Women, men and office politics

After my Office Politics workshop at the Network of Executive Women Leadership Summit, a woman stood up to ask:

"Do men and women handle office politics differently?"

One of the two men at the session, Tom, proceeded to unleash a big belly laugh, so I invited him to speak up.

Tom described his observation that men get more emotional at work: they yell more and overtly show their frustration, while women seem much more calm in the face of conflict.

Count me among the 150 women in the room who were surprised to hear it.

Becoming a Person of Influence, at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

I presented How to Become a Person of Influence on Wednesday 9/30 at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, followed by a panel of senior-level women in industry who are role model influencers. The ballroom filled early with 600 women, setting a new high bar for me professionally!

Valerie Bubb Fenwick, Staff Engineer with Sun Microsystems summarized the session her blog post, remarking "if you want to be a leader, you have to be a leader!" I recapped a couple key parts of the presentation with video bloggers Erin "Ed" Donahue Ed and Ashley Myers.

Why You Need to Become a Person of Influence



Your 6 Sources of Influence

Panel - A Person of Influence - In Real Life

After my workshop at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, we brought together a panel of senior-level technical women in industry to build on the influencing principles discussed on my workshop, bringing the theory to life with their stories of influencing in the real world.

From left to right:

Jo Miller, CEO, Women's Leadership Coaching Inc
Rebecca Norlander, Partner Engineering Manager, Microsoft
Wei Lin, Sr. Director of Engineering, Symantec
Romea Smith, Sr. Vice President - Customer Support, CA
Dr. Ann Quiroz Gates, Associate Vice President of Research, University of Texas at El Paso
Nina Bhatti, Principal Scientist, HP Labs (Watch Nina's post-panel interview. )

Highlights from the discussion included:

• Hearing about panelists' personal influencing style, and influencing skills they use.

• Why it is important for technical women to learn how to influence

• Advice for women on how to become stronger influencers

• Times when they have tried to influence a person or situation, and failed--how did they recover?

Podcast: Paving Your Road To Leadership

I was invited to be guest speaker on the Paving Your Road to Leadership internet radio show. Host Ellie Nieves and I discussed common mistakes women make, that hold them back from advancing into leadership.

Listen to the podcast on BlogTalkRadio>>

How To Influence Without Authority

Every month on the Anita Borg Institute's site, I answer a career or leadership question.

Question:
" I am in the difficult situation of being 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?"

Read the column at AnitaBorg.org

Influence others in every conversation you have

Women who break through into senior-level leadership get there by delivering results, and knowing how to influence, with or without direct authority.

Laurie Oare is Senior Vice President/General Manager of Next Day Gourmet National, at US Foodservice.

“You can influence others in every conversation you have. In a subtle way, we convey our confidence and professionalism in every interaction that we have with co-workers, customers, superiors and subordinates”, Oare explained.

Oare joins the Women's Leadership Webinar Series as guest speaker in October, to share her tips and personal experiences on the topic 'Becoming a Person of Influence'.

The webinars are ideal for your corporate women's network group. Purchase a log-in, and invite colleagues to watch with you in a conference room. After the 60-minute webinar concludes, ask them to stay for a discussion group. We'll provide discussion questions to get things rolling.

Learn more about the year-long webinar series >>

Office Politics: Your questions answered by Nina Simosko

The Women's Leadership Webinar Series kicks off 8/19 with "Winning at the Game of Office Politics" with speaker Nina Simosko, of SAP's executive team.

Last time Nina joined us for a webinar, she fielded numerous questions on her favorite topic, office politics. In true rock-star style, she has blogged answers to all of them!

Read Nina's answers>>

Register for the year-long leadership webinar series >>

Join the Women's Leadership Coaching group on LinkedIn

Women's Leadership Coaching Inc helps women create a roadmap into leadership positions in business, with seminars, webinars and executive coaching.

Join our LinkedIn group to share leadership ideas and resources, and to network with other like-minded women.

Four Tips for Becoming a Visionary in Challenging Times

Think you can't become a visionary? Think again!

During a recent women’s leadership webinar, I asked Krista Thomas, Vice President, Marketing and Communications for The Calais Initiative at Thomson Reuters, how a person should determine what their organization needs in these challenging economic times.

In addition to answering the question, she addressed a more intriguing issue - how to provide visionary leadership during challenging economic times.

Read the article at TheGlassHammer.com >>

Top 5 reasons to register for the Women's Leadership Webinar Series

Our most recent webinar series attracted rave reviews. Here's what participants are saying, and why you should attend.

