Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the book “Women Are Creating the Glass Ceiling and Have the Power to End It.” Reprinted with permission.
What is so exciting and invigorating is that women have the capacity to end the glass ceiling. Most women are, indeed, “Worriers.” The key is identifying this risk to becoming a Worrier, taking ownership, and doing something about it. We don’t need to freeze in fear or be handicapped when it comes to the glass ceiling. By gaining a deep sense of self-awareness of strengths, risks, and needs, women can manage, prevent, and neutralize their risks so they do not derail their success and their upward trajectory. It will take determination. It will take conscious effort. Women are up to the challenge. We have the power to end the glass ceiling.
Billions of dollars are being invested in women-in-leadership initiatives. We just need to shift the resources to design and deploy in ways to support women, as individuals, based on their true talent and risk factors. No more scanning the surface or one-size-fits all training. Organizations need to begin holding men and women both accountable for their risk behaviors. These ineffective coping behaviors are not productive, and undermine success. No more looking the other way and promoting men while ignoring their risk behaviors.
No more walking on eggshells for men and women leaders. Let’s build trusting and respectful relationships and hold leaders with bad behaviors accountable. Let’s communicate, build positive relationships, and perform as effective teams and team members, regardless gender (or other differences.)
Women do have the power. Women are amazingly gifted, driven, and talented as leaders. Women no longer need to allow their fear or need for perfection to derail their upward success. Women have the power to face their Worrier risk, analyze it, conquer, and manage it.
Vision 2030: The Glass Ceiling Ends
As the glass ceiling melts away, leadership performance success naturally increases. No longer will we have to live with 50 percent to 75 percent leadership ineffectiveness. Perhaps by the year 2030, we will decrease ineffective performance to 20 percent or less. Imagine the revenue! Imagine the innovation! Imagine the competitive advantage! Imagine the positive teams and work cultures emerging in organizations! Imagine finding, developing, and promoting those women and men leaders with true talent! Imagine where there is no more “club membership,” wrong-headed perceptions, or biases leading the way! I see that world. I see it in a decade. Do you?
With women using their power and being supported by stakeholders, I envision the glass ceiling will:
▪ begin to disappear in the early 2020s and will be gone by late 2030.
▪ no longer hinder women’s upward leadership success.
▪ not be a mystery but instead a problem largely solved by identifying the root cause, making the solutions clear.
▪ no longer cost organizations billions of dollars a year in lost opportunities
▪ stop hindering leadership performance, with effectiveness rates soaring
▪ come down — swiftly! — in a win-win productive and positive way for all.
Let’s get started!
