Diversity in business leadership is a no-brainer.  Not only is it the right thing to do, it is also smart, hard-headed business thinking.  Companies with diverse leadership teams make more money.  So why is it so hard to promote women, people of color, and other diverse people into senior leadership roles?  A sobering recent experience helped me understand this on a personal level.

I was organizing a panel of speakers for a dinner as part of the Power Networking for Women event in Chicago.  I wanted high-powered speakers, and I put together a list of people I knew would be great panelists.  Then I read the fine print.  The organizer of the event, Deirdre Joy Smith, has a powerful commitment to promoting diversity, and she required that at least one panelist be a woman of color and at least one be under 35.  I looked back at my list – and every single person was a middle-aged white woman.

That’s what happens when you rely on your network of comfortable relationships – you come up with people like yourself.  And I must admit I felt a momentary flash of irritation.  The women on my list were terrific speakers.  Where was I going to find top quality presenters who met Deirdre’s criteria?

It took me about three minutes to figure it out.  I am a mentor for a group of young executives through The Executives’ Club of Chicago.  Everyone in the group is under 40, and several of them are young women of color.  Duh!  There was my talent pool to draw from.  Within a couple of days I had invited Nashunda Bolden, a Business Solutions Manager for CRS Group who is an experienced writer and presenter.  Nashunda did a great job at the dinner and provided a unique perspective that would not have been available if the panel had been a more homogeneous group.

I know that when you look in the same old places, you will find the same old people.  But that didn’t stop me from falling into the trap myself.  Without a systemic requirement that I put together a diverse group, I wouldn’t have.

Lesson learned.

Every company depends on the hard work of its employees, but not all companies talk about it in the same way.  In some organizations, everyone makes a big deal about how hard they work.  Leaders rush around looking harassed and boast about the long, grueling hours they put in.  Every day is a fire drill with energy and chaos everywhere.  I call these company cultures “shvitz” cultures.  Shvitz is a Yiddish word that literally means “sweat” but is often used to mean strenuous, anxious effort.

In other organizations, an atmosphere of calm prevails.  Although these leaders are working just as hard as their colleagues in the shvitz companies, they act as if the job is really pretty easy and everything is under control.  I call these company cultures “sprezzatura” cultures.  Sprezzatura is an Italian word that means “the art of making things look easy.”

It is easy to figure out whether your company is a shvitz or a sprezzatura company.  The challenge lies in adapting your personal style to fit the company culture.  If you are a cultural misfit, others may not appreciate the contribution you are making.  A “shvitzer” in a sprezzatura company looks like a fool who can’t manage the workload with aplomb.  Someone with sprezzatura in a shvitz company will be seen as a person who is coasting.

So it makes sense to adapt.  Remember, this is not about how hard you are working.  If you are a conscientious leader, you are working very hard.  It’s about how you present yourself and your effort – being sensitive to the organizational culture and adjusting your behavior accordingly.

Which kind of company are you working in?

Do you want to accelerate the development of high-potential leaders in your organization?  The time-tested model is very simple.  Put them into stretch situations where they have to work hard and well to achieve their goals.  And then give them the opportunity to reflect on what they learned.

Most organizations are much better at the first step than the second one.  Business leaders tend to be people of action.  How many companies do you know that operate on the principle of “Ready, Fire, Aim!”  Business leaders tend to barge ahead from one project to the next, without stopping to gather the learnings from what they have done.

This is a big problem for developing excellence in business leadership.  It leads to organizational amnesia and to a tendency to make the same mistakes over and over again.  It leads to ignoring or covering up failures, rather than discussing and learning from them.  And it interferes with the learning and growth of the next generation of leaders.

How can business leaders foster reflection as part of their leadership style?

• Set aside time in your schedule to think.  In its glory days, IBM had the slogan “THINK” emblazoned on its walls.
• Schedule post-mortems on projects to discuss what worked and what didn’t work.  Doctors do this about their patients, and it’s a great idea for other settings as well.
• Work with a coach.  Helping executives reflect on themselves and their organizations is a big part of what coaching is about.
• Ask questions of the people you are mentoring that encourage them to reflect on their work.

What do you do to build reflection into your leadership style?

Many years ago, Sigmund Freud wrote the plaintive question, “What does a woman want?”  Like many men, he found it difficult to understand the motivations and desires of women.  Business leaders often struggle with the same question, and it is becoming increasingly important to their success.

