For more than a decade, my consulting firm has worked with organizations and individuals to identify the gaps, see the patterns and challenge the assumptions that are keeping them from optimal performance and profit. I work with leaders, and there are times I have to point out the obvious: Their emperor has no clothes.
The women’s professional development space is no different. Gaps, patterns, assumptions… and lots of “solutions” parading around with no clothes. But let’s start with the positive:
- The women’s professional development space has enjoyed overwhelming research proving that “women are good for business” and near constant media attention.
- The benefit of having women on boards is now widely accepted as truth.
- Numerous solutions have been thrown at the problem of having too few women at the top.
And what a stubborn problem it is. Ten years ago, when I personally began tracking this number, the percentage of women in high level leadership positions was at a paltry 17%. Would you like to guess what that number is today? Ten years, numerous books, well-meaning corporate initiatives and countless media interviews later?
17%.
That’s across industries and across the board. We’re talking law, accounting, financial services, government, even at one time, the NBA!
Despite these various (and frequent) attempts to get women to: follow the leader… find a mentor… be a mentor … get a sponsor… lean in… lean back.. jump up… turnaround and…well, you fill in the blank, the real data for women in leadership remains unchanged.
This emperor — flattered by tv talk shows, heralded in the news, and making appearances at fancy banquets — has no clothes, no results.
I say this to shine light on the work still to be done.
Women: hone your skills and become your own solution.
Leaders: be bold enough challenge assumed stereotypes and biases, facilitate necessary dialogue and foster immediate and sustainable change within your sphere of influence.
This whole-istic approach to fully leveraging women in the workplace requires an ALL gender solution. Your programs should be open-minded and solution-focused, including personalized mandates and contextualized thinking.
Anything short of this will be yet another failed initiative, regardless of how popular it may become.
Real Results. Real Time. Real Work. dtkResources.
Effective Communication + Personal Branding + Developing a Sphere of Influence
As fundamental as it is sophisticated, this 3-part program is delivered by a thought leader in this space who consistently calls out the bandaids, the platitudes, the cliches… and — instead — creates real results, in real time, through real work. The program imparts three of the most critical and powerful skills women must master.
Dani Ticktin Koplik —
Leadership consultant, executive coach, change agent and passionate professional development expert and speaker. You can learn more about Dani and her clients by visiting dtkBio page. 