They’re Finally Ready For Us!
 
 
What if you asked 2,250 adults across the U.S. who makes a better political leader, a man or a woman? And what if you divided leadership into 8 character traits?
 
Luckily for us, the Pew Research Center found the money and the people to fund a well-run survey asking these exact questions. What did they find? They found a paradox in our society.
 
They identified these 8 political leadership traits:
 

1. Honest
2. Intelligent
3. Hardworking
4. Decisive
5. Ambitious
6. Compassionate
7. Outgoing
8. Creative

And they got these results:
 

1. Honest                           Women             50% vs  20%
2. Intelligent                       Women             38% vs 14%
3. Hardworking                   Men and Women
4. Decisive                          Men                  44% vs  33%    
5. Ambitious                       Men and Women
6. Compassionate              Women             80% vs   5%     
7. Outgoing                        Women             47% vs  28%
8. Creative                         Women             62% vs  11%

The survey showed that people rated women as better leaders in 5 out of 8 categories, men in one category (decisive), and men and women equally in 2 categories (hardworking and ambitious).
 
This certainly is not the result the Pew Research Center would have found in the 1980’s. Times have changed.
 
Here’s the paradox: 
 
Women have made great strides in educational attainment (6 out of 10 college degrees go to women) and women have achieved near equal participation in the U.S. workforce (46.5%), very few have made the jump to the highest levels of political leadership (17% in the Senate and a mysteriously equal 17% in the House) or corporate leadership (less than 3% of the Fortune 500 companies in 2008 had female CEO’s).
 
Is this the truth?
 
Are people fibbing when they take this survey, and they really don’t think women are good leaders, but it wouldn’t be politically correct to say this? Luckily again for us, the Pew Research Center wondered the same thing, so they conducted a second survey. They were given profiles of 2 candidates, Ann Clark and Andrew Clark who had similar characteristics, except for gender. How did each rank on their  “likeliness to vote scale?”  They came out the same! Gender no longer mattered. In fact, when it comes to assessments about character, the public’s gender stereotypes are actually pro-female.
 
Getting back to sports—
 
Women come out of this survey like a sports team that racks up better statistics but still loses the game. The 8-traits survey stats are women over men by 5 to 1, with 2 ties. Nearly all these gender evaluations are shared by men as well as women. Interesting.
 
Gender no longer matters (yea), so why do we have this shortfall (boo)?
 
A number of recent studies have shown that women do about as well as men once they actually run for office, but that many fewer women choose to run in the first place. Some people think this is because party leaders are reluctant to seek out women candidates, especially for highly competitive races. (This may be rapidly changing!)
 
A recent Brookings Institution study gives another explanation. It suggests that women may be constrained by their own shortfall in political ambition—which, the study theorizes, is the sum of several factors:
 

1. They have more negative attitudes than men about campaigning for office,
2. They under-value their own qualifications for office; and
3. They are more likely than men to be held back by family responsibilities.

My Tip of the Week involves some missionary work you can do, all for the benefit of women.
 
 
Tip:
 
Think hard about the 3 reasons women may not be stepping up for a political office. Could one of these be holding you back? Should it be holding you back? For instance, # 3, family responsibilities, look at the U.S. Senate and House right now. Quite a few of these women have raised families. You could start thinking about local positions you could hold now and ramp up later.
 
Perhaps there’s a woman you know who you’d like to see making responsible decisions in our government. Talk to other women and form a posse to convince her to run for office. I personally know of one woman, who had only held PTA positions, who said this happened to her. She said she was stunned, but the momentum kept building, and her confidence built right along with it. Today she’s a respected politician making careful decisions which help mold our society.
 
Think it over. Take a step. Or help another woman realize her potential. There’s something you can do!
 
 
Be sure to visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.
 
Further Reading:
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Judy B. Rosener, Ph.D., Women on Corporate Boards Make Good Business Sense
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Is There A Gender Gap On Corporate Boards? —That Gender Gap Is A Gender Grand Canyon!or listen to it here.
 
Podcast (always about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Leadership Using Collaboration —Collaboration For Good Leadership
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Power For Women —Successful Women Use Power Differently Than Men or listen to it here.
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Debra E. Meyerson, Ph.D., Gender in Business: Speak Up About Double Standards

Tags: women, business, career, leadership, politics

Spending Time On Organization Is Time Well Spent!
 
 
 
Visual this:  You have a clean desk, no clutter. Ahhh. Every drawer you open has tidy compartments. Nice. You know exactly where to go to find the most important To Do’s and where to go to find the most pressing Urgent To Do’s —they’re rarely the same items! How true. 
 
I’m going to assume you have file drawers with labeled file folders in them. We’ll talk about that another time.
 
We probably all agree that this would be great. How do we get there? Things that used to be recommended, such as an accordion file for things on hold, don’t make sense to me in an information-heavy environment. Also, forget about the advice of having an Input Tray that rapidly accumulates tons of paper. It gives me the feeling of having a non-specific, hard to look at file folder on my computer. We can do better than that!
 
