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Home » Emerging Women Leaders

Getting on the Executive Radar Screen

June 12, 2013

If you are looking to challenge and stimulate your career, you’re going to want to be discovered as one who has the vision and passion to catapult to new levels. In my experience working with emerging women leaders, the question women so often ask is: what is the right path to get recognized?

Whether you want to make the next step in your career, or leap to that high level position, it is important to learn the necessary steps to be a recognized leader within your company, as well as within your industry.

Your company is most likely looking for “can-do” candidates, rather than “could-be” ones. In many cases, it is a matter of effective marketing, and that is where you have the power to become noticed. Think of marketing yourself like your favorite companies market themselves.  They work to establish visibility and brand equity; they know that simply having a great product isn’t enough. What are the attributes that make their brands appealing to you? It’s the same at a personal level. You have to brand yourself and be known for being the best and having a unique way of doing your job.

[Read more...]

Your Path to Leadership: Step Out of the Box and Into Possibility

May 27, 2013

If I were to ask you, “Do you live in a box?”  I’m sure your first thought would be “No, of course not.”   

But if I were to ask you, “When is the last time you took a chance, challenged yourself, or reflected on your choices and decisions from a different angle?”  How would you answer?

If you can’t remember the last time you did any of those things, that’s living in a box – an imaginary box that represents your circumstances, choices, and decisions.  It’s easy to get stuck inside a box…we’re creatures of habit!  It’s easier and more comfortable to surround ourselves with the ways we’ve always done things.

And the way we’ve always done things has gotten us this far right?  But on the path to leadership, you have to step out of the box and into possibility.  Accepting possibility as your norm is the only way you will reach beyond this point today to even more success and significance.

In Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Dr. Lois Frankel specifically calls out limiting our possibilities as a mistake in the way we think.  We don’t know we’re doing it unless we become aware of the mindset, and choose new habits that continually challenge ourselves to live in possibility.

I’ll share with you a few ways I have worked on the “Box to Possibility” mindset.

  • Create your vision for the future.  Every year in January, I participate in a vision-boarding workshop.  I get to dream of what the future holds, and this dreaming is critical to setting me up with the mindset of possibility.  The end result is this beautiful visual that hangs in my office as a reminder of those dreams.  Another take on this is to write down those dreams and ideas in a journal – having them in front of you makes them more real.
  • Challenge yourself to look at different angles on a decision.  Next time you’re faced with a decision, look at how you approach the process.  Do you get advice from people with a “box mentality” or “possibility mindset?”  Challenge yourself to look at it from a different perspective by changing your physical scenery, brainstorming all outcomes, or asking a trusted friend that can help you look at the possibilities and not just the limitations.
  • Turn off (or at least tone down) the negative self-talk.  When talking yourself through a decision or an opportunity, pay attention to that inner voice.  If the voice is saying things like “I could never” or “I shouldn’t” or “I’m not good enough,” then you’re in the box.  When you catch yourself doing this, first try to figure out why the negative thought is the first thought.  Then work to replace it.  For example, if “I could never” is the thought, replace it with “I can do this because . . .” and list out those reasons.  Look at past successes and experiences for guidance.  This helps you view possibility with a practical eye and not allow negative self-talk to dominate.
  • I ask myself a series of questions.  When I’m faced with a new possibility, I ask myself three key questions to help me in the decision process.  I look for a “Yes” answer to all three.

1. Is it fresh, does it excite me?
2. Does it fit with my leadership path or strategy at this time in my life?
3. Will it help me to grow and does it challenge me?  

I’m a big sports fan, especially for football. I’ll leave you with this quote I recently came across. It’s from Tim Tebow.  Whether or not you’re a Tim Tebow fan, I think this will stick with you because it speaks to getting out of the box and into possibility:

“You want it to be different, then make it different.”

 

Visit http://www.impactinstruction.com for more information about custom training solutions and professional development services offered by Impact Instruction Group.  Amy Franko works with emerging women leaders, teaching concepts from the international best-seller Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office to many national companies and organizations.

© 2013 Impact Instruction Group

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Leadership Essentials – The Extra Mile

April 29, 2013

“It’s never crowded along the extra mile.”

That quote on leadership comes from best-selling author and speaker Wayne Dyer. And if you stop to think about it, it’s probably pretty darn quiet along that extra mile. It’s often the distance where the qualities and actions of leaders are set apart from the rest of the pack.

Leadership development continues to be a hot topic across industries. In my experience the focus is typically on how to become an effective leader of others, which is extremely important. But when considering all the aspects of leadership, there’s more to it.

[Read more...]

Your Path to the Inner Circles of Influence

April 3, 2013

If you spend enough time with me, you’ll hear a couple of my mantras when it comes to women emerging into higher levels of leadership.  First, each of us owns our leadership identity, and second, it’s our responsibility to take action to develop the skills and behaviors necessary to grow on our leadership journey.

Building strategic relationships is one of the best skills you can develop in creating your leadership identity.  And if part of your leadership journey is a C-level or board-level position within an organization, I would take that a step further into developing the skills required to access the inner circles of influence.

[Read more...]

Go Fast or Go Far? Building Strong Teams

March 21, 2013

This article is part of our women’s leadership series on the 8 skills you need to transform your leadership presence. Several concepts are adapted from See Jane Lead, by Lois Frankel, Ph.D.

By Amy Franko

I recently began a volunteer experience entirely out of my comfort zone, as an assistant coach to 20 third- and fourth- grade girls in an after school program called Girls on the Run.

