Answers to 3 Practical Questions and Considerations for Women in Leadership  

I had the good fortune of being asked to speak to a group of women in the technology field. As with any other discussion focused on women in leadership, I was asked to respond to these questions from the perspective of a former Chief Information Officer (CIO):

• How do you break through the glass ceiling?
• How do you find work-life balance?
• What’s it like being a woman in a male-dominated field?

This was the third year that I had spoken to this group. As each year passed, the number of men who attended increased. Perhaps posed in a slightly different manner, these are questions that all leaders, regardless of gender, should ask as they manage their lives and their careers.

How do you break through the glass ceiling?
This may be a difficult topic to discuss. Acknowledging a “glass ceiling” may not cast an organization in the most positive light, yet ignoring it may be worse. Rebecca Shambaugh, in her book It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor, acknowledges the existence of the glass ceiling but challenges her readers to focus on those things that make their feet stick to the floor. Some of the things we learned as girls in Kindergarten may be some of the traits that hold us back in our leadership careers. She notes that traits such as results, detail orientation, and team orientation more closely aligned to middle management.  Women should focus instead on executive skills such as strategic thinking, vision, relationship building.   Focusing on the wrong thing causes women to overlook their strengths and “get stuck on the sticky floor.”

Focusing instead on executive skills is the key to getting “unstuck.” Focusing on the wrong thing causes people to overlook their strengths. How does one achieve this kind of focus? A golf story is illustrative. I was playing golf in Hilton Head, SC. I finally got to the point where I could drive the ball and not go into the water because I was focusing on the water, but at Hilton Head there were alligators on some holes, and I was hitting from the forward tees — which are closer to the alligators. I did not lose my focus on the alligators, and every single drive on a hole with an alligator went straight for an alligator. I needed to focus on the fairway or green instead of the alligators. Likewise, aspiring women executives need to focus on goals beyond the glass ceiling instead of getting stuck on the sticky floor.

How do you find work-life balance?
This question always drives me nuts. It’s not like I am part wife, part friend, and part CIO! How can I not be 100% wife? Or 100% friend? Or even 100% CIO? Focus and priorities make this a non-linear problem. Einstein says it best:

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.

Sometimes folks will ask my husband, “How does it feel to have your wife blog?” He says, almost always, that it’s OK except when I blog on “his time.” I wondered, what part of my time is not his time? Then I came up with it: while he’s sleeping, working outside, shopping, or fixing something. If I focused, wrote faster, and chose the appropriate time of day, I reasoned, then everybody would be happy. The solution here required making wiser choices about the quality of time versus the quantity of time.

What’s it like being a woman in a male-dominated field?
On one occasion, I was at a conference with a bunch of Java developers – a whole bunch of men! I was late and wearing a smart but flashy silver-and-white metallic jacket. I was floating in a sea of blue jeans and hadn’t seen a woman yet. As I approached the seating reserved for speakers, I got a shout-out from the stage about my jacket. It feels like that – to be complimented for my right-brained fashion sense more than my left-brained technology prowess.

However, many of the executive traits that Shambaugh describes are associated with right-brained behavior, and several studies have shown that women may exhibit more right-brained thinking.  Some of those attributes are big-picture thinking, seeing both present and future, appreciating, presents possibilities, and taking risks.

Dan Pink, in his blog, Too Many Left-Brained Thinkers Spoil the Pot, suggests that left-brained thinking prevents some companies from seeing financial disaster coming. Just like Schambaugh, he notes management skills such as short-term focus and annual budget management.   Visionary leadership that has the greatest impact is the right-brain – the leader’s inner girl.

My conclusion is whether you are a male or female executive, or a CIO, or just a regular person, you should focus on your strengths, be prepared to stand out in a crowd, and watch out for alligators.