Category: Professional Development

Introduction

As the last forty years have demonstrated, women have successfully become players at many tables in the business and professional worlds. Increasingly, more women are moving to the head of the table as well. But this can still be a bumpy road for many otherwise capable, talented female leaders: the glass ceiling still seems to be there, only now we can see women on the other side and wonder why we can’t make it ourselves.

The main premise of this blog entry is that among all the leadership skills taught to prospective female managers and leaders, education in the successful use of personal and organizational power is still sorely lacking. It is well accepted that the skills that enable a person to excel in their chosen field are very different than the ones necessary to lead and manage others. However, for women, the challenge is different than for men, not necessarily only because of possible discrimination, but because our socialization still does not prepare us to handle organizational power and influence well.

Organization Politics and Power

The type of power I am referring to is organizational political power. Although organizational politics is often cast in a negative light, I maintain that politics is a neutral term, that its skills are useful if not mandatory for organizational success. The negative cast enters depending on how one plays politics, not whether. The term politics refers to a system of reconciling divergent interests through the use of consultation and negotiation. This political negotiation happens at the intersection of stakeholder relationships among interests, conflicts and power. To work out a successful acquisition for an organization, to lead an organizational change, or to manage the many disparate abilities of direct reports and/or departments require the ability to successfully navigate and master the currents of stakeholder interests, conflict and power.

For women, though, the foundational abilities on which organizational political prowess is developed are still not ones most of us are socialized to acquire, because much of the tacit understanding of these skills is based on participation in masculine subcultures. Negotiating, depersonalizing, reframing, risk taking, strategizing, competing and mastering the unwritten rules of the organization come harder to us than for many of our male counterparts.

Stages of Power

Hagberg (2003) posits that this occurs because of difficulties in transitions between one stage of power and the next. According to her, there are discernible levels of organizational power that one must master to be successful in one’s career. Stage One she defines as Powerlessness. For the purposes of this blog, we will not delve into this stage. Stage Two, Power by Association, is where we learn the skills and abilities of our chosen profession – to become competent as a marketeer, a teacher, an engineer, etc. It is characterized by apprentice-like behavior: as we try to understand and make individual contributions to the organization or profession to which we belong, we look for a powerful other(s) to emulate.

After mastering this stage, we transition to Stage Three, Power by Achievement, as we begin to move up the ranks of the organization. This heralds the beginning of our management career. This stage calls for independence in thought, action, and decision making, taking risks, understanding the unwritten rules of the organization, ability to negotiate, strategize, compete, build effective coalitions, play as a part of a team, and maintain a healthy balance between self interest and the good of the organization.

Hagberg generalizes that Stage Two power accentuates what could be called a more feminine expression of power, whereas Stage Three calls for a more masculine demonstration. For men, moving from Two to Three is the easiest transition among the stages: they are socialized to expect that they will move from Stage Two to Stage Three, and if they are talented, other male hands reach down to help them up. For women, Hagberg asserts that this transition is the hardest: some of the agentic, individualistic skills that are demanded by Stage Three are more foreign to our upbringing and to how we’re shaped by culture.

Conclusion

Therefore, to excel as managers, we need to pay more conscious attention to learning these skills. Reflection, role playing, peer coaching based on an understanding of the types of skills needed to excel at Stage Three all become useful tools in the acquisition of what have traditionally been thought of as masculine-identified traits.

What does this mean in terms of the feminine strengths we can bring to leadership? Are they not important as well? More about that in a forthcoming post . . .

Reference

Hagberg, J. (2003), Real Power: Stages of Personal Power in Organizations, Sheffield Publishing Company, Salem, WI.

Author

To learn more about Kathy Curran, PhD, and her upcoming workshop, Using Power in Relationships with Women and Men at Work, go to her website at www.powerandleadership.com or contact her at 651-293-9448 or [email protected].

A guest post by Terrence Seamon

I recently watched a documentary on TV about the finalists in the 2009 international Van Cliburn piano competition held every four years in Fort Worth, Texas. These young virtuosos were incredibly talented, the best pianists in the world from many countries including the U.S., Japan, Russia, China, Italy, South Korea, and Bulgaria. Extraordinarily competitive, hard working, and driven to be the very best, these world class musicians are top performers. And they thrive on performing, practice, coaching and feedback.

We have all known top performers. Some of us have even been top performers at one point or another. Top performers, such as the Van Cliburn pianists, your top salespeople, or a rising star with “hi-potential,” can benefit by coaching as much as anyone. Perhaps even more so if you look at the parallel to the world’s top athletes, e.g. Olympians. Every skier, skater, swimmer and diver that competes in the Olympics has a coach and receives coaching. Although these athletes are the very best in their respective sports, they are driven to stay on top, to enhance their performance, to learn new things, and to stay mentally tough and focused. So they “get” the value of coaching.

In business organizations, Managers are often at a loss as to how to coach these “stars,” especially those that seem arrogant and immune to influence and change. Yet those employees need coaching as much as anyone. The key is to understand them, especially their needs and drives. And apply such principles as:

Communicate and Connect – The only way to know what your top performer needs is to connect with her and open a channel of honest communication between you. Get to know the top performer. Learn about her goals. Ask how you can support her. Build trust.

