The Politics of Advancement: Part II of III
1. Break Through the Glass Ceiling
Clear stereotypes and preconceptions can limit a woman’s rise to the corporate boardroom, according to the research group Catalyst.
Women who are two to three levels below the CEO perceive two main barriers to breaking through the “glass ceiling,” according to Jennifer Allyn, Catalyst’s director of research and advisory services. First, the women say old stereotypes die hard about a woman’s place in an organization. Second, women still feel they’re excluded from informal corporate networking, most notably on the golf course, Allyn says. Male CEOs, by contrast, think the reason more women don’t rise to the top is because they lack line experience and have “not been in the pipeline long enough.”
What can women do to overcome these real and perceived barriers? Allyn offers this advice:
· Find yourself a mentor. Pick a mentor who is different from you. This will give you valuable experience in getting along with other types of people. Finding an informal mentor is best; that way, you’re most likely to have a relationship based on mutual affinity and trust. However, if your firm has a formal mentoring program, use it. That’s especially helpful if your mentor is a man, so eyebrows won’t be raised if you spend a lot of time together or go out to lunch frequently.
· Be a mentor. It is equally useful to mentor someone else. Again, pick someone different from yourself. The person can help you keep your finger on the pulse of the company and give you useful perspective from the lower ranks.
· Use self-promotion. Whereas men tend to talk about their own successes, women tend to talk about their team’s successes. “Being able to talk clearly and succinctly about your own success is important. Male bosses expect you to do this,” Allyn says. “If you don’t take credit, they won’t know why you should be promoted.”
· Be clear about your ambitions. Tell your boss you want to hold job x by the year x. Once your goals are clear, your boss can tell you if you’re on track and, if not, what you have to do to get there. “Have open dialogues about your career path,” Allyn advises. Men tend to be much clearer about their ambitions. Women, too, need to “identify challenges and find out what you have to do to get there.”
· Look for line positions. Women are represented disproportionately in staff jobs, yet line jobs are the ones that lead to the top. “Staff jobs are very important, strategic positions in the company, but they’re not the route to the corner office,” Allyn says. If you want a top job, “self-select” into a line job as early in your career as possible, she advises. This is especially important because women are more often promoted for “demonstrated experience,” while men are more often promoted for “potential,” she says.
Observation: The good news for women is that the younger male generation sees no difference between having a male or female boss, according to Allyn and other experts. Younger men are accustomed to women in the workplace and, in many cases, are married to working women. “I don’t really see the difference,” says Franck DeChambeau, who worked in high-level positions at many corporations before joining the American Management Association.
2. Stay on Top of Your Promotion
A promotion is a victory, an accomplishment of which to be proud. As excited and enthusiastic as you are to make your mark in the new job, there are unseen stumbling blocks on that higher rung that can trip you up if you’re not careful.Following are some common problems that recently promoted managers encounter, along with some suggestions for handling them:
Letting go. This is one of the biggest difficulties for newly promoted managers. They are more familiar with the problems of the old job and know how to fix them. And they usually feel more comfortable operating in the realm where they excelled.
Suggestion: Withdraw by delegating to people in whom you have confidence. The more you feel your staff is up to the job, the easier it will be. Reassess each person’s skills from your new perspective.
It takes self-discipline to break the umbilical cord. When you are tempted to step in and take over, remind yourself that this can backfire. It diverts energy from your new work at a time when staying focused is crucial to success.
Handling resentment and jealousy. Someone who competed for the promotion may now report to you. Angry and hurt, he may spread rumors, refuse to cooperate and rally others to do the same.
Suggestion: Try ignoring the sabotage for a time; it may play itself out. If it doesn’t, confront the person. Cite specific things that were done or said—the letter to a customer that incorrectly implied you were to blame for a missed deadline, the remark you overheard about how you got the job through unethical ploys. Show how it will be to the person’s benefit to support you. Point out how productivity depends on cooperation and harmony and that the lack of it reflects on everyone involved. If the problem persists, warn the troublemaker that efforts to undermine your authority or stifle productivity will seriously damage his future.
Getting a handle on new job requirements. “Each step brings more freedom,” notes James L. Lister, a retired industrial psychologist. “The initial response to that is often anxiety.”
Some people tend to approach a new job in the same way as the old, out of habit and a natural desire to continue methods that proved effective. People new to management may face their first experience directing a team—a different task from supervising a secretary. A move from first- to second-line management requires other kinds of skills.
Suggestion: To help yourself shift gears, get a precise job description from both your boss and, if possible, your predecessor. Get a firm grasp on your new responsibilities and what they require. Then compare and contrast them to your old duties.
If this is your first management position, consider going to a management training seminar or taking a suitable course at a nearby university. When moving to second-line management, expect to be less involved in the day-to-day and more involved in long-range strategic planning. “Your success will depend more on judgment skills, the teamwork of your employees and your ability to coach and advise rather than supervise,” Lister says.
Adjusting to a new boss relationship. You may report to a different person with a new set of expectations. Or you may keep the same boss, but the relationship’s dynamics will change. Your skill at reading and responding to your boss can either smooth or aggravate the transition into your new role.
