by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
Many of us are struggling to make sense of the unnecessary and devastating hurt and damage caused by racism in our communities. As a Latina who was born and raised in NYC’s South Bronx, I have witnessed the pain and long-term damage caused by deep-rooted racism.
By virtue of my faith and profession, I interact with individuals from all different walks of life. What I’ve learned as I engage with my network is that some will internalize the issues of the day and proactively take steps to effectuate change. On the other hand, others will hear the news, see the images on TV and disassociate from what is happening.
The reality is that regardless of whether the events of the day impact us personally or not, we ALL have a role to play in ending the cycle that perpetuates bigotry, hatred, and violence.
As women leaders at work, at home and in our communities we play many roles. We are daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, friends, managers and employees. We are uniquely positioned to influence others and help to shape the narrative. We can each take small steps that will lead to impactful long-term change. We can start by standing up and speaking out in love. Here is how . . .
Let’s pray for peace, understanding and love.
Let’s not pretend that “everything is ok”. We have friends, neighbors, and colleagues who are stressed, anxious and afraid. Ask how they are doing and let’s show them we care.
Let’s not judge another’s pain if we haven’t walked in their shoes.
Let’s educate ourselves and others about racism and its effects on communities.
Let’s speak up against hate and not tolerate racist jokes, comments or behavior.
Let’s create a future where tolerance and understanding is reflected in how we speak, how we interact and how we embrace those who are different than we are.
Let’s do the deeply personal work to grow in our compassion and empathy for others and use better judgment in how we engage with people of diverse backgrounds.
Today we have an opportunity to better educate ourselves and engage in courageous conversations that can lead to healing and transformative change. How will we respond to the call?
#blacklivesmatter #standupandspeakout
by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
Successful people fascinate us. We are intrigued by how they live and how they achieve success. So, we study their habits and best practices. In studying the time management techniques of successful people like Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and Albert Einstein, serial entrepreneur Michael Simmons discovered a common practice these high performers shared. He calls the practice, compound time.
Compound time refers to the large return that is generated over the long term from a small investment made now. If you want to focus your time so that you have maximum impact as a leader you can adopt the practice of compound time, too. According to Simmons, here are 6 practices you can adopt that will allow you to compound your time:
- Keep a Journal: Engaging in regular journaling can have a major impact on your personal development. For example, use a prompt to flesh out your thoughts around an idea or a concept. Perhaps there is a leadership quote that really inspires you. Use that quote to launch your journal entry and write about how you can incorporate qualities addressed in the quote into your leadership style. Perhaps you are experiencing a personal challenge. You can use that challenge as a prompt to explore possible solutions. Using prompts during journaling will help you process your thoughts and will help you become a more effective leader over time.
- Take a Nap: Research shows that napping has many benefits from reduced stress to improved memory. Napping allows you to clear your mind and boost your energy. You can accomplish so much more with a clear head and extra energy to get you through those tough days.
- Go for a Walk: Top performers include exercise in their daily routine. Walking is the most common form of exercise and it’s the easiest to incorporate into a daily routine. Walking gets your blood circulating and improves creativity.
- Read: Reading is no doubt the quickest way to access information and gain knowledge. Investing time in reading articles and books about subjects that can enhance your life and leadership abilities can be life transforming.
- Talk: There is nothing like sharing and co-creating with someone who is like-minded. There is power in banter, discussion and debate. A sharpening occurs when ideas are shared and fleshed out. This kind of exchange can lead to creative work with long lasting impact.
- Experiment: Many of the high performers that we read about today are not overnight successes. Their success came after experimenting with many methods and business models. Only after much trial and error have they attained success. Success requires a level of risk and experimentation to refine ideas and perfect solutions.
So, if you want to follow in the footsteps of high performers, slow down the pace of your busy life and begin to incorporate these 6 activities into your daily schedule and routine. You will see that over time, compound time will pay rich rewards.
by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
I recently interviewed author Julia Mateer.
Julia just released her book, Lifegiving Leadership: A Woman’s Toolbox for Leading. She is also the co-founder of Generation Eve, an online community for women focusing on leadership, relationships, and parenting. She is also a wife, mother, and licensed mental health therapist.
