There has been so much bad press on senior men in Financial Services that I think it only fair to say a few words to add some balance to the debate.

Gender Diversity affects everybody. Yes, that’s right – senior men as well. I laugh when I hear that Gender is only a strand of diversity. It is the only area of diversity that affects every single person in an organisation and at the moment men are getting the back lash for a lack of progress in equality over the past few decades.

Why has there been a lack of progress in representation of Senior Women Leaders? Because we currently only have one acceptable Leadership style and that is ‘command and control’ or Machiavellian tactics. We have all been programmed to believe that this is the style we must conform to or quit. Women vote with their feet and they leave, thinking that the price of conforming is too high. Men are more likely to conform because they don’t, generally, have the option of staying at home or taking a secondary and lower paid job. Many men that I have coached in senior roles have said some thing like this to me ‘I don’t like it either, I have to leave my personality at the door when I come in to work’

We have developed the concept of GQ™ or Gender Intelligence which goes a step further than emotional intelligence. If Leaders, men and women, have to lead teams in the 21st Century is it not a pre-requisite that they learn about Gender Differences? Is it not an absolute necessity if women are resigning and men are leaving their personalities at the door?

This is a common-sense issue but we are all too busy to see the wood for the trees. Gender differences can be understood by everyone of we look at it on a scale, with female skills, traits and abilities at one end and male skills, traits and abilities at the other. All of us – men and women – will be somewhere on this scale and most of us will be somewhere in the middle.

Sadly, it is only 20% of men and a tiny percentage of women, who are at the extreme end of the male scale, who seem to be running our companies and setting the cultural norm for the rest.

Let's open our minds to widen the scope of acceptable Leadership styles so that the other 80% of men and women can share power and dilute the Alpha male group think that has brought us nowhere.

Last week I promised some coaching tips on how to achieve work/life balance. However, the Tiger in me is desperate to speak this week......

I have been working with corporations for 8 years on helping to address senior female representation, with passion! I also know that a lot of other diversity professionals have put their whole heart and soul into this work too. There were many times through those years when, behind closed doors, we would lament that too many organisations were simply paying lip service to Gender Diversity. It seemed that the only thing that really mattered was short term profit and immediate gain.

Last week, it was shocking for the whole country to learn that HBOS had ignored warnings from the FSA. What hope then, did we ever have of opening the eyes of certain executives to the blind spots that have thus far prevented true democracy? When I heard the news about HBOS and the FSA I felt that many years worth of effort had been wasted in some areas. Wasted because a 'nice to have' like women in leadership could not have been on the strategic radar if the FSA couldnt even get a look in.

That was then and this is now. The above realisation just made me more determined to be more vocal. It is logical and it makes sense to have women on the board and women leaders in all areas. This mess was made by men. Now let the women have their say

What are you personally doing to step up and lead? How are you thinking bigger? What steps are you taking to learn everything you can about how to progress as quickly as you can to take your position as a female leader? Please come on my 2 day event for women leaders to find out the strategies that successful women and men use all over the planet. It’s not rocket science but without it you don’t have the unwritten rules of the game of success. http://www.eve-olution.net/services/seminars.asp It’s on March 19/20th in Central London. First person to register gets a half price place!

It has been a great pleasure, recently to work with Lloyds TSB and easy to understand why they have achieved so much with getting women into senior positions. I have heard them called the ‘boring Bank’ Can somebody please explain to me what is boring about being responsible? .....interpret that as response-able

Make today a Masterpiece!
Tracey

Isn’t it the truth that just as your career begins to really take off, you also arrive at an age where you are responsible for ageing parents and/or time hungry teenagers? In the past four years I have experienced the debilitating illness and passing away of my Father and have been a single parent to three girls who are now 18, 16 and 13. Needless to say, the demands of a business combined with the demands of GCSE’s and A levels plus subsequent and natural teenage rebellion have sometimes felt like the work/life balance is seriously out of whack in favour of home!

