Rina Lynch

The top 3 trademarks of an Inclusive Leader

At Voice At The Table, we know that companies with inclusive cultures benefit from the diversity of their workforce. We also know that a more diverse workforce achieves greater business success. A key driver of business success, therefore, is having an inclusive culture.

In our view, an inclusive culture is an environment in which every individual feels welcomed and valued. It is the ideal setting in which to cultivate engagement, tap into authentic contribution, breed accountability and independent thinking and encourage learning and development. It is within this type of culture that the benefits of diversity can be fully harnessed and lead to the discovery of new markets and products, introduce innovation in processes across the entire business, attract and retain the talent of the future and develop a distinguished and sustainable competitive edge. In other words, inclusive cultures encourage diversity of thought and directly contribute to the growth of the business.

In order to create an inclusive environment that leads to the benefits described above, we first need to ‘create’ inclusive leaders that make inclusive cultures within their own teams a reality.

So what are the key ingredients of a leader who values the contribution of each team member, knows how to motivate them, and makes them feel welcome?

Here are our top 3 trademarks of an Inclusive Leader:

Empathy

Empathy is described as the ability to understand another’s feelings as though they were your own. In other words, it’s the ability to put yourself in the shoes of another.

An empathetic person doesn’t just have the benefit of understanding why others say and do things, he or she will always strive to understand another, especially when their behaviour or statements aren’t obvious. This is a key attribute for inclusive leadership because understanding the team members’ motivation, background, preferences and behaviour traits allows the team leader to utilise team members to the best of their abilities. In doing so, the inclusive leader will not only benefit from each member’s strengths, he or she will have the benefit of engaging team members by appealing to their preferences.

Empathetic leaders will also gain the team’s trust by being able to relate to the team and by understanding how to develop and mentor them.

Listening Skills

Listening has been described is one of the most important skills of great leadership. In an excellent article for Forbes magazine, Mike Myatt expresses as follows what we hold to be true:

Great leaders are great listeners, and therefore my message today is a simple one – talk less and listen more. The best leaders are proactive, strategic, and intuitive listeners. They recognize knowledge and wisdom are not gained by talking, but by listening… The best leaders possess the uncanny ability to understand what is not said, witnessed, or heard. … astute leaders know there is far more to be gained by surrendering the floor than by dominating it…. In this age of instant communication everyone seems to be in such a rush to communicate what’s on their mind, they fail to realize the value of everything that can be gleaned from the minds of others.

Read the rest of the article here.

In her book Are you listening or just waiting to speak? my good friend, coach and advisor Jane Adshead-Grant points out that hearing and listening are two very different processes. Hearing what’s being said doesn’t necessarily make a connection with the other person, whereas when one listens, the listener has committed his or her perception to what’s going on with the listener beyond what’s being said. This is called ‘active listening’ and requires the use of all senses.

In the context of building inclusive cultures, listening is critical. A leader who listens creates trust and commitment, and shows team members that he or she cares about them. A leader who is an active listener will also read between the lines and hear what’s not being said – a crucial skill for anyone who seeks to influence, motivate and galvanise people into action.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness can be described as the ability to understand who you are, to have a clear perception of your personality – your strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Being self-aware allows a better understanding of others, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.

Becoming self-aware is the first crucial step to developing emotional intelligence, and emotionally intelligent people are not only successful in their own right, they are excellent communicators, leaders, thought leaders and philosophers. Becoming self-aware allows a person to take charge of their emotions and thoughts and change them.

Self-aware leaders will naturally be more inclusive leaders. They will be more aware of their innate biases, be more inclined to question their actions, thoughts and feelings, and allow diversity of thought to thrive. Being self-aware also makes it easier to retain newly-developed skills, such as listening, empathy and others, in times of turbulence or high stress. It’s during those difficult times that our leadership styles, personalities and preferences are tested and tend to revert to a more ingrained foundation. Emotional Intelligence can help navigate those tricky waters and sustain a more calm and rational approach. This, in turn, helps us to remain healthy, balanced and in control of our own emotions. Naturally, in the context of inclusive leadership, being self-aware and emotionally intelligent helps sustain the trust that we have worked to instil and lead the team calmly through periods of uncertainty, change and challenge.

So, in our view, an inclusive leader will be a master of many more leadership skills and traits, but the above 3 are the cornerstones of any leader who wants to create a culture that benefits from the valuable contribution of each person in his or her team. At Voice At The Table we understand not only the significance of this culture for the success and growth of a business, but we are also equipped to help leaders and their teams to attain an inclusive environment in which every person thrives and, as a result, delivers their best.

