Tag: empowered

  • In A Crisis, Why Women Need To Take Charge

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    www.123rf – 54332571

    I built my career being the person who turned around failing operations and projects.  My jobs were really hard work and extremely stressful.  It wasn’t until I wrote my article on men and work hours that I really started questioning why I (and the other women in the office) stayed in there and kept working while the men eventually gave up and left.  In my article I wrote that men have a limit on the number of hours they really work and the amount of stress they could handle.

    After doing a little research I learned that my experiences reflect how men and women handle stress differently. (more…)

  • Balancing Work and Family – Conflict For All

    Soccer Mom with KidsWomen discuss their work and family conflicts but we often forget this is not just a female issue.  The reality is that men today have many of the same family and work conflicts as their female co-workers. How many of your male co-workers and managers are divorced or have a working wife? Or have a stay at home wife who still expects her husband to share equally in raising the kids? Probably most of them.

    The difference with men is that they don’t talk about having to leave work for family responsibilities – they just do it – they just take off from work. Women however, talk about their conflicts.  So men mask how often they leave for family responsibilities and women don’t. (more…)

  • How To Seize Recognition As A Woman

    One of the biggest critiques we hear is that unlike our male colleagues, we don’t self-promote enough.  We are told we need to let our managers know what we accomplish because that is what our male colleagues do and unless we do what men do, we can’t compete with them.  But this advice like so much of what we are told doesn’t work for us.  Why?  Because we are not men!  Self-promoting in order to gain recognition is a male approach.  We need to gain recognition using a female approach! (more…)

  • Stay Out Of The Blue Zone

    When women entered the workplace it was very male.  We assumed that the way men conducted business was the right way, it was the best way.  We had to fit into their way of doing things – after all that IS how business is done.

    That is the mistake women made – thinking that we had to play by men’s rules.  We were led to believe that we have to go into the Blue Zone in order to succeed in business.  As I keep saying in my articles, even today we are still told we have to act like men, engage men like men in order to climb the corporate ladder. (more…)

  • The Cult of True Womanhood

    Did you ever wonder where all this “women are weak, timid and lack self-confidence” stuff came from?  We often think of the 1950’s and the visions of the idealistic stay at home mother in her apron and pearls but it actually goes back to the period from 1820 – 1860.  This was an age when the Cult of True Womanhood thrived. (more…)

  • How To Respond To An Inappropriate Comment

    A reader wrote to me about a job interview in which the male interviewers made inappropriate comments. It brings up the question – what should we do in this situation? Our initial instinct is to get angry and tell them off but more often than not we don’t call them on it at all.  How do we find the appropriate response that makes us feel proud of ourselves? (more…)

  • Risk Intelligence

    I was watching the Dylan Ratigan show and he was interviewing Dylan Evans who wrote a book called Risk Intelligence.  Ladies, you need to understand this concept!  We are told that we don’t exhibit enough self-confidence at work.  Well, what Mr. Evans proves is that those who have all the answers, who project that they know what to do, are…ready for this…usually wrong!

    Wow, doesn’t it make you feel good to know that?! (more…)

  • Understanding Why Being A Manager Became So Important

    There is a great divide between managers and the average worker which is once again gaining attention.  Have you ever wondered how this came about, why there is so much animosity between the two?

    The following is an explanation that I read nearly 25 years ago.  What I find so interesting is that at the time this was written, there was a belief that companies were moving past these attitudes – that we were “developing a new theory of management suitable for a new era.”  But as we look at the issues in Wisconsin, the 99ers versus Wall Street and accusations of class warfare, you might wonder what happened to the new theory of management.

    Have we moved beyond this theory or is the split even more entrenched than ever? (more…)

  • Values – Women’s Source of Empowerment

    I read another one of those articles on a post from the Harvard Business Review stating that women often don’t get what they want or deserve because they don’t ask for it.  Does anyone else feel like me after I read these types of articles – here’s another thing I’m doing wrong.  Here’s another article that makes it sound like women aren’t cut out for the business world.

    But who decides what is and isn’t right?

    I read all this stuff about what I am supposed to do and get the impression that when I go to work I am supposed to be all about Me.  Me, Me, Me, Me, Me.  But those aren’t my values – being all about Me, isn’t Me. (more…)

  • Estrogen-Rich Environment

    I worked in an office where we expanded to occuppy two floors.  It just so happened that when we split the office the first floor was occuppied by men and one woman.  Likewise, the second floor was occupied by women and one man.

    I found some humor in this – finally, in the testosterone rich company environment, there was a space where estrogen dominated!  So, I made a sign and put it up at the top of each stairwell and at the 2nd floor elevator exit. (more…)

  • The Great American Alligator Slayer

    I first wrote about the Great American Alligator Slayer © in 1991.  I got the idea from thinking about how I was told to distinguish myself and get ahead at work.  It is a very male concept.Alligator Slayer

    As a woman, you don’t want to embrace this concept for yourself but it is important to understand it because it is still relevant.  In a humorous way it explains what your male peers may be aspiring to.

    As I often talk about, the male workplace produces a slew of problems and crises it must deal with and make go away.  If we go back to the old analogy and equate problems to alligators, a company that is plagued with problems is “up to its waist in alligators.”  So what do they do?

    They hire – The Great American Alligator Slayer! (more…)

  • How To Use The Power Seat

    I introduced the concept of the power seat and told you how to find it in your conference room in my article Understanding the Power Seat.  Now it is time to learn how to use it so you can take lead a discussion and lead your collegues to better solutions. (more…)

  • How Men Are Taught To Solve Problems

    From the example on the “Your Best Leverage” page, poor Bob has to build a wall but has no material.  There is a crisis!  And in the male workplace that is a cry for action!  But will the male approach really solve the crisis or just lead to new problems?

    Let’s look at how the guys solve the problem: (more…)