Women Lack Confidence…?

If I am forced to sum up what I do in three words I will say ‘boost women’s confidence‘.

I actually do a myriad of things, from courses, coaching, seminars, and writing but the leitmotif of all my work is giving women the confidence to fulfil their potential. To be all that they can be, whether that is about career progression or giving it all up and growing vegetables!

I was really interested therefore, to read of a survey undertaken by the Institute of Leadership and Management, Ambition & Gender. They spoke to 3,000 managers to find out what drives career ambition and to explore the barriers preventing women’s progression into senior management and leadership positions.

Confidence

Among their findings was the fact that women are less confident of their abilities than men. Over half of the women admitted to feelings of self doubt compared with 31% of men.

I don’t know why this might be but suspect a lot of it is to do with our attitudes to getting more women into senior positions. The tendency is to ‘fix’ women to behave more like men and not value as highly that which women bring to the workplace. In coaching,  I often find women berating themselves for not being more ambitious or ruthless, yet closer questioning reveals it’s much more about the compromises required to get there, rather than ability to do the job. As Penny de Valk, ILM’s chief executive says, the research highlights some of the complex dynamics of what is, in many cases, still a male-centric work culture.

Coaching Promotes Women’s Confidence

Penny went on to say that it is crucial that employers who are serious about gender diversity take steps to find ways to nuture women’s ambitions.

“This means developing transparent talent management systems and introducing leadership career models and development approaches that flex to meet individuals’ differing needs. Coaching and mentoring, in particular, have an invaluable role to play. We know that gender diversity drives organisations’ financial performance. Business leaders should need no encouragement to ensure their most talented employees move into leadership roles, regardless of their gender”

I have a whole series of career tips for women but perhaps my best single tip is to remember that the internal messages we give ourselves are hugely powerful. They can boost or diminish our confidence. If you are carrying round in your head some negative internal spam, identify them, then neutralise them, then replace them with something  positive and inspiring!

And if you’d like to find out more about working with me, please do contact me for an informal discussion.

Women, Nottingham is Place to Be!

As someone who has spent a lot of time working within local government it was so heartening to read this about senior women at the week end:

“Nottinghamshire’s great and good were out in force, including the chief constable, the city council’s chief executive, the head of the probation service, the governor of a sex offenders’ prison, the sheriff (yes the sheriff of Nottingham, surely the most famous sheriff title in the world), the high sheriff, the university’s pro-vice chancellor, a former chief nursing officer, the head of children’s services … and every single one of them was a woman. Also there was the country’s first female black High Court judge.

“In addition the whole evening was put together by a woman, aforementioned High Sheriff Amanda Farr, and Mental Health Research UK founded by a woman, Claire Chilvers.”

This was from the blog of Alastair Campbell written in January and it’s great that he took the time to acknowledge the women involved.

But isn’t it sad that it was something of note?

If Women Ruled the World

If women ruled the world….

I ask this question on my Women Ahead course (designed to boost women’s confidence to move ahead at work) in order to illustrate how the world of work as we know it, could be different. It’s not about having a go at men but about thinking from a different perspective, expanding our horizons of what could be, and maybe understanding better why things are as they are.

Think about it for a minute. The world of work as we know it now evolved during the Industrial Revolution, when labour moved largely off the land into cities and a different type of employment. Men went to work and systems of working emerged dependent largely on the fact that there were women at home to literally keep the  home fires burning.

Women had little or no part in how work was organised.

Imagine though if we had. Allow yourself to imagine if the working world as we know it had been designed solely for women – all women. Imagine that men were at home, (apart from the poor ones who would be working very hard but for far less money than us) and imagine that actually most of the time it wasn’t even thought appropriate to educate them as, well, they were just going to marry successful working women and keep home. It would be a waste of investment. And as for getting the vote….what nonsense.

I have no doubt that different systems would have evolved. We might have a totally different working day, not 9-5 at all. We would certainly have  very sophisticated maternity and child care arrangements because we would have been very important people. Systems would have evolved to support us.  And they would be considered normal. School hours may have been designed differently. Just try and imagine. How many things would be different?

