Women In Business - Rules For The 21st Century

Women in Business Succeed In Style

A generalization maybe, but the first women in business succeeded in the only way they could – by imitating men. Authoritarian leadership and tight control was the hallmark of th 1970's businessman, and women were not exactly welcomed into the ranks of management. Well ladies, that was yesterday, and today is today!

Forget what your boss told you, because following the old rules can be bad for your career. Today’s CEO/entrepreneur can no longer tap his/her company’s full potential using a “command-and-control” style. The 21st century business woman needs to be able to build a vision based on the awareness of economic transformation, then help her partners and staff fulfill that vision. She must draw on a wide range of skills to get to the top and stay there.

Following are 7 Key Attributes that are essential for modern women in business:

Sell the Vision: A leader with a fresh, independent plan for her company’s growth and future has a distinct advantage in luring and keeping great talent and investors. Vision is not some lofty ideal, but an obtainable concept that is easy to understand and will make the company grow to another level.

Reinvent the Rules: While women in business have traditionally been socialized to please others, the 21st century leader knows that good girls rarely post great returns. The strong managers/owners today not only anticipate change, they create entirely new organizations that respond to shifts and search for innovation.

Achieve With A Laser Focus: Go where others fear to tread! Being aggressive and ambitious has long been considered male traits, but they are key qualities for new leaders. Today’s business woman has the ability to home in on opportunities that others may simply not see, and then excel in that uncharted territory.

Use High-Touch in a High-Tech Era: When a number of leaders are conducting business by e-mail, voice mail, passwords, and PINs, the female entrepreneur succeeds because she guides with a strong, personal, bed-side manner. Today’s business woman is just as technologically savvy as her peers, but her skill with staff and customers is “high-touch” which gives her a critical edge and separation from the “pack”.

Challenge or Opportunity? – Women in business are great at turning a challenge into an opportunity instead of using the “slash-and-burn” approach. They are able to make bold strokes, but they also win the cooperation of others in the organization in making any transformation a success.

A Customer Preference Obsession: In this information age which makes it easier to shop around for the best “whatever”, businesses must work harder to give people what they want before their competitors do. There is no substitute for spending time with clients to become expert at their businesses and learn their demands. Female leaders are almost intuitively adept in doing just that, and without the client even suspecting.

Courage Under Fire: Show me any career woman or female entrepreneur today that isn’t able to “stand-the-heat” in any tough-call situation. Their decision-making skills are rooted in a high level of confidence, because they’ve had to weather and surpass any and all “corporate” storms they’ve encountered over time.

It takes a certain mind-set and bravado for anyone to start their own business and succeed, but it’s even more difficult for women in business. Let’s face it, ladies! You’ve always had to be twice-as-smart and twice-as-confident as any male counterpart in the corporate world. After all, if you can bear and raise the future generation, how can running a successful business scare you?

Both male and female executives in the corporate arena have much in common in terms of professional aspirations. However, the playing field is far from being equal. A survey was done by a non-profit research group called Catalyst recently. Male & female executives at 1,000 of the largest corporations in the U.S. were surveyed and more than half of the women said that they aspire to a CEO position. They were even willing to make sacrifices such as delaying a marriage and/or children, and that very willingness shouts to us that the field isn’t equal.

Other survey results were as follows:

• 49.5% of all employed managers and professionals are women, but they still tend to manage only other women.
• The highest-paid female executive still earns only 68% of the salary paid to her male counterpart.
• Firms that include women on their senior management teams showed greater improvement in corporate performance.
• 62% of the firms that included women on their senior management team saw their market share grow, compared with only 39% of companies with no female senior management.

Advancements in technology should help ease the movement of more women in business into leadership. Computers enable women to work more flexible hours and better balance work and family commitments, which is not expected of their male counterparts. (How equal is that?)

So-called feminine leadership traits will grow in importance in the 21st century, according to more than 160 international companies and 75 senior executives’ view of their firm’s progress toward gender equity.

Most respondents, predominantly male, predicted wide-spread abandonment of the “command and control” managerial style for a more “team-oriented” approach. That doesn’t seem all that bad to me. I can think of a lot of companies that could use more teamwork and less monarchy leadership.

These business gurus saw this new style as requiring skills that are “more feminine than masculine,” thus giving an edge to female managers. However, another 15-year study has shown that female managers are no more inclusive or democratic than men when making workplace decisions.

As grim as these facts might be, I don’t want to discourage any prospective female entrepreneurs. Female women in business and business owners know that they may have to work twice as hard for half the recognition and pay, but ladies – statistics show they’ll outlive their male counterparts.

We know that any woman who is a wife and mother and also in business, could do the job of two air traffic controllers without breaking a sweat even as the airport burns to the ground.

A really good option for women to start up their own low risk business is to start a CV Writing Business

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