Posted on July 28, 2009 by Frances Green

Discussing What Women Lawyers Want

Recently, the Ark Group’s WOMENLEGAL 2009 forum brought together gender-diversity thought-leaders in New York for an important conference on women in the legal profession. The forum focused on the key career issues facing women lawyers today, and practical solutions for both women lawyers and law firms regarding retaining and advancing women in the legal profession.

Carol Frohlinger’s excellent article, “What Women Want,” thoroughly covers the forum in the June-August issue of WOMENLEGAL Magazine.

Among the many specific topics discussed at the forum were: leadership; management structure and practices; measurement and tracking of progress toward career goals; communication and training; and reward and recognition. Rain-making generally was among the subjects emphasized by speakers as “career critical.”

My colleague, Maxine Hicks, the Managing Shareholder of EpsteinBeckerGreen’s Atlanta office, stressed the importance for women to understand that business development is the currency of law firms. “Billable hours determine your current income but how you use non-billable hours determines your future income,” she said, as part of a panel titled “Current and future outlook on impediments to women’s success: effecting change and taking action.”

Please read more about this invaluable forum in Carol’s article. Which pieces of advice offered by the panelists do you find to be particularly helpful?

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Posted on July 8, 2009 by Frances Green

Helping Female Leaders Succeed

I recently read an enlightening study by Development Dimensions International (DDI) -- “Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed” -- which reveals that, worldwide, women are simply not getting the same career opportunities as men.  The study is based on responses from 12,800 leaders in 76 countries and approximately 1,500 organizations. However, the study also offers advice on how to overcome such challenges.

We learn that, in addition to earning lower salaries than men, women are often overlooked when employers single out “high potentials” -- employees who have strong leadership potential. High-potential employees are placed in accelerated development programs to foster their leadership skills. The DDI study reveals that the gap between men and women in high-potential programs widens as management levels increase: “there were 28 percent more men than women in high-potential programs at the first level of management and 50 percent more men than women in such programs at the executive level.” As a result, fewer women than men reach senior leadership positions.

The study provides seven tips for organizations and five tips for women to help female leaders succeed. For instance, the study recommends that organizations implement a formal succession plan to ensure that objective standards are followed when choosing replacements for key leadership roles. When an organization in the U.S. health care industry, for example, had a formal succession plan in place, “nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the executives were women.” However, without a succession plan, only “one-third (36 percent)" of the executives were women.

The study also urges organizations to, among other things, set up objective standards to evaluate job performance; monitor salary programs to eliminate any pay disparities; give women access to leadership training and development experiences; and provide mentors who can encourage women "to be more proactive about seeking new positions" and less critical of their qualifications. (Interestingly, the study noted that, at Hewlett-Packard, women applied for job openings only when they thought they would meet 100% of the job's listed criteria, while men applied if they felt they met just 60% of that criteria.)

I encourage you to read “Holding Women Back: Troubling Discoveries and Best Practices for Helping Female Leaders Succeed” and then let us know your thoughts about it. Has your firm or company provided you with leadership training and opportunities? 

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