Women’s Leadership Strategies for Success
Proven success strategies are cherished by women leaders and business owners who want to avoid unreliable trial-and-error methods of achieving their goals. Because of social conditioning and hardwiring, most women naturally possess many of the key components of building teams that trust their leadership.
In general, women leaders prefer to distance themselves from organizational politics. They shun the temptation to gain personal short-term advantages and instead align their goals with The Greater Good. Exemplary female leaders practice collaborative strategies, which naturally create trust and productivity.
Most women understand the differences between management and leadership. They comprehend why management tends to be ineffective in today’s business world. Astute women leaders are fully aware that people will only follow a leader if they respect and trust them and sincerely want to be led by them.
Because women are hard-wired to build relationships, most women leaders take time to learn an employee’s needs and goals and co-create a path forward instead of attempting to command or bully people. Women can be quite skillful at encouraging direct reports and team members to “fail forward” instead of making the mistake of humiliating someone for making an error. Smart female leaders know people can choose to learn and grow more qualified from every mistake.
Women leaders also tend to intuitively understand why it is critical to honestly explain to their direct reports and team members in a timely manner when they must deviate from past statements. They know how important it is to avoid becoming defensive. With their vision and mission in mind, savvy women leaders are transparent about a new opinion concerning a controversial issue, especially when employees are fearful about the future, such as during a period of layoffs or reductions in salaries or bonuses.
Excellent women leaders are generally adept at demonstrating optimism when times are tough. Their role model encourages their direct reports and teams to function with a can-do spirit instead of becoming enmeshed in pessimism or fear, which fuels harmful rumors. Most female leaders have extensive experience with the delicate art of supporting people while holding them accountable.
Since it is generally more difficult for a woman than a man to gain a leadership position, most female leaders have considerable experience mustering courage and tenacity. Therefore, they have experience navigating awkward maneuvers, such as sensing when to continue to push for a specific gain, when to patiently wait for a better opportunity or timing and when to relinquish a lost cause and pursue a different goal.
In spite of all of these examples of feminine strengths and advantages, the female trailblazer encounters many Leadership Trust Traps on her path forward. Even with the best of intentions and a clear vision and mission, it’s difficult to travel on a tightrope like pleasing upper management and your direct reports and team members. Leadership Coaching will help you discover how to consistently advocate for your team when upper management appears to be tone deaf.
Leadership Coaching is so valuable that most successful large companies routinely provide coaching to their leadership personnel. Coaching will prepare you to secure resources to cultivate the highest potential of all of your team members and direct reports, which, of course, will propel your own career.
The average return on investment (ROI) of Women’s Leadership Coaching is over 500%. It is a proven way to help women leaders build strong teams that trust their leadership. An experienced Leadership Coach will help you become aware of every predictable “Leadership Trust Trap” that ensnares most leaders because they haven’t been coached regarding how to identify and avoid them.
Click here to discover a series of proven leadership success strategies and apply for your complimentary coaching session here
(c) 2019 Doris Helge, Ph.D. at WomensLeadershipTips.com
