Howard J. Morgan - The New Advantage: How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for Their Companies and Themselves

THE NEW ADVANTAGE

How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for Their Companies and Themselves

HOWARD J. MORGAN AND JOELLE K. JAY

Foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times best-selling author

Copyright 2016 by Howard J. Morgan and Joelle K. Jay

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morgan, Howard J., author. | Jay, Joelle K. (Joelle Kristin), 1970-author.

Title: The new advantage : how women in leadership can create win-wins for their companies and themselves / Howard J. Morgan, Joelle K. Jay ; foreword by Marshall Goldsmith.

Description: 1 Edition. | Santa Barbara, California : Praeger, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015047035 | ISBN 9781440844591 (hardback) | ISBN 9781440844607 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership in women. | Success in business. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership.

Classification: LCC HQ1233 .M637 2016 | DDC 303.3/4082dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047035

ISBN: 978-1-4408-4459-1

EISBN: 978-1-4408-4460-7

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This book is dedicated to our mothers, Heidi Morgan and Evelyn Grupe. They have lived in a different time and have seen the points in history that have started the new advantage for women. Both of us, and they, hope that they will see even more change during their lives.

Contents

Foreword

Over the last 30 years, I have been fortunate to coach leaders at the highest levels, people who wield tremendous power within their organizations and in the wider world. Too few of them have been women.

Thats because women are still a minority in C-suites and boardrooms, despite significant progress in gender equality over the last half century. Women leaders have done remarkable things (even as early as the 1970s, my great friend Frances Hesselbein was making waves as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA). But despite the notable exceptions, women too rarely advance into the top tier of leadership.

So whats holding them back? In this insightful book, Howard Morgan and Joelle Jay identify major challenges women face that keep them from both personal fulfillment and professional achievement. Even more importantly, they offer practical solutions, drawn from their long experience in executive coaching, to help women advance in their careers.

They begin by pointing to research showing that companies perform better with women in top leadership roles. This dovetails interestingly with my own research on 360-degree feedbackthat is, feedback from bosses, peers, and other stakeholders. Statistically, I found, the average female leader gets better feedback than the average male leader. (That doesnt mean that all women are better than all men, it just means that women have a statistical edge.)

And yet women sometimes find it hard to capitalize on these advantages. For one thing, women tend to be hard on themselves, expecting perfection at work, at home, and elsewhere. When they fall short (which everyone does, sooner or later), too often they feel guilty. When I speak at conferences for women in leadership, this is perhaps the message that resonates most with audiences.

To these groups I like to tell a Buddhist parable about two monks walking by a stream. They see a woman crying; she needs to get to the other side without ruining her beautiful silk dress. The first monk picks her up and takes her across. The second monk is angry, because a taboo has been broken. Monks arent supposed to go near women, let alone pick them up and carry them! The first monk says, Ah well, things happen. The second monk continues berating his friend all the way home, and even wakes him up at night to tell him what a terrible sin hes committed.

You should not have carried that woman! the angry monk shouts.

Oh her, says the sleepy monk. I only carried her across the stream. You carried her all the way back to the monastery. In fact, youre carrying her right now.

Many professional women Ive met find this message helpful. Whatever youve done wrong, leave it at the stream. If something or someone is upsetting you, leave them at the stream. At one of my seminars, a woman who is a very successful investment banker raised her hand and asked, Could I please submerge them in the stream?

Clearly, women face formidable obstacles, both internal and externalwhich Joelle and Howard can address with authority. Howard has been my friend and colleague for 30 years, and in that time weve authored two books and numerous articles together. We share a key philosophy when it comes to coaching leaders: instead of focusing on problems of the past, we both believe in setting a course for positive change in the future.

For 17 years, Howard was an executive in business and government, responsible for everything from mergers and acquisitions to start-ups to labor negotiations. Hes been in the shoes of leaders who need to deliver results, which informs his coaching practice. As a coach, he has worked with executive teams, boards of directors, and leaders at some of the worlds largest organizations. Hes helped many executives make the best decisions for their organizationsand themselvesby aligning their mutual strengths.

Joelle is an award-winning executive coach, a keynote speaker, and the author of several books on personal leadership, including The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership , which has been used in leadership development programs in Fortune 500 companies such as MetLife, Microsoft, and Adobe.

She has helped many executive women advance through their organizations. She has also worked to make companies better places for womennotably through Leadership Circles, a program based on her work. As a wife and mother of two sons, she knows firsthand the struggles of balancing work and family.

The 9 advantages that Joelle and Howard outline in this book are drawn from this wealth of personal and professional experience. They discuss how to handle feedback and get noticed for your work. They explain the importance of strong networks, for example, and of finding not just mentors but also powerful sponsors. With pragmatic insight, they discuss that elusive quality called executive presence that women sometimes need to make the leap to a top leadership position.

Rightly, they dont blame women for the dilemmas they face. The disadvantages and injustices women have experienced in the workplace are certainly not their fault! At the same time, Howard and Joelle urge women to take responsibility for finding solutionsto lead themselves toward a better future. If women drive change, they will be able to shape it to their own advantage. And they will be empowered by the process.

This book gives womenand menuseful tools to bring about that change.

Marshall Goldsmith, leading executive coach, leadership thinker, keynote speaker, and author of 35 best-selling books, most recently Triggers: Becoming the Person You Want to Be (More information is available at marshallgoldsmith.com.)