Career Planning | FemaleBreadWinners

When Women are Asked to Sweep Up: A Glass Cliff or Great Opportunity?

I recently spent the day talking about the need to take risks for a successful career with a group of female Doctors for a NHS Leadership conference. What is so interesting is that most women, when first asked, will shy away from thinking of themselves as risk-takers. However, when they begin to explore the history of their career and even personal life, many of the most interesting and rewarding roles came out of a big risk. One female CEO I interviewed for my first book Beyond the Boys Club remarked that while she had developed a reputation for taking on challenges – “I think my career has been defined by probably just 2 or 3 big risks. I just had to deliver on the dew I chose.”

Rather, the challenge is in determining the difference between a “Glass Cliff” and a great opportunity. Christine Lagarde, MD of the International Monetary Fund remarked on risk taking when speaking at Davos recently. She felt that while women may be increasingly willing to take risks in their career, companies are not always willing to take a risk on female leadership. Instead they wait until a situation has reached crisis point. As described in the Telegraph, Lagarde said: “Women generally get the job when it’s … a basket case, a lost cause – and they turn it around,” she said. Ever politically astute, she held back from making any mention of her own appointment to head the global lender and watchdog, at a time when the world economy is mired in crises.

Often, I work with clients when they are judging if a new opportunity will jump-start their career or be a glass cliff. If you are considering a glass cliff, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Who was in the role before – and how did they leave?
2. What’s the average length of time someone stays in this role?
3. What kind of public support have I been given and what kind of resources will I have?

Shining a light on these answers can help you determine where the fact meets fiction on a new challenge.

More Female Scots needed for Life Changing Saltire Fellowship

Last year I took part on a life changing Saltire Fellowship, a period of 4 months where I worked and learned from world-class entrepreneurs in Boston, Massachusetts. It was completely life-changing for me. My daily interaction with inspirational business leaders helped me create far bigger goals for my business, as well as develop my skills as a truly 21st century leader. The fellowship served as an almost ‘Experiential MBA’ and in the most supportive environment possible. The Fellowship helped me see opportunities – both professional and personal, that I’d never even noticed before.

The programme is particularly keen to attract women, and I would recommend it for any woman who loves Scotland as is serious about taking her career to the next level. The deadline for applications is fast approaching – March 15, and even if you are unsure if it is 100% sure for you, consider applying – and then making your mind up, just as I did. Like every smart woman knows: Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Click here for more information.

How Much Credence Should Professional Women Give Personality Tests?

I recently took a workplace personality test for the Saltire Fellowship. The test itself, the catchily named OPQ32, took 40 minutes or so and was straightforward enough. I had my feedback session several weeks later, and was surprised by the results – but not because it provided any new insight. In the absence of real life examples and in the interest of ‘objectivity’, the assessor was forced to give rather bland feedback, which sounded suspiciously obtuse – and that it could be applied to anyone. For example, I “care about what other people think – but won’t let it get in the way of my decisions” or that I ‘enjoy other people’s company but am also fiercely independent”. Much of it was indeed true, but naggingly I felt these summations could loosely be applied to almost anyone which makes me question the ultimate utility of such tests.

According to Annie Murphy Paul’s book “The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Lead us to Miseducate our Children, our Companies and Misunderstand Ourselves” - personality tests like Myers Briggs possess not a shred of scientific validity. Though widely used for assessment and to help place or reject candidates, the MBTI has no predictive value of its own. In one study, undertaken by proponents of the tests, less than half (47%) of people fell into the same category upon a second administration of the test. Some even found that their ‘types’ changed depending on what time of day they took the test. Paul concludes that “there is no evidence that Briggs sixteen distinct types have any more validity than the twelve signs of the zodiac”.

Still, the tests remain popular in corporate settings and among many of my coaching colleagues because they lend a superficial rationality to the matching and exclusion of people to jobs. Paul explains: “The administration of personality tests is frequently presented as a gesture of corporate goodwill, a generous acknowledgement of an employees uniqueness. Under this banner of respect for individuality, organisations are able to shift responsibility for the employee satisfaction onto that obligatory culprit ‘fit’. There is no bad workplace or worker, only a bad fit between the two.” It allows employers to rationalise rejection or dismissal in terms of inadequate ‘fit’.

Indeed, while personality assessments are very popular among many coaches, I have never put a huge amount of store in them myself when coaching. I worry they give us a far too easy way of pigeon-holing people. Most people are far more successful when they are able to adapt to the communication and work styles of colleagues rather than expect people to adapt to them because they are a ‘ESFJ’ or or a ‘INFP’.

New parental leave to be more flexible and equitable

We at Female Breadwinners are delighted with the new legislation making the provision of parental leave rights more equitable between working mothers and fathers. If taken up by fathers, it will help reduce much of the stigma surrounding asking for flexible work that employees too often feel.

Under the new plans, new mothers will be able to return to work two weeks after childbirth and share the rest of their maternity leave with their partner. From 2015, a fully flexible system of parental leave in England, Scotland and Wales will give professional working women a clearer “route back” to work, ministers have announced. Parents will be able to take time off together and have a legal right to request flexible working hours. At the moment, new mothers can take a maximum of 52 weeks of leave after the birth of their child, while fathers are entitled to two weeks of statutory paternity leave of their own.

Since April 2011, fathers and mothers have been able to share some of the 52 weeks’ existing leave, with the father able to take up to six months beginning after the baby is 20 weeks old. However, currently this can only be taken as a single block – as can the leave the mother takes. With these new rights, a new mother will be able to trigger flexible leave at any point after the first two weeks’ recovery period. Parents will be able to share the remaining 50 weeks between them as they like and leave could be taken in turns or at the same time. Maximum leave will remain 12 months, nine of them on guaranteed pay.

The combined measures, the deputy prime minister claims, will give parents “more options” and professional women a “real choice” about how they balance their careers and family responsibilities while respecting couples who want more “traditional arrangements. So many couples feel like they are facing an impossible mathematical equation,” Clegg says of current arrangements.”And it is an equation where the answer is almost always rigged. Because whichever way you look at it, the solution ends up with the mother doing more of the caring and the father doing more of the earning.” If this had been available earlier, would you have used this provision when you took maternity leave? If so, how would it have worked best for you and your partner?

There is no doubt about it, making the switch from working woman to working motheris one of the biggest professional challenges you will ever face. However, there is plenty you can proactively do to make the process as streamlined as possible. Find out how with our recorded webinar: Managing Your Maternity Leave As A Female Breadwinner.