concentration

Before You Welcome 2017

December 28, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

A Brief Check-In For Women Who Lead

As a woman who leads, you have probably experienced a full and exciting year. You have no doubt also had to deal with some unusual experiences, which have demanded quite a bit of your time.

What this means is that you may have set some important goals aside in order to accomplish the essential.

My wish for you is that you do not close the door on 2016 with regrets…that you take a moment to reflect on the things that you have accomplished. Because all too often, we focus on the things we didn’t do, diminishing the importance of our successes.

And instead of feeling excited about 2017, you’ll feel like you are in “catch up” mode – not a healthy, strategic approach, or a good feeling.

Assessing your 2016 wins is critical to having the right lens to set your goals for 2017.

So before you welcome 2017, here’s a brief check-in…

Celebrating Your 2016 Wins and Successes

Find a quiet corner and hot cup of something good, take a pen and paper, and settle in to answer the following questions (it’s important to hand write this in order to connect your head and heart):

What are you most proud of, as you look back at 2016? (This may be personal or business – but it would be great to list one for each.)

List 3-5 wins in your work – accomplishments or moves forward.

What one thing would you like to congratulate yourself for, which others may or may not have noticed?

What values do these accomplishments reveal?

What natural strengths did you use in order to accomplish these things?

What event or circumstance in your life this year opened the door for you to recognize your power or influence your future choices?

What did you do well in 2016 that you would like to do more of in 2017?

What do you need to make sure that your goal-setting process for 2017 is an exciting and positive one – one that energizes and excites you?

Knowing you have put some things aside in order to accomplish “the necessary,” what is one thing you would like to focus on in 2017 that will make a difference to your year?

Taking time to reflect on these things is important to your success in 2017. I’d love to hear what this exercise brought up for you. Join me on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion…

Patti Cotton helps women executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and enterprises. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, women’s leadership development, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Why Women Leaders Are Losing Their Jobs

December 21, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

3 Ways You Can Avoid This

Fortune Magazine’s December 13, 2016 blog, “The World’s Most Powerful Women,” reports that women business leaders around the world are losing ground.

“This year has been a doozy for supporters of gender equality and women’s advancement, even beyond Hillary Clinton’s defeat and Donald Trump’s victory.

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was ousted from power, and
South Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, now seems poised to meet that same fate.
The IMF’s first female chief, Christine Lagarde, is currently engulfed in a trial that could jeopardize her future.
The number of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 sank from 24 to 21.
And some bright, still rising business stars – Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer – have plummeted like fireballs back to earth.”

The unfortunate consequence of these disappointing events is that because this is occurring on a larger, public scale, your brain is subconsciously telling the following story:

“Hey, You, women just can’t hack it. See what happens when a woman is placed in a position of leadership? Don’t try it. It doesn’t work. Be safe. Be warm. Stay where you are. Don’t try to reach higher goals. Don’t speak up. Don’t speak out.”

In fact, most all of these situations Forbes describes were avoidable – and that’s what your brain doesn’t stop to examine. The women mentioned in the Forbes blog have lost their positions for many reasons, and some are as follows:

poor decision-making, difficulties in taking action
not asking for help or an inability to listen
surrounding themselves with the wrong people
difficulty in building the influence they need to get support and get things done
staying too long in the same position when they should have made that next move or change

Of course, politics can sometimes derail. And, in at least one disappointing case, compromised ethics were at issue.

But for the most part, the plummets these female business leaders have taken were avoidable. And that’s just plain disappointing after all we’ve worked on to move forward.

So, how can you avoid the same kind of ending?

These recent events with other women of high visibility can hurt you and your future, if you are aspiring to greater leadership and larger opportunities.

The simple answer is to get the right kind of help to check you on your ability to lead and do it well. This involves a few things.

1. Be willing to examine your own leadership.

How well do you lead yourself – your emotions and the way you manage these, as well as your decision-making, action-taking, and more. Take an assessment, and review whether you are meeting goals effectively, if you have rock-solid confidence, and if your business or company recognizes your value.

2. Be willing to ask a few trusted colleagues and mentors where you need to grow.

How well are you leading others? How do you relate, build influence, and get things done with others? Take the basal temperature by getting sound feedback so you know what to work on. If you are great talent, but you can’t communicate this to others and influence them to take action, your leadership will stall here.

3. Get the right kind of help to grow your leadership in the right places, and through the right way.

Don’t be shy, and don’t short-change yourself. This is what kills most women leaders “in the making” – not asking for help, and not investing in the right kind. You must make the investment in yourself to course-correct and camp on your abilities so that these work for you, and work extremely well. For more on this, see my special report “Coaches, Mentors, and Sponsors: The Differences and the Benefits.”

In thinking about your own leadership aspirations, where, in your own leadership, might you need to grow? Join us on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

When “Just Do It” Doesn’t Work: Testing Out of Fear

December 14, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

How do you move past fear?

You don’t.

You get underneath it.

You get underneath the fear to the faulty assumptions that are driving it.

Underneath every instance where your confidence falters, or wherever a fear surfaces, there lies a hidden set of faulty assumptions that acts like glue to keep this fear intact.

