Gone are the days when leaders had to people with charisma, financial success and a lot of media coverage. There has never been a better time to lead without the whole fan fare. The world does not favor the priveleged and already wealthy to become leaders. Otherwise, it would be hard to understand how Gandhi, Mandela became leaders…

1. Shine: You need to shine in your work and do your best work ALWAYS. For you to shine, you need to take matters in your hand and lead. There is no need for you to be the CEO, you could be someone lower in the chain BUT to shine you have to lead without the title.

2. Inspire: These are tough times. If you see a passionate person working relentlessly, you are inspired. There is a LOT of inspiration needed. So, take on the responsibility to inspire people at home, work or your community.

3. Live: You cannot stop living. By living, it is not enough that you are breathing…you need to feel alive. A true leader understands that in the game of live- living is the currency to play this game. When you are alive, you are positive energy that brings life to dead things. So, become the force that brings things to life and takes responsibility of it.

Have a great Saturday!

Apple named its latest device, iPad. Ofcourse! this shows a little oversight from their team in coming up with the name. But I truly believe this is NOT why we need women executives in Apple’s team. We need more women executives – AGREED. But naming a device “iPad” has been blown out of proportion – what about HELIPAD, NOTEPAD – are all these names reminder of female hygiene – I don’t think SO.

In Business Week, Vivek Wadhwa argues more women are needed in the executive suite. Wadhwa provides a grim snapshot of women in the top echelons of the technology and financial sectors:

“Apple isn’t the only company with a male-dominated executive team. No woman has ever been CEO of a Wall Street firm. Women were primary owners of only 19% of the 237,843 firms founded in 2004, according to the Kauffman Foundation’s analysis of Dun & Bradstreet data. And only 3% of tech firms were founded by women in that year.”

“Given all the similarities in background and motivation for men and women entrepreneurs-and the fact that women now outnumber men in universities-we remain perplexed by the dearth of female startup executives.”

A societal failure

Wadhwa explains that the root of the issue is societal expectations of women:

“Evidence suggests that this does not reflect a failure on the part of women but rather a societal failure. Consider the contrast with India, a country that is in many respects more conservative than the U.S. It might therefore be expected to be even less amenable to women in leadership. Yet there, women are rapidly rising through the top ranks of the business community.”

“HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Fidelity International in India are run by women. So is the country’s second-biggest bank, Icici Bank, and its third-largest, Axis Bank. Women head investment banking operations at Kotak Mahindra and JPMorgan Chase and the equities division of Icici. Half of the deputy governors at the Reserve Bank of India are women.”

The article explains that an entrenched boys club feel and spirit in the industry – something that is prevalent in America but not quite as rigid in the emerging financial services market in India – may contribute to this.

So, are we ready as a society to reject stereotypes of working mothers, address the concern of leadership for women and accept a more balanced lifestyle – not engaged in happy hours and golf games?

At her Harvard University commencement speech, “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling offers some powerful, heartening advice to dreamers and overachievers, including one hard-won lesson that she deems “worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

She says, “What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. “

Se continues, “Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.”

Here is the video

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

My thinking is there is nothing more crippling than the fear of failure. Get over it. Move on.

I,myself, have been driven by fear of failure and it took me time to face it. Failure teaches you things that you would have never found out about yourself…it makes you stronger.

You must believe in YOURSELF. If you are not to believe in yourself, then why would someone else believe in you?

The fear of failure is one beast that needs to be tamed and not surrendered into. Don’t take it lightly, if you don’t confront it and get rid of it then you are doomed to fail. I can bet that this is the single biggest challenge why most people never act.

Technology is the only field in which FLEXIBILITY means 24×7 availability. I spoke at Paypal to their Women in Technology group to give them a talk on Work Life Balance. I emphasized on seeing work as part of life. It constitutes a struggle when we see WORK and LIFE as two different and competing entities.

Moreover, women in technology need to have a new relationship with word ‘AMBITION’.

We need to understand that ‘Ambition is NOT a DIRTY Word’.

Watch the video below as I take this ON.

We all have a name or a face come to mind, as we listen to the word – CONTROL FREAK.

Here is a newsflash, have you looked in the mirror…Do you trust people?

Most recently, I have spoken to many women who believe that the real opportunity for women’s pay parity has arrived. Finally, we have more women in the workforce and all these women are still making 77cents for a $1 for what a man makes. As many men have been let go and have their wives, partners and girlfriends emerging as the primary bread winner. They are understanding that if they had the similar job, they would have been paid higher dollars.

In any case, women are finding themselves now more stretched between the demands of work and life. As if this was not enough, may companies have increased the bar on the face time employees have in the company. Essentially, women are now over-whelmed….and these companies are sending the message that they do not TRUST their employees. So, the need to have them in the office.

This has a negative impact on the morale of the women. They are not feeling empowered. The real question is when are we going to grow up?

We need to trust our employees to do their work and produce. Where they do this work in not a concern…Trust is about loosing CONTROL…and to extend trust in a way that helps people build long-term relationships in which both the trusting and trusted party – keep their focus on RESULTS and INTEGRITY.