Girls on the Run teaches life and leadership skills within the context of a running program.  At the end of 10 weeks, several hundred girls from programs all over the region celebrate their accomplishments by participating in a 5K.

As you can imagine there are all types of backgrounds, abilities, personalities, and emerging leadership styles.  We have outgoing and shy, talkative and quiet, those comfortable out front, and those who prefer the middle of the pack.

While running is sport that hones individual mental and physical skills, these girls are also experiencing what it means to be supportive and encouraging in an inclusive, collaborative environment.  They’re learning the power of success through teamwork.

Teamwork is important in every aspect of our lives. Behind nearly every success are both individual contributions and those of the greater team.  This article shares some specific actions you can take in building a high-performance team. [Read more...]

Emerging Women Leaders Need P&L Experience

February 20, 2013

By Amy Franko

In the landscape of women in leadership, the usual statistics look at the number of women in the overall workforce (over 50%), and compare that figure to the number of women in mid-level and senior leadership, corporate board service, and the CEO suite.

A recent article and statistic grabbed my attention:

In Fortune 500 companies, only about 1 in 10 women hold P&L jobs.

That puts a lot of things in perspective when compared to the small percentage of women who serve on the boards or as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies (about 14% and 4% respectively).  Line-of-business roles with P&L responsibility tend to be the primary paths to board service and the CEO suite. Most women leaders are in staff-related, non-line roles. [Read more...]

View Your Career as a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder

February 7, 2013

by Amy Franko

A woman will average 10.7 jobs in her lifetime, according to Fast Company.

I decided that the “.7” could be attributed to those of you out there doing the work of at least two people, or a job we’d rather forget!

Let’s say your career spans 30 years (and for many women, careers will be longer).  That calculates, on average, a move to a new job every 2.8 years. My own career path reflects this.  In 15 years, I’ve grown my career with six companies and have had seven unique job descriptions.

For many of us, our beliefs around how our careers will unfold were hatched by watching our parents work at the same place for their entire career, and perhaps in only a couple of jobs that entire time. To a large extent their careers were planned.  And if they were designated as “management material” they were swooped up, placed on the “management track” and away they went.

Our experience is now entirely different.  This notion of the “planned career” is as outdated as the phone I bought six months ago.

Today, when you walk in the door of a company there’s really no step-by-step formula or well-worn path to follow to your dream career or your leadership aspirations.   You design your path; you own it and are responsible for creating opportunities.

Pattie Sellers, Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine, captures it perfectly:

“The most successful people I know don’t think of their career as a ladder, but rather a jungle gym.”

[Read more...]

8 Skills to Transform Your Leadership Presence: Inspiration is the Spark that Elevates You and Your Team

January 23, 2013

This article is part of our women’s leadership series on the 8 skills you need to transform your leadership presence. 

By Amy Franko

Have you ever had someone in your life that makes you feel as if there’s nothing you can’t do? Someone who moved you to be more and do more than you ever thought possible?

That’s inspiration . . . it can be hard to describe, but we know it when we feel it, and we know it when we see what an inspired person or group of people can do.

When we have leaders who are inspirational, we become connected to them, we see the possibilities of what a team can do together, and we can create amazing results.

My good friend and customer loyalty expert Cindy Solomon taught me that it’s our job to be a spark of inspiration, to light that fire within the people on our team and those around us.  It’s one of the most rewarding parts of leadership.

But most of us think of inspiration as something we’re born with – we’re either inspiring or we’re not.  It’s actually a skill, and if you’re committed to becoming a leader, it will be one of the best skills you learn.

In this article I share some of the everyday ways you can build inspiration into your life and leadership path. [Read more...]

8 Skills to Transform Your Leadership Presence: A Simple Formula for Leadership Impact

January 7, 2013

By Amy Franko

This article is part of our women’s leadership series on the 8 skills you need to transform your leadership presence, based upon the book See Jane Lead, by Lois Frankel, Ph.D.

In her book See Jane Lead, Dr. Lois Frankel uncovered a common theme in the women leaders she interviewed:  most, if not all, of them mentioned the importance of their values in developing their leadership philosophy.  From those values stemmed their vision.  From their vision came the strategies and activities to make it a reality.

Within that theme emerged for me a formula that women leaders can use when it comes to accomplishing great things in their organizations and communities:

Values + Vision + Strategy + Activities = Leadership Impact

It combines our natural tendency to work from a place of values, with the skills of creating vision and combining strategic thinking with tactical activities in order to be impactful as leaders.

In this article I’ll share more on each element of the formula, and offer some practical ways for you to build your skills around each one. [Read more...]

8 Skills to Transform Your Leadership Presence: Building the Smart Risk Muscle

January 7, 2013

This article is part of our women’s leadership series on the 8 skills you need to transform your leadership presence, based upon the book See Jane Lead, by Lois Frankel, Ph.D.

Earlier this year I wrote a post about James Dyson, the inventor of the one household product I own that’s worthy of an entire post.

James Dyson knew a thing or two about risk and allowing himself a path of mistakes on the way to greater outcomes.  He calls it “wrong thinking,” or giving ideas a try to see what happens, rather than dismissing them out of the gate because there’s a chance they could turn out to be wrong.

Amazingly, it took 5,127 tries to create the first working prototype of the now-famous Dyson vacuum.

That’s over 5,000 wrong solutions to create the single right solution that propelled the inventor and the organization to success.  You can read that post here.

There’s a lesson in that for emerging women leaders, and Dr. Frankel dedicates an entire chapter to this lesson in See Jane Lead.

To transform our leadership presence and impact, we have to take smart risks.

Smart risk is actually a muscle and a skill we can build.

[Read more...]

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