It was long thought that leaders were born. Some people innately possess the skills to inspire others, communicate great visions, and take action to ensure their visions come into fruition whereas others do not. Fortunately, much research has been conducted in this realm. It is true that nature does play a part in leadership development. However, nurture and choice also play significant roles as well.

FACTS: Leaders can be developed. Leadership can be learned.

Personality type, traits, characteristics, strengths, education, and continual personal and professional development are just a few key components of becoming the leader you envision. However, we all observe and acquire leadership qualities throughout our lives. Taking an honest look in the mirror is the first step to becoming a great leader.

To become a leader or improve existing leadership qualities, we must commit to personal transformation and examine deep-rooted patterns of thought and behavior. Formal education and assessments can assist with understanding yourself better.

From one Career Girl who loves to read and apply new skills to another, a great resource to begin or continue on the life-long journey of leadership is “Becoming a Resonant Leader.” Annie McKee, Richard Boyatzis, and Frances Johnston co-authored this wonderful book. The subtitle captures the essence of the book and workbook activities to “develop your emotional intelligence, renew your relationships, and sustain your effectiveness.”

Even if you have taken the Meyer’s Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC, StrengthsFinder (all trademarked assessments), or you are considered to have a genius-level IQ, the truth is it is no longer enough to just be smart or aware on one or two facets of yourself. Every Career Girl should strive for mastery of personal competencies and social competencies of emotional intelligence to become effective leaders. The book “Working with Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman is an excellent “manual” to aid with this process.

To learn more about Goleman’s book, check out the first few minutes of this video or watch it in its entirety. It is an audio version of “Working with Emotional Intelligence.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPocFijPKxA

Over time, more leadership articles will come. If any Career Girls out there have interest in broad or narrower aspects of leadership, please be sure to post comments and feedback. Take charge of your quest to becoming the leader you (may have been destined to be and) choose to become!

The post Becoming the Leader You Aspire to Be appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Goal-setting is something you must be doing now, and always. While goal-setting is particularly helpful in your career, it’s also a great tactic in most aspects of your life. How many times have you heard that dreaded, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” But it’s amazing and motivating when you realize what you responded to that question 5 years ago, is exactly where you are now. Sometimes our goals or dreams change or evolve over those 5 years, and that’s normal. But sometimes we know just what it is we want, and the path we put into motion today will lead us directly to our desires.

Goal-setting techniques may be different for each of us, but crafting time-specific and detailed goals can help you work backwards in identifying what tasks you’ll need to complete to reach those goals. Maybe its to-do lists that really help you out; take the time each week or each day to write out your to-do list, and make sure your daily tasks are in line with your larger goals.

It’s okay if you’re not really sure what your goals are. As we age and grow we dig deeper into who we really are and what we really want. Ask yourself these questions:

• What do I love to do?
• What am I good at?
• How important is/Could I live without ____ (a career, family life, travel, etc.)?
• How do I want to spend my time?

Do some soul-searching to come up with the answers. Deciding how you want to spend your life and discovering what’s truly important to you will help you better shape your goals. If the only thing you discover from this exercise is that you’d rather pursue a career with travel benefits than settle down with a family right now, consider that a huge success.

If you find your life is on a path contradictory to what your larger goals are, don’t panic. Even seemingly arbitrary experiences will help shape you as a person and give you knowledge and perspective you may not have had prior. But defining your goals will help make sure this doesn’t happen; consider your goals a road map for your life, indicting where to stay on the path, and when to veer the course.

The post Goal-Setting When You Don’t Know What You Want appeared first on Career Girl Network.

A revolutionary concept entered my life last week, attributed of course to the most amazing executive coach I know, Beth Ruske from Tiara Coaching. It’s natural, when one is staring at a massive “to-do” list to break that list into categories. Naturally, you immediately think each thing on that list is something you personally need to accomplish. If you’re lucky, you have a team surrounding you both personally and professionally to delegate certain tasks to. As you scan the list, you think some of the following:

• I can’t make that event, I should ask someone else on my team to go in my place.
• Oh no, I won’t be able to get to the dry cleaners before it closes. I’ll ask my husband to stop on his way home.
• I simply don’t have the hours in the day to get through this long-term project successfully, perhaps we can bring in a contractor to help with the work.
• Can’t I get my own assistant?

