80c94c09453dfe07681fde78e769353f.jpg){kind=logo}
By Kerrie Halmi for Women Co.
March was National Women’s Month. Unfortunately, when you look at the overall statistics, things are not improving. In the last large-scale census done by Catalyst, most numbers either went down (such as the percentage of female corporate officers) or held stagnant (percentage of women on boards of directors). This is not good! However, if I look at it on a smaller scale and see all the amazing women clients that I have worked with, I see a lot of progress and success. I choose to look at the positive and hopefully the micro will become the macro.
Some of my own stats: The graduates of the first nine-month Professional Women’s Dream Team class (a leadership development class for women) set goals at the beginning of their session, and 95 percent of them achieved their goals. Of those who wanted to get promoted, 100 percent did!
Individual success stories from my female clients include the following:
One client was feeling very stagnant in her current role and wanted to play a bigger role in her organization. We developed a plan in her coaching session as to how she could get a promotion. Our coaching included role-playing, talking about her accomplishments, and coming up with a strategy as to whom she needed to network with to let them know her achievements. It also included helping her gain the confidence to go for jobs she would not have formerly pursued. She ended up getting a double promotion and loves what she is doing!
In doing a networking assessment, one woman realized that while she was a good networker, she needed to follow more of the networking tips. She did and attributes much of her promotion to that.
Another woman was very skilled at what she was doing, but was not able to get senior management’s approval for her promotion. Through our coaching, she realized how she was projecting herself to others. The way she communicated, both in what she said and in how she carried herself, signified a lack of confidence, and therefore a lack of credibility to senior management. She became aware of those things, learned to correct them, and gained the credibility she deserved… and got the promotion!
Finally, one client had been told by her manager that she was doing all the right things in her job, but some people in the organization didn’t have the confidence in her that was needed for her to be promoted. During our coaching sessions, we set a strategy which included gathering more specific feedback, figuring out the “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me) for those individuals, and how she could prove to those individuals that she had it in her to be promoted. After implementing her strategy, she got promoted!
About the Author:
WomenCo. is the premier online community for female professionals in the US, a forum where members can forge connections with other working women to keep informed, empower and entertain themselves, and advance their careers. Get started today.