If you’d like to learn more about how we do this, please email us.

A matter of TRUST

trust-the-park-bench-1511643-1600x1200 Recently, I have been given reason to ponder over the concept of TRUST. If the recent election results in America showed us one thing it’s that TRUST is elusive. Somehow, Hillary Clinton never managed to build the TRUST she needed to win the election, and paradoxically, a man who by all accounts shouldn’t have managed to do it, did. Or so it would seem given that half (or so) of all Americans TRUST Donald Trump with their Presidency.

According to some neuroscientific research, TRUST is centred in our rational brain (the prefrontal cortex), whereas distrust resides in the emotional part of the brain (the amygdala and limbic areas). Might this explain why Hillary Clinton had such a hard time getting buy-in from so many people? They all seemed to react to her on an emotional level given that, on a more rational level the dislike that she built up around her didn’t make sense, especially as compared to her rival.

Regardless of your views of the election results (personally, I’m dismayed!), it does beg the question: what is it about TRUST that works for some and doesn’t for others? And how do leaders establish TRUST?

Robert Solomon and Fernando Flores, authors of ‘Building Trust’, offer this definition of TRUST:

Although trust often seems invisible (transparent, simply taken for granted), it is the result of continuous attentiveness and activity. Trust, once established, easily recedes into the background, into a familiar and therefore barely conscious set of habits and practices. But trust should not be confused with its background status. Trust often becomes visible only when it has been challenged or violated.

In other words, building TRUST is one thing, but keeping it as quite another.

Looking at the old fashioned leadership model (and current leadership style in too many organisations still today), TRUST was established through a parent-child leadership style (sometimes also referred to as ‘command and control’): leaders were looked upon as parents and their followers as children. In its purest form, this type of leadership style was characterised by a lack of transparency of decisions, which were often made at board level, with very little consultation or a chance to second-guess them beyond the decision-making body. It was also characterised by a culture where information flowed from top to bottom, respect commanded by titles and salary and mistakes rarely tolerated. Typical industries in which a form of this leadership continues to exist are finance, law, accountancy and management consulting. Leaders in these environments expect to attract respect and TRUST simply by virtue of their levels of seniority. But even if that works to attract TRUST, can they keep it?

It seems, nowadays, this model of leadership is no longer adequate. I, for one, cannot TRUST someone simply because they occupy a certain space and command a lofty title. To me, a leader must do much more than that to earn my trust. They must be open and transparent about their aims and ambitions. I want to understand their own commitment and dedication to the cause they’re leading. I want to see their human side, to trust that they can admit their own mistakes and learn from them. I want a leader to care about me, to listen to me and respect me as an equal. I want them not to be afraid to show their vulnerability and not to take themselves too seriously. It’s only then that I will be able to trust them to make decisions on my behalf and trust that these decisions have been carefully thought through and believe that, if I had all the information to make that decision myself, I would reach the same or similar conclusion.

So the old-fashioned style of leadership no longer works for me. And, in fact, it no longer works for most, particularly those who are responsible for our future. Partly, that’s because the world is very different now. Tech advances and faster information flow dramatically change how business gets done in virtually every sector of the economy. This means great companies—and great leaders—must adapt and change in unprecedented ways. We now live in an open, social and interdependent economy in which no company or leader can win alone. This then dictates a different way in which leaders establish TRUST. TRUST is built by continuously engaging with customers, employees and communities; by demonstrating personal involvement and commitment with the organisation and its purpose; and by successfully mentoring a new generation of workers with very different expectations, personal and organizational goals, and engagement levels.

Does this model of leadership – of building TRUST – resonate with you? How many of today’s leaders stand up to this style of leadership? I can name a few, mainly business leaders, like Richard Branson, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Beth Comstock, the chief marketing officer of General Electric to name but a few. These and many others are leaders of the future and they know all about building trust by being inclusive and collaborative. Shouldn’t we hold our political leaders to the same standard of leadership and TRUST? Shouldn’t each one of us try to live up to it?

So next time you’re asking someone to TRUST you, think about what it takes for them to do so. Take a page from a book of the great leaders of tomorrow – those you respect – and ask yourself, what is it that makes you trust them? Do they expect to be trusted because they occupy a space that deserves your trust or have they said or done anything that has earned your trust in them? And, more importantly, can you replicate that in your own behaviour?

Guest Blog: Why mentoring junior lawyers is critical!

