“Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.”

Last year I wrote about the global glass ceiling; today I have seven fascinating articles on corporate women. More of the same—or are things changing?

Kids don’t think so; in fact they’re more pessimistic.

“The percentage of girls who say they believe that today both men and women have an equal chance of getting a leadership position has declined from 35 percent to 24 percent between 2007 and 2008.”

And the guys still seem to have problems if women “get tough” (like them), especially in male-dominated fields.

“Speak lowly and slowly, but smile frequently…This advice…was based on my observation that women must adhere to a narrow band of behavior in order to be effective in mostly male settings.”

WSJ Online republished an article from 2005 looking at the difference between how most women relate to numbers vs. most men and its effect on earnings. Sadly, it hasn’t really changed.

“Female M.B.A.s have a bias to nurturing and team building and male M.B.A.s to a more analytically driven focus on success and independence. My advice is that both should develop more well-rounded skills.”

And then there’s ‘that vision thing’

“Studies show that in almost all measures of executive performance women are equal to or outperform men, with one exception: vision. Ibarra’s review of the 360 degree reviews of nearly 3,000 women revealed that, in general, they were seen as less visionary.”

McKinsey, however, presents a trenchant case (requires free registration) on why women are important, not in terms of political correctness, but to the bottom line.

“The gender gap isn’t just an image problem: our research suggests that it can have real implications for company performance. Some companies have taken effective steps to achieve greater parity.”

But the world turns and times change. When the ruling class screws up big time, people often embrace the opposition.

Iceland’s meltdown is leading to a revolt by the country’s women.

“Icelandic women, however, are more likely to be studying the financial news than the recipes – and more likely to be thinking about how to put right the mess their men have made of the banking system than about cooking them comfort food. … But for a generation of fortysomething women, the havoc is translating into an opportunity to step into the positions vacated by the men blamed for the crisis, and to play a leading role in creating a more balanced economy, which, they argue, should incorporate overtly feminine values.”

And the same attitude is surfacing across Europe.

“John Coates, a researcher at Cambridge University concluded that traders made the highest profits when they had the highest levels of testosterone in their spit. The downside, he said, was that elevated testosterone also led to riskier behavior, a formula for disaster as well as profit.”

What do you think? Would the bankers have played derivative Russian roulette if there had been more women in the in the halls of Wall Street power?

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The ability to influence is not the sign of a leader; nor are visions, forceful opinions, board seats, titles or popularity. After all, if a high media profile was a sign of leadership then Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are leaders.

Millions of people are influenced and even inspired by writers and actors, but does that make them leaders? Angelina Jolie is considered a leader for her tireless charitable efforts as opposed to her screen credits; Rush Limbaugh may influence thousands, but I’ve never heard him called a leader.

It is the singular accomplishments; the unique actions that deserve the term, not the position you hold or just doing your job.

I knew a manager who thought his major accomplishment was managing his 100 person organization, but that wasn’t an accomplishment—that was his job. The accomplishment, and what qualified him as a leader, was doing it for four years with 3% turnover and every project finished on time and in budget.

Jim Stroup over at Managing Leadership wrote, “There is a strong and general instinct to ascribe positive values to what we have determined to be examples of leadership. In a world that so often confuses forcefulness with leadership, this can be – and frequently is, in fact, revealed to be – an exceedingly dangerous habit… There is a particularly frustrating – and increasing – tendency to characterize any practice or trait deemed “good” as “leadership.” When an executive exhibits behavior that is highly valued – or even expresses a perfectly ordinary one especially well – he or she is declared to be a “leader,” or to have demonstrated “leadership.”

Dozens of corporate chieftains who were held up for years as exemplifying visionary leadership now stand in line for bailout money—or dinner in jail.

There is no way to stop the word being used and abused, but you have the option to hear it for what it really is—a word with no baggage, no assumed meaning.

A word on which you focus your critical thinking instead of accepting it blindly, assuming that all its traits are positive or rejecting it based on nothing more than ideology.

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I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that as important as hard work, good planning, etc., are, there was something else at work in my life. Something outside of my control and I wanted to know what it was.

I finally decided it was luck—definitely outside my control.

I wrote recently abut how the luck of right time/right place luck played a role in the early success of a startup and also touched on Malcolm Gladwell’s research as described in Outliers: The Story of Success.

A few days ago I read a brief article about University of Chicago researchers Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe, who have been studying the effects of gesturing on toddler language development.

