Many \u2013 if not most \u2013 of my executive coaching clients are women. It\u2019s fascinating to see how much effort and conscious thought they put into their leadership style, and how often my future leader coachees have as their main goal that they want to establish their own unique leadership voice. They are impressively proactive about how they lead.
Interestingly, while there is a lot of data out there to demonstrate that women are treated differently at work, there are also studies that indicate that women have the edge over men<\/a> on leadership competence. In one study, women were found to score higher than men in four of the five main personality traits shown to correlate with good leadership: clarity, innovation, support and targeted meticulousness. And there are quite a number of studies showing that women are more emotionally intelligent than men<\/a>.
Yet despite women seeming better suited to leadership, as the HBR puts it \u201cgender equality remains frightening elusive.\u201d When the behaviours and interactions in one firm were measured, it turns out that in fact that men and women behave the same, but are treated differently<\/a>. \u201cWomen had the same number of contacts as men, they spent as much time with senior leadership, they had indistinguishable work patterns, and they scored equally in performance evaluations. Yet women weren\u2019t advancing and men were<\/em>.\u201d One of the main issues was the workload and how differently the sexes were advised to handle the work\/family balance. There is still a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PODCASTS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t follow American politics much [although if this is a topic that interests you, you really must take a look at my friend Leigh\u2019s brilliant political commentary @breakfastrant<\/a> on Instagram!] but somehow both a podcast from Hillary Clinton and one from Chelsea Clinton landed in my podcast listening feed and both were brilliant. BOOKS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuccess correlates more closely with confidence than it does with competence\u201d is the introduction to The Confidence Code<\/a>, a practical guide to explaining why most women lack confidence, and how to go about gaining and expressing it. Confidence trumps IQ in predicting success, so this is a critical skill needed for female leadership! Another wonderful resource is Tara Mohr’s Playing Big<\/a>. Its subtitle “Practical Wisdom for Women who want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead” descibes exactly what it contains, and also what so many of us want!. It’s chock full of practical advice on how to recognize their strengths, voice their confidence, and be the leaders they want to be – in all areas of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SUMMER BEACH READS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes I just want to read something quick and entertaining and engaging. A summer beach read. Brain candy, as it were. I\u2019ve read a number of good ones lately. Nothing too taxing, just interesting books with strong female protagonists that fit well into this week\u2019s theme of Female Leadership!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Last Flight<\/a>\u00a0by Julie Clarke is a modern take on the Strangers on a Train theme of two strangers exchanging identities to escape unhappy lives. In order to leave no trace of their disappearance, two women swap identities and of course things do not go to plan.\u00a0 Stay healthy! And have a wonderful weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hugs,<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello Friends! There was a fascinating article in the New York Times a few years ago about how many people support female leadership, but just don\u2019t like her. Her who?? Turns out that a significant proportion of people support the idea of female leadership, but not the reality. There is always fault to be found in whatever female leader is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[82,63,181,171,70,83,64,65,183,68,67],"class_list":["post-2215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coaching","tag-executive-coach","tag-female-leadership","tag-icf","tag-leadership","tag-leadership-development","tag-personal-development","tag-personal-growth","tag-summer-beach-reads","tag-you4-0","tag-you4point0"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2244,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2215\/revisions\/2244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Caroline Criado Perez, the author of Invisible Women<\/a> not only wrote an excellent book, but also publishes a really insightful weekly newsletter and is very vocal about the data gap between men and women. Chelsea Clinton interviewed<\/a> her about sexism and public health. This was so interesting to put into the perspective of the pandemic and how critical public health is to a society as a whole.
Hilary Clinton<\/a> epitomizes the polarizing effect female leaders can have on the court of public opinion but has really impressed me with her dignity and intelligence and I found this interview with her to be really intriguing. During her interview, she describes how expectations for women hinder us. How not changing her name impeded her husband’s re-election chances. (Why was this even relevant?!). And how women are socialized to put others\u2019 needs before our own, which makes it hard to hear our own voice. Very thought-provoking.
Setting boundaries, being true to yourself, and owning your voice are all themes in my coaching with female leaders. I recently heard Kristin Neff interviewed on the topic, as she\u2019s written a book about self-compassion entitled \u201cFierce Self-Compassion: How Women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power, and thrive<\/a>\u201d This definitely sounds like something I need to read!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe natural result of under-confidence is inaction. When women don\u2019t act, when we hesitate because we aren\u2019t sure, even by skipping a few questions, we hold ourselves back. It matters. But when we do act, even when we\u2019re forced to act, to answer those questions, we do just as well as men<\/em>.\u201d (p.51)
And if confidence is in fact a work-in-progress for you and something you struggle with, Ditching Imposter Syndrome<\/a> by Clare Josa is another excellent resource. Her book is a step-by-step instruction for taming your Inner Critic and learning how to stop denying your competence. It\u2019s a bit dry, but very helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Silent Patient<\/a>\u00a0by Alex Michaelides is the story of a therapist who is treating a woman incarcerated in a mental facility after killing her husband. She hasn\u2019t spoken a word since she was found clutching the murder weapon. Can the therapist break through and get her to speak? There was a great twist at the end that I at least did not anticipate.
The Nature of Fragile Things<\/a>\u00a0by Susan Meissner. I was on the train home from Munich and realized I didn\u2019t have anything to read. This happened to be downloaded on my iPad so I gave it a go. I was hooked within a few pages and read non-stop the whole journey. This is the story of a young Irish immigrant to America in the early 1900s who answers an ad for a wife and moves from New York to San Francisco. She experiences the earthquake of 1906 and subsequent fires and there are a lot of twists and turns along the way. I read the whole book in less than 24 hours!
I\u2019d really love to know which of these resources resonated with you, and which you\u2019d like to see more of!\u00a0 And if you are a female leader who would like to explore amplifying your impact<\/a>, owning your voice, and honing your leadership style, this is exactly what my\u00a0leadership development coaching<\/a>\u00a0is for. I have a few coaching spots opening up in the fall. Let\u2019s talk!
I am flying to Canada next week Tuesday, to visit my family for the first time in TWO YEARS!!! I can hardly wait!! So the next issue will be coming at you from Toronto!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"signature\"](\"https:\/\/jnhcoaching.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Julia.Signature.png\")
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