Written by Kristin Konschnik, Partner at Withers

A few years ago, as part of some executive coaching sessions, I took several ‘personality’ and ‘leadership style’ tests. The leadership style test was a ‘360 assessment’, so some of my colleagues at different career levels answered the same questions as I did about my leadership styles (or lack thereof!) I don’t put much stock in tests like this other than as to general principles but the results were interesting. While I saw myself primarily as ‘directive’ (ie, I tell people how to accomplish tasks) my colleagues thought very differently – in their view, ‘coaching’ (or teaching) was my primary leadership style.

Leaving aside how closely these tests correlate to reality, sharing what I’ve learned and my experience – technical, professional and personal – is extremely important to me. While this is obviously important for everyone, I think it is particularly important for successful women lawyers to understand and accept their responsibility to act as role models, mentors, sponsors and friends to more junior women.

When I started practicing many years ago, I was extremely lucky to work directly with a very successful woman partner. She was whip-smart, trained and practiced at several of the largest city law firms, and was a single mother with two sons. She was also the best teacher I’ve had in my legal career; she taught me many things that I now teach associates today. Most importantly, she clearly valued teaching – and I hope that value is also the most important thing I teach associates.

Beginning your legal career is challenging in so many ways. Often, it’s your first real ‘office’ job; law school doesn’t prepare you to actually practice law; you’re quickly faced with competing (and frequently immediate) deadlines; everyone appears to be talking in a foreign language; and more senior lawyers are frequently ‘too busy’ to explain much of anything.

Although women have formed at least 50% of new intakes at large law firms for a number of years, many of them ‘disappear’ before reaching senior levels. While there are many reasons for this ‘attrition’, a large part of retaining the next generation of women lawyers depends on excellent, invested, interested women at (even slightly) more senior levels who are committed to teaching.

Why do I feel so strongly about gender diversity?

Let’s face it: nowadays, the uttering of the words Gender Diversity tends to evoke more negative than positive reactions, from both men and women. Both view it as potentially divisive, threatening, even unnecessary. Yet I can’t help but continue to feel that it’s the right path to pursue for any woman, man and company that wants more from this world.

So why the negative reaction? ‘Gender’ is not specific to women. The very term defines both the male and the female, so how can a term so inclusive be seen to be so divisive?

And what do we mean by ‘gender diversity’? Well, it’s not about promoting women over men, it’s not about tipping the scales so that women can run the world without men, and it’s not about drawing a line in the sand where all women stand on one side and men on the other. That would of course be very divisive.

To me, gender diversity is about balance – for both men and women. Balance at work and balance at home. Balance in politics and balance in our economy.

According to the likes of McKinsey, if women worked to the same extent with the same responsibilities as men, by 2025 the world’s economy would grow by 26% (that’s $12tn in real money!). That’s a good thing, right?

According to the Athena Doctrine, 66% of the surveyed adults (64,000 from around the world) agree that the world would be a better place if men thought more like women. So we need more women to share in thought leadership, in politics, education and business.

According to the likes of Catalyst Inc., companies with at least one woman on their board show higher financial returns, lower risk profiles, and greater ROE. Financial gain (rightly or wrongly) has always been the driving force of most businesses, so that’s good news then, too, isn’t it?

According to most studies, those countries that are the most gender equal are also the countries that score highest on the happiness scale. And what’s more important than happiness?

According to Dr. Michael Kimmel, American sociologist specialising in gender studies, the more egalitarian our relationships, the happier both partners are. When men share housework and childcare, their children do better in school; their wives are healthier; and, most notably, the men themselves are healthier. Watch Michael’s TED Talk to hear the full story.

So, by all accounts, establishing gender balance is a good thing. Then why the negative connotation about something that brings positive influence in every aspect of our lives? Are we programmed to sabotage everything that’s good for us? Are we so sceptical about the power of diversity that we don’t even want to give it a try despite ample evidence? Is it the fear that women will take over that stops companies from embracing them as equal citizens and equivalent contributors? Tell me, what am I not seeing?

Because, from where I stand, it’s pretty straight forward:

I want to world to become a better place for everyone. I want my children to have equal opportunities; I want them to fulfil their potential without encountering artificial barriers; I want organisations to benefit from the wealth of the diversity of thought that each individual – man and woman – brings when they are empowered to speak their mind and share their experiences freely; I want our economy to tap into the resource that’s not being fully utilised, that resource being the female work force; and I want us to value our differences and to grow stronger together as a result.

So that’s why I feel so strongly about Gender Diversity, and my hope is that, some day soon, you will too.

Rina Goldenberg Lynch

Founder, Voice At The Table

Should we be ‘fixing’ the women?

