together and looks out for one another.

Observe closely and you may discover that all not guys get along with all other guys. Often what may have appeared to be a "male network" includes some women and excludes some men.

Try to figure out how these relationships and coalitions formed, and what the glue really is that keeps these relationships and groups tight. For example, do they have a common academic background or interest? Did they work together for a previous organization or leader, or are they of a certain personality type?

Identify the key people of influence in your new workplace. If you make a point of cultivating good working relationships with them first, others in the group who respect those influencers may come to accept and respect you too.

Whether you decide you’ll attempt to break into the club or not, gathering this information will give cues as to how you can work most productively with those individuals and groups.
You may ultimately need to decide, what’s more important: to be liked or to be respected? Having cordial, respectful, productive working relationships may be just as effective as being treated as “one of the guys”.

Jo Miller is CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching Inc. which offers women’s leadership seminars and coaching programs.