The Women’s Code was designed to help define the specific attributes that women bring to leadership roles. It also promotes many tools to help us find better work-life balances, so we can establish and balance the new leadership direction.
What is this new leadership balance that I keep talking about?
Firstly, there is a growing focus on the individuals in business. We expose so much of our likes and interests through social media that the line between personal and business is gradually disappearing. This means we must take full responsibility for ourselves, our actions, and our personal brands.
The good news and the bad news are the same: A true leader is always on and has to be transparent. Forget keeping your personal life private. Those who do arouse suspicion or appear disconnected and obsolete.
You’ve got to learn the rules and design who you want to be. Create your personal brand, including your personal value proposition, and follow that design. I want you to imagine that you as an individual are a micro business. What you stand for and reveal (or don’t) determines how sellable your ideas and positions are.
Is this good or bad? Well, it doesn’t actually matter. This is the direction business is going whether you agree with it or not, and it is driven by Millennials. If you don’t want to get onboard, your leadership skills are already outdated.
The inaugural step into the new leadership balance is to begin thinking of yourself as your own brand ambassador, then connect with people (other brand ambassadors) who promote each other’s brand and ideas.
Secondly, the shift of recognizing male and female-centric leadership attributes has begun and it cannot be stopped. This is good news. The male alpha power that used to battle business for wins is slowly cracking. Traditionally Old Boys’ Club companies especially are having big issues, and I foresee their problems growing if they do not address the new leadership. Women have broken the glass ceiling, at least in Western countries, and we are taking over more leadership positions. This brings balance and collaboration. What a nice addition to winning, wouldn’t you agree?
But we have to remember one small detail. This type of freedom for women is relatively new. After all, it’s only been 50 years since feminists began to tear down the walls of convention so we could fight for our right to be respected the same as men. This fight is sadly and wrongly often associated with man-hating clichés. The Women’s Code is set to change women from throwing women under the bus to get ahead, and to turn a man’s suspicion of this new “threat” into a collaborative opportunity.
This won’t happen with hopes and wishes. We have to train. We have to train women how to be women leaders. We must support them in their personal lives so they don’t crack under the pressure. We need role models for others to emulate.
Since I conceived The Women’s Code, I have found that men often connect with me because they want to find out HOW my ideas can help them understand the ways women think. Smart men want to add more women leaders, but need better tools to figure out how women think and operate. They want to be supportive of women and their own daughters, they just don’t know how.
And this is why I speak about it. Getting in front of a crowd to share my message about women leadership gets me excited. Just a moment ago I got off the phone with The Leadership Investment, a Colorado based non-profit organization. I was reviewing my talking points for my presentation at the Women’s Success Forum this fall. If you want to learn and understand women leadership more, this will be a worthwhile event to check out.
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