As I was reading a series of articles in Business Week about women, leadership and happiness I became very disappointed with some of the conclusions presented in the article.
Let’s take the following article “Why Are Women Unhappier than They Were 40 Years Ago?”, which is an excerpt from Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham. I disagree with the article’s claim that modern successful women are not happy with their life and success based solely on the premise that modern women are unhappier than women 40 years ago.
First, I think that setting realistic expectations for multidimensional success is an important aspect that will influence the level of happiness that women will find in their life as they get older and more mature. A large number of successful women I interviewed while I was gathering material for Connecting My Dots felt very happy and satisfied with both their career and personal success. Another important aspect to consider is that given the overall placement of women in the 1950’s and 1960s, women at that time didn’t have high expectations or goals to succeed as CEOs or Senior Executives, and if they did, society wasn’t too encouraging towards women to help them reach such achievements. It wasn’t until World War II when women were beginning to shift from stay at home mom to a working mom. Even then reaching the status of a Senior Executive wasn’t on the mind of women because in reality it wasn’t very plausible.
My grandmother was one of the first three women who graduated from the Medical School at the University of La Habana in 1920. She was one of the few who had the courage and self-determination to do such a thing even though society did not expect this type of achievement from women nor did it make it easy for women to gain such an achievement. She provided an example of women that wanted to have a professional career even when the society at that time did not encourage women to do those things. Was she happy ?
I wondered about what my 23 year old daughter would have to say. I talked to her and she asked if I was happy with my life and career achievements. In my book, Connecting My Dots, I introduced a tool called the “The Priority Wheel” that you can leverage to align your career, life and personal needs.
When I look at the female role models I had in my family and alone my career and I do encourage you to find role models that will inspire you to achieve your dreams and to Connect Your Dots !
Showing posts with label women role models. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women role models. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Mentoring 2.0
Mentoring is a 2 way street.
In today’s world of constant change and evolving opportunities, women need role models and real personal stories of women from diverse groups who have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey, providing with their actions, tangible examples to women looking for the path to success.
Leadership training is one area of opportunity to address the needs of emerging women leaders. For the most part, corporate leadership training provides women with career development guidance, but the majority of training curricula continue to emphasize the male model of leadership and are not designed to meet women’s needs. Current leadership training is unilateral and does not teach women how to become contextual leaders and to switch between work and personal life.
Like many of you, I have also attended numerous leadership training programs through my career. And recognize that, while some gender issues women face in corporate America are the same across cultural groups, other issues have their roots in cultural traditions.
As women are trying to develop their success plans or revise the ones they have, I encourage them to seek the advice from several mentors. Sometimes you need to connect with a mentor for career development that is different from the mentor for personal and family success.
Mentors can act as a sounding board and role models. They can also point out opportunities and inspire you with their examples. Establish Mentoring relationships that last are based on common understanding and personal connection.
“Connecting My Dots” provides mentoring by telling personal stories of success and failures.
Do you want to share a story that will provide guidance to young high achieving women trying to connect their dots and achieve career, family and personal goals success?
In today’s world of constant change and evolving opportunities, women need role models and real personal stories of women from diverse groups who have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey, providing with their actions, tangible examples to women looking for the path to success.
Leadership training is one area of opportunity to address the needs of emerging women leaders. For the most part, corporate leadership training provides women with career development guidance, but the majority of training curricula continue to emphasize the male model of leadership and are not designed to meet women’s needs. Current leadership training is unilateral and does not teach women how to become contextual leaders and to switch between work and personal life.
Like many of you, I have also attended numerous leadership training programs through my career. And recognize that, while some gender issues women face in corporate America are the same across cultural groups, other issues have their roots in cultural traditions.
As women are trying to develop their success plans or revise the ones they have, I encourage them to seek the advice from several mentors. Sometimes you need to connect with a mentor for career development that is different from the mentor for personal and family success.
Mentors can act as a sounding board and role models. They can also point out opportunities and inspire you with their examples. Establish Mentoring relationships that last are based on common understanding and personal connection.
“Connecting My Dots” provides mentoring by telling personal stories of success and failures.
Do you want to share a story that will provide guidance to young high achieving women trying to connect their dots and achieve career, family and personal goals success?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Do You Have a Role Model?
On Dec 31st, I sat down with a cup of strong Cuban coffee and began to reflect on my defining moments this past year. I wanted to connect my dots from 2008 and look forward to 2009.
Mentoring has been a major focus for me and an important aspect of my life that provides inspiration and sense of purpose. It is also a way to follow the legacy of my mother Dr. Noemi Perez who passed away last February (her wiki is available in spanish). At the time, we were working together on the book “Connecting My Dots”. She was a great supporter of this work because the book is about mentoring and the challenges of having a successful career while balancing family and marriage. She was a role model not just to me, but also a role model and mentor to many young women and men.