The numbers are clear – women consumers control the majority of spending in a wide variety of businesses.  Figuring out what women want and how to deliver it is one of the keys to thriving in the current environment.

And guess what!  It turns out that when businesses create a great environment for their female employees, they do better with their female customers.  Makes sense – build an engaged, productive female work force, with opportunities for professional development and promotion, and those women will use their energy and enthusiasm to engage and serve your female customers.

Wolf Means Business is a firm that teaches companies how to engage their female employees – from entry-level to C-suite – as well as their female customers.  As part of their leadership team, I have worked with the firm to build programs and interventions to further the success of their female work force.  My affiliation with Wolf is part of my on-going commitment to fostering the development of women leaders and building a world where men and women work together as equals.

Cathy and I had been friendly colleagues for about a year when I asked her to do a special favor for me.  I could tell immediately that she was uncomfortable with my request, and over the next few days she was distinctly cooler to me.  I didn’t think my request was out of line, but clearly she did.  What to do next?

Knowing when and how to offer an apology is an essential skill for successful business leadership.  We all make mistakes, inadvertently offend someone, or are intentionally hurtful.  A sincere, artful apology can get a relationship back on track, both personally and professionally.

Here are three traps to watch out for:

1. Apology avoidance.  Some people feel it is demeaning to offer an apology, that it makes them seem weak or subordinate.  Nonsense!  It is unwillingness to offer an appropriate apology that makes you seem insecure – and rude.
2. The fake apology.  The classic example is, “I’m so sorry you feel that way.”  What?!  That’s not an apology, it’s patronizing.  A true apology says, “I was wrong, I am sorry, and I won’t do it again.”  Sometimes you may indeed feel that the other person over-reacted.  In that case, how about saying, “I’m sorry, I was clumsy.  I didn’t mean to offend you, but I did.  I’ll be more thoughtful next time.”
3. The excessive apology.  This is more often a problem for women than for men.  It can involve being overly obsequious, such as “OMG, I can’t believe I said that to you.  I am such an idiot – I am so sorry.  I don’t know how you can ever forgive me …” Or if can mean apologizing too often.  I have found myself apologizing over and over for the same misdeed, which only keeps reminding the other person of my misstep.  Once is usually enough.  Apologize sincerely and then shut up.

When I realized something had gone awry with Cathy, I called her.  I was right – she felt my request was inappropriate.  I apologized and told her it mattered to me to have a good relationship with her.  We are friendly colleagues to this day – and she has done me a lot of favors since then.

Well-intentioned senior business leaders often shoot themselves in the foot by unwittingly draining the meaning and joy out of the work lives of their employees. This unfortunate process undermines the leaders’ effectiveness and gets in the way of attaining their organizations’ goals. That is the thesis of Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in their article, “How Leaders Kill Meaning at Work,” in the January 2012 McKinsey Quarterly.

Senior business leaders’ primary task, at least as important as developing a guiding strategy, is engaging the passion and energy of the folks in the trenches who are striving to execute that strategy. The single most important driver of engagement is the experience of making progress in meaningful work. Yet senior leaders’ smallest actions can stymie progress because what they say and do is so intensely observed by the people who report to them. Bottom line: “A sense of purpose in the work, and consistent action to reinforce it, has to come from the top.

Here are four traps awaiting senior executives:

Mediocrity Signals: A case study – A new top-management team instills fierce pride in its workforce by creating a trumpeted “innovation” mission statement. In practice, however, upper management consistently dictates that cost reduction goals be met before any other priorities are addressed. This over-emphasis on cost cutting causes quality to suffer, while competitors busily introduce new products. Because of this hypocrisy, the firm’s workers feel they are doing mediocre work for a mediocre company and they disengage. Many leave, and within three years the firm is acquired by a smaller rival.

Strategic Attention Deficit Disorder: Earnest senior executives constantly scan the horizon to monitor competitors’ moves, the global economic environment, and their implications for financing and marketing issues. However, too many exhibit a short attention span regarding strategy and tactics. Each quarter, they promote new initiatives that are incompatible with what they asked for three months earlier. Mid-level managers receiving such inconsistent direction not surprisingly report persistent difficulty in maintaining a strong sense of purpose.

Corporate Keystone Kops: Overly complex reporting structures, indecisiveness, and lack of cooperation yield chaos. Senior leaders’ failure to perceive and correct such disorder convinces workers that their efforts to produce high quality results are futile.

