It’s no secret that women have a harder time than their male counterparts when it comes to progression in their careers.
At Leadership Skills Training, we’ve been working with predominately corporate organisations for over thirty five years. The analysis conducted by McKinsey demonstrates that women account for just 24% of senior roles globally. This is, unfortunately a realistic footprint of what we see every day.
As a woman leader myself, I personally believe the onus is on both the organisation, and us as women to contribute to opening opportunities and better prospects for our careers.
Male Versus Female Traits
Women are typically more reserved, and less confident when it comes to career moves. They feel the need to be fully skilled and undergo additional education and training in order to run for a promotion. While in contrast to men shoot straight for the goal and learn along the way.
This was mirrored in a recent survey which concluded that after assessment:
- men would jump at a big step career ladder role when only holding 50% of the skills
- women would wait until their skills matched the specification up to 90%.
What’s Stopping Us?
The straight-forward answer is self-limitation beliefs. We need to accept that we don’t always make the right decisions, which we’ll screw up royally sometimes. Understand that “failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success”. This was a quote by Arianna Huffington (Co-founder & Editor of Huffington Post).
Confidence in your own abilities is the most crucial factor which restricts us from aiming higher and jumping at opportunities to get ahead. This is something that, as we demonstrated, men have no trouble at all doing.
Another point is of course, confidence in the organisation to support leadership development in women. And, provide suitable upskilling and personal development which in turn aids our confidence to take those higher steps.
Perfection
Ambitious women need to overcome their need to perfect being ‘perfect’ in order to harness their power and achieve transition into higher roles. The WOW factor model we employ at Leadership Skills development programmes enables our clients to drive the ‘be your best’. This is also a perfect example of how a development tool can push skills and confidence.
The biggest change will happen when women crystallise their vision and influence around their talents and skills on a level playing field, with confidence in their (proven) ability to match the job specification with existing experiences.
But How?
This is essentially all built around more impactful communication techniques. How they communicate and stretch from a relatively safe comfort zone to the learning zone which evolves self-development.
When women are confident:
- with how to communicate in an influential manner
- and have a clear understanding of the priorities, and the key messaging they want to address and deliver
the opportunities to progress become more open.
For women to progress, it’s critical that they widen their stakeholder management internally, externally (we call this the orbit effect), and ‘connecticate’ effectively – connecting by knowing your audience & communicating at the same time – using the skills and messages they already have as a women and excelling these with confidence.
Why not also read 17 Powerful Ways To Boost Your Self-Esteem or How To Not Let Your Weaknesses Undermine Your Confidence.
Bio
For more information and to learn more about Leadership Skills Training, and how we are championing more women in leadership, visit our website at www.leadershipskills.co.uk.