When you look at your list this way – What can I do myself? What can I delegate? – Beth Ruske told me (and it’s changed the way I look at my list), that you’re missing one massive place to delegate to – no one.

Take a moment, pause, and think about that concept. What is on your list right now that you could delegate to no one?

What does that mean? It means that something on that list needs to drop. You, my dear, need to drop. the. ball. And if you’re anything like me, your head is spinning right now. Women spinning 100 plates in the air at any time would be screaming, “But I can’t! I can’t just drop something for no reason at all.” The truth is, though, you can! Dropping the ball, breaking one of those spinning plates, what would it really do to hurt you? The truth is….nothing.

So I took Beth’s advice the last couple of weeks, and it’s amazing what I’ve been able to both accomplish and eliminate. Now, I look at my to-do list and I ask myself these questions:

1. Is this item something I absolutely have to do and no one except me could do it?
2. Is this item something anyone has to do? Is it urgent and important?
3. What would happen if this item was never accomplished?

If the answers are “No, no, and no,” then I know who I’m ready to delegate that task to….no one! Join the task list revolution. It might just change your list forever!

The post Delegating to No One appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Admit it, we’ve all been there. At some point in your career, you’ve said something like these frustrated statements:

• What do you mean, you don’t understand? I emailed it to you!
• Didn’t you get my email?
• Seriously, we had a whole email exchange about this!
• Let me read this email to you, and you tell me if you understand it.

You could be the world’s most skilled communicator, and still have had hundreds of terrible miscommunications online and via email in your career. It’s just too hard to convey tone, emotion, and to be truly clear in email communication. Keith Ferrazi, literally one of my favorite authors of all time and the incredible Never Eat Alone, recently wrote the article “How to Avoid Virtual Miscommunication” for Harvard Business Review. One of his pieces of common miscommunications stood out to me.

Amplify the signal. We often communicate less information than we think we are, a syndrome psychologists call signal amplification bias. Virtual teams, lacking contextual cues that the other person hasn’t understood what we’re trying to say, often hear only too late that “I thought it was obvious that…” or, “I didn’t think I needed to spell that out.”

How to avoid signal amplification bias? Spell things out! Don’t just say, “Circle back with me.” Do you want final input to a decision or just want to be informed of the decision after it’s been made? For important communications, Yael Zofi advises her executive clients to use more than one medium. So, for example, if you have a phone conversation about possible delays in a project, follow up with an e-mail to minimize misunderstandings.

All too often, we think we’re being clear both in person and via email and, in fact, we’re not. We expect others to pick up on our “signals” without remembering that what we’re giving off are our signals, not theirs. Take Keith’s advice, and instead of saying “Circle back with me,” take it a step further and say, “Please check in with me in an hour to let me know you’re on the right track.” Clarity counts in online and email communications!

The post Fix Email Miscommunication: Amplify Your Signal appeared first on Career Girl Network.

I sat at a women’s networking luncheon this past week listening to each women as she introduced herself and her business. A young intern from a local newspaper interrupted the conversation to poll the table on this question: Have you read the Sheryl Sandberg’s recent book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.

I was the only woman at my table to raise my hand. As a matter of fact, I’m fresh off my read of the book  and while I did not agree with everything Sandberg offered up, I believe she sparked a dialogue that we desperately need right now.

One of my table mates asked me what I liked about the book. 77¢ on the dollar is what I didn’t like I blurted out. (So much for the subtle approach.)

Admittedly, I’ve been under a rock and not plugged into the pathetic pay gap between men and women in the U.S. until Sandberg addressed it in her book. I mean I knew a pay gap still existed, but I felt it only existed for me because I hate negotiating salary so much. (Read how to improve your negotiation skills here. )

As we continued to discuss the issue, another woman announced she still owned the pin from the ‘70s she wore then, which said ’59¢’, as in 59¢ on the dollar.

Wow. 30+ years later we managed to climb 18¢. That’s approximately .5¢ a decade. Um…that sucks.