And I am also sure that as time went on and men began to get involved as society evolved they would find themselves at a disadvantage in the systems we had designed. But they would do their best because it was the way of the world and if they wanted to get on they would have to adapt. They would have to suppress some of their instinctive behaviour and behave like us, the dominant culture. We would have set the standards for behaviour in the world of work.

And as time went on, we women wouldn’t really have an incentive to change because actually it works quite well for us and anyway, some men can cope very well. Why look, there is that well known financier guy who is one of the 12.5% of men who has made it to the board in that company listed in the FTSE 100. So it’s fine, isn’t it? Obviously we’d like to see more men on boards but we can’t legislate for changing societal attitudes. We’ll ‘nudge’ them. We’ll encourage them, yes, that’ll do something.

Sometimes we need legislation to change society’s attitudes. If we hadn’t done that in the past, women wouldn’t be voting, children would still be working, and homosexuals would still be persecuted.

Inspirational Woman – Sara Sheridan

Sara Sheridan is Edinburgh born and bred (which may be why I felt an instant affinity with her as it is home to my much loved Scottish family and where my husband grew up). Her web site says she wrote her first book, Truth or Dare, on an impulse in 1998! She is now a very successful author and her 8th novel has just been published, Secret of the Sands.

Jane: Sara, with your 8th novel currently hitting the streets, do tell us more about that impulsive first novel. Many of us have thoughts about writing and some of us even get as far as chapter one but you really went for it! Why then and where did your motivation come from?
Sara: Well it was a practical issue, really. I had separated from my husband and I had a 3 year old and I was working full time. I was exhausted! My best friend and I had a long chat and the best solution we could come up with was that I should start working at home so we made a long list of everything I might do. To be really honest, I thought that becoming a writer sounded easiest. That is, of course, completely mad.

Anyway, in the back of my mind, was that I could take a year and write a book (or say I was writing a book) and I’d just get some breathing space – even though I’d be broke. So, I quit my job (everyone thought it was nuts) and well, I started writing. And I discovered I loved it. I was incredibly lucky and sold that book (I often feel guilty when I meet people who had to try for ten years to sell something – for me it was a matter of months). I’ve been doing it ever since.

Jane: Going back just a few years, what was Sara the child like? Did you have a vivid imagination? Were there any early signs of the writer you were to become? What did you want to be when you ‘grew up’?
My mother tells this story of coming into my room one morning and drawing the curtains to get me up from school and I crawled across the covers moaning I couldn’t go in that day. I’d been reading Heidi and had decided I had the same disease as Clara and that it would be best if she sent me to Switzerland. Poor Mum, she knew she had trouble on her hands! I expect though she thought I’d be an actress rather than a writer.

To be honest, I wasn’t a happy child and what I really wanted to be when I grew up, was loved. I should clarify that my parents did love me, but we had communication issues. Anyway, I had no career or anything like that in mind. Being loved and feeling it was the thing.

Jane: You have had a love hate relationship with food, which many of us can identify with. In your case, it became quite serious for a time. Why do you think that was, and how did you overcome that?
Sarah: God yes! I was a teenage bulimic. That ties in with what I’ve just said because the one thing I did that made my parents happy was eat, so I ate a lot and then felt ill and ended up becoming bulimic. Lots of the women in my family have food issues of one kind or another. It’s just there in our family. I got out of it by growing up, I suppose. I was lucky. My boyfriend (who I later married) noticed I was making myself sick. He was the first person ever to notice or to really care. He took care of me and empowered me to get better, really. I’m still very grateful to him for that.

You have a daughter of your own now. In the light of your experiences how have you helped her cope with expectations of women in society?
I am so proud of my daughter, Molly. She’s 19 now and just left home to study last year. We are very close. I think having a child is one of the most difficult, awful and most healing and wonderful things I ever did. The whole focus of my parenting (and I would never claim to be the ideal parent – I’m cookie, let’s face it) is to keep the communication as good as it can possibly be. Just to be honest, I suppose. It’s worked for us – we get on very well.

