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Female Leadership: The Most Undervalued Traits

Written by Natalia

women leadershipIt’s not such a long time ago that we wrote about a piece of research on female leadership , where we saw that people have actually started to recognise women as leaders. After our last post on Top Qualities Of Effective Leaders, I wanted to come back on the subject of female leadership. And, believe me, not without reason!

I received an email on Monday night telling me I had to read a great article published some days ago on Forbes. To be completely honest with you, even as I’m writing this, I have already read the article 4 times! And every time I see in it more people I recognise; traits of women I look up to, role models, even relatives.  Glenn Llopis, the author, has written the most comprehensive article on women’s psychology and way of thinking I’ve read for a long time. And from my point of view, the most extraordinary thing is that it is written by a man.

“I was surrounded by strong-willed, hardworking and purpose-driven women. It is through their leadership that the traditions, values and legacy of our family have been upheld.  My grandmother, mother, wife, and sister-in-law all possess natural leadership skills and they are masters of opportunity management – seamlessly keeping us all in check while running the family household and at the same time supporting our family businesses.  They have taught me that a woman’s instincts and emotional intelligence can be off the chart. They seamlessly manage crisis and change and are turnaround experts – sensing and neutralizing any signs of danger well before it invades our path. It is because of the women in our family that we are well-organized, full of love, spiritually aligned and well-balanced. We are by no means a perfect family, but we are a modern family who embraces traditions even as we adapt to changing times.”

I could almost feel you nodding while you were reading that. And even for our male readers I bet it was difficult not to think of their mother, their sister, their wife. Throughout this article, you will see attributes of almost every woman you have ever known.

These attributes are what makes women great leaders. We are born with these characteristics. These traits are in our genes. It’s up to us to make use of these traits and become the leaders we were meant to be.

Although there has been a huge improvement over the last years on rejecting gender stereotypes that want women not to be “leader material”, we have a long road ahead of us. But we can’t expect the world to see things differently, unless we teach them how to see things from another perspective. We have to show them they are wrong. We have to show them that female leadership is not just a ‘trendy’ phrase, nor a joke. If we want to change the world, we have to show them that women can be great leaders!

Read the article here: “The Most Undervalued Leadership Traits Of Women”

I’ll close with the author’s last two sentences with the hope his wish comes true: “Rarely have I read something from a man who has been inspired and influenced by the wisdom of a woman’s leadership.  Hopefully this perspective helps awaken more of us to the opportunity of learning about leadership from the women in our lives, whether in the home or at work.”

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Filed Under: Career, Leadership, Success Tagged With: Authentic Leadership, female leadership, Leadership, leadership attributes, leadership traits, Success, undervalued leadership traits of women, women as leaders

Brian Tracy – Top Qualities Of Effective Leaders

Written by The Career Success Doctor

Qualities Of Effective Leaders Brian TracyMoodling round the internet, looking for ideas for a summit a colleague and I are creating (more of that to come), I came across an article and video by Brian Tracy on the Top Qualities Of Effective Leaders. Since my PhD thesis is on Leadership and Spirituality, I’m always curious to find out what other people have to say on the subject of Leadership.

As well as being a personal development expert, Tracy is also a super salesman, so this recent article on leadership is very much geared up to selling his book. However, he does know a thing or two whereof he speaks, and he does have good ideas, so I took a few moments just to absorb what he has to say on the subject.

Change The Way You Think Of Yourself As A Leader

As Tracy points out, Leadership is essential in all walks of life. It’s easy to say ‘Oh, I’m not a leader’ but if you want real career or business success, then you’d better step up and become one! I remember going on a leadership course over 15 years ago. It was a personal development course, and I thought I wanted to be seen as a leader at work. What I discovered was that, if you’re going lead others, whether it’s in the workplace, at home, in your social life, in your helping the community life, you first have to learn how to lead yourself.

Pity I hadn’t studied with Tracy (although I’m not sure effective leadership was his thing back in 1996), because he talks about the importance of personal/self development for leaders.  I love the following comment: ‘You are what you think you are. Your self-concept determines your performance. You can become a much more effective leader by changing your self-concept, by changing the way you think about yourself as a leader.’

‘Your self-concept determines your performance’. Have you noticed that in your life and career?

What ARE The Qualities Of Effective Leaders?

In the video on The Qualities Of Effective Leaders which is linked to the article – and which, presentationally, is a bit clunky, but never mind – Tracy highlights the following points which we need to take on board to become good or great leaders.

  • Top leaders focus on their strengths and developing their strengths and the strengths of those around them.
  • Good leaders know how to be role models in and outside work
  • Integrity – people follow people they trust
  • Choose your boss with care.

I particularly like the last one!

Meantime here is the link to the rest of the article on 2 Leadership Traits Needed to Become a Great Leader.

What do you think? I’d love to see your comments.

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Filed Under: Career, Career success, Leadership Tagged With: Brian Tracy, Effective Leadership, Leadership, Qualities Of Effective Leaders

Career Success And Personal Branding: Self-Promotion 101

Written by Natalia

career successIt might surprise you, but personal branding is much more important for your career success than you think. No matter how hard you work and how good you are at what you do, if you don’t pay attention to your personal branding, achieving career success will be rather difficult.

Personal Branding and Self-Promotion

What’s the connection to career success? Why do we need to promote ourselves in order to succeed?