Further, Christina Hufffington writes,

The gap is even worse for African-American and Latina women — and according to a new study done by the National Partnership For Women And Families, the gender-based wage gap exists in every state and in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

If the gap was eliminated in Seattle, the metropolitan area with the worst wage discrepancy, the study showed, women would be able to afford 2.3 year’s more worth of food. In New York City, women could afford seven more months rent (for those of you who live in New York, you know how huge that is). In Austin, a woman could afford 2,369 additional gallons of gas.

The situation is especially dire for the more than 15.1 million families where the woman is the breadwinner. Thirty-one percent of these families fall below the poverty line.

On behalf of your sister, your niece, your daughter, and women everywhere, lets refocus our attention on this issue. Learn how by reading Dr. Martha Burk’s book, Your Voice, Your Vote: The Savvy Women’s Guide to Power, Politics, and the Change We Need.

The post 59¢ on the Dollar appeared first on Career Girl Network.

I decided this morning on my way to work that I’m moving to Hawaii. Not tomorrow, but before I turn 40. I walk to work, so I am acutely aware of the weather. And this morning the weather feels more like I should be shopping for Thanksgiving dinner instead of planning my Memorial Day picnic. My hair is a mess from the wind and mist, my umbrella useless. It’s the middle of May, for crying out loud. Why are my hands ice blocks? I’ve had it.

So I seriously started to think about where else I could live that would offer me career opportunities, decent weather year-round and a city that is conducive to walking and biking instead of driving everywhere. (That rules out Southern California and the entire state of Texas) Hawaii tops the short list of places that fit, and as I strive to keep myself open to all the possibilities in life, I have decided that instead of saying, “That’s silly, Hawaii is expensive and far away and you don’t know anyone there,” that I’m going to seriously look into it.

But first things first:

I have a lease that runs through August, 2014, so it will be at least 15 months before I can consider going anywhere without a significant financial hit to break that contract. As I consider whether I could really make this happen, that feels like a good timeline to explore the option.

First, I need to find out if Hawaii truly is somewhere that I’d want to live. Before I even start looking at job opportunities or rental rates for apartments, I need to physically check it out. In other words, I just set my first preliminary goal in possibly making a huge life change: visit Hawaii.

Here are the steps to plan any big trip or large purchase:

1. How much is this going to cost me? I need to research exactly where I want to visit/potentially live, and then price out flights, hotels, car rental, food and other costs. I can’t forget to include other incidental costs like transportation to and from the airport, baggage fees, hiring someone to care for my cats while I’m gone and any loss of income from taking time off.
2. How much do I need to save each month? Once I have the total cost of the trip, I need to figure out how much to save. I can approach this two ways: 1. By setting the date of the trip and dividing the cost of the trip by the number of months between now and then, or 2. By figuring out how much I can afford to save each month, then dividing that into the cost of the trip to tell me how many months it will take to get there.
3. How am I going to save that amount? This is the tricky part. Let’s say I figure out that I need to put away an extra $400 per month. I can’t just go pick it off the money tree, so I need to take a hard look at my current spending and decide where I am going to cut back.

You might get to the third step in your own goal-setting and bail – if I had an extra $400 per month, wouldn’t I already be saving it? Not so fast… when I categorize every dollar that goes out of my checking account each month, I find that I spend WAY more money than I would have guessed on dining out. In order to make Hawaii happen, I’m not going to stop eating out. But I am going to have to be more mindful of it and set some limits. I’ll probably also think twice about adding clothes to my wardrobe unless I have a specific purpose for which I have nothing in my closet already.

I’ll set up an automatic transfer to a savings account that I’ll establish specifically for this trip to take away the temptation to procrastinate any payments. Capital One 360 is great for this type of savings – you can open up multiple accounts for various savings goals.

The tough thing about setting and achieving any financial goal isn’t necessarily the planning and figuring out how (although that’s a big part of it), it’s addressing your money mindset to ensure that you engage in the behavior that is going to get you there. It’s hanging tough and not raiding your savings when something else comes up. It’s reminding yourself on that next windy, cold, miserable walk to work that you have a higher purpose, which is why you’re not going to flag a cab.

What big thing in your life can you make happen if you follow these steps and tell yourself you can do it?