1) Get tips and motivation to enhance your career
"It was an inspiring presentation. I hope to have a new position soon and am grateful to have these insights and strategies." - Participant.

2) Hear from inspiring women leaders
"It's great to see and hear about so many women leaders. Very motivating." - Participant.

3) Network with other women at your company
"The women were wow'ed at the presentation and stayed afterwards to discuss the things they learned." - Fortune 500 Financial Institution.

4) The price is right
"Thanks for offering these sessions, and for the reasonable price. It's been a fantastic way for other women in our organization to connect and discuss careers and business opportunities." - Herman Miller, Inc.

5) 80% of participants rate the webinars "very good" or "excellent"
"... all but 1 person gave the webinar the top rating of 5 for knowledge of presenters, value of topic, amount of information, meeting webinar objectives, and for the webinar overall. Yeah!!!!!" - EEO Special Emphasis Programs Specialist, Dept of Homeland Security Headquarters.

Begins August 19. Register now for the year-long program >>

How can I break into the boys' club?

Every month on the Anita Borg Institute's site, I answer a career or leadership question.

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 male networks? It seems that people are just not treating me as one of the “guys”. With my most recent lay-off I get the opportunity to start from scratch, so I want to do it right from the beginning.

Read the column at AnitaBorg.org

Free Executive Briefing Webinar, Friday 6/26

On Friday June 26 at 10am Pacific time, I'm hosting a free 30-minute executive briefing webinar.

Learn how my company, Women's Leadership Coaching Inc, helps women create a roadmap into leadership positions in business, with seminars, webinars and executive coaching.

This informational briefing is ideal for:

• Individuals interested in career advancement
• Managers who want to develop their high-potential women
• Corporate women's networks.
  

Register now (free) >>

Registration is now open! Women's Leadership Webinar Series, starts 8/19

In this year-long, six part webinar series, learn proven strategies for gaining credibility, establishing your brand as a leader, expanding your influence, and leading breakthrough business results. The program is designed for emerging women leaders in corporations.

In every webinar, learn leadership skills, and hear an outstanding woman leader from industry share her experiences, and weigh in with real-world leadership advice:

• Winning at the Game of Office Politics 8/19/09
• Becoming a Person of Influence 10/21/09
• Your Sphere of Influence 12/16/09
• Create Your Leadership Brand 2/17/10
• Are You The Invisible Employee? 4/21/10
• Resiliency Redefined 6/16/10
  

Hear first-hand what it means to be a leader, and what it really takes to break into leadership.

Register now >>

Ask Jo: Funds are not available for training

Every month on the Anita Borg Institute's site, I answer a career or leadership question.

Question:
Funds are not available to send employees to training, but training is needed. What options are there? How can I learn more about my field without spending money?

Read the column at AnitaBorg.org

Delegating Makes You a Mentor

By guest blogger, Ruth Halpern, of Halpern & Associates.

Wondering how to get started as a mentor? Delegate a project to someone today!

I was training a group of attorneys recently who said that they simply don’t have time to mentor young associates—it takes more time to delegate a task than to do it themselves. This is a tough complaint to argue with, because in the short term it’s true: it often seems easier to do a task than to break it down, teach someone else how it should be done, and coach them through the process.

The long term view, however, is that we can’t afford NOT to do it. If we don’t pass on our expertise and know-how, our organizations will be unable to survive us—we’ll have no skilled, well-trained successors. To put it another way, it’s our duty to our employer to mentor and train younger members of the organization. When we postpone or avoid this task, and try to do everything ourselves, we’re dooming the organization.

So, given the importance of mentoring our successors, how do we get past the “I don’t have time” barrier?

Last week, when I was presenting a program at the Northern California Human Resource Association’s HR West Conference, I attended a wonderful training session that provided a good answer to this question. Jo Miller, CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching, Inc., presented a program on “Becoming a Person of Influence.” Jo presents the components of influence very clearly, and one thing resonated with me more than anything else: you can increase your “resources influence” by delegating projects to other people.

Naturally, you don’t delegate in an, “I can’t be bothered with this” way.

Instead, you might pull someone out of the crowd, saying “You’re the right person for this job. You may never have done anything like this before, but I’ve been watching you, and I’ve seen that you have capabilities that go beyond your job description.”

What Jo explained is that you can expand your influence by assigning tasks to people within your organization who might be stretched—and increase their competence, confidence, and reputation—by taking on a task you don’t want to do. You gain in several ways simultaneously:

• You gain influence, by demonstrating that you’re a person who can build a team and get things done.
  
• You gain time, by delegating a project to someone else.
  
