Women Warriors

Maybe Xena had the right idea after all. In all of the Fortune 500, there are just 13 women CEOs—that’s right, only 2.6 percent. It’s a situation that needs a warrior princess like the 1990s TV icon, ready to strap on her armor, reach for her sword and shield, and charge ahead.

But in the real world, mowing down anything and anyone that stands in the way wouldn’t work. Back on planet Earth, when women come off as even slightly unladylike—meaning aggressive, assertive, or ambitious—they raise too many hackles to make it to the top. 

During conversations with half a dozen experts on women in the workplace, the same message came through loud and clear: The key to success for women isn’t armor, or assertiveness training, or any of a dozen other ways of trying to be more like men. Instead, women need to stay themselves—but at the same time, to learn to be more strategic.

To rephrase an old saying, this is a good news/complicated news story. The good news is that women who want to succeed don’t have to give up being feminine; the complicated part is that women who are ambitious can’t necessarily rely on built in x-chromosome characteristics. “You don’t have to be someone who isn’t you,” says Alice Eagly, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University and co-author of Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders. “But you may have to do things in ways different from how a woman would typically behave.” In effect, Eagly says, women have to take a close look at how they conduct themselves at work and ditch the behaviors that hinder them from getting ahead. “Of course, you shouldn’t act flirty or wear low-cut clothes. But you have to give up other parts of the feminine repertoire. Like being shy—you can’t sit in meetings and say nothing.”

The way Eagly sees it, the best route to the top is to combine positive aspects of what we think of as womanly, such as being kind and thoughtful, with culturally masculine traits, such as being self-assured and forceful. “To be effective you need a good mix of feminine and masculine behaviors—to be friendly and helpful, but at the same time to speak up and sound confident.”

Confidence—Within Limits
Of course, it’s hard for women to sound confident if they’re not. But it helps if they stop trying to be perfect and start concentrating on what they’re really good at. “People have personalities,” says Pam Lopker, chairman and president of the software firm QAD, which had 2007 revenues of $236 million. “When you wake up in the morning, what do you want to do? What are you thinking about on the way to work?”

In her view, women shouldn’t assume they have to act tough. Instead, they should focus on what they’re passionate about, work hard, and strive for continuous improvement. Sticking to what they’re good at will actually improve their chances of nailing top positions. “Look at today’s CEOs,” Lopker says. “Some are from sales; some are from finance; some are from a tech background. Being a great CEO depends on your whole leadership team. You don’t have to be all things to all people.”

It also helps women if they stop worrying about seeming uninformed and start asking questions. “Almost every human being really just wants to help you,” says Lane Nemeth, a pioneering entrepreneur who started Discovery Toys in the late 1970s, grew it into a $100 million business before selling it to Avon in 1997, and in 2004 started Petlane, a direct-sales company, for pet products. “When you act like you know something that you don’t—that’s when you really look stupid.”

Nemeth, a former preschool director, learned this lesson the hard way. She’d gotten into the toy business because she wanted to encourage parents to play more with their kids; it was only after the company went into the red that she began paying attention to the bottom line. “I did so many things wrong. The only way I could get the answers I needed
was to hire mentors. It didn’t matter that they were my employees—I looked up to them and they taught me a huge amount.”

The Negotiating Table
It helps women even more to be able to negotiate—a key factor in the business world, and one in which gender plays a significant role. Linda Babcock, an economics professor at the H. John Heintz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon, commissioned videos of male and female actors using the same scripts and negotiating in the same way. Then she showed the results to men and women executives. “It didn’t matter what style the men used,” says Babcock, co-author of Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want. “They were seen as effective and likeable, and people wanted to work with them.” Not so, though, with the women. “If a woman was really aggressive, people couldn’t stand her,” Babock says. “But when she was more cooperative, they liked her and wanted to work with her.”

According to Babcock, one of the biggest handicaps for women in business is thinking that the only thing they need to negotiate is the size of their paycheck. “The fact is, they also need to negotiate about high-profile assignments, good projects and good positions. Women tend to wait for these things to be offered, but guys are in there asking and getting the opportunities.”

Part of the problem, she says, is recognizing negotiation involves more than dividing a fixed pie. “It’s ‘Here’s what I have to offer; how I can be useful; how can I develop my skills in a way that helps the company. That turns it into a cooperative effort instead of a competition.” In order to be a successful negotiator, you also have to be able to take “no” for an answer—something women have a lot of trouble with. In Babcock’s class on negotiating, one of the students’ first assignments is to go out and make requests they know will be refused. “They realize that ‘no’ isn’t that bad,” she says. “To negotiate successfully, you have to get over that barrier.”