Misbegotten “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals”: A popular management theory urges senior leaders to develop a “big, hairy, audacious goal” – a BHAG. However, a BHAG doesn’t motivate anyone when it is overly grandiose, so extreme as to seem unattainable, and so vague as to seem empty. One firm decreed that all projects be “innovative blockbusters,” yielding a minimum annual revenue of $100 million within five years of initiation. This BHAG had little meaning for the firm’s personnel and their daily activities. It did not connect with workers’ desire to provide customers with something worthwhile. Instead, the aggressive revenue target spoke only of the top management’s own circumscribed values.

Here are some ways to avoid the traps:

• Provide employees with a consistent, meaningful strategy so they understand why they are doing what they are doing.

• Remember what it was like when you were working in the trenches. How meaningful was it to commit to something your superiors hadn’t thought through?

• Set up an “early warning system” to alert you when your view from the top doesn’t match the reality on the ground. Regularly gauging the level of coordination and support can prevent disarray that saps meaning from your employees’ inner work lives.

• Motivate your people to greatness by articulating their higher purpose within the organization, and support its achievement by your own consistent daily actions.

Senior leaders who foster workers’ sense of meaning and progress in their daily work will attract and retain a committed workforce in a challenging economic environment. And they might just find greater meaning in their own work as leaders as well.

Please let us know what you think of these ideas. We look forward to dialog with you – and to better times.

Gail Golden

Are you acting like an “underdog?” Sociologists have identified some self-defeating behavior patterns that are common among people who feel themselves to be in the “out-group.” In a business leadership setting, underdog behaviors are tell-tale signs that a leader is feeling impotent or insignificant. Some typical underdog behaviors are:
• Blaming others when you can’t get the job done
• Building up your self-esteem by belittling others, especially others who belong to the same “out-group”
• Over-identifying with the dominant group and exaggerating its strengths
• Preferring to be the only member of your out-group in a leadership setting; placing barriers in the way of others like you

It is not hard to recognize underdog behaviors in others. Everyone has colleagues who always find excuses instead of holding themselves accountable. We all know women leaders who out-bully the men, or members of ethnic or racial minorities who do nothing to help others climb the ladder.

It is much harder to see these behaviors in ourselves. But if we examine ourselves honestly, when we are in settings where we are outsiders, most of us act like underdogs at least occasionally. These behaviors are understandable, but they really undermine our effectiveness as leaders. They don’t make others respect us; in fact they make us look kind of pathetic.

So what’s the alternative? How about acting like a “topdog?”
• Hold yourself accountable to a standard of excellence
• Build up your self-esteem by doing great things, while acknowledging the greatness of others
• Respect the dominant group while being true to your own identity
• Use your position and influence to provide a hand-up to other deserving members of your group.

What do you think? Let us know.

Wow, what an amazing event last Thursday! An audience of 950 people, almost all women. A panel of three incredible women leaders: Tonise Paul, CEO of Energy BBDO; Anne Pramaggiore, President and COO of ComEd; and Sheli Rosenberg, Of Counsel at Skadden. I had the wonderful opportunity to moderate the panel on “The Strategic and Effective Use of Power.”

Tonise, Anne, and Sheli are three very different women, each with her unique leadership style. Together, they shared their experiences with and wisdom about being a powerful woman leader. What did they teach us?

• Power is about being able to drive change. Assess a situation and find the “fault lines” where you can make things better. Then use your power to drive the necessary changes.
• Women are wired to want to be liked, but to be powerful we must focus on being respected, even if that sometimes means people don’t like us.
• Powerful leaders need a whole toolbox of different kinds of power behaviors, plus the savvy to know which tool is needed in which situation. Use a hammer when you have a nail in front of you.
• Don’t focus on who you are, focus on where you are. That means looking outward beyond yourself.
• Make sure you let your supervisors know about your successes. They are busy – how are they going to know if you don’t tell them?
• Never settle for “good enough.” Be excellent.
• Everyone knows that sexual attraction happens in the workplace. Address it and move past it – don’t push it under the rug. Women leaders need both male and female mentors. Don’t let the fear of sexual gossip stop you from making relationships with men who can help you.
• When assessing whether to mentor a younger woman, look for resilience. How does she react to setbacks and failure – can she bounce back? This is one of the strongest predictors of leadership potential.
• One of the changes in the leadership landscape is that in most settings women no longer have to be clones of men. (Sheli was wearing bold polka-dot socks with her classic suit.)

Many of the audience members said they wished the panel could have been longer. It was a truly inspiring event.