“Higher-income parents did gesture more and, more importantly, their children on average produced 25 meanings in gesture during that 90-minute session, compared with an average of 13 among poorer children, they reported in the journal Science. … Gesturing also seems to be an important precursor to forming sentences, as children start combining one word plus a gesture for a second word. … In fact, kindergarten vocabulary is a predicter of how well youngsters ultimately fare in school.”

Such a little thing, but with such potentially enormous impact.

I don’t remember my mother gesturing, but I do know that she talked to my sister and I using the exact same vocabulary that she used with her peers and that became our vocabulary. Fortunately for us, she had a large vocabulary between having gone to college and being an avid reader, but I wonder where I would be if that had been different.

Plus, researchers are finding that children start learning long before it was originally thought.

The problem is that from zero to six kids dependent on what they get from home; from 6 or so to18 or so they look to their peers, which is the blind leading the blind, and then it’s on to adulthood where changes are far more difficult and, if the research is at all accurate, limited.

No one can control when they’re are born, who their parents are or the economic strata into which they’re born, but you can reach out and help change the people’s luck.

And for all those who look at me and say that they’re busy or that they have donated all they can or it’s just not their problem and there are schools/social services/etc., to deal with it I have a news flash for you.

Unless you plan to die tomorrow, it’s your problem.

It’s your problem because of a little thing called demographics.

This recession will eventually turn around, even if it takes longer than our instant gratification culture likes, and when it does the US is going to need every warm body if it plans to retain/regain its success and influence.

No one is expecting you to solve the problems, but you can reach out and touch just one life. If everyone over 21 did that we would be well on the way to change.

Your choice is whether to be part of the good luck or the bad.

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Now see what’s in Wall Street’s basket

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As you probably know there are hundreds of ways to mess up a culture and a lack of authenticity is one of the big ones.

There’s a lot about written about authenticity, but are you aware that one of the quickest ways to announce your lack of authenticity is to issue ultimatums?

Thousands of times a day, day after day, bosses in every industry, in companies both large and small, issue “or else” ultimatums, sometimes without even realizing it.

These threats aren’t always direct (Do it or start looking.), more often, they are subtle (“I expect employees who work here to be team players.”), but the threat is there: Do X if you want to keep your job.

Obviously, this is not only atrocious management, since

• threats are tremendously debilitating to those receiving them, often costing them the confidence to do their job; but
• the manger who uses threats loses the most—the credibility to run the organization.

Bad enough, but beyond the direct effect of the threats, there is a ripple effect that is far worse—the seeding of a self-propagating culture of intimidation—as with hazing people start thinking, “I’ll do it to you because the person above did it to me [and I want to get even].”

Ultimatums kill creativity, innovation, motivation, caring, ownership, in fact, everything it takes to create a culture that allows a company to successfully compete in today’s economy.

If intentional you need to look long and hard at your MAP and decide if that’s who are and how you want to be, then change—or not.

When not intentional, ultimatums are often the result of poor communications but they can be stopped—the choice is yours and yours alone.

If you do it you can change it.

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Do words really make a difference? Can just one word change people’s perception of a person or event?

I’ve read several items lately on the importance of influence in leadership. Several even make the point that it’s the ability to influence that marks a person as a leader.

Personally, other than socially acceptable definitions, I don’t see a lot of difference between influence and manipulation.

Both influence and manipulation seek to produce an effect without any apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.

But if you say someone has a lot of influence it’s a compliment; call the same person a master manipulator and you’d better duck.

It’s a good example of the real power that words have to inspire or crush even if their meaning is the same.

And it’s important to remember that words come with baggage that goes well beyond their actual definition.

That baggage was one of the main reasons corporate marketing departments made so many mistakes when moving from one culture to another.

• Braniff translated its slogan relating to seat upholstery, “Fly in leather” to Spanish; only it came out as “Fly naked.”
• Coors slogan, “Turn it loose,” means “Suffer from diarrhea” in Spanish.
• Clairol, introduced a curling iron called the “Mist Stick” in Germany and learned the hard way that mist is slang for manure.
• Gerber started selling baby food in Africa using US packaging with the baby on the label until they found out that in Africa the picture on the label indicates what’s inside since most people can’t read.

There are hundreds of similar mishaps. They made marketing departments a laughing stock, forced companies to hire locally, helped change the headquarters mindset and encourage global companies to be truly global.

The point of all this is to encourage you to take a few extra minutes to think through not only what you want to say, but also what your audience will hear when you say it.

That effort can make the difference between going up like a rocket or down like a falling star.

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Greed is certainly in the news these days, from stories about it to tirades against it, so it seemed like a good time to offer up a few you may not have seen recently.