Ask for their ideas – Top performers get to the top by consistently delivering superior results. They are also constantly improving what they do. Seek their ideas for improvement. When you are faced with a thorny problem that has no obvious solution, ask the top performer for their thoughts.

Utilize their capabilities – If there is one thing that top performers hate, it is to be under-utilized. Challenge them and push them. Keep raising the bar.

Show your appreciation – Do you want to retain your top performer? If so, let them know you appreciate them and the contribution they make to the team and to the organization.

Expose them to new – Top performers love to learn new ways, especially if they sense that the new approach will enable them to stay at the top in their field.

Recently on LinkedIn, someone asked: What do you do if a top performer is resistant to being coached? Should you simply get out of the top performer’s way? Should you “carry water” for them? Cater to them in order to keep them happy and prevent their jumping ship?

There is always a need for coaching, in my mind. But it’s vital to assess what the performer most needs. Without a clear and agreed upon need, this star performer may just get irritated with you. And they may resist your coaching. Ask yourself: Could the behavior that seems to signal “resistance” be something else? Could it be impatience? Could it be arrogance? Maybe the performer is unconvinced that the coach has anything of value to offer.

Coming back to the Van Cliburn winners, the three medalists were selected from 12 finalists. As the documentary unfolded, the filmmakers gave us a profile of each competitor. While nearly all fit the profile outlined above, there were a couple who did not. Yes, they were incredibly talented and Olympian in stature on the world classical music stage. But they were full of themselves. They wouldn’t listen. They were resistant to coaching. And they lost.

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

Written by Kristine Quade, JD, MSOD, HSDP

Environmental conditions are changing rapidly; in these shifting conditions, traditional leadership models are not working. Information is available to everyone, at any time. Social networks are eroding the established hierarchy. Product development cycle times are increasing at a shocking pace. Market conditions are being set by a different set of rules. How can any modern-day leader function effectively given these enormous challenges?

In these turbulent times where outcomes are unpredictable, those who lead dynamically are succeeding. Dynamical leaders pay attention to three conditions to ensure an effective, highly functioning organization: coherence, resilience, and fitness. The leader who masters these conditions will achieve what others say is impossible!

Coherence

Coherence can be thought of as an interdependence of parts. An organization needs to be coherent with market conditions to remain a player in a given strategic space. Departments need coherence to ensure a strong coordination of activity. Teams need coherence of behavior to effectively work for the organization’s benefit. Patterns that build coherence are those that keep communication open and honest, ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities, build shared identity, and create a rhythm of high performance.

Resilence

Resilience is the ability to integrate, re-calibrate and recover quickly when challenged. The normal inclination is to fall back to familiar ground, carefully exploring until the change becomes familiar once again. Resilient leaders are constantly placing themselves in unfamiliar conditions, stretching their capacity to absorb and adjust. They seek what is different in perspective, approach, or opinion; connect across boundaries; and explore new ideas and technologies like a curious scientist. Resilient leaders are constantly looking for constraints in their thinking, decision-making, relationships, and behavior. They actively explore their filters, viewpoints, and judgments, constantly seek ways to break constraints and keep themselves open and adaptable. Patterns that build resilience include utilization of multiple perspectives, ongoing learning, and establishing feedback mechanisms for recycling learning back into the system for continued expansion of potential. The cycle of exploration and knowledge generation comes from external markets, interactions with customers, attention to shifting conditions, and curiosity of teammates. A resilient leader notices patterns of creativity, exploration, collaboration, and integration.

Fitness

Leaders who understand fitness are not thinking about athletics. Instead, they are constantly scanning their environment for potential surprises. They regard blips and trends as pieces of a larger puzzle to be solved. They know that these changes offer valuable information that beckons them to make meaning for their organization. These leaders have inquiring minds and seek to build organizational cultures that candidly talk about what is being noticed, are patient with different perspectives, and discern emerging patterns from random blips and trends.

How does paying attention to coherence, resilience and fitness ensure the capacity to accomplish what others think is impossible? Some leaders choose to focus their attention on building coherence. They focus on clarity of mission, vision, values, process improvements, performance objectives, and measurements. YES! These are needed and necessary. But they are not the only conditions for success. Coherence forms the ground floor of an effective organization, but what keeps an organization alive is resilience and fitness—the ability to adapt to what is important.

Sad as it may be, the environmental conditions we are experiencing now prohibit many organizations from developing a five-year strategic plan that is fully executionable. Dynamical leaders know their approach to business opportunities require constant vigilance for shifting environmental conditions and the ability to adapt with urgency. Operating in these conditions means that leaders must expand their focus grow their organizations capability to be resilient and fit into an environment of rapid change.

If you wish to learn more about this type of thinking and how to become a dynamical leader, check out the schedule for presentations and/or workshops on http://www.DynamicalLeadership.com .

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Steve Wolinski provides leadership development, organizational change and talent management services to numerous public, private and non-profit organizations. Website, Email.