Technology is the only field in which FLEXIBILITY means 24×7 availability. I spoke at Paypal to their Women in Technology group to give them a talk on Work Life Balance. I emphasized on seeing work as part of life. It constitutes a struggle when we see WORK and LIFE as two different and competing entities.

Here is the presentation:

The recent recession is a glaring proof that all our diversity work is not enough or we need to rethink diversity in our companies. Why do I say so?

Recession creates a breakdown for all of us. It is a time we can reflect on what is working and what is not. When more African American men loose their jobs in the workplace during a recession, it is a sign that our efforts to promote diversity are not effective.

Here are some trends that we find for diversity in a recession:

1. Diversity funding is squeezed:
The companies that support diversity believe that it is only a thing to do when things are doing well. In a recession, it is considered not so important so the budgets are slashed. And the first budget to get stripped is the one for diversity programs.

2. Innovation Halted
The companies trying to cut costs forget that it is by leveraging diversity they can continue to innovate – which is important to get through recession. The short-term focus on how to improve the bottom line becomes paramount. And so diversity initiatives are cut down.

3. Employee Morale crushed
The environment in which we work has an impact of workers productivity. With lay offs the employee morale gets hurt. Many employees who have moved to a new country in search of opportunities have no sound structure to protect them from financial insecurity in case of layoffs. In an environment like this, diverse workforce morale gets crushed. The company looses the risk taking and new thinking that these employees could have brought in.

The recent recession is a proof that we are way off from what we had set out to achieve for Diversity in the workforce.

Ask Cedric Herring, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who studied about 1,000 companies of all sizes and industries to see whether diversity pays. His answer was an unequivocal yes.

In his research, Herring examined the ethnicity and gender of employees, along with each company’s actual earnings, market share, profitability and other factors. His findings were that most diverse companies tended to have the most profit, while the least diverse companies tended to have the least profit.

So, the real question is ‘Why is diversity considered important in good times when profit is important all the time?”

Corporations today have two sets of employees – the 20 something of Gen Y and Baby Boomers. The biggest difference in these two groups is how they view diversity in a corporations. Whereas Baby Boomers are proud to members of affinity groups, the younger generation are hesitant to associate themselves with identity based groups.

Generation Y, is a bit insensitive to Baby Boomers. They cannot understand what is the big deal about affinity groups in their companies. It is important to understand that generation Y did not go through the social movements – civil rights or affirmative action. Since they did not experience the struggle of these times, they are not able driven by their impact. Equality for them is their Birth Right.

Another factor is that Generation Y is grew up in a far more accepting world. They are more open to gender, race, religion and sexual orientation. These are not the cornerstones of their identity.

For corporations, it is important to reconsider their agendas for the engaging the younger generation. Plus the Baby boomers need to present the historical conversations to the Gen Y.

The identity dilemma faced by employers in the workforce can only be resolved by recognizing the opportunity of how far we have come and we need to redefine identity in the workplace….

Just got back from India after successfully executing on the ‘Advancement of Women Global conference‘ in Bangalore. It was great to interact and engage with women in Corporate India.

The women in India are ready to take their careers to the next level.

Here are some concerns that they shared in advancing their careers:
1. Lack of infrastructure: Most women now live in towns away from their families. Once they have a child, it is hard for them to leave their baby at home. The day care centers in Bangalore, India are not close to where they work and this adds to the challenge.

2. Selling yourself: Most women are not comfortable talking about their accomplishments since they are raised not to talk about themselves. This makes it challenging for them to speak about their competencies and skills.

3. Negotiating skills: Some of these women reported that they had accepted their jobs without any negotiation. And find it hard to negotiate their year end appraisals. They identified that they find it hard to ask for things. And are open to develop a skill that allows them to be compensated for their work.

My experience in talking to these women was that they are excited about how they can overcome these challenges. They are ready to develop themselves to become the next generation leaders.

Bravo!

Make sure to avoid these mistakes, so they don’t cost you a shot at the job.

1. Using a Cutesy Email Address for Correspondence

Example: cutiepie@domain.com

You Might Think: It’s a clever, memorable email address everyone will get a kick out of.

The Employer Will Probably Think: I can’t believe someone would actually list this email address on her resume, let alone use it to correspond with me. Will she do the same thing on the job if I hire her? Yikes!

2. Putting a Silly Message on Your Answering Machine

Example: A is for academics, B is for beer — and one of those reasons is why we’re not here. So leave a message, OK?

You Might Think: Mine is the funniest answering machine message this side of the Mississippi. My friends will love it.

The Employer Will Probably Think: Good lord, this person probably lives in Animal House. And I just can’t risk interviewing, let alone hiring, someone like Bluto or Flounder. Sorry, Charlie. Click.

3. Sending Your Resume and Cover Letter Without Proofreading

You Might Think: Everybody makes mistakes, even employers. So if there’s a mistake or two on my resume, no big deal. The employer probably won’t even notice, much less care.

The Employer Will Probably Think: Everybody makes mistakes, even employers. But making more than one minor mistake on a resume or in a cover letter is unacceptable, and often, even one is too many. How do I know this person will proofread the letters he writes to shareholders? What if he someday leaves a zero or two off one of our financial statements? I better put this resume aside and look for someone who’s more accurate and thorough.