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” –Erich Fromm (Hello John Thain and friends, I think Erich is talking to you.)

“It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, aquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.” –John Steinbeck (This is so true it makes you want to weep.)

“To make a business decision, you don’t need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.” –Bill Watterson (After listening to all the rationalizations and excuses for what’s happened this is the first thing that makes sense.

Finally, to round this out I’m adding something I said during a conversation. I can’t remember having read it, but I doubt it’s really original.

“Greed is the driving force in the pursuit of many things besides money.” Me

What about you? Any thoughts on greed—your own or someone else’s?

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One of the most popular series of articles at Leadership Turn was written shortly before I came. It’s about styles of learning and how they apply to you, your colleagues, your team and your kids. Written by my editor, Mary Jo Manzanares, they are well worth your time. In fact, you’ll find it useful to review them from time to time, it’s the kind of information that gets pushed to the side, but pays large dividends when kept in the active file.

For those of you who deal with products in one way or another, here’s an interesting interview with Alberto Alessi on how to sustain innovation over time. You may have to register (free) to read it, but you’ll find it a source of great information.

There are lots of articles out there about large corporations who spend millions to create environments that spark creativity, encourage teamwork and facilitate a generally happier, i.e., more productive, workforce.

Startups are known for their cool and or funky offices often done on a shoestring. But they aren’t the only ones. It’s not just the big guys or the upstarts that are jumping on the trend. Lots of small businesses create innovative environments. Take a look at Madden Corporate Services, a 15 year old branding biz that’s grown to 39 people and learn how their modest investment pays off.

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If you read any of the hundreds of how-to books written about good people management and leadership, you’ll find great similarities among them. So, what happens during implementation? Why can the de facto difference between managers be so enormous?

The answer goes back to one of two basic beliefs that are formed and held long before a person becomes a manager.

• People are intelligent, motivated, and really care about helping their company achieve its objectives.

• People are stupid, don’t care, and will screw up if you don’t watch them every minute. Variations of A are discussed, lauded, and underlay most “good” management practices. Variations of B are rarely admitted, infrequently discussed, and can be largely unconscious.

Do managers on the B side of the scale always fail while those on the A side are guaranteed success? Unfortunately no.

What does this mean to you? If you’re a current or future manager, you need to be aware of where you are on the scale and then decide if that’s where you want to be—information that is nobody elses business.

If you like where you are, do nothing, you’re all set.

But if you decide to alter your location on the scale, remember that change rarely happens when undertaken as a result of what “they” say, so be sure that it’s you who wants to change.

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I received a call from a reader, I’ll call him Doug, (I love calls, you may reach me at 866.335.8054, 9 AM to11 PM Pacific time.) who wanted to know why I kept harping on the need for long-term this and long-term that. He said that he’s 26 and part of “the online generation” and used to “instant gratification.”

We talked for quite awhile and I found him to be intelligent, well-spoken and, in his own way despite what he said, thoughtful—but also impatient.

Influencing others is always stressed as a major trait of leadership—maybe the most important trait. But to lead on any level requires an understanding of the larger picture, along with strategic understanding of what’s coming down the road.

Neither one of those offers much instant anything.

I’m not saying Doug speaks for his entire generation, but in a post last summer I linked to several books and articles discussing changes occurring in brain functions as a result of the digital world.

One of the links is to an essay in the Atlantic Monthly by author Nicholas Carr in which he says, “the net is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation”. He cited other high-powered thinkers and online commentators: what if the way I THINK has changed? asked one. “I’ve lost the capacity to read War and Peace any more,” said another, whose current best effort was to stay with a three or four-paragraph weblog entry.”

Another article talks about Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of a new book, iBrain, “who cites a Stanford University study that for every hour a person spends on a computer, personal interaction with others drops by 30 minutes.

“With the weakening of the brain’s neural circuitry controlling human contact,” Dr. Small writes, “our social interactions may become awkward, and we tend to misinterpret, and even miss, subtle, non-verbal messages.”

You can think of it along the scale of Asperger’s syndrome, which is a mild form of it, where there’s not social connectiveness and difficulties with eye contact.”

And this isn’t just about the so-called digital generation, “Scans of the more practised internet users [55-78] during those search tasks showed increased activity in the front of the brain, where reasoning, complex decision-making, short-term memory and the processing of sensations and thoughts all originate. … Within five days though, the digital newcomers were showing the same neural activity.”

Along with greed, is it possible that this new style brain affected the people who ran the banks, hedge funds, and other businesses that played fast and loose with your money?

How will these new brains lead as they move into the workforce and the world?

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