You went to Trinity, Dublin to study English literature. When you left full time education did you have a plan in mind? What were your early aspirations?
When I left full time education I was already married! My ex-husband loved the west coast of Ireland and we moved there. On an impulse we found this great property and set up an art gallery and bistro. We had no idea what we were doing! It worked (for him anyway) as he still works in the food industry. I learnt I like big cities and words…

Who has been the most influential person in your life and why?
That’s a difficult question because there is more than one hero in my life. I love my godmother, Sarah. She’s just amazing – open-minded and radical and genuine. My partner, Alan, who is a rock through good times and bad – I appreciate him a lot (especially having had some not so great boyfriends over the years). Professionally, there are lots of people who have had an influence – Sandy McCall Smith whose career is simply inspirational for example. Or TC Boyle – he’s an American writer – whose novel ‘Water Music’ made me decide to write historical fiction.

What is your favourite place in the world to chill out, and to write?
Home! I work at home. I have a desk these days but I used to lie in bed with my laptop to write or sit at the kitchen table.

How easy was it to get that first book published?
Far too easy! Honestly, I feel guilty about it. I knew nothing about publishing and I knew nobody in publishing. I blundered my way in – just sent off the book to everybody who looked relevant in the Writers and Artists Yearbook. Lucky it was a good manuscript and I got an offer early on (I’d probably have moved onto something else, if it hadn’t worked relatively easily). Then I got an agent off the back of that and I was on my way.

What advice would you give to anyone thinking of embarking on a writing career?
It is a massively competitive and difficult field and right now it’s in a state of flux. You need to be pragmatic, work hard and be open-minded in your career choices. It’s also a great job!

What has been the best piece of advice ever given to you?
Hmmm. The advice was: Don’t over-react. I’m prone to that. When my daughter was a mid-teenager she rebelled in a big way and my best friend said ‘don’t over-react. If you can keep your perspective she’ll be over this by the time she’s 20. If you over-react she won’t forgive you for ten years.’ She was right.

Your do a lot of historical research for your novels; if you could choose one time to live in, other than now, which would it be, and why?
Well, as long as I could be rich – because poor people had it very rough – and healthy (you didn’t want to get sick) I’d choose the late 1700s. Pre-industrial and at the tail end of the Scottish Enlightenment. The Empire was just starting. That was a really interesting time to be around – stimulating and exciting. And (oh my) – the frocks!

Sara, thank you so much. I am reading Secret of the Sands and it’s a corker. You’re a brilliant story teller. Good career choice!

You can read more about Sara on her web site. Her books are available in all good bookshops and libraries or via Amazon here.

No Excuses

No Excuses is a no nonsense book from Gloria Feldt that will challenge quite a few assumptions about women’s issues. Her main premise is that now there are no real barriers to women taking power, only women themselves and their reluctance to embrace power.

The book is subtitled 9 ways women can change how we think about power. Feldt acknowledges that there are still ‘insidious cultural barriers’ but ‘formally’ she asserts there is no barrier to women pushing at the open door and walking right into the boardroom.

Gloria is not seeking to assign blame; instead she wants to inspire women to embrace ‘a historic moment’. She really wants us to seize the day!

9 Ways Chapter Headings

Each of the 9 ways is a chapter heading. I really can’t do the book justice in a short review but I will list the 9 headings to give you a flavour:

• Understand (some history)
• Redefine (thinking about what power is i.e. power over vs power to)
• Unblock (power unused is useless)
• Be Unafraid (stand up and be counted and refuse to be sidelined)
• Unfetter ( Economic power and reproductive power, or sex and money!)
• Unlimit Yourself (A man would never question his ability to do the job)
• Unleash (Be angry enough, be inspired enough to take action, work together)
• Just do it (Self explanatory I think!)
• No Excuses (don’t follow your dream, lead it!)