Ready to break through?

I work with successful executives and business owners who are ready to step into a next level of success. A lot of times, they engage me because they have an incredible vision for their future or special project, or they have just assumed a new and larger role. These scenarios require bigger ways of thinking, acting, and doing, and even the most confident people will find themselves stalled by fears they didn’t realize would emerge.

A client I will call Mara asked me to help her make the move from being a very successful attorney to founding her own consulting firm. This was a major decision for her, but she was convicted and passionate about the change. She had already done all the homework – researching the need for services, defining the value she could bring to the client, weighing the costs and benefits this move would have on her financial future, identifying resources and connecting with key mentors for the help she would need, and putting together a plan of action to actually build the business.

But she called me for support because she couldn’t seem to move forward in working the plan. Specifically, Mara was afraid she would fail as a business owner. Even though she had gone through the planning steps that would support her success, she still feared she would not make it.

I asked her what was behind this fear, and Mara’s faulty assumptions were then revealed.

“Mara, what are you afraid will happen if you fail?”

“Well, other people might think I don’t have what it takes as a business person.”

“Mara, what are you afraid is going to happen if that happens?”

“Well, if others think I don’t have what it takes, I will lose credibility and no one will engage me.”

“And if that happens?”

“Then I’ll lose my home and be homeless – and others will have to take care of me. I will become a non-person – no worth.”

And there it was – the underlying faulty assumption that held Mara back. She feared she would become a non-person, a person of no worth. This was the glue that held her fear together.

“Mara, is it really true that if you fail in business that you will become homeless and of no worth?”

“Well, no – I have a good savings, and a corner on my specialty within law. I could always return with no problem. You know – it’s weird! I didn’t know that underneath all this was a fear that I would become a non-person. That’s not true!”

And yet, this was what was holding her back – the story she told herself, made up of a subconscious set of faulty assumptions that held her fear together like glue.

“Then, how do you get rid of the fear?” Mara asked me. “Because I can tell you that the old Nike adage, ‘Just do it!’ does not work for me.”

“Here’s what you do,” I answered. “You change your story to get rid of the fear. To do this, you don’t confront the fear – you confront the assumptions.”

Confronting the assumptions is confronting the story you are telling yourself, because it is the story that keeps your fear intact. Confronting your assumptions asks that you experiment with scenarios to see if your story is true. But contrary to the adage “Just do it,” by confronting the fear, confronting assumptions to break through fear is more powerful and effective.

Let’s say that you tell yourself that you are afraid to jump in the water because you assume the swimming pool is too cold to get in and swim. So the story you tell yourself is that if you jump in, you will catch a chill and be miserable. If you are miserable, then you will have to stay at home and nurse a cold. And if you stay at home to nurse a cold, you will miss out on all the fun planned for the weekend. And if this happens, well…(you see what I mean!).

To begin testing out of these faulty assumptions, you walk to the edge of the pool. You dip the tips of your toes in the water to see if your foot will be okay with the temperature. It may be a little chilly, but once you see that the toes are fine, you put a bit more of your foot in and go through the same exercise, asking yourself if you are okay. Eventually, you are in the pool up to your neck, enjoying a swim, sun on your face, and wondering why you ever feared the water temperature.

What you are doing throughout this exercise is to stretch your level of comfort bit by bit, pausing each time to observe to see whether your assumptions are true or not. In doing so, you test out of these assumptions by proving them wrong. Once you do this, your mind tells itself a new story. “Hmmm… I guess I don’t need to fear this fear anymore – it was completely unfounded.” So an hour later, if you choose to go back for another swim, you will simply jump in this time, total body. No more fear.

So how did this process work for Mara?

Mara and I devised a plan that incorporated several critical testing points as she moved forward to found her own business. And the results were that over the next 9 months, she was able to cultivate several prospective clients and to secure contracts that would support her over the following 24 months. She gave notice at the law offices, and jumped into her own consulting firm full-time.

“I can’t believe I was afraid of failing,” Mara told me. “Granted, building a business can be extremely challenging – but it’s so rewarding, too. I realize through having cultivated those clients, I am quite capable.”

How about you? What fear is holding you back? What story are you telling yourself to keep this fear intact? Join us on LinkedIn to share, and for more discussion.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Fast-Tracking Your Way to the Top

November 23, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

Do You Need a Mentor, Sponsor, or Coach?

You know you have what it takes to succeed, but you’d like to move a little faster to get to the top.

Getting help is the smart thing to do – but what kind of help do you need to get there?

Liz was in middle management, but she was bored with her area of responsibility and wanted more out of her career. She knew she was talented, but, although others always complimented her on her work, they didn’t seem to recognize she had more in her – at least, they didn’t say so. However, she was convinced she could contribute at higher levels, if just given the right opportunity. She also knew she could go a couple of directions in the company with her professional background and experience, and wondered which path was right for her.

One day, Liz shared all this with a couple of close colleagues.

“I’m ready for more – but no one has called me into the executive suite to say I’ve won the prize promotion. I know I can do this. How do I get the help I need to get there?”