The post 3 Steps to Achieving Any Savings Goal appeared first on Career Girl Network.

I’m in the middle! That’s when I was an intern, with two people who taught me everything.

Today, I was prepping for a first day with a new intern. She is eager to get work experience to supplement her degree, and is feeling the pressure of a weak job market post-graduation. I was in the exact same situation a few years ago (it was awful), so I want to pass on all of the knowledge that I can. An organized first day would set the tone for the rest of the semester, so I searched “internship first day agenda” thinking I’d save some time by looking at someone else’s example. I didn’t find one, but I did find “6 Ways to Be a Great Boss to Your Intern” from Forbes and it got me thinking about how I’m going to be a more effective boss for this internship.

With any good internship, there are a few things that you should focus on as the supervisor to make sure that you’re creating a win-win scenario.

Vernacular. I realized today while teaching Amy about marketing that there are a ton of acronyms. In about ten minutes we covered wysiwyg editors, content management systems (CMSs), and comma separated value (CSV). I try really hard not to speak in lingo because it is annoying, but sometimes it’s the clearest way to communicate. People who went to college for a liberal arts degree (like me and Amy) and not for a profession often don’t have that information. Though we can totally deliver on skills, we have to be taught the vernacular that refers to common tools and ideas in order to do well in our field.

Setting goals. I recently wrote a post about setting goals because the process of setting goals leads you to become better at something. An internship is no different, and you should help your intern set their own goals. If your intern doesn’t have any goals, it’s okay to set some for them, but they’re adults and should think hard about why they want to do this and what they want to learn. Give them a day to think about it if they walk in as a blank slate, but encourage all Career Girls to challenge themselves to reach higher than mediocrity.

Time management. I’ve known several people who went to their internships and sat around because no one would teach them what to do and delegate regular tasks. If you honestly can’t come up with enough work and won’t take the time to teach them, don’t bother getting an intern. It would be a waste of time. Otherwise, keep a time log for a few days and see what you do. At the end of the week, go back through and analyze. What could you teach someone else to do with a little instruction? Don’t just get an intern to sweep. Find ways to teach them something useful, take it off your plate, and then use the time you gain to do some long-term planning, or get ahead on another area. Or advertise for an intern to do a special project. They’ll learn something and enjoy the experience, and you’ll be a better manager with a little extra time on your hands.

Realism. I’m in non-profit. I have emptied garbage cans, delivered a car full of drums, met famous people, driven a terrifyingly large van full of students, and filed for hours on end. You never know what’s going to come up, and you have to be able to do what needs to be done regardless of who should be doing it, and not quit every time you have to tackle something way outside of your job description. A big part of being a good intern boss is delegating rewarding work that will help your intern grow, but don’t forget to teach them that this is the real world, and sometimes you have to get your hands dirty without throwing a fit.

Every successful woman learned from someone how to be great at what they do. It’s our job as Career Girls who care about our fields and our communities to share what we know and what we’ve learned. Some tutoring on common software, helpful shortcuts and tips, time management techniques, and basic administrative skills go a very long way for new graduates, so reach out to local universities or put the word out on your website to let people know you’re willing to teach an intern. If you plan a little, delegate, and use the extra time to get work done while having a fresh face and new perspective by your side, you’ll both walk away feeling like you benefited from the internship.

The post 4 Ways to Create a Win-Win Scenario Internship appeared first on Career Girl Network.

I had the pleasure of hearing Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post speak a couple weeks ago at the NAPW National Networking Conference.  To say she was inspiring would be an understatement.  One of the main themes running through many of Arianna’s anecdotes and advice was the concept of learning to lean back.

Sheryl Sandberg’s recent book, Lean In: Women, Work & the Will to Lead, has successfully created a much needed (and sometimes heated!) dialogue about the importance of “leaning in,” or taking an active role in our own career management.  But Arianna takes this advice a step further, stressing the need to recharge regularly so that we can lean in reinvigorated, with a clear mind and sound judgment.  She says that -

In order to be effective at leaning in, we must learn to lean back.  