Women pour their time and attention into how to get job offers— but it’s just as important to look at whether the job is the right one. “Every time I’ve been offered a job, I’ve first asked myself whether it would help my resumé,” says Alyce Alston. Now president of two divisions at Readers Digest, she’s been the publisher of two magazines, W and O, and the CEO of De Beers North America. “Remember that even what seems like the best job might not look the same on the inside as on the outside.”

Before accepting a job, Alston says, women should ask what responsibilities they’ll have, who their colleagues will be, what they’re accountable for, and how much freedom they’ll have to make things happen. “You have to tell me what my average day would be like, and what will be expected of me in the first three weeks and the first six months.”

The Thin Pink Line
Women also need to think about how they want to come across. “They can’t just act like the little girls they were taught to be in childhood,” says Lois Frankel, author of Stop Sabotaging Your Career: 8 Proven Strategies to Succeed—In Spite of Yourself and See Jane Lead: 99 Ways for Women to Take Charge at Work. “But they also can’t toss out their whole feminine vocabulary and try to outman the guys.”

Instead, she says, they have to find a middle path. “It’s a thin pink line women have to walk,” she explains. “If they go over the line in one direction, they’re not taken seriously, but if they go over in the other direction, they’re bitches.” Nonetheless, there are things women can do to make that pink line wider—and walking it a lot easier. Here are some examples:

•  Turn questions into statements. Putting ideas in the form of a question—what Frankel calls “the backdoor approach”—might seem safer, but women will get a lot farther if they present proposals in a positive, affirmative way. One caveat: Because most people have trouble accepting the “take it or leave it” approach from a woman, be sure to add an inclusive tag line. Language such as “I think this is a good way for us to go, but I’m open to other ideas” will help you come across as a team player.

•  Say less. More words soften a message and fewer words strengthen it. Don’t believe it? Just think about the messages you remember—“Read my lips,” “Make my day.” How can you keep it short? Instead of thinking out loud, which usually means using more words than you need, prepare your messages in advance.

•  Don’t ask permission. Children ask permission, Frankel says; adults announce their plans. Don’t ask to take the day off for your son’s graduation—say you’re going to do so,
and you’d like to know what’s needed before that.

•  Spend money. Women tend to be frugal with company resources, which in today’s economy can be a good thing. But when they do so in a knee-jerk way, it looks as if they can’t handle a budget. Instead of just pinching pennies, educate yourself on what’s a good expense—and then don’t be afraid to make it.

•  Let your body language speak for you. And we mean more than just standing up straight. On the ‘No’ list: flicking your hair off your shoulders (a straight-from-high-school mannerism that can cut years off your credibility), inappropriate smiles, and out-of-synch gestures. “Large gestures are for large audiences,” Frankel says. “But if you’re talking to a small group, keep your arm movements down to what you’d use to hold a basketball.” On Frankel’s how-to-take-a-meeting list: Don’t sit on your foot or keep your hands folded in your lap. “You need to lean forward and have your forearms resting on the table,” she says. “That shows you’re in the game.”

•  Accept praise. Because women are uncomfortable with assertions of power, they tend to respond to compliments with phrases such as “It was only…” or “It’s just…” Instead of deflecting praise, Frankel says, women should take credit for what they’ve done. “Erase ‘It was nothing’ from your vocabulary,” she says. “Replace it with ‘Thanks for noticing, I work hard and I appreciate the feedback.’”

The Feminine Advantage
For the most part, the kinds of moves these experts suggest aren’t large. Indeed, many would be scarcely visible to an observer. But if women make enough of these incremental shifts, they’ll have something even better than a suit of armor—a path to success that draws on the capabilities they already possess.
 
One of the most important is something women have in abundance—their ability to connect and to communicate a remarkable amount of information in a seamless, efficient, and nonhierarchical manner. Sociologists call this way of operating “social networking”; for most women, this is simply what they’ve been doing all their lives. But it’s a skill that has assumed unprecedented importance—a key component of the ongoing innovation required in today’s global economy.

“We’re long past the idea of the lone-genius innovator,” says Nancy Tennant, chief innovation officer at Whirlpool and co-author of Unleashing Innovation: How Whirlpool Transformed an Industry. Tennant, who was included on BusinessWeek’s list of the 25 most important innovators in 2006, explained that the goal for large businesses now is to develop a level playing field where groups of people can draw on a variety of experiences
to make small ideas big and big ideas practical.

“Women have a lot of advantages in such an environment,” she says. “They can excel at the macro level—the activity at hand— and also at a micro level, as team members using social networks to enhance innovation.”

Asked whether women are inherently better innovators than men, Tennant’s response was diplomatic. She pointed out that 17 of the 25 people on BusinessWeek’s list were women. “We don’t have the research to say that women are better, but it does make you wonder whether there’s something about women’s culture that helps.”

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MBA Jungle, Winter 2008-2009