“Get a mentor,” said Jackie. “Mentors are supposed to give you direction to help you get there, aren’t they? They can give you pointers on specific technical skills – I had one once that taught me how to better analyze financials, and that really helped the way I was able to strategize. Mentors can also put you in touch with other people in the industry to widen your networks and such. So they are a kind of career guide and connector. That has to be good for your career.”

“No, wait,” said John. “I’ve been reading about sponsors – some people call them champions. They are supposed to be better than mentors, aren’t they? If they decide you have more in you, they commit to positioning you with others in high places, and go around talking positively about you. They influence others to take a look at you, and they can volunteer you for projects that will show off what you can do. It’s kind of like the ultimate PR agent with clout.”

“Hey, I’m not sure either of you are right,” piped up Sandy. “My boss hired an executive coach who got her straight into the C-suite. They worked on the way she communicated so that she showed more confidence, instilled more trust – even sharpened her influence skills. And they worked on her decision-making, and how she led her team so that it went from mediocre- to high-performing. It really showcased her abilities.”

“Hmmm…,” said Liz. “It may be that I need all three. Let me reflect on this – stay tuned for an update, people!”

After careful thought, Liz sought out a well-known leader in the industry who happened to live in the area. She explained what she was doing, and that she needed some advice on her career path. This leader met with her, helped her to look at trends within her industry, and offered to connect her with people who could talk about career possibilities within her focus.

Liz then thought about seeking a sponsor. However, the sponsor relationship is usually initiated by the sponsor, and Liz knew she had to stand out before she asked for someone of influence to go to bat for her in the organization.

So she hired a coach. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” she thought. Her executive coach reviewed her career goals with her, and then suggested assessing how she led herself, others, and the enterprise (her area of responsibility). Together, they pinpointed some critical areas for improvement – ways of being, relating, and doing that would help her to showcase to others the exceptional talent she was. Liz and her coach worked over the next several months, and it paid off – someone higher up in the organization reached out to ask about her career goals, and to share they would like to help her get there.

Who’s in your court? And who needs to be?

For a free informational guide to help you determine your best resource for help based on where you are right now in your career, click here.

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

Why You Need Your Emotions for Rational Decision-Making

November 16, 2016 By Patti Cotton Leave a Comment

We spend a lot of our lives learning to master emotions. Sometimes they overcome us, and we goof things up. So we try to discount them or put them aside in an effort to be more rational in our decisions and actions.

But discounting or ignoring emotions isn’t really mastering them. You need your emotions in order to make your best decisions. Sound counter-intuitive?

In my work with high-potential female executives, I find quite often that these women have shut off their emotions, feeling these get in their way. Often, they have been told they were being too emotional in a certain situation, or they have found themselves overwhelmed with feelings when confronting a critical scenario, and it kept them from moving forward. Somehow, these women decided to shut off the “feeling part” of themselves in order to execute and get ahead.

Bad move.

Emotions are meant to trigger or alert you to something. When you ignore these, negative consequences are in store, not only for yourself, but for the way you are able to work with others, and ultimately succeed.

So how do you manage your emotions so that they actually help you get ahead?

There are three steps to managing and bridging your feelings so you can support your best thinking and actions:

1. Recognize the emotion you are feeling in a situation.

This may sound easier than it is. I once coached Sandy, a member of her company’s C-Suite, who could only name two emotions that she felt – anger and fear. Because of this, she continuously operated from the “fight or flight” part of her brain – high stress, and low reasoning. As a result, her decision-making suffered. We spent a couple of months helping her to identify and expand her lexicon of emotions as I coached her on how to handle specific situations. Why? Emotions are “gut triggers.” It means, “Hey, something is up, here! Pay attention!” This allowed her to move from a “fight or flight” mode to the reasoning part of her brain.

2. Decide how you want to manage the emotion.

Recognizing what emotion you are experiencing in a certain situation allows you to ask yourself how you would like to handle it. Just because someone has angered you doesn’t mean you need to express your anger. It means, instead, that you can ask yourself why you are experiencing this, whether it comes from a bias or is relevant and appropriate to the situation, and what you want to do behaviorally because of your reflection. This process puts you in charge. Once Sandy could identify the emotion she was feeling in a certain situation, she was able to reason more effectively, asking herself what this emotion was telling her, and whether this was viably related to the decision or situation at hand.

3. Allow your emotional self to collaborate with your rational self.

When you have checked in with yourself as to why you are feeling a certain emotion, where it comes from, and how you want to handle the emotion, you have made space for your rational self to join at the table. Having recognized how you are feeling, what the emotion is telling you, and deciding how you want to handle the emotion, you can now ask yourself to identify the real issue at hand so that you can resolve it most effectively. Sandy discovered that a colleague had undermined her to her staff. When she stopped to recognize how she felt about this, how she wanted to manage it, she then felt much more in control of how she dealt with the situation. Instead of operating from her “hot buttons” as she would have done in the past, she was able to discuss the issue calmly with him, and worked to resolve things.

How do emotions affect the way you work? Join us for our LinkedIn discussion and share!

Patti Cotton

Patti Cotton reenergizes talented leaders and their teams to achieve fulfillment and extraordinary results. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.