I recommend you handle every piece of paper as soon as it comes in. If it’s junk, make it invisible immediately—it goes into the trash. If it’s an item to deal with, make a note on your To Do List—and that list better be on the computer with its own desktop icon because it’s that important. Now, put the piece of paper into a file folder with associated items and into your file drawer in your office. If you don’t have an appropriate folder, now’s the time to label one. If you’re worried about memory lapses, put the name of the new folder next to the item on your To Do List. Now you can avoid that nagging But-I-May-Lose-It feeling. If the piece of paper could be dealt with by someone else, give it to them. If he or she is the type of person who may not take action soon enough, you can have an item on your To Do List, such as “Things I gave to Karen’s assistant” and put a date next to it. If she forgets to handle it, let her know you keep a list of things you give her with the date, and she may start doing your things first.
 
I used to have a problem with Post-Its. I’d write a search phrase or the URL of a site I wanted to look up. These colorful bits of paper made my desk look archaic. Now, I stick the related bits onto one piece of typing paper. I should (and I will) put this into a file folder that stays near my computer. But there’s always something to work on. I haven’t done that yet. 
 
My Tip of the Week covers another type of clutter that probably haunts your desk.
 
Also, be sure to visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.
 
Now here’s my Tip of the Week.
 
Tip:
 
There’s one type of desk clutter I have that I haven’t mentioned, and it’s a biggie for me. There are a number of business books that publishers send to me to review, and there are a number of journals I receive that I like to read, and I should read. I can’t stuff them in a file drawer or pass them off to Karen’s assistant. I’ve decided they cannot reside on my clutter-free desk. I put a chair next to the desk, somewhat out of site, and that’s where the books wait for me. The journals go next to my purse, also out of site, where I can easily pick them up on my way out of the office. The ones that stay on the bottom too long are ready to be tossed.
 
 
 
Further Reading:
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Work-Life Balance Rules For Others To Follow —Meetings And Other Time Drains At Work or listen to it here.
 
Podcast (about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Nature vs Nurture – Women And Men —Nature vs Nurture Is A Hot-Button Topic! or read it here.
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Be A Woman Who Makes As Much As A Man —Money Facts You Should Know About The Gender Pay Gap or listen to it here.
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Sally Allen, Get Organized! Filing Systems
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Tags: organizing, desk, clutter, working, women, business, career,

By Delegating Tasks You Can Save Time And Boost Your Leadership Status
 
 
 
In a previous post, Time Management & Procrastination, I mentioned that delegating tasks to others can save you time. I urged you to stop procrastinating and start giving them away. Now I’m going to say, “Take a few extra minutes—this is not procrastinating—to decide exactly which tasks would be the ones to give away.”
 
If you own the company and feel like making coffee, running the copier, and wiping smudges off windows, go ahead with the busywork. But if you work for others and you’re concerned that they may not view you as Leadership Material, drop these tasks as soon as you can.
 
The fact that you’re concerned about time management lets me know that you have more than enough to do at work. That’s good, because it means there’s probably something you can delegate.
 
Why don’t some people want to delegate?
 

1. It could be that they want to appear indispensable—you know, “Just try to replace me!”
2. It could be they think it’ll be too much trouble to explain to someone else how to do the job.
3. Or, it could be they don’t want to accept the responsibility of making sure this other person is performing the new task well and on schedule. 

 
To all three above, I say if you want to be considered Leadership Material, get over it! Now, are you ready to delegate? Good, here’s the Tip of the Week.
 
 
Tip:
 
There are certain tasks that lower your perceived status in the eyes of others. Your self-improvement lesson this week starts with jotting down the tasks you do in a month’s time. Put an up arrow in front of the status-enhancing ones and a down arrow in front of the down-dragging ones.
 
Concentrate on the down arrows. Add a #1 to those that you can see others doing fairly soon. Ah, who can you dump these on? No, let’s not get negative here. It may be possible to mentor an underling. What if you combined a couple of your menial tasks with one that’s a level up for this person? You could coach her (or him) while making sure those tasks are handled properly as well. Bundle these jobs together and visit your boss with your proposal for that up and coming person you have in mind, you know, your Time Saver.
 
Now go out there and improve your status while saving time! What could be better? Oh, I know, improving your status, saving time, and increasing your pay! We’ll get to that part soon.
 
Visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.
 
 
Further Reading:
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Time Management By Delegation
—5 Easy Steps of Delegation or listen to it here (about 5 minutes).
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Time Management & Procrastination —Tackling Procrastination Is A Time Management Tool That Works! or listen to it here (about 5 minutes).
 
Podcast (about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, Looking for Female Leadership At The Top Of Companies? —What You Should Add To Your Resume To Be CEO-Ready or read it here.
 
Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Challenging Gender Stereotypes —Speak Up When You Hear Gender Stereotypes or listen to it here (about 5 minutes).
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Hilary M. Lips, Women and Leadership: The Delicate Balancing Act
 
Website, WomensMedia, by Ramona Creel, 10 Ways to Delegate More Effectively
 
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Tags: delegation, women, business, career, leadership, time, management, delegate