by Rebecca Shambaugh
By identifying our individual sticky floors we can break through fears, obstacles and assumptions—and ultimately embrace our own power. The following define the seven sticky floors and proven strategies and techniques to apply for avoiding or overcoming them.

Balancing Your Work and Life

Are you wired to be a good multi-tasker? If so, this can backfire and not only leave you over-tasked but can cause you to lose sight of your priorities. To balance work and life, it is important to have priorities, know where you get your enjoyment and fulfillment, and then commit to a set of goals to make sure you are on the right track.

• Define what success, happiness and fulfillment mean to you, personally and professionally, now and in the future.

• Get focused: Establish commitments and boundaries that will allow you to pay adequate attention to your values and life goals. If your day to day activities are not supporting them, consider taking them off your “to do” list.

• For those high achievers, remember to build your strategic life plan and not to try and do everything at once.

Staying In One Place Too Long–Making the Break

Staying in one place too long can be based on the “boss-centric syndrome” where you have developed a long term and close relationship with a boss who has been your strong supporter. It can also be due to our assumption that if we just continue to do a good job, people will see and recognize our great contributions. It can stall personal growth, feed into self-doubt, and brand us as an expert in a certain area, causing people not to consider us for other opportunities.

• Lay the groundwork for future moves by networking and making your work/accomplishments, skills, and interests known to others.

• Continually check your marketability. Are you in line with others that are within your level of responsibility and experience?

• Write down what you truly want to do. Then, map out what kinds of experiences, training, and exposure it will take to get there.

• Be willing to take a risk. If an opportunity comes along that may be a stretch, ask yourself what is the worst thing that can happen?

Embracing Good Enough: Perfectionism versus Excellence
Perfectionism is always placing the same high standard for performance on everything. It can be a virtue but when overused can limit our greater capabilities, and we can lose sight of the priorities, important expectations of our key stakeholders as well as drive ourselves to burnout or stress. Signs of perfectionism show up in being a micro-manager, seeming too mired in the details, being viewed as a doer versus a leader, or not delegating those detailed tasks to others.

• Learn what the most critical tasks are and put your energy there. Most importantly, learn when a job has been done “good enough”—and move on.

• Seek feedback and use it to calibrate your own performance standards. Knowing the difference will allow you to manage your work better.

Forming Your Own Board of Directors

As you move into more visible senior leadership roles, your technical competence becomes more of a commodity. Relationships become even more important when achieving your goals, working cross functionally or influencing others.

• Identify a goal that is important to you, and then look to those individuals who can help you achieve it rather than trying to do it all on your own.

• Pursue relationships with integrity, intention and authenticity.

• Remember “Six Degrees of Separation” and ask for referrals. Consider the Law of Reciprocity: How can you help the other person?

Capitalizing on Your Political Savvy

Having political savvy and social intelligence can help you to navigate important issues across the organization, allowing you to know how to get the right information, learn how decisions are made and “read the tea leaves” (which means knowing what people are really saying and feeling).

• Learn who needs to know about you, your value or how you can help them.

• Determine the best mechanisms for knowing what’s happening, so you can bring value to situations, rather than just hoping that information will come to you.

• Know how to anticipate resistance in the organization and prepare to address it proactively.

Making Your Words Count

Your credibility and power as a leader depend greatly on how others perceive you and much of that is determined by how well you communicate. Making your words count is not only about what you say but how you say it.

• Be prepared with the message you want to deliver–present relevant facts and information so that your message resonates with the audience.

• Avoid filling the room with words, rather provide a clear and concise message and own that message.
• Be aware of and capitalize on the nonverbal aspect of communications such as body language, eye contact, how we dress, listening with intention, and posture.

• If you have something important to say, speak up. Act confident, balance emotion with logic, time your contribution and have good information at your fingertips to back up your perspective.

Asking for What You Want

Some women are still waiting for that raise or promotion they deserve. Knowing and asking for what you want is something we are entitled to and others expect us to do. The only thing that holds us back from getting what we want is simply not asking for it.

• Research your request or worth. Don’t just assume you are worth it or that someone will take you seriously. Consider multiple sources such as industry standards/trends, internal and external market salaries, and other best practices.

• Don’t jump to assumptions about how the other party views your request. Make it a win–win by creating a bridge between their concerns and your interests.

About the author

Rebecca Shambaugh is a nationally-known leadership strategist, Shambaugh has over twenty years of experience helping organizations and executives respond to critical leadership challenges and opportunities in today’s business environment. She is president and CEO of SHAMBAUGH, where she founded Women In Leadership and Learning (WILL), an organization dedicated to the research, advancement, and retention of women leaders and executives. She is the author of It’s Not A Glass Ceiling, It’s A Sticky Floor (McGraw-Hill, 2007).

Right now is when all of us should be taking stock of our situations, assessing our jobs and developing a career safety net. There are two categories in which to focus your efforts: job search tactics and job saving tactics.

THREE JOB SAVING TACTICS

Focus on making money. During a recession, the first cuts are typically made in what are considered support positions such as administrative, human resources, marketing and public relations, and customer service. If you have the ability to transfer within your company to a profit center—think sales, for example—that’s something to consider. If you can solve costly problems or save big bucks in your current role, get busy doing that because you can be just as valuable if you save money as someone who brings in money.