Next week I am going to talk about the rhythm of work/life balance and seasons to offer some help if you are in this difficult mid-life stage, but this week I want to share some thoughts I had, today, on the spiritual lessons of parenting teenage children.

Hormones kick in at about the age of 15/16 and any relationship you thought you had with your son/daughter seems to morph into something unrecognisable. Struggle as you might, the Mother/child bond seems to have been broken at best or turned into full scale war at worst. I believe this is a natural process and part of natures plan to make young emerging adults independent from their parents. Worry not if your child is in this phase. It will pass and they usually emerge as beautfiul adults.

The key to any long term close relationship with our chidren is going to be dependent on our ability, as parents, to lead the family through the rapids. How do you do that when you are feeling stressed/pressurised and unfairly treated? I have learnt that the only thing to do is be consistently firm on your own boundaries and loving and caring no matter how unbalanced it might seem.

At this time, when we are being challenged in a way that we have never experienced before, and are under extreme stress, the reptilian brain kicks in and the fight or flight response emerges. The worst thing you can do to a rebellious teenager is fight or run. Both responses send an ‘I don’t care’ message that can exacerbate the situation. The spiritual lesson is this and it’s a hard discipline - stay put, stay loving, stay strong. Can you sometimes make mistakes too and shout the roof off? Sure you can! You are a human being who isn’t perfect (nobody is) and children need to know, by your example, that they have permission to make mistakes too and it’s not the end of the world.

I was reflecting on all this today on my usual run with the little dog. I came to the conclusion that worry is a fear based activity and asked myself what difference it would make if every response came from love? Doggie and I ran through a farm that had virgin snow on it and then into some woods. Just as I was making a great mental shift by asking myself a better quality question, I stepped….ankle deep, into mud where the snow had melted. I laughed out loud because this song was playing on my i-pod (play it loud for your team if you’re allowed) Mr E's Beautiful Blues

How are you leading at home and at work? What are you worrying about? Do you recognise worry as a fear based response? What would you do differently if you weren’t afraid? How would your responses be different if you stepped back, took a deep breath, disconnected from your reptilian brain and came from love?

How can you re-frame a stressful situation by asking yourself a better quality question and moving your body in some weird and dramatic way? Go on – put a big smile on your face!

Leading at home makes leading at work look like a walk in the park!
Live a great Monday

Yes, I had to stay home today because I am snowed in. It’s the first time in my memory that we have had this much snow in Surrey and I am currently looking out through my french doors onto a truly beautiful Winter scene.

I have been absorbing a great deal of remarkable teachings recently. I attended Keith Cunningham’s 4 Day MBA which filled in all the gaps on my financial literacy and was very empowering. Remember – knowledge is power! This Saturday, I attended a women’s leadership event in London with 200 other women and enjoyed being a delegate and giving myself permission to learn (it would have been easy to say ‘I know all this' with my arms folded!). Remember – there is no learning from a fixed position so try to maintain a 'beginners mind' at all times.

On both seminars I was struck by the central theme being exactly the same. Two completely different subjects and only one point that really seemed to get LOTS of air coverage – the importance of good character.

Character is the under-belly of leadership. It is who you are when nobody is looking. It is who you are when you are at home as well as work. It is how well you engage with your principles and how you guard what is important to you. Ask yourself this ‘who am I when I disagree?’ Do you know yourself well enough to maintain dignity in all difficult situations. Do you use the law of assumption instead of clear communication? Are you defensive and agressive when you feel unfairly treated? Do you avoid rather than confront difficulties from an ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ standpoint? Do you have a sober-minded view of yourself combined with self confidence? Can you be humorous enough for the people that you lead to feel comfortable? How would you rate your integrity on a scale of 1-10? Are you a servant leader or an autocrat?

Don’t underestimate the importance of these questions. They are the only questions that will move your life and your career forward. In order to have more (more health/wealth/love/money/success) we first need to become more.

Enjoy the snow!
Tracey