During our interview, Julia shared about her background as a mental health therapist in a private practice for 10 years. Her main focus was working with at-risk adolescent girls. Over the years, she transitioned into becoming a full-time pastor. For the past four years, she has directed small groups at a large church in her area. She focuses on writing and maintaining her relationship with her husband of 33 years. She has three adult children and one grandchild.
Julia was inspired to write her book, Lifegiving Leadership, after finishing up her career as a therapist working with women facing clinical and spiritual issues. Largely influenced by her Christian faith, Julia observed her patients with a unique perspective. “One of the things that I noticed caused women the most heartbreak was relationships, particularly relationships with other women,” Julia said. She considers this a point that many Christian women struggle with and noticed many have trouble finding the support and encouragement they need.
The purpose of her book is to help these women the tools to develop healthy, lifegiving environments within the church setting so fellow women can find healthy relationships and opportunities to minister and impact people’s lives with the love of Jesus.
Tools to Help Women Lead
“For us to be able to lead others, we have to be able to lead ourselves,” Julia said. In her book, she covers several ways to accomplish this:
- Develop your observational skills
- Develop your ability to find quiet and stillness in a busy world
- Be willing to seek help for any “heart blockages” we have that might inhibit our ability to lead from a healthy place.
- Learn how to develop a healthy team and how to affirm and bless your team
- Learn how to foster good relationships with members of your team
- Learn how to be a champion for the women you’re mentoring and developing
Leadership Goals and the Challenges They Bring
Julia says the main challenge facing women leaders is balancing family life with leadership goals. As she began developing as a leader, she said one of her biggest struggles was “being able to keep the integrity of my family while I was going to graduate school, while I was taking on more responsibility in ministry, and staying before the Lord to protect my heart and making sure I was following His leading, too.”
Another challenge facing women leaders is keeping themselves healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually in high-stress roles.
Faith and Career Goals
Most of Julia’s goals are directly influenced by her relationship with Jesus Christ. She became a Christian at age 19. “My goal since then is to filter everything I do through Him,” she said. This impacts every area of her life, including her roles as a wife, mother, therapist, writer, pastor, and leader. It influences how she leads and how she respects others. It drives her to help others to grow and take their next steps. She wants to lead through the lifegiving love of Jesus, which inspires her to show integrity and honor as she fulfills her various responsibilities.
Generation Eve
Julia launched Generation Eve, or GenEve, a little over a year ago. The idea stemmed from a desire for an online community that could foster authentic conversations with women about important issues facing them every day: what it’s like to be a woman leader and the challenges that brings, issues in relationships, parenting issues, and various faith topics. The community includes people from all walks of life and many different ethnic backgrounds, each bringing her own perspective to the group. She wants the conversations to be inclusive and encouraging. To learn more about GenEve, visit www.generationeve.com. Julia is in the process of developing several new books about parenting and women’s issues. She also wants to begin hosting live events for her GenEve group.
You can connect with Julia by emailing julia@generationeve.com. To review Julia’s complete list of leadership tools, her book, Lifegiving Leadership: A Woman’s Toolbox for Leading, is available through online book retailers.
You can listen to the full interview on the Leadership Strategies for Women Podcast.
by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
I recently interviewed Renee Weisman: author, consultant, and former engineer.
Renee Weisman was a distinguished engineer and Director of Engineering at the IBM corporation prior to retiring in 2008. Having spent nearly 40 years in the heavily male dominated semi-conductor engineering industry, often as the only woman, Renee learned firsthand how women can hold themselves back. Renee is the owner of Winning at Work Consulting and the author of the recently-released book, Why Hillary Lost: What Women Can Learn from the 2016 Election. The book focuses on the behaviors women must understand and the biases they must overcome to succeed. She uses the 2016 election to show how the female disadvantage impacted Hillary’s campaign and gives competent women advice on how they can address similar situations. She published her first book, Winning in a Man’s World, in 2008. Renee has two daughters, five grandchildren, and a very supportive husband.
During our interview, Renee shared her experience working in a male-dominated industry. She also explained how this experience gave her a unique insight while witnessing the 2016 presidential election. “I saw Hillary making many of the same mistakes that I’ve spent so much time advising women to avoid,” Renee said. She decided to write a book for women to address the unique challenges Hillary faced as a woman and the lessons all women can learn from her campaign.
