Saturday, September 15, 2007
How Can I Compete?
When women ask questions about “how to get on a board,” sometimes it appears as if they are looking for an edge, an out or an indirect -– perhaps easier -– path into the boardroom. It occasionally sounds as if they presume they are not welcome, not competent or not as capable as their male candidate counterparts. Sometimes, it seems as if they believe the “guys” all have some genetic mutation that makes it smoother for them to traverse the difficult terrain to a leadership role.
They’ve often asked questions such as the following:
Do I have to be a CEO or could I be a director without it?
Do I have to know the headhunters?
Do I have to qualify for boards’ more formal search techniques?
Is networking with board members still the key into the boardroom?
Are governance courses and director training more important than other education?
Do you have to live in the area of a company to be considered for their board?
Aren’t women on Fortune 1000 boards “way out there” – in pretty rarified air?
There’s almost a sense of hopelessness about the question: “How can I possibly compete with ‘outstanding’ women in leadership?” They seem to want another route -– one that makes it possible for average people (“like me”) to achieve such positions of responsibility.
There’s also the implication that companies should stop looking in that “rarified air” for women of talent; stop putting them on pedestals of high expectations from which they might fall, fail or disappoint. Companies “should” lower their expectations about women director candidates and instead increase the “help” or “incentives” or “encouragement” for more average women in the marzipan layer of middle management.
Frankly, my dears, there will never be the book entitled “Corporate Governance for Dummies” or “Ten Easy Steps to Become a Director.” Or at least we hope not.
Women on corporate boards are not necessarily the “superwomen” that some people imagine them to be. They are they same hard-working, persistent, dedicated women that exist everywhere.
As to the question, “How do I find a corporate board of directors’ role?”
The answer is this: “You don’t. You build a career of achievement and leadership. When a board needs your skills and expertise, they will find you.”
They’ve often asked questions such as the following:
There’s almost a sense of hopelessness about the question: “How can I possibly compete with ‘outstanding’ women in leadership?” They seem to want another route -– one that makes it possible for average people (“like me”) to achieve such positions of responsibility.
There’s also the implication that companies should stop looking in that “rarified air” for women of talent; stop putting them on pedestals of high expectations from which they might fall, fail or disappoint. Companies “should” lower their expectations about women director candidates and instead increase the “help” or “incentives” or “encouragement” for more average women in the marzipan layer of middle management.
Frankly, my dears, there will never be the book entitled “Corporate Governance for Dummies” or “Ten Easy Steps to Become a Director.” Or at least we hope not.
Women on corporate boards are not necessarily the “superwomen” that some people imagine them to be. They are they same hard-working, persistent, dedicated women that exist everywhere.
As to the question, “How do I find a corporate board of directors’ role?”
The answer is this: “You don’t. You build a career of achievement and leadership. When a board needs your skills and expertise, they will find you.”
# posted by ChampionBoards.com @ 4:24 PM 
