Women, Work and the Will to Lead

March 13, 2013 Donna Frindt

Sheryl Sandberg's new book, "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead" has just been published this week. We wrote this post in May 2011 about Sheryl Sandberg's TED talk and continue to be impressed by her activism for women's leadership.

I have been listening to a fascinating TED talk on iTunes on “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders” by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. Before we dive in, you have heard of TED – right? [TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading." There are many hundreds of free talks online, or as they say on the TED web site,“Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world.” If you are not familiar with TED – get thee to the TED site!] The other piece of this is - yes! You can watch the videos via an iTunes podcast so you can check that out too.

Ok, to the main topic. At 2130 Partners we have a strong commitment to women’s leadership. In addition to our corporate work, we have been investor activists with The Hunger Project for years. It is clear that the solution to world hunger is empowering women. I won’t go into all the details about that here, but the role of women and women’s leadership is an enormous overarching issue in the realm of “leadership” and it’s critical that we as leaders understand the barriers and come up with solutions.

In Sandberg’s talk she cites the following statistics for the current state of women’s leadership in the world:

Of 190 heads of state, 9 are women
Of all the parliaments in the world, just 13% of members are women
In top corporate jobs, only 15-16% are held by women
In the non-profit world, top jobs are held by about 20% women

Rather than focus on corporate policies and such, Sheryl focuses on the messages we should be giving to women and what they should be thinking about if they choose to be leaders. According to her, they are:

Women need to “sit at the table” – what she talks about here is how women have radically different self images from men particularly in underestimating themselves. This is something that has been shown in research studies for too many years.
- Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.
- Women don’t negotiate for themselves in the workforce.
- Men attribute their success to themselves and women attribute it to other external factors.
“Make Your Partner a Real Partner”
- This is about the power of equality in marriage/committed relationships as far as the distribution of responsibilities and also about society being more supportive of those who choose to work from home. This makes an enormous difference for women’s success.
“Don’t Leave Before You Leave”
- This is about women “mentally leaving” or taking the foot off the gas pedal of their careers as they start to envision having families and children, often far in advance of these events happening. Her point is to stay in the game until you are really leaving.

As Sandberg says in this talk, there are no easy answers and it will take a true cultural shift for the number of women in the population to be equally represented in various leadership roles. The thing is don’t you want this for your daughter? For your niece? For your grand-daughter? Don’t you want it to be true when you tell them they can be anything they want to be when they grow up?

Lead Like The Great Conductors

May 24, 2011 Donna Frindt

Itay Algam Ok I’m really on a roll with the TED talks so this will be the third blog based on a talk. (see this post for background on this). What I am really appreciating, particularly about last week and this week, is the opportunity to contrast leadership through very different lenses – the military, and musicians. It’s fascinating to see that in many ways, leadership is leadership is leadership. The qualities of a leader and leadership apply everywhere. This is something we talk about a lot at 2130. Everyone can be a leader where they are in their own lives, both at work and on the personal level.

So let’s focus on this week’s topic “Lead Like the Great Conductors” which was a TED talk by Itay Talgam. After a decade-long conducting career in his native Israel, Talgam is now a “conductor of people in business.” In this talk he discusses how an orchestra conductor faces the ultimate leadership challenge: creating perfect harmony without saying a word. He illustrates key points of leadership through videos of different conductors from around the world. For me the following pieces were extremely relevant to business:

Conductor 1: A very happy feeling here. Describing the conductor Talgam says, “His happiness is not coming from his personal story. It is the joy of enabling others’ stories to be heard at the same time.” By this he meant all the musicians being heard, the instruments that are an expression of their makers and even the builders of the beautiful symphony hall. This is an extraordinary comment on the possibility of leadership. What if your satisfaction, fulfillment and success as a leader came from enabling your people and their expression and fulfillment? What if their success really was your success, not from a “standing on their shoulders” kind of way, but from them stepping out and giving their all? What if this could actually create joy in your life?

Conductor 2: This conductor had a very commanding, specific, directive style. Not too long ago, all 700 musicians of La Scala signed a letter to this conductor basically saying, “you are a great conductor and we will not work with you anymore.” Apparently their issue was they felt they were being used “merely as instruments” and were not allowed to develop and grow. So as we have pointed out so often “command and control” is on the way out – everywhere - in music, in the military and in corporations. What if your employees wrote you such a letter? What if you were required to step down as a result? Perhaps it’s unfortunate this isn’t what happens in organizations.

Conductor 5: Talgam describes his style as “musical gesture” meaning he is creating an opening for another layer of interpretation by the musicians. By doing this he created partnership with the musicians. He was present, but not as a commander. He was also very much enjoying what the soloists were doing and acknowledging them with various gestures. Talgam noted he was, “creating conditions for success.” In our work, particularly in our Productive Interactions program, we call this “creating a productive environment.” This is truly a masterful form of leadership. Creating an opening for others to spread their wings and step into it is a profound leadership style which takes incredible skill. It comes from who leaders BE rather than what they DO, which is something that is fundamental to the work we do at 2130 Partners.