Leaning back means taking care of ourselves, inside and out.  Here are a few ways to get started:

Get Enough Sleep.
Make sleep a priority.  Arianna’s wakeup call came in the form of a broken cheekbone when she fell asleep at the desk and hit her face out of sheer exhaustion.  Now she makes sleep a priority and is a self-described “sleep aficionado.”

Arianna spoke about how in today’s society it is almost seen as a badge of honor to be sleep-deprived.  She has found that businessmen, especially, brag about how few hours of sleep they get as though it makes them more macho.  Quite the contrary.  It makes them less effective.  Nothing beats a good night’s sleep and the feeling that you are ready to take on anything.

As Nate Anglin says in his “Where Fitness Meets Corporate” blog, in a post specifically about lack of sleep:

Sleep deprivation is a nasty habit by most business professionals and you’re the one that pays for it. Not enough sleep lowers your ability to deal with stress. All the small things become large and all the large things become life or death situations. Being able to manage stress is a MAJOR factor in controlling your life and your business.

Regenerate Often.
Take time to regenerate.  Recharging is more than just getting your zzzzs.  Even if just for a couple minutes at a time, Arianna suggests we check in multiple times a day and assess our stress level.  She has developed a free app, GPS for the Soul, to help us do just that.  The app begins by gauging our stress level and then interrupts this cycle by connecting us with that which helps us de-stress and put things in perspective, for example, music, poetry and pictures of loved ones.

Whether you use the app above, or just take a few minutes for a walk, to phone a friend or do a little light stretching, the point is to consciously build time into your day to de-stress.  In the long run, this ability to “reboot” will make you much more effective and able to make better decisions at work, and in other parts of your life!

Redefine Success.
Arianna also stressed the importance of redefining success.  In the traditional male model, money and power equals success.  According to her calculations, successful businesswomen pay a very high price based on that definition of success, with a 40% higher incidence in heart disease and 60% higher incidence in diabetes.  No matter what the statistics, there’s no denying that if you are not taking care of yourself, your health will suffer.  Thus, the new formula for success must include well-being.  All the money in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have your health or peace of mind.

It’s one thing to hear about the importance of taking care of oneself and overall work life balance from doctors and health experts.  They don’t understand; they aren’t in the business world.  But when we are given the advice to “lean back” from super successful businesswoman, entrepreneur, author and media mogul, Arianna Huffington, I think we’d be wise to listen for a change.

The post Why Leaning Back is as Important as Leaning In appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Merida, our fabulous hero from Disney/ Pixar’s Brave is center stage this weekend! Evidently, she is being inducted into Disney’s wide world of princesses on May 11, 2013 at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in a coronation ceremony. (For real!)

In case you live in reality and missed this princess phenomenon, do let me provide a bit of background on our fair maidens! There are currently 10 Disney princesses, and Merida makes the 11^th, robbing Rapunzel of the ‘newest princess’ title. According to Ricky Brigante (a writer for Inside the Magic.com) Rapunzel was coronated in 2011 at a posh ceremony in London – at none other than Kensington Palace. (WTF?)

Needless to say, a bit of a cleanup takes place for any young animated character when they enter a royal family, so blessedly, Disney stepped in and took our young hero from this look:

To this look!

Career Girls, I ask you this:  Am I the only one who sees this as an issue? Disney transformed our fabulous rough and tumble tomboy into a freaking Victoria Secret model. What kind of message does that send to all those young girls who flock to the Magic Kingdom on Sunday for this event? Or, the ones who will buy the redesigned merchandise that goes on sale in the park, in stores and online (you guessed it!) May, 11 2013.

We all have younger sisters, nieces, or daughters who idolize Merida, as they know her today. She teaches young women to use their smarts, their resources, and to stand up for what is right. What does the ‘new and improved’ Princess Merida teach a young woman? Be feisty, but look great doing it?  That behavior was fine when I was a kid, but now I’m all grown-up, so I better behave myself? I’m too busy keeping my dress up, so the bow and arrow shtick needs to go?

Please, share your thoughts and feedback with us! What does the new Merida mean to you and to the young girls in your life? 

The post Disney’s Newest Princess appeared first on Career Girl Network.

Perhaps this will wake all of us up to the power of sleep and the need for less stress in our lives.

The post How Stress and Sleeplessness Connect appeared first on Career Girl Network.