Should we be fixing the women? By this I mean, should we train women to behave, communicate and assert themselves at work more like men? Because this is what we, Voice At The Table, appear to be doing; we offer workshops on how to find and develop your personal brand, how to be more assertive and speak up at meetings, how to communicate clearly and concisely, and how to behave and be more confident. These are not just professional skills, these are skills most men never have to learn because – somewhere along the way – the pick them up. But most women struggle with these skills, even at the very top of organisations as this HBR article tells us. So should we continue to teach women how to be more like men?

The way I see it, it’s not about ‘fixing’ the women; it’s about equipping them to succeed in any type of environment. It’s about giving women the ability to choose how they communicate in the relevant forum: if work requires that they assert themselves in order to be heard, we show them how to do that; if they need to build a more effective network, we explain how others do it and how they too can garner the help of colleagues and friends around them; if being promoted requires them to speak about their achievements and future potential more openly, we give them the tools with which they too can become more visible. In other words, we teach them to become fluent in another language, the language of corporate success – a language that most of their male counterparts speak fluently.

Is this a bad thing? I suppose it would be better if we didn’t have to learn to speak another language in order to succeed; if the language that we do speak would be more readily understood within companies. The fact remains, however, that women still work in male-dominated cultures and, until this changes, may need to play by the rules of the existing game. The good news is that the rules are changing, slowly but surely. But until they have changed enough, we have to give women the chance to play and play well.

For more on this topic, read my blog Changing the rules of the game: when is the right time?

Changing the Rules of the Game: When is the right time?

A recent HBR article Women, Find Your Voice! talks about the struggle many executive women face in making an impact in senior meetings. The article went on to list a number of ways in which women can alter their communications style in order to achieve this. But in a short ‘throw-away’ comment, the authors make reference to the fact that, while it would be better to change the culture in those meetings so that women wouldn’t need to adapt their communications style, until power is granted to those who want to change the rules, changing the culture of those meetings is rather unrealistic. So, the comment concludes, while women are operating in a male environment, women are encouraged to alter their behaviours until they have succeeded to gain enough authority to change this.

This struck me as an interesting proposition: play by the existing rules, play well and win, and then change them.

Get to the top, then change the rules.

This is of course also what Sheryl Sandberg advocates in her Lean In advice. Yes, she says, we ultimately want to get to the point when we can operate in an environment that is natural to the way women tend to behave; an environment that is characterised by the presence of strong emotional intelligence, collaboration, transparency and empathy (but is also strong, direct and decisive). But until we can be the architects of such corporate culture, i.e. until women have enough support and/or influence to shape meetings to allow women to be women (and others to be themselves) without paying a price, until then we should adapt and attain credibility and influence by taking things less personally, speaking more assertively and concisely and in general become better conversant in the language and demeanour of current influencers.

But why change the women? Why not change the men?

I often hear senior women say to me: “I’m tired of being asked to change the women in our company, why not start changing the men/male culture?”

While I acknowledge the sentiment, it isn’t a realistic ask! People don’t change unless they have a vested interest in that change and for the majority of senior executives and politicians, Diversity & Inclusion is still not enough of a vested interest in order to embark on a journey of transformation.

So is the answer then as Sheryl Sandberg says? Do we have to try to learn how to play and win by the existing rules until we, like her, get into positions of power and change them? Maybe so. Maybe workshops on ‘personal branding’, presence and gravitas’ and ‘how to make your voice heard in meetings’ do still have their place! And yes, maybe they do appear to advocate changing women, but the way I see it, they simply equip women to succeed so that they can be powerful and fully conversant in any culture, so that they can be ‘multi-linguists’, speaking fluently with others of similar nature and behaviours as well as with those of a different persuasion.

In the end, if we are able to exceed that magic 30% gender representation figure at the top – and maybe even get to 50% – it will have been worth it! For us, and for our employers!

Leveraging Diversity as a Business Opportunity: Capturing the Creativity of Each Individual Team Member.

The case for the benefits of a diverse corporate culture is well made. Report after report, measure after measure prove to us that (1) the financial benefits of balanced company boards cannot be underestimated (2) the case for what is often referred to as ‘feminine leadership’ is becoming incontestable, and (3) talk of business survival in the future appears to hinge on that business’ ability to adapt to a more flexible, more collaborative style of management. [1]

So if your company is considering diversity for the sake of diversity, for the sake of appearances or for the sake of complying with client demands, it is missing a trick! Embracing diversity – the traits which we refer to as 21st century leadership – must become central to any leadership strategy of a company that wants to continue to thrive in the future.

But where do you start?

In my last post, I talked about mirroring the client’s team composition in your own. This post is about getting the most out of each individual team member, thereby making the most out of the diverse pool of talent that populates our teams.