• You gain a loyal ally, someone who believes in you because you believe in them.
• You establish yourself as a mentor while learning how to delegate skillfully.

When it’s spelled out like this, why wait? Delegate!

Read more at Ruth Halpern's blog, http://rhalpernassociates.blogspot.com/

Fear stays silent but passion speaks

Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer, Cisco, delivered an inspiring and heartfelt keynote titled “Fear stays silent but passion speaks” at last night's 2009 Women of Vision Awards. Prior to joining Cisco, Warrior was CTO at Motorola, where she led a team of 26,000 engineers.

Her five key points were:

1. Every transition brings with it a growth opportunity
-Look at transitions as an opportunity to gain skills.

2. You can gain speed in the turn
-Focus, and prioritize. We have to look at it as an opportunity.

3. Leaders blur boundaries
-It is important to have the ability to work across boundaries in the company, across company boundaries, and country boundaries.

4. The best way to gain recognition is to give it away.
-People are afraid credit will be taken away. Give recognition away. Give credit openly and freely.

5. Opportunity is a mold waiting to be expanded -There's no such thing as a perfect fit for a job. It is up to each of us to break out of a mold and create opportunity. If you are passionate about something you'll find the courage, and opportunities will come to you.

Honored as Women of Vision award recipients were:

• Innovation award: Yuqing Gao, Senior Manager, IBM Research, IBM
• Social Impact award: Jan Cuny, Program Director, National Science Foundation
• Leadership award: Mitchell Baker, Chairperson, Mozilla
  

UPDATE: Videos about the three winners are posted on the ABIWT channel on YouTube.

Ask Jo: How do I become a visionary?

Every month on the Anita Borg Institute's site, I answer a new career or leadership question.

Question:
My biggest question/challenge is on establishing vision. This feels a lot like uncharted territory for me. I am a good “executioner”, but don’t see myself as being a visionary and would appreciate information in regards to that.

Read the column at AnitaBorg.org

Career advice from Boeing's SWE National Conference Highlights event

Past Society of Women Engineers award winners described their career paths in a panel moderated by Tamaira Ross, Boeing Associate Technical Fellow.

Angie O'Gorman received the 2005 SWE Distinguished New Engineer Award. Earlier in her career, Angie had spent five years in a job that gave her little scope for career growth. She found her work had become mundane, used SWE to develop her leadership skills, and her management appreciated it.

Terri Morse was recipient of the 2008 SWE Distinguished Service Award. At a time when her job wasn't stretching her, she volunteered for SWE as a way to create a leadership career path, and in doing so proved to her manager that she could handle bigger assignments.

Arlene Brown was nominated by SWE and received the 2008 Puget Sound Engineering Council's Industry Engineer of the Year Ward. Arlene recommended reading "Men are from Mars" to understand gender differences on an intellectual basis. But to really get it, she said "if at all possible, go mentor males" to learn about gender and cultural differences.

Hayley McGuire was recipient of the 2008 Distinguished New engineer Award, and spoke of the time she was disappointed to be turned down for job rotation program. A mentor said "honey, create your own rotation program"... and did she! Hayley's career goal: " to accomplish that's not been done before, such as find a way to use nuclear propulsion to get us to Mars in half the time".

Ask Jo: How do I approach high profile industry experts?

Every month on the Anita Borg Institute's site, I answer a new career or leadership question.

Question: I have the opportunity to meet high-profile industry experts and influential thought-leaders at a conference. How should I approach them and what should I say? Is it OK to send an email to follow up? These people are highly sought-after and busy. I don't want to be a nuisance.

Read the column at AnitaBorg.org

Speaking at conferences in CA, NE, IA & KS

Here's a list of where I will be speaking in March & April.

Savvy Geek Chix, March 24, Palo Alto CA

Weathering the Economic Storm

Invent Your Future Conference for Women, March 31-April 1, Santa Clara CA

Topic: Recession-proof Your Career by Enhancing Your Networking Savvy.

ICAN Women's Leadership Conference, April 2, Omaha NE
Topics: Under the Influence of You, and Recession-proof Your Career with Networking Savvy.

Society of Women Engineers Santa Clara Valley Section, April 9, Sunnyvale CA

Topic: Creating Your Brand as an Emerging Leader. RSVP to Ashley Pietz.

Iowa Women's Conference, April 15-17, Coralville IA
Topic: Creating Your Brand as an Emerging Leader.

The Women's Lyceum, April 21, Kansas City KS
Topic: Creating Your Leadership Brand.

NCHRA Conference 2009 - The HR West 25th Annual Conference, April 28-29, South San Francisco CA
Topic: Becoming a Person of Influence.