Happy Monday!
Two great articles over the last week are not to be missed. The first article: Male Executives Don’t Feel Guilt; See Work Life Balance as a Women’s Issue http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_
A Harvard Business school professor interviewed 4,000 c-level executives and found that overwhelmingly, those surveyed saw work /life balance as a women’s issue. This obviously has ramifications with regard to a woman’s ability to progress in the workplace. The bottom line from the survey is that “we need men to see that work-life conflicts are an everyone issue and not just a woman’s issue.” Otherwise the glass ceiling will stay firmly in place.
My favorite article was published in the WS Journal: Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chávez on ‘Bossy,’ the Other B-word.http://online.wsj.com/news/
The authors, two incredibly successful women, explore how the use of the word bossy has carried both a negative and female connotation for more than a century, and that when this criticism is leveled at girls from a young age it influences how others treat her, undermines her ability to see herself as a leader, and actually causes girls to avoid leadership roles. The article points out that it extends to women in power – a foreign policy minister once described British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as “the bossy intrusive Englishwoman.” Can you imagine that criticism being leveled at Tony Blair or Winston Churchill? The article calls for an end to the gendered speech that discourages girls from an early age. “So the next time you hear a girl called “bossy,” do what CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell advised: Smile, take a deep breath and say, “That girl’s not bossy. She has executive leadership skills.””
We have just some amazing events coming up over the next few months. And if you can get to Houston in March, the workshop on Effective Communication in the Workplace is something not to be missed. See you all at an event soon!
Kind regards
Christine