The year 2008 was a year of personal loss, but also a time of personal growth. First, I had the unique opportunity to sponsor the 2008 Mentoring program for the eCommerce organization and to collaborate with two fantastic women – Lori and Siobhan – who were the driving force behind the success of this program. I met Miriam, a young dynamic woman, who is developing a framework for a Mentoring program targeted to Latino employees. And I began working with a group of women from NCTA WISE organization, developing a Mentoring program for STEM professionals that we plan to launch as a pilot this year for the Charlotte region under the theme: “Geek is Chic”.
Passion and motivation lead to success. People, particularly young people, need to have role models that inspire them. The need for successful role models is even more important among young high achieving women.
Even more, the feedback of many participants in our mentoring program told us that women like to learn from real personal stories of other women that have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey. That’s why I decided to talk about mentoring through personal stories of success and failures. And by the way, men also like to make connections to personal stories.
Mentoring young women, particularly in the IT profession helped me recognize even more, the relevance of the dilemma I had personally faced many times during my career, including the pressure and sacrifices imposed on women in balancing a career and family.
To achieve career success many women make substantial trade-offs: staying single, getting a divorce, or not having kids. Young high achieving women are put onto a successful, yet demanding career development path with very little guidance or leadership training on how to apply these success principles to their personal lives. When they see that a large percentage of high-achieving women do not have children or long-lasting relationships, these young women fear that they will not be able to have a family if they choose a leadership career.
As a mentor and a mother, I always ask myself a question: what are we doing to provide guidance to young women in their path to achieve multidimensional success on their own terms?
More women are choosing an executive and leadership career path, but at the same time career success requires that we make trade-offs and learn how to prioritize across career, family and personal demands. Recently through the Anita Borg group on LinkedIn, I became aware of Mentoring-in-a-Box toolkit available at NCWIT. This toolkit provides an excellent mentoring curriculum and tools for women in IT that are trying to balance the demands of a success career and family needs. I suggest you check out this toolkit. You can also join Women 2.0 LinkedIn group for professional networking.
When I think about Mentoring, I think about the importance of role models in the professional and personal development of young women.
When I think about Success, I always remember a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “You must do the things you think you cannot do”
Take Away: To achieve success you need to enlist your family and spouse to support your goals. You also need to have the courage to make trade-offs and the determination to make sacrifices.
Mentoring has been a major focus for me and an important aspect of my life that provides inspiration and sense of purpose. It is also a way to follow the legacy of my mother Dr. Noemi Perez who passed away last February (her wiki is available in spanish). At the time, we were working together on the book “Connecting My Dots”. She was a great supporter of this work because the book is about mentoring and the challenges of having a successful career while balancing family and marriage. She was a role model not just to me, but also a role model and mentor to many young women and men.
The year 2008 was a year of personal loss, but also a time of personal growth. First, I had the unique opportunity to sponsor the 2008 Mentoring program for the eCommerce organization and to collaborate with two fantastic women – Lori and Siobhan – who were the driving force behind the success of this program. I met Miriam, a young dynamic woman, who is developing a framework for a Mentoring program targeted to Latino employees. And I began working with a group of women from NCTA WISE organization, developing a Mentoring program for STEM professionals that we plan to launch as a pilot this year for the Charlotte region under the theme: “Geek is Chic”.
Passion and motivation lead to success. People, particularly young people, need to have role models that inspire them. The need for successful role models is even more important among young high achieving women.
Even more, the feedback of many participants in our mentoring program told us that women like to learn from real personal stories of other women that have achieved their goals and overcome barriers along the journey. That’s why I decided to talk about mentoring through personal stories of success and failures. And by the way, men also like to make connections to personal stories.
Mentoring young women, particularly in the IT profession helped me recognize even more, the relevance of the dilemma I had personally faced many times during my career, including the pressure and sacrifices imposed on women in balancing a career and family.
To achieve career success many women make substantial trade-offs: staying single, getting a divorce, or not having kids. Young high achieving women are put onto a successful, yet demanding career development path with very little guidance or leadership training on how to apply these success principles to their personal lives. When they see that a large percentage of high-achieving women do not have children or long-lasting relationships, these young women fear that they will not be able to have a family if they choose a leadership career.
As a mentor and a mother, I always ask myself a question: what are we doing to provide guidance to young women in their path to achieve multidimensional success on their own terms?
More women are choosing an executive and leadership career path, but at the same time career success requires that we make trade-offs and learn how to prioritize across career, family and personal demands. Recently through the Anita Borg group on LinkedIn, I became aware of Mentoring-in-a-Box toolkit available at NCWIT. This toolkit provides an excellent mentoring curriculum and tools for women in IT that are trying to balance the demands of a success career and family needs. I suggest you check out this toolkit. You can also join Women 2.0 LinkedIn group for professional networking.
When I think about Mentoring, I think about the importance of role models in the professional and personal development of young women.
When I think about Success, I always remember a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “You must do the things you think you cannot do”
Take Away: To achieve success you need to enlist your family and spouse to support your goals. You also need to have the courage to make trade-offs and the determination to make sacrifices.
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