Style

Gloria Feldt writes well but this is not a light read. Nor is it necessarily a comfortable one; she is not afraid to be controversial. I really asked myself some searching questions when reading it. Here’s an example:

When You have Choices You Get to Have a Dream
Although conservative fundamentalist groups such as Focus on the Family (US) would likely be apoplectic at the suggestion, the fact is when we’re talking about family, what we’re really talking about is sex. Without sex, there is no family. And when we talk about sex, what we’re really talking about is a complex web of social interactions, all of them defined to a significant degree by women’s personal agency and sexual power.

Michael Goldberg writes in The means of Reproduction, “There is one thing that unites cultural conservatives throughout the world, a critique that joins Protestant fundamentalism, Islamists, Hindu Nationalists, ultra-Orthodox Jews,  and ultramontane Catholics. All view women’s equality and self possession as unnatural, a violation of the established order. yet in one society after another, we can see the absence of women’s rights creating existential dangers.”

There are strong cultural powers at play resisting women having a ‘womb of one’ sown’ and it’s time to address them head on. ……As Shipley [ex New Zealand Prime Minister] laid out the facts about women globally, I couldn’t help but think how for those of us who count ourselves among the lucky ones, the time for excuses is over; it is time to make sure our good luck becomes just the way things are, for all women.

To Buy or Not to Buy…

This is a book I will turn to and quote time and time again. It’s not pop psychology, it’s serious work with serious implications, lightened by the many stories and anecdotes within its pages. If you are serious about advancing the course of women in society I urge you to read it. Don’t expect a comforting ride; Gloria is basically saying stop whining and do something! The building blocks are there, build something with them! (In a nice way, well she is a woman!)

I think it will challenge you and give you a different perspective and it may, just may,  genuinely change your life! Buy it!

If you’ve read it, please share your views on it.

The book is available in the UK and US, from good bookshops, libraries, and Amazon.

Me, Women, & Prisons

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you may have noticed that I’ve been quite doing a bit of reflection lately (here, for example). It’s always good to take a bit of time out now and again to think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it!

One of the issues I wanted to pay attention to was that part of what I do which is not about actually earning an income.Obviously I couldn’t stop doing that, nor did I want to – I genuinely love what I do, but I really wanted to take some time to pay attention to the other bit of my working life.

Women and Prisons

In a previous role I’ve worked with offenders and in prisons. At that time, being employed in a bureaucratic government organisation I was restricted in what I could do, although we did pioneer some very successful group working! Recently I found myself wondering if the techniques and methods I use now (and know work with women to help them make really meaningful life changes), would have helped those women to take more control of their lives. I was idly wondering how I might make this a reality this when out of the blue my old manager from the probation service got in touch with me again. He is still doing some work in a women’s prison. I blathered on about my ideas, he was encouraging and enthusiastic… and together we have put together a plan! Early signs are hopeful, and we have submitted an outline for consideration. The wheels grind slow…but I am optimistic!

Women and Charity

My second aspiration was to make a contribution somehow to women’s issues the world over.  (I know, a bit grandiose of me but…you’ve got to have a go.) I’ve been researching for a while, looking for an appropriate charity to promote through these web pages and have been speaking with Womankind (if you click on the link you’ll hear Sandi Toksvig telling you all about it). There will be more about them in a post on International Women’s Day, March 8th. As my charity of choice I will be giving 10% of all proceeds from this site (advertising, book sales etc) to the charity. (And if you ever feel like giving a bob or two I hope you’ll think of them and click the link in the blog roll!)

The Day Job

However, I am still doing the day job! I’m still coaching and delivering courses like my  Women Ahead to encourage women to break the  glass ceiling and work towards equity in the workplace! But taking that  a wee break has been wonderful, and it’s possibly been one of my most creative periods to date. While I was turning my focus outwards the creative juices have flowed like billyho and I have all sorts of plans forming. I have made room to do more of what I want to do and have revitalised myself. It’s been wonderful!

So, when you can, step away from your own day to day stuff from time to time, do a little checks and balances exercise on yourself. Plan it in your diary, or take advantage of unexpected down time. How ever your life is at the moment (and life is always troughs and peaks, isn’t it?) it will help you if you can pause for a while, take some (mental) time out, and see where it leads you. Sometimes you need to make space for good things to happen. You may get a surprise…