Are the challenges different for women than men who aspire to leadership roles? Which sex makes the best leaders?
These are two fundamental questions anytime gender and leadership is discussed. It was clear to me, during my interviews with the women leaders I met with in writing this… read more
Part 4 of a 5 part series
Given the benefit of hindsight, what would our panel of women leaders have done differently in their careers if they had the chance to do it all over again? Based upon their more than 60 years’ of collective experience, what advice would they give to young… read more
Part 3 of a 5 part series
Successful leaders know that being a leader is a continual process; it’s not a destination that someone eventually reaches after years of hard work. The real work of becoming a leader starts after reaching a position that might be recognized as a ‘… read more
Part 2 of a 5 part series
In examining the lives and career elements of our four female leaders who were introduced in last week’s column, I wanted to begin with their childhoods. Was there something different about these women as children and adolescents that would indicate leadership… read more
The topic of leadership—what leaders think, what they feel emotionally, how they view themselves, how they withstand setbacks and failures in their careers—has fascinated me since childhood. And, because my mother was a successful executive, I have also been keenly interested in women who rose… read more
“Creating” perfection in another person has been a recurring theme in literature. In Ovid’s classic, The Metamorphoses, written in Rome in the 1st century, a lonely sculptor by the name of Pygmalion sculpts a marble statue of a woman so beautiful that he falls in love with it. Then,… read more
For many years I have been interested in, and fascinated by, the subtle, almost unconscious, effect a leader can have on an entire organization. The impact of a leader’s style seeps deeply into an enterprise affecting people and decisions the leader will never know about, at least not… read more
The term alpha, as used in describing personality traits, came from animal behaviorists who, when studying the activities of animals interacting with each other, discovered that groups of animals being showed deference to one specific member of the community by ritualized gestures such as bowing… read more
I want to begin this final piece in our series on leadership by quoting a well-known and respected leader right here in the Czech Republic. “Leadership is a very serious responsibility. You are affecting people’s lives,” Tomas Sabatka.
This is exactly the sort of insight, integrity,… read more
Last week we discussed the importance of knowing yourself, getting out of your comfort zone and learning new skills, willingly accepting responsibility, and delivering more than is expected of you if you want to begin the process of becoming a leader. I want to once again emphasize the word… read more