It is a fact that there are a lot of people (most of them women) who truly hate to talk about themselves; what they do, what they know, what they have to give. They believe their advertisement should be their work. They think that self-promotion is like bragging. I know, I am one of them! (at least I used to be – I’m making progress)

But it isn’t like that at all! The truth is that self-promotion is about demonstrating your value. And demonstrating your value is about building your personal brand.

And don’t forget: every time you are applying for a job, you are selling yourself. The ‘product’ is you! And like any other product, you need a good advertisement.

This is why my choice for today is Margaret Buj’s article on ‘career attraction’. Her article is meant to help people who feel awkward advertising themselves. She provides five tips for promoting ourselves with ease and confidence.

You Need to Change Your Perspective

Authentic self-promotion is about giving and sharing. You are not bragging; you’re giving and sharing your gifts with the world. You’re sharing ideas that can change a person’s life.

Self-promotion is about strategically building your personal brand to ensure that those who can help you accomplish more in your career will know not just who you are, but the value you have to offer and how you’d like to add more of it.

The truth is, people aren’t going to know how talented and accomplished you are unless you tell them! If those who can help you accomplish more in your career don’t know who you are and the value you have to provide, it doesn’t serve anyone.

You can read the whole article here: “How to Promote Yourself with Ease and Confidence”

Even if you won’t be able to implement all of these at once, with one step at a time you’ll be one step closer to your career success.

However, I’d like to endorse the statement in the closing paragraph of her article: “Letting the fear of being criticized determine what you do is a surefire way to never achieve what you want in work or in life“. What a valuable lesson! If you manage to adopt this way of thinking in your life, you can’t even imagine how much happier you will be and how free you will feel! It’s the only way of pursuing your dreams and letting them come true…

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Filed Under: Career success, Leadership, Success Tagged With: building your personal brand, Career Success, career success and personal branding, Leadership, Personal Brand, Personal Branding, self-promotion, self-promotion for career success, self-promotion tips

Best Jobs For Women

Written by Natalia

best jobs for womenWhat were the best jobs for women in 2013 and what are the predictions for this and the coming years? Some years ago, if a girl wanted to work there weren’t many options. Nowadays women are working in all fields. From factory workers to CEOs, and from police officers to pilots, women can be found in every working environment. And it is not uncommon in our century for females to run the household finances, and -more recently- to run businesses.

But what are the best jobs for women these days? What were the most high-paying career options last year? What do statistics show about working women?

In the infographic below, published in Visually by Graphs, you will see a nice summary of every kind of research around the topic ‘professional women’.

According to research, 73% of working women had white collar occupations in 2009 and it is projected that women labour force will be increased to 78 million by 2018.

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the best-paying job for women in 2013 was the one of the pharmacist. In the second and third place were lawyers and computers and information systems managers accordingly. Great news for women in STEM: in this top 19 there are many professions in that field.

The job of the physician’s assistant is the highest paying job in the top 10 career options for women, followed by that of the video game designer. It is worth to take a look at the jobs that women outnumber men. Among them are school teachers, insurance underwriters and HR managers.

Looking at the countries with the highest percentage of women’s entrepreneurship I was surprised I didn’t see the United States or any of the ‘big’ European countries (the ones with the strongest economy). Thailand has the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs in the world! Peru, Colombia and Venezuela are following. To my amazement, Greece -where I come from- is ranked in the 9th place!

It is a fact that women are starting new firms at twice the rate of all other businesses. Today, women-owned businesses in the Unites States represent nearly 40% of all US businesses. The most interesting fact is that women-owned businesses employ 35% more people than all the Fortune 500 companies combined!

Best Jobs for Women

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

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Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership, Pay And Remuneration Tagged With: best jobs for women in 2013, best paying jobs for women, career options for women, female entrepreneurs, high paying jobs for women, jobs for women, professional women, women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurship, women in STEM, women-owned businesses, Working Women

Professional Leadership Development: 5 Encouraging Signs For Women

Written by Natalia

leadership developmentGreat news for women who are committed to their professional leadership development and aim to be bosses! According to Aaron Guerrero’s article in US News, “trends are slightly moving in the favor of females who want to lead“.

I particularly enjoyed the part where the author refers to a Pew Research Center survey. Its results showed that Americans rate women superior to men in many leadership qualities, and believe that they are equal to them in some others. With women being the minority among business leaders, I find this study quite encouraging. It was about time for people to understand that women are competent, are not meant just to follow, and acknowledge their leadership skills.

Mary Barra made history this month when it was announced she’ll become General Motors’ first female chief executive officer.

Over a span of 33 years with General Motors, Barra, 51, has moved up the ladder from intern to chief of global product development and soon CEO, succeeding Dan Akerson on Jan. 15. When she starts her new post, Barra will join the ranks of 23 other women who head Fortune 500 companies. What’s more, she’ll be the first woman to lead a major automaker.

For some women, aiming for a higher office can be stalled by worries about work-life balance. In an October Pew Research Center survey, 51 percent of working mothers said being a working parent made it harder to advance their career, compared with 16 percent of working fathers who felt the same way. Other women may feel held back by sexism in the workplace. According to an August 2013 Gallup poll of 1,309 adults, about 15 percent of U.S. working women surveyed said they have at some point felt passed over for a promotion or opportunity at work on account of gender.

Still, here are some encouraging reasons why more women might be moving up in the workforce.

Read the whole article here “5 Encouraging Signs for Women Who Want to Be Bosses”

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Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership, News Tagged With: career, Leadership, professional leadership, women leading

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