Suggestion: “Strike a balance,” Lister says. “Be independent and bring something new to the position, but stay within the parameters of what the boss wants and respects.” One boss might take well to formal, written status reports; another may go for casual chats to learn what’s been happening.
“Keep assessing how your boss responds,” Lister adds. “You don’t want to be a sycophant, but stay attuned so that you can judge when a different approach might be wise.”
Observation: Lister points out that people often think a higher position means working longer and harder. They overlook the more important difference—a necessary change in attitude.
3. Master the Art of Power Schmoozing
Competition is so intense at the executive level that your normal tack may be to bury yourself in your work. That approach may help you do well in your day-to-day job, but in most cases it’s not enough to get you to the top. That’s where networking comes in.
Keep in mind that some of the most important networking occurs after business hours and beyond office walls. For real advancement, you need a few social connections, according to research conducted by Kathleen Valley, an associate professor of management at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business Administration.
Although all the top executives Valley studied used rational criteria when deciding whom to promote or reward with key assignments, she found that their social ties influenced their decisions.
Socializing gives you the aura of being a well-liked person. And, other factors being equal, likeable people are more often promoted, rewarded and chosen for the best assignments. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should rush out to join every club you can find or spend each night partying. Be selective in your socializing. Get together with people in your company who can help advance your career.
If you’re not socially active, consider volunteering for company activities, such as the annual holiday party or its weekend softball game. An exercise club offers a good opportunity to meet people within your company who might be difficult to get to know, such as those in other departments. Don’t hesitate to ask people to lunch, especially those who don’t get many invitations. When you begin getting along with them better, think about inviting them to dinner at your home. Most will be flattered.
Be careful, however, not to become so deeply involved in social activities that you seem like a gadfly or take time away from essential business matters. You can’t afford to be at the sports club across the street when your top client calls at 3 p.m.—even if you are playing squash with the CFO.
Tactical moves: Once you develop broader social ties, use them in tactical ways. Invite the boss to meet someone she’d enjoy getting to know better. That might include your ally in a department the boss rarely encounters or an executive from another company in the area. Or you could ask your boss or a member of the brass to a special event, such as a ballgame or concert. It’s all the more impressive when the event has been sold out for weeks.
When you’re socializing with important people, go to places where company decision makers are likely to see you. Be careful, however, not to give an important guest the impression that he’s being used as a trophy on display. One way around this is to give him a choice of two or three restaurants for lunch and then diplomatically steer him to the one where your boss may also be lunching.
At appropriate times, mention your friendships with important people. For instance, if your boss is worried about whether the company can get a zoning variance for a new plant, mention that you know the deputy mayor and offer to phone him to discuss the problem. Or if a top executive talks about a competing product, it might be the right time to say you know the company’s CEO and wouldn’t be surprised if she’s even working on a new version of the product.
While socializing with movers and shakers has the biggest benefits, don’t neglect to develop social ties with peers and lower-level employees. Doing so shows that you are someone who gets along with many types of people. So the next time you pass the water cooler or the coffee machine, don’t just grab a drink and run back to your office. Linger awhile to schmooze.
4. How High Is High Enough?
A study of 100 plateaued managers and 100 upwardly mobile managers revealed a surprising similarity: The two groups did not differ significantly in satisfaction with their professional and personal lives. Most rated their satisfaction at four or five on a five-point scale.
“The findings run counter to stereotypical attitudes toward career plateaus,” says Janet Near, professor of management at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, who conducted the study. “There has traditionally been a stigma attached to staying put.”
Since there are more strivers than there are top positions, it’s inevitable that most careers will level out somewhere short of the executive suite. Interestingly, most managers often are standing still because of factors unrelated to their job performance: a boss who won’t budge, a recent acquisition or merger that creates duplicate jobs or alters career ladders, or even “voluntary plateauing.”
How do you determine your personal comfort level? And, once you have found it, how can you make peace with it and ensure against boredom and burnout?
· Define what success means to you. Unfortunately, most people don’t do this until they are forced to do so by a layoff or other crisis, human resource experts say. Often they discover that, until the crisis, they were motivated by criteria set by others: their employer, mentor, parents, spouse or community. Do some serious soul searching, suggests Near. Try to separate your fantasies from reality so that you can get a firm grip on what’s actually possible. Whatever your definition of success, you may discover that you can stop your climb and still feel you’ve really achieved it.
· Examine your priorities. A growing number of executives are not willing to make the sacrifice it takes to reach that No. 1 spot. Many people are rejecting the “bigger is better” philosophy and focusing on a higher-quality personal life instead. For some, this means finding areas outside work from which to gain satisfaction and enjoyment—family, hobbies, community activities or politics.
· Enhance your job. Although many of the plateaued managers Near studied held the same title for up to 20 years, few did exactly the same work over that time. A middle-management job can always be made more interesting. The key is to take more control over your work. You can add to your responsibilities by taking on special projects or joining another team in a pursuit that catches your interest, such as teaching an in-house training course. You can also set your own goals on top of those your boss sets for you.