Likability vs. Competence Trap
There are two things that occur when women compete for something that’s perceived as a “power-seeking position”:
- We tolerate untrustworthiness and unlikability in a man much more than in a woman
- Competency isn’t necessarily a virtue for a woman. “For a woman, the more successful you become, the less liked or trusted you will be, especially if you’re seeking power,” Renee said.
Renee described several fascinating studies regarding biases related to gender. All these studies show that likability and competence is directly affected by gender, much more than experience or evidence of talent. “We can’t hide behind a curtain at work, and the reality is that the biases are still there, and unfortunately, women have to deal with them,” Renee said.
But Renee remains optimistic. Though the biases are there, they can be managed if they are addressed. “If you ignore them,” Renee said, “they will come back to bite you. They will impact your long-term success in your career.”
So, what can a modern professional woman learn from the 2016 election? Renee provides several pieces of advice:
- If you want to get ahead as a woman, studies and statistics show that it’s more important to be likable than to be competent. “If you’re not trusted and not liked, most people will not care if you’re competent or not,” Renee said.
- Let people know you and be relatable.
- Be more inspiring.
- Avoid being perceived as the “B-words”: bitchy, bossy, bully.
- Find a balance between these perceptions and practice awareness in your behavior.
- Use the correct data. Get your facts straight before you try to convince someone else.
- Get together the right team to work with you and support you. Have a diverse team with many different points of view.
- Understand your audience when you’re speaking.
- Learn how to apologize.
- Address your appearance. “Even today, people judge a woman by how she looks, and then they start listening,” Renee said. “Appearance is critically important, not because you have to look so good, but to make sure appearance is a non-issue. You don’t want to look so different that people are paying attention to what you look like. You want them to pay attention to what you’re saying and doing.”
Renee’s advice would be useful to any woman looking to get ahead in a male-dominated field. Her book, Why Hillary Lost: What Women Can Learn from the 2016 Election, is now available on Amazon Kindle. She has plans to write a new book addressing harassment in the workplace.
You can listen to the full interview on the Leadership Strategies for Women Podcast.
by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
For women leaders, having confidence is a huge advantage in careers, life, and relationships. It’s the key to attracting the right job, the right people, the right decisions from others, and achieving goals.
All women leaders have a baseline of confidence. Some women leaders have unshakable confidence built upon strong foundations; others find their confidence level is a bit shaky when faced with mistakes, criticisms and failures.
Confidence is closely tied with our sense of self-esteem. Self-esteem enables us to experience ourselves not only accurately but gladly. It’s a realistic, appreciative opinion; we can be honest about our strengths, weaknesses and everything in between, and still feel good about who we are.
There is a difference between the outer appearance of confidence and deeply felt intrinsic self-worth. True self esteem is steady; it doesn’t lead to complacency or overconfidence, but rather is a strong motivator to work hard.
Foundations of Self-Esteem
According to Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D, author of 10 Simple Solutions for Building Self-Esteem, self-esteem is built from three factors: unconditional worth, unconditional love and growth.
- Unconditional Worth: This means that a woman leader’s worth isn’t increased or diminished by external factors, but is based on her true value as a human being. This can be confusing to women who have learned they must achieve and acquire in order to be considered worthy. Once we, as women, believe in our intrinsic worth, we are relieved of the need to judge ourselves and others, or compare and compete on external values and factors. We can choose to value our own innate capacities and see the many ways we contribute to the well-being of ourselves and others.
- Unconditional Love: Abraham Maslow noted that psychological health is not possible without love for the essential core. Even those who have not experienced unconditional love from parents can learn to provide love to themselves and others. Love helps us experience our worth, feel satisfaction, and enjoy growth and life.
- Growth: As women, we feel better about ourselves when we are living constructively, learning, making decisions, developing and growing. Growing does not change our core worth, but it helps us experience it with greater satisfaction. In summary, self-esteem is a sense of satisfaction that comes from recognizing and appreciating our intrinsic worth; it encourages us to choose to love and grow. It’s not based upon comparing and competing. We can enhance and enjoy our sense of self-worth through learning, growing, achievements and goals.
Getting Rid of Negativity
Without doubt, our own critical nature eats away at our confidence more than any outside judgment, mistake or failure. Over-active negative mind chatter can cause women to react defensively in neutral situations.
Many of these habits of thinking are learned and can be unlearned. Forget about blaming parents, teachers, and people who didn’t like us when we were growing up. No matter what happened to us or how we ended up with negative reactions, we can learn to disconnect from harmful automatic thoughts.
