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Leadership

Women can and do make great leaders in the workplace. In fact, studies have shown that companies with women in leadership positions perform significantly better than those without women at the top. So what makes an effective woman leader? Liz Cornish, author of Hit the Ground Running, interviewed successful women leaders in many career fields, and identified the following seven habits they all share.

1. They are able to balance their concern for others with self-advocacy. They can negotiate on their own behalf and on behalf of their team, but they still maintain a strong sense that the ultimate decision has to feel fair.
2. They are excellent technicians. They often move up the ranks by excelling at highly technical endeavor (pilots, engineers, and so on). As one military officer said "flight checkouts are neutral. How could they question my ability when I was tested first in the class?"
3. They are powerful communicators. They know how to get their message across the first time, and they avoid communication errors.
4. They always feel left behind. One executive agreed with the words of her colleague: "When I die, I will still be behind." They have learned their lives are chaos and that they will never have complete control. They make peace with doing the best they can.
5. They don't feel limited by their gender. Most of the top executives.interviewed don't consider being female an obstacle. However, many of them cited examples of the limitations it placed on other women and how those women limit themselves. They don't allow comments such as "We don't think women belong here" to faze them. They don't let detractors take up a lot of their time or energy. In fact, they are often able to turn strong naysayers into coaches and advocates.
6. They swallow their fears and grab the risky, highly visible assignments. They feel self-doubt but don't obsess over it. Incidentally, research shows that women are more risk-averse than men, but they perform just as well in risky conditions. And if give a lousy assignment, interviewees made the best of it. As one admiral mentioned "I often received window-dressing assignments because I was a highly ranked woman. I just made the best of them while actively seeking new assignments too."
7. They keep their sense of humor. Whether leading in a crisis or interacting with a demeaning jerk, top female executives find the light side of otherwise dark and stressful circumstances. They can laugh at themselves and manage to keep things in perspective.

James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner have published multiple books and videos on leadership. Their 2002 book The Leadership Challenge (the second edition of the title) analyses hundreds of interviews the pair conducted with leaders of all ages and all business sectors, and identifies the traits these leaders share that contribute to their success. The authors report five main practices that are inherent to being a good leader.

1. Model the Way
"Modeling the way is essentially about earning the right and the respect to lead through direct individual involvement and action. People first follow the person, then the plan."

2. Inspire a Shared Vision
"Leaders inspire a shared vision. They gaze across the horizon of time, imagining the attractive opportunities that are in store when they and their constituents arrive at a distant destination.Leaders cannot command commitment, only inspire it."

3. Challenge the Process
"The leader's primary contribution is in the recognition of good ideas, the support of those ideas, and the willingness to challenge the system to get new products, processes, services, and systems adopted."

4. Enable Others to Act
"Exemplary leaders enable others to act. They foster collaboration and build trust. This sense of teamwork goes far beyond a few direct reports or close confidants. They engage all those who must make the project work- and in some way, all who must live with the results."

5. Encourage the Heart
It's part of the leader's job to show appreciation for people's contributions and to create a culture of celebration.leaders also know that celebrations and rituals, when done with authenticity and from the heart, build a strong sense of collective identity and community spirit that can carry a group through extraordinarily tough times."