Why More Women Don’t Lead and Innovate - Transforming Your STEM Career Through Leadership and Innovation - page 37

Specific strategies that can be used to mitigate the dilemmas women lead-
ers face from an organizational perspective when being stereotyped have been
adapted from the Catalyst study and include the following: [1]
1. Recognize when you're being stereotyped or facing any type of organiza-
tional norm that's limiting your opportunity.
2. Talk about the issue! With your management, co-workers, and others.
3. Show them otherwise. Become visible and openly demonstrate your skills,
knowledge, and accomplishments; seek high-level assignments, and speak
up in meetings.
4. Ask for what you want! Use clear and effective communication.
5. Minimize the issue. Shift the attention away from gender and back to the
task, mission, and vision of the organization.
The use of these strategies can be valuable in managing the impact that ste-
reotyping can have on your career.
Let us also talk about the “unsaid things” that women deal with when aspiring to
become leaders. Many of these “unsaid” things can have devastating impact when
we're not aware or prepared for them. In addition to the organizational limitations,
this can easily be translated into negative personal responses. When this happens,
the result is often manifested in career-limiting insecurities. These insecurities can
begin to manifest whenever we begin to walk the path to becoming leaders. These
doubts are often not consciously perceived, but rather demonstrated as we rational-
ize why we can't or shouldn't do something. These thoughts ultimately lead us to
doubt ourselves and our ability to lead, innovate, and widen our horizons.
ORGANIZATIONAL CAREER PERCEPTION ISSUES
In order to attain career success and achieve your leadership goals it is critical
to understand your organization. It is imperative to ask and get answers to ques-
tions such as: What are the organizational values? What are the priorities of top
management? How is success rewarded? Are there opportunities available that
are compatible with my career vision? Addressing these questions gives the like-
lihood of attaining your goals in an organization. Management is often asked to
evaluate the developmental climate of an organization, but it is equally important
for aspiring leaders to do similar assessments. When evaluating the developmen-
tal climate in your organization consider the elements of a developmental climate
as defined in a chapter from the Center for Creative Leadership [5] (see Table 3.1 ).
You may not be able to get a definitive or holistic perspective of the organi-
zation for each of these elements. In those cases, start with your department or
division of the organization and work your way up to create a hierarchical assess-
ment of the development climate by levels. The confidence associated with the
accuracy of your assessment may be higher in the lower levels of the organiza-
tion as you will have more knowledge of the conditions in these levels; however,
continue with your evaluation to assess the full organization. Assessment of these