How Women Manage Office Politics – Yes, We Can Play the Game!
Leaders, Office Politics are a fact of corporate life; positive or negative – politics happens. The reality is that politics is how power is managed on a practical basis everyday. The drama that unfolds as co-workers and top leaders play the game, form alliances, take credit, manipulate, trade favors to move upowards, show favoritism or schmooze can be interesting, entertaining, exciting or frightening – depending on your perspective. Raise your hand if you hate politics! Shouldn’t talent, performance, and hard work be what advances our careers, ladies? Source: Fotolia / User: studiostoks Think about it. Did you know that ... more than half of the employees in organizations are female as relates to the lower hierarchical levels? With each higher level, the number of women continuously decreases. And at the CEO level, worldwide, there are only 3% to 4% who are women. according to a 2015 Women in [...]
Is the Key to Effective Leadership Female?
Leaders, A couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed to contribute to an article for CFA Institute Magazine. The article’s subject was around (gender) differences to effective leadership. Wanda Wallace, Suzanne Bates, Katie Christy and other powerful women leaders were interviewed, too. I feel very honored to have been chosen to be part of this terrific expert group. In essence, the article states that the differences in terms of leadership approaches and styles between men and women are blurring. Men and women have many similar leadership characteristics. Yet, social and emotional qualities that are necessary for a company’s success but not valued highly are more attributed with women leaders. Also, women look more at the long-term and provide more feedback when they are in managerial or leadership roles. Women respond to stress differently than men in that they go into “worry-mode” and tell themselves that they cannot do it for [...]
9 Habits of Politically Savvy People
Leaders, The term ‘Politics’ is based on the words ‘Poly’ and ‘Ticks’, ‘Poly’ meaning many, and ‘Ticks’ meaning blood-sucking parasites. Whenever people’s priorities, values, and interests diverge, some type of politicking usually takes place. Office politics are inevitable, and involve intentional acts of influence to enhance or protect the self-interest of individuals or groups. Foto Credits: Markus Püttmann Office politics can be defined as the strategies that people play to gain advantage, personally or for a cause they support. The term often has a negative connotation, in that it refers to strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and relationships within it. “Good” office politics, though, help you fairly promote yourself and your cause, and is more often called networking and stakeholder management. The major intention of office politics [...]
Make Change Happen: Remember the Essence
Leaders, Might be you have already heard a lot of the necessity of communications during times of organizational change or - might be not. There is tons of literature on change communication out in the market, and in this article you will find an executive summary for when there is a situation that requires you as the CEO or member of the senior leadership team to communicate changes in your company. Source: Pixabay/ CC0 Publice Licence: User Alexas_Fotos When we talk about change communications in an organization, we focus on unexpected and involuntary changes for the company and/or for individuals, which very often result in unpleasant and painful consequences. Organizational change is very often linked to restructuring of the firm, a merger, a downsizing or move of a business unit. On rare occasions, communicating change is about sharing hooray messages, but very often relaying though messages in [...]
Feedback with Impact
Leaders, Sometimes it’s hard to tell or to hear the truth. It is one of the biggest fears of human beings to be judged by others. I am sure you are aware of that and have an idea as to how people in your remit typically respond to feedback. Those common reactions to constructive feedback probably sound very familiar: Source: Fotolia User: freshidea Hostility, resistance, or denial – Employees attack your credibility and the facts in the performance review. They do not acknowledge the issue, deny that the incidents took place, or downplay the impact of their actions. Indifference – Employees react to the feedback in an apathetic manner, and do not fully commit to doing things differently. Lack of confidence, or self-pity – Employees are uncertain in their abilities to succeed or are risk-averse. Responsibility skirting – Employees may acknowledge the negative feedback but may play [...]
The Key Ingredient for Communicating Change
Leaders, How can you maintain composure and empower your staff during a seemingly endless transition period? How can you reassure your employees that despite the turmoil, your company’s strategy and mission remain clear? How can you motivate your staff to embrace change and add new skills to tweak the way they perform? The simple answer: By having presence. Photo Credit: Otmar Brettschneider Showing up as a leader is about demonstrating presence, and presence is fundamentally about confidence; not the confidence you have in yourself, but the confidence you inspire in others so they are willing to follow where you are leading. Presence may be difficult to define, but we all know it when we see it. Presence is not an all-or-nothing commodity. Rather consider it a continuum, with your physical attributes, natural talents, communication skills, and character traits plotted along the way somewhere from one end to [...]