Leadership & Empowerment

Pass The Credit, Not The Buck

"Believing is the first requirement of achieving.  The second is that you get in the game."

Janet Napolitano

Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania

"...success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women."

Sheryl Sandberg

Lean In

Effective leadership requires genuine confidence.  Under pressure, a leader must accept the possibility of failure and the need to accept responsibility for the shortfall.  And when things go well, highly effective leaders give credit where it is due and recognize the reality that no group accomplishes a goal on the efforts of a single member.

I didn't make that up; it's gospel in the field of study of leadership practices.  And one of those things that while the behaviors described are rare, it's quite intuitive when spelled out like that.  And we ought to ask why that is!

All of which is to say that effective leaders create environments in which all team members are able to, indeed required to, contribute in meaningful, creative and measurable ways.  And when I say all, I mean all.

Janet Napolitano spoke at U Penn regarding her many firsts as a woman in law and politics, and sagely offered this:

Look at the conspicuous example of the Fortune 500, where only 4.6 percent of 500 CEOs are women.  In law, just about 20 percent of named partners at firms are women.  In politics, women hold 18 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives and 20 percent in the Senate.  And on it goes. 

Are those numbers so low because women are less qualified to lead?  No.  In part it's because we send messages that girls should not be leaders, they should not be bossy...it is also that girls absorb the message and then edit themselves out of the equation.

So, it has to be asked...of all these self-congratulatory leaders out there in so many fields - not just politics, but executives, school boards and administrators, parents, religious leaders, and so forth - why does someone like Napolitano have to point this stuff out?  If we have so many civic and business leaders, who are effective (as all those glorious CVs claim!) why is 50% of the population being told to stay on the sidelines?

Perhaps, now that Gillette is selling a man-scaping body razor, men will eventually come to see themselves as commodities - arm candy - in the same way that women are told to see themselves.  Prizes to be won, possessions/territory to be protected...anything but empowered.

Until that shift happens, however, every would-be leader (and parents, you're the leaders of your own little team) has a moral obligation not to encourage women and girls to contribute, but to expect it, demand it.  If you're in the group, contribute to the group.  If you're leading the group, get contributions from all involved. The insidious effect of girl-world is that standing out is like whack-a-mole; she who stands out gets thumped by her peers.  Smart, athletic, outgoing, outspoken, visionary, goal-oriented...all traits that are targets for negative behavior from peers.  Where do kids learn that?

This passive, safety-first environment leads to one of my least-favorite behaviors in girls: apologizing.  They apologize for everything.  Mainly, they apologize because of an action that has brought attention, and no matter how they get attention, they must not look like they wanted it, or deserved it, of would, heaven forbid, repeat the effort to stand out!  Truly, this is the greatest challenge facing women is to have the temerity to stand out and not apologize for it.  And you know what they call women who do that?

A bitch.

Layer on top of that treatment the fact that there's more than enough latent sexism and bigotry to keep most women from even trying to fulfill their potential and it's a miracle 4.6% of all Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

Effective leadership?  There ain't no such thing if your organization (team/family/community/business) isn't seeking the input and contribution of under-represented voices.  In soccer terms, would the girls in a team respect a girl who sought to score goals, demanded the ball?  A player who barked orders on defense?  A player who studies the game, reading, watching and talking with coaches to understand the principles and patterns of the game?  A teammate who looks them in the eye and says "that wasn't good enough; you can do better!"?  A teammate who asks for a partner to spend time before or after training working on a skill?  If a teammate had success, would they acknowledge that and encourage more from that teammate?

I worry kids like those described above would be pariahs on a team.  But some people are catching on...I think I'm earning an understanding of it.  Are the parents of the girls I coach?  Janet Napolitano gets it, among other high-profile women in the past couple years.  We have to know girls and women can lead, have to lead, and empower them to contribute.  They, too, must empower themselves.  I love the two requirements Napolitano offered at the title of this post.  The environment must allow/encourage/tolerate girls and women who believe...then those women have to act.  It's not all on one party or the other to improve things; it's on every invested stakeholder.

Napolitano closed her remarks with this:

In the final analysis, effective leadership depends on a few key pieces.  Leaders must have a long-term vision.  They must think bigger and persuade other people that they want to be part of this something bigger.  They must also have a sense, operationally, of how to get it all done.  

And then they must have the wisdom and patience to step back and let others do it. 

All of the above is true if you are a man. 

All of the above is true if you are a woman.