We can replace negative thoughts with positive ones that will make us more effective, happier, and self-confident. Ultimately, we are responsible for the thoughts we choose. We can’t control many things in life, but we can control our thoughts.
We lose confidence when we apply negative thinking to ourselves or other people. No one escapes these intrusive thought patterns. The key is to become aware of them. Once we catch ourselves engaging in automatic distortions, we can re-think, reframe, and revise our thoughts.
For example, we might be thinking, “I can’t possibly get this done in time. I’m too slow in the mornings. My brain doesn’t work that way.”
We can reframe the self-talk like this: “I don’t like having to work in a hurry, especially so early. I’m not sure I can finish, but at least I can start. Maybe my brain will wake up after a few stabs at it.”
By acknowledging the reality, we avoid catastrophizing and assuming, and we agree to do what is possible by starting.
When we look at what we can do, instead of what’s wrong, we give ourselves a chance to succeed and grow from the experience. When we guard against distortions and negativity, our confidence grows instead of withers. Our minds start to acquire more positive thinking habits. We set ourselves up for success and build self-confidence.
by Ellie Nieves | Leadership Strategies for Women
Someone in your company may have recently been promoted to a leadership position. This person successfully competed against other qualified candidates, some of whom were probably just as experienced and smart. As often happens in judging one candidate over another, the decision most likely came down to degrees of “executive presence” or what some refer to as the “It” factor.
Executive presence incorporates a range of verbal and nonverbal patterns (one’s appearance, posture, vocal quality, subtle movements)—a whole collection of signals that others process into an evaluative impression of a person. The concept of presence raises serious questions for women with ambitions of career advancement. If, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests in his book Blink, decisions are made intuitively, what do we need to know about “executive presence.”
As it turns out, everyone’s definition of the term seems to differ. But planning your career and determining your leadership development needs shouldn’t be left to guesswork.
Women who want to be promoted to the C-suite, must learn how to acquire or improve their level of executive presence. Women leaders who are already in senior management, must help nurture executive presence in the people they want to groom for succession.
The qualities associated with executive presence can be difficult to learn and practice. Most people aren’t born with executive presence. They develop the requisite skills with experience, maturity and a great deal of effort.
Executive presence should not be confused with speaking or presentation skills. They’re part of the total package, but presence is what you project wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. A woman leader’s challenge lies in managing others’ perceptions of her, which is no small task.
Work to develop the following 11 qualities that contribute to the “It” factor:
- Transparency: Be genuine, open, straightforward, comfortable in your own skin. Aim for truth and clarity, even when difficult issues arise. Don’t try to please or cover up with spin.
- Passion: Love and feel strongly about your profession, job, industry and life in general. See and believe in optimism.
- Clarity: Communicate your thoughts, feelings and insights with crystal clarity and simplicity. Master metaphors and stories that make an impact.
- Intelligence: Develop the ability to process, retain and apply information, whether it’s academic or street-worthy.
- Pattern Recognition: Sharpen your ability to boil down complex factors and mounds of data to rare conclusions. Offer insights others may not see.
- Results-Oriented: Be driven and full of purpose; determined to achieve and succeed. Able to discern dichotomies, unravel paradoxes and work with uncertainties. Flexible and willing to adjust goals. Be decisive under pressure. Have a bias toward action. An attitude of giving, rather than getting. Work in the service of common goals for the organization’s and society’s higher values.
- Confidence: Communicate confidence even when you don’t have all the answers. Ask questions and listen.
- Humility: Be willing to admit mistakes. Seek answers and advice; listen to others.
- Courage: Be willing to take risks and positions against considerable odds. Work to perceive possibilities and innovations.
- Humor: Develop a balanced sense of humor that is not over-the-top, but in the right measure to disarm others’ defenses.
- Social: Genuinely care about others; see both strengths and weaknesses in people. Allow for people to learn from mistakes. Promote healthy self-esteem in others. Respect others and show a real—not manufactured or superficial—interest in them.
Keep in mind that no single woman leader possesses all of these qualities in abundance. For example, many successful CEOs with strong executive presence lack one or more of the likeability factors, such as humor and humility, but they make up for it in other domains. Ultimately, your executive presence is reflected in the energy and image you convey, along with your understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
