Tracy's blog: "CEO for a day: program marks gender milestone for job shadowing"/ "Politics helps to set our collective views on leadership"

Mar. 24, 2018 "CEO for a day: program marks gender milestone for job shadowing": Today I found this article by Denise Deveau in the Edmonton Journal:

Job shadowing is a common practice for many enterprises as a means to expose students or new recruits to the daily workings of a particular profession. But it’s not common to see high-powered CEOs take a student under their wing for a day.

Every year, up to 18 Canadian CEOs take part in a unique student job-shadow program, developed by executive search firm Odgers Berndtson, called CEO x 1 Day. This year, the program matched third- and fourth-year university students with top CEOs from organizations that included Kellogg’s, PayPal Canada, Cossette, Vancity, Alberta Innovates and Amnesty International. CEO x 1 Day is a global initiative that originated in Spain and now runs in 12 countries. Canada was the second country to adopt it.

This year, Canada’s program reached a significant milestone: for the first time, more than half of this cohort’s CEOs are women, says Jane Griffith, partner and national diversity leader at Odgers Berndtson in Toronto. “This shows the program is resonating with both female and male leaders.”

The program benefits both students and leaders, she stresses. “Students learn first-hand what it really is to be a leader. Many come back and say they didn’t expect CEOs to be so humble, respectful and empathetic, rather than just scary bosses. What I hear from CEOs is that they love connecting with next generation leaders to get a sense of what they think and what drives them.”

Getting CEOs on board has been surprisingly easy, she adds. “It’s not much of a sell. In fact, we get a lot of requests from CEOs to be part of this. The trick is getting their time.” Demand from applicants is also strong. Over the five years the program has run in Canada, 2,000 students have applied for 88 matches.

Now that they have reached gender parity, the plan is to duplicate that moving forward, Griffith says. “That’s where we as a firm want to get to. We want people to see leaders based on their ability and skills and not gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. As part of that, we want to normalize female leadership and show students that it’s not abnormal or exceptional to have a female leader.”

Tamara Vrooman, president and CEO of Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (Vancity) in Vancouver, spent her job-shadowing day with Gurjodh Mahal, a fourth-year business student from Simon Fraser University. She says she was pleasantly surprised to have a male student on board for the day.

“The program was very thoughtful in terms of matching CEOs and students in a way that was mutually beneficial. Leaders are good at talking about we should do, but what we actually do is sometimes different. This is less about what young people should do, than it is about talking through what leadership actually looks like and provide better value.”

Having had the advantages of a strong mentorship network throughout her own career, Vrooman says that as a female CEO it’s important to take advantage of these opportunities to showcase women’s leadership to both men and women. “It’s important both as a role model for women (students), who see themselves as leaders one day, but it’s also important for men since they will be working for women leaders.”

With three older sisters pursuing their own careers, Mahal says he was grateful for the opportunity to work with a female leader. “I know my sisters are always facing difficulties and have a real understanding that it can be difficult for women to progress in a workspace,” he said. “Those barriers might not always be apparent to someone coming in. With Tamara, it was nice to see a different perspective. Not only did I learn more about the industry, I learned about her successes and goals and a lot of what she valued.”

Vrooman says taking part in the CEO x 1 Day program was a worthwhile experience for her as well. “Of course, it’s important for men in leadership positions to create space and provide opportunities for young women in leadership roles. But it’s equally important for women leaders to create examples and connections for men to work for women. We need both.”

One thing from the experience that will stay with her was a comment Mahal made during his visit. “He said he was really surprised by how real a CEO can be; and that how we deal with things is not so foreign from the way anybody else does. Hopefully job shadowing brings the perspective that, as CEOs, our roles are filled by people with strengths, weaknesses and a sense of humour just like anyone else. We all have something to offer and learn.”

http://business.financialpost.com/executive/0320-biz-dd-ceox1day

Apr. 7, 2018 "Politics helps to set our collective views on leadership": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail. It talks about when you think of leaders, you automatically start thinking male leaders:

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives elected their 26th consecutive male leader recently. Call them consistent. Or conservative. Fifteen of the 16 party presidents have also been male. Welcome to the 19^th century.

Perhaps it’s misogyny. Or myopia. There has been some movement: Christine Elliott actually drew the most votes this time, so the party was open to a female leader, except its electoral system – designed to recognize the importance of the party’s rural roots – denied her victory. Just like Hillary Clinton.

In both cases, we were losers as well. Politics, for all its failings, helps to set our collective mindset on leadership. And with it still leaning heavily male, as a society we lean heavily male.

Sure, there are other examples of leadership around. I’ve just finished reading Harvard historian Nancy Koehn’s fascinating book Forged In Crisis, which tells the story of five courageous leaders: Ernest Shackleton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a theologian who fought against the Hitler regime), and environmentalist Rachel Carson. Only one held elected office, but all were leaders. At the same time, only one is a woman, even when a female historian looks beyond political leadership.

We look to business as well for examples of leadership. But what names come to mind first of great business leadership? Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Alfred Sloan, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, perhaps?

Certainly Meg Whitman and Sheryl Sandberg have been hugely successful, but I wonder if they come immediately to your mind or only when you think “female leaders” rather than “leaders.” And the statistics on the percentage of the Canadian C-Suite and boards that is female nudges up but a tad each year.

Given our examples of top leadership and our political leaders are primarily male, we will see leadership as inherently male – or more suitable to men. That’s why when asked to draw an effective leader, people draw a man .

Fifty-five years after Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, arguably igniting the current feminist wave, we have not made much progress in changing the image of leadership.

To our mind, a leader is confident, determined and aggressive, traits we identify more with men than women. Not collaborative, humble and caring, traits we identify more with women than men. So we look for the former traits even after research studies on effectiveness lean toward the latter. It’s instinctive, subconscious thinking, much as many people pick a premier.

Instinct seems to be telling Ontarians that Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath are not good leaders, but that Patrick Brown, prescandal, who had accomplished little in his life, and Doug Ford, who has run the family business and helped an out-of-control brother mess up as mayor of Toronto, seem promising leaders.

In Alberta, Rachel Notley is treated with contempt that seems out of proportion to her perceived situation. Misogyny? To some extent. And, of course, in some respects, ideological or because of their parties’ policies. But it’s also a less nasty but still hurtful mindset of a male leadership mystique we instinctively accept.

Those men are seen as better leaders because unconsciously we believe leadership is inherently male.

So what do we do?

It was a tradition of the federal Liberal party for decades that they alternate between a French and English leader. What about starting to alternate by gender?

Oh yes, I forgot. That would mean we would not necessarily be selecting the best person. But alternating by linguistic-geographic birth worked quite well for our natural governing party. They found some acceptable leaders.

This is not really about politics, however. That’s just a high-profile example. It’s about your business, university and non-profit. After 55 years, what we have been doing is not working. We need alternation or quotas – or strong leanings in those directions – with the possibility of exceptions only when those guidelines can’t possibly be met.

We need deliberate thought about the impact of our tendency to select men over women on the psyche of our country, not the unsuccessful talk of more opportunities and mentors that has led nowhere. Justin Trudeau’s quota for his cabinet has worked well – some of his female ministers have emerged as some of his best – but because it’s a quota, nobody will commit to following him. Maybe your organization should. After all, the research is showing traits most often associated with females are better than we realized. Maybe it will help rather than hurt.

It’s actually a major national project – a profound cultural shift – and since the alternative “strategy” of laissez-faire and hoping for the best isn’t working, maybe we need to stop doing the same, futile things. If your instinctive sense of leadership is male, you should worry.

Canonballs

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