Stephen Covey famously said “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” This makes sense. After all, what can we learn from someone who has the same views, upbringing and experiences as we do? Not much! It may feel more comfortable to have a colleague confirm our decisions, but it doesn’t make that decision better. Well-considered decisions are those that have been scrutinised from as many perspectives as possible. Understanding what the repercussions of our decisions might have (like Brexit) requires scrutiny from every angle. And that can only be achieved if we allow each person to contribute fully and authentically.

Team leaders who understand the strength of diversity recruit diverse teams; teams that are represented by different experiences, personalities, preferences and traits. It’s only then that a team leader may be able to hope to deliver the most effective and impactful team.

But how does one bring out the contribution of each team member? After all, a diverse team also means that each person will have a different preference in the way they contribute, participate and respond! And in a typical meeting, 70% of contribution at a meeting comes from 30% of contributors.

There are a number of strategies that team leaders can employ to change this dynamic. As a starting point, the team leader’s role should be to set up the meeting in advance in such a way that everyone knows they are expected and welcome to contribute. Meetings should not be about sharing unilateral information; any information that needs to be shared with the team by their leader should be sent in advance or shared in a way that does not require face-to-face interaction. Meetings are the team leader’s opportunity to benefit from the team’s thinking and should therefore be set up to motivate team members to deliver their best thinking.

One way to do so is to understand in advance what contribution you want from the team and set the agenda for the meeting with this in mind. What is it that you want the team to accomplish? Is it to come up with a new strategy? To discuss the pipeline? To consider the financial results of the team to-date? Whatever the aim, when setting the agenda, a team leader should ensure it is clear from the agenda what that objective of the meeting is.

We also know that our brains think best in the presence of a question. Therefore, the best way to set up an agenda is to turn each agenda item into a question. Item One, for example, might be: “Minutes from last meeting: How can we ensure that all residual actions are completed?”. Item Two might be: “Strategic Direction: How does your role fit into the bigger strategy of the company?”. And so on.

This way, each participant understands that not only are they requested to attend but they are also expected to answer the questions on the agenda in the form of a discussion.

Once you have introduced the agenda in the form of questions, the meeting itself will run very differently, with most members standing ready to contribute. There are a number of other meeting applications that will ensure the questions are then fully addressed and discussed by each member, which I will share with you in a future publication. If you can’t wait, do get in touch with us so that we can help you transform your meetings into effective business solutions.

Leverage Diversity as a Business Opportunity: Reflecting your client’s composition in your teams

Talk of the benefits of diversity is everywhere. Gender in particular. So much so that people are starting to look at it cynically. Yet the benefits of getting more women (and other minorities) appropriately represented within each layer of the organisation are profound. Report after report, measure after measure prove to us that (1) the financial benefits of balanced company boards cannot be underestimated (2) the case for what is often referred to as ‘feminine leadership’ is becoming incontestable, and (3) talk of business survival in the future appears to hinge on that business’ ability to adapt to a more flexible, more collaborative style of management. [1]

So if your company is considering diversity for the sake of diversity, for the sake of appearances or for the sake of complying with client demands, it is missing a trick! There is really no if’s or but’s about it: embracing gender diversity – the traits which we refer to as 21^st century leadership – must become central to any leadership strategy of a company that wants to continue to thrive in the future.

But where do you start?

One thing you could do is look at your clients and mirror them.

Easy, right? After all, we all know what our clients look like, what they like, how they assess transactions, where there pressure points are. We also know what their teams look like, the composition of their decision-making bodies, and those who are likely to make the deciding call on any new deal.

Yet increasingly so, clients are starting to challenge service providers to show them that our services will heed relevant diversity requirements: a certain percentage of women on the team delivering the services, a certain number of other minorities represented in the business. We’ve encountered a number of businesses whose pitches for new business didn’t succeed because they couldn’t evidence the requisite diversity required by the client.

If your company has been in this situation before, the best way to ensure it doesn’t happen again is to understand clearly the composition of the client’s teams – not only today but their aspirations for that composition tomorrow. Many clients will have targets that they will want to meet reflecting certain percentages on their teams and on their promotion lists. Find out what they are and reflect them in your own business. You may not get there tomorrow but you will have taken the first step to show the client that you are as serious about diversity as they are; that you’re not just assembling a team to meet their requirements but are genuinely interested in reflecting the client’s own attempts to become more diverse. They will thank you for it in many different ways, one of which might very well be that new deal.

Voice At The Table are a boutique gender diversity consultancy. We work with professional women to build confidence, resilience and initiative. We also work with companies to make them more inclusive. In this way, we aim to build and sustain your female talent pipeline.

[1] Email us to receive relevant reports and resources

Voice At The Table