We recommend taking a look at the TED talks we have reviewed the last three weeks and use the contrast of leadership lenses outside the realm of business to illuminate where you are at today and who you want to be as a leader.

Listen, Learn, Then Lead

May 17, 2011 Donna Frindt

General Stanley McChrystal I’m really enjoying the TED talks I am finding on leadership. (see last week’s post for background on this)

This week I watched a talk titled “Listen, Learn, Then Lead…” by four-star general Stanley McChrystal. He shared what he has learned about leadership over his decades in the military. Fascinating stuff and very relevant to the realm of business leadership.

He talks about traditional ideals of leadership, (what we and many would call the “command and control” model), with leaders like Robert E. Lee, and John Buford at Gettysburg. Many have noted that there is a shift away from this type of leadership, and now, apparently even in the military, this is changing.

The key points he makes which I think are extremely relevant for business are:

In the past you could gather a team together and build confidence and trust “eye-to-eye.” This is no longer always possible with forces dispersed all over the world. The same is true in business. With portions of the work force being “virtual” and the global nature of business how do leaders build trust and faith when the team can’t always be together?
Building consensus and shared purpose vs. giving orders. This is something very “near and dear” to the heart of 2130 Partners’ work.We constantly work with leadership teams about creating a “Yonder Star,” (meaning a powerful shared purpose), and then aligning teams around that purpose. Working collaboratively instead of “tops down.” It’s interesting to note that even in the military, these notions are taking root.
Generational differences. How do you create a “shared purpose and shared consciousness” when you are dealing with people of different generations? They have a different view on history, life experiences, different skill sets with different media and often a different vocabulary. This is true in organizations as well. How do you create this “shared sense” and transcend these differences?
Inversion of expertise. What do you do when things that senior leaders grew up doing are no longer being done? When the younger generations understand the new tactics, approaches and tools better than you do? How do you maintain credibility and legitimacy when you are leading people in this scenario?

I was fascinated by what he recommended to leaders about dealing with these new conditions. What he talks about is surely relevant to all leaders:

More transparency.
Be a lot more willing to listen.
Be willing to be “reverse mentored” from the people below you.

He also talked about the fact that “relationships are the sinew that holds it all together.” Again, something very close to the heart of 2130 Partners’ work. We focus a lot on productive interactions and how to work together successfully in “the human dimension.”

The piece he raises about relationships could be a real revelation in business. He talks about the Ranger regiment and their six stanza creed they recite each day. The line he says most of us probably have heard is about, “we will never leave a fallen comrade.” As he so eloquently states, “this is not a mantra or a poem, but a promise that no matter what it costs me, I’m coming for you. Every ranger gets this from every other ranger and because they have lived it and lived up to it he says it has even more power.” It got me thinking – what if instead of being competitive, organizational teams were like this? What if some part of your organization was failing or some initiative failed and instead of writing people up and firing them, or sending them into political exile, the promise from leadership was, “I’m coming for you. No matter what it costs me and I won’t let you fail.” What an extraordinary shift in business! What new outcomes could happen?

And since he is so eloquent, we’ll let General McChrystal have the last word with these quotes:

“Leaders aren’t good because they are right. They are good because they are willing to learn, and to trust.”

“This isn’t easy stuff… and it isn’t always fair. You can get knocked down and it hurts and it leaves scars. If you are a leader, the people you’ve counted on will help you up, and if you are a leader who people count on, they need you on your feet.”

Why Are There Too Few Women Leaders?

May 11, 2011 Donna Frindt

In Sandberg’s talk she cites the following statistics for the current state of women’s leadership in the world:

Of 190 heads of state, 9 are women
Of all the parliaments in the world, just 13% of members are women
In top corporate jobs, only 15-16% are held by women
In the non-profit world, top jobs are held by about 20% women

Women need to “sit at the table” – what she talks about here is how women have radically different self images from men particularly in underestimating themselves. This is something that has been shown in research studies for too many years.
- Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.
- Women don’t negotiate for themselves in the workforce.
- Men attribute their success to themselves and women attribute it to other external factors.
“Make Your Partner a Real Partner”
- This is about the power of equality in marriage/committed relationships as far as the distribution of responsibilities and also about society being more supportive of those who choose to work from home. This makes an enormous difference for women’s success.
“Don’t Leave Before You Leave”
- This is about women “mentally leaving” or taking the foot off the gas pedal of their careers as they start to envision having families and children, often far in advance of these events happening. Her point is to stay in the game until you are really leaving.