Don’t hide. Ignore the conventional wisdom that times of trouble mean you should be quiet, bury your head, and do your job. Definitely do your job—and do it really well—but be visible and vocal about your contributions. Make sure your boss—and even the boss’s boss—knows what you’re doing and how well you’re doing it. If your knowledge and contributions are essential to the company, there’s less of a chance you’ll be axed, so it’s up to you to communicate that before a decision has been made to eliminate your job.

Align with bigwigs. The cynics call this sucking up. We call it saving your job. In every company there are power brokers and all-stars. Those people can be great allies in times of trouble. They can help protect your job by fighting to keep your position during discussions of where cuts should be made. If you’re not already in with such folks, get to know them now. Volunteer to help with a key project, participate in meetings, or even stay late or come in early if that’s the best way to get some face time.

THREE JOB SEARCH TACTICS

Get resume-ready. Don’t wait for a pink slip to figure out what you’d put on a resume to account for the last several years. WomenForHire.com offers resume templates to showcase your skills, abilities and accomplishments.

Network now. The classic mistake is waiting to call all of those long lost friends and former colleagues only when you need something. Check in with them now. Make a list of 50 people who aren’t part of your inner circle. It’s not a difficult number if you push yourself. Having this list handy will enable you to be one step ahead of the game should you find yourself needing to start a job search.

Visualize your dreams. Ask yourself, “If I didn’t have this job, what would I want to do if I could do anything?” Also ask, “If this job went away tomorrow, where could I see myself working?” Put all of those answers on paper. Be comprehensive. It could be a move to a competitor or it could be a whole other industry. That’s the start of a roadmap—you have to know where you might go before you can actually get there.

Savvy business people pride themselves on keeping up with current events, politics, and even newsmaker gossip so they always have interesting tidbits to contribute to small talk at meetings, parties and social outings. Idle chit-chat is awfully valuable in building professional relationships because it allows people to connect on a relaxed, personal level.

But that same small talk can backfire when it’s highly opinionated and offensive to others. While there’s little harm in sharing your pick for the Super Bowl or World Series, there’s surely the potential for sparks when siding with political candidates in the workplace.

During an informal meeting with coworkers, an associate told a story about his young daughter asking about the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. His response: “Democrats care about people and Republicans don’t.”

That not-so-PC reply wouldn’t have been a big deal at home, but in the workplace it earned him the cold shoulder of colleagues who strongly disagreed with his assessment of the two parties. A couple months later, he was passed over for promotion. To this day, he believes that his big mouth cost him the opportunity for advancement.

Usually there’s a comfortable middle ground that allows you to react to the latest political news without crossing into dangerous territory. Hillary Clinton’s infamous show of emotion during the New Hampshire primary resulted in mixed opinions among cube mates nationwide and sparked a healthy debate about whether or not it’s ever acceptable for women to cry in the workplace.

While defending or attacking Senator Clinton’s political views could offend coworkers, a discussion around crying isn’t likely to be as heated. As the mudslinging on the campaign trail grows more intense through the November election, it’s best to refrain from exposing your biases in the office unless you’re sure that voicing your beliefs will not alienate anyone.

Just because you know a colleague is like-minded in business—or even in music, movies and snacks—doesn’t mean that you share similar political views. It’s acceptable to educate and inform, so long as you’re not attempting to unfairly impose. At work it’s better to be quiet than to offend, so be an outspoken advocate for what matters to you on your own time.

by Peggy Klaus

Each time you move up a notch, does a little voice in your head whisper, “Boy, have you pulled a fast one. You really aren’t good enough to have this many people counting on you. You certainly don’t deserve a job with this much responsibility.” A friend who was stepping into a major management position told me, “Peggy, I feel like such an imposter.” I said, “Of course you do, and you probably will until you learn how to play the new role.”

No matter what line of work you are in or how high you climb, the imposter syndrome—also called the Imposter Complex—is likely to follow you. Although thankfully not at the same time, many successful people suffer from feeling they are bluffing their way up the ladder. They live in fear of being found out. Similar to when Toto pulled back the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, they are fearful of being exposed as mere mortals shaking in their boots. Although I’ve observed the Imposter Complex n numerous people of both genders, especially managers, women seem to be far more vocal about expressing their self-doubt.
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By Gale Britton

First job

My first job, which was really challenging, was at a Bronx day camp for kids.

I learned how to manage children and develop individual relationships with them until I had a corps of kids who learned to respect me and follow directions. But they were tough. I learned that working wasn’t so easy. My parents just made it look easy because they both left and returned home everyday and there was money at the end of the week.

Women Re-Shaping Leadership

I think the way women lead is generational. I’m a woman of a certain age, and that’s a nice way of categorizing us older boomers.

When I started working there weren’t a lot of women leaders, and I think in order for women to be successful they had to almost deny the fact that they were women. They kind of looked like men in many ways.
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By Deborah Roberts

First Job

My very first job was at McDonald’s. My nine-year old daughter gets a kick out of this because of the idea that mom worked in a fast food place and wore a little McDonald’s hat. What I carried away from that experience was a strong work ethic. I was so proud to be earning my own money and able to buy some of my own things. I was also in a position to meet the public and I took it to heart.
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