Four Traits of Women Who Lead

By TEC Canada, February 19, 2014

by Catherine Osler, President of TEC Canada


TEC Canada recognizes the importance of having a more gender-balanced approach to leadership roles. Forbes.com reported that according to studies, firms with women on their boards “outperform their rivals with a 42% higher return on sales, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity.” Quite simply, women look at problems differently and often take a more empathic approach to leadership.  TEC’s peer groups are designed to challenge the status quo and encourage dynamic, inspiring conversations to process the issues senior executives face on an ongoing basis.  We welcome more women to contribute to this dialogue and this starts with having exceptional Chairs to guide that process.

While all of our Chairs have many awards and accolades, we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize two of our own successful women leaders:

• Joyce Groote, Vancouver Chair is receiving the Influential Women in Business award on March 3, 2014.
• Katherine Crewe from Montreal is one of TEC Canada’s newest Chairs.  She was recognized as one of the Top 100 Businesswomen to Watch by Entreprendre Magazine.

These women, along with all our Chairs, are committed to the relentless pursuit of excellence and providing their members with the tools to achieve success. I invite you to join me in recognizing International Women’s Day on March 8th. It doesn’t matter if you are a successful entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a new manager – or someone who is at a crossroads in her career and wondering “what’s next?” You are part of a sea of change in leadership style and behavior.

Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller “Lean In” paints a vivid picture of how far women in leadership still have to go:

• Out of 100 global heads of state, only nine are women,
• In the corporate sector, just 15 to 20 per cent of C-suite jobs are held by women, and
• In the non-profit sector, women hold only 20 percent of the top positions.
Helping women to develop their leadership potential has been a passion of mine and a key professional commitment I made many years ago. After more than two decades of executive consulting, study at some of North America’s most recognized leadership institutes, and my role as CEO of TEC, I have found the successful women leaders I have coached and worked with over the years generally all share four particular traits. What follows is a brief look at these four and what some of the world’s most successful women CEOs have to say about them.

1. Believe in Yourself
Believing in yourself – your vision, your aspirations and dreams – will drive you forward especially on those days when you can’t see the forest for the trees. Author J.K. Rowling, fashion icon Coco Chanel, Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick – these are women with resolute beliefs in themselves despite their many critics and naysayers. Rowling, who was named the “Most Influential Woman in Britain” by leading magazine editors in 2010, achieved publishing success only after several years of constant rejection. “I was convinced the only thing I wanted to do was to write novels. So what’s the worst that could happen? Everyone turned me down; big deal,” she said.

2. Value Perseverance
Building a business, moving forward in your career and leading organizations all require dogged determination. Whatever obstacles may be put in your path, it is essential to move forward, modelling for your employees, colleagues and customers that you will not back down from a challenge. Cosmetic icon Estée Lauder once said, “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.”

3. Stay Focused
The power to set both short- and long-term goals should never be underestimated. Goals are the road-map to success and goal-setting takes place daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Consider what Mary Kay Ash, Founder of global cosmetic company Mary Kay, once said, “We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don’t know where you are aiming, you don’t have a goal.My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone will say ‘she cared.’” Staying focused is about knowing what you want, then mapping your path with the goals and measures to achieve it.

4. Be a Smart Risk-Taker
To truly accomplish great things, you must go outside your comfort zone because that’s where growth happens. As Sandberg says, this is where you need to “lean in,” raising your hand for opportunities and stepping into new challenges.

Never underestimate that quiet inner voice and its ability to lead and guide you forward. Your inner wisdom – something women are generally closer to – can help you to accurately assess risk. Calculated risks can lead to payoffs beyond what you thought possible.

Martha Stewart, who through her savvy, grit and determination created a brand and a business enterprise that has weathered all kinds of difficulties, maintains “it is within everyone’s grasp to be a CEO.” I am committed to making TEC the kind of organization where women business leaders can achieve beyond what they thought possible. 

If you are aiming to move your leadership skills and abilities to a new level contact Richard Peters @ rpeters@tec-canada.com

Four Traits of Women Who Lead

by Catherine Osler, President of TEC Canada


TEC Canada recognizes the importance of having a more gender-balanced approach to leadership roles. Forbes.com reported that according to studies, firms with women on their boards “outperform their rivals with a 42% higher return on sales, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity.” Quite simply, women look at problems differently and often take a more empathic approach to leadership.  TEC’s peer groups are designed to challenge the status quo and encourage dynamic, inspiring conversations to process the issues senior executives face on an ongoing basis.  We welcome more women to contribute to this dialogue and this starts with having exceptional Chairs to guide that process.

While all of our Chairs have many awards and accolades, we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize two of our own successful women leaders:

• Joyce Groote, Vancouver Chair is receiving the Influential Women in Business award on March 3, 2014.
• Katherine Crewe from Montreal is one of TEC Canada’s newest Chairs.  She was recognized as one of the Top 100 Businesswomen to Watch by Entreprendre Magazine.

These women, along with all our Chairs, are committed to the relentless pursuit of excellence and providing their members with the tools to achieve success. I invite you to join me in recognizing International Women’s Day on March 8th. It doesn’t matter if you are a successful entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a new manager – or someone who is at a crossroads in her career and wondering “what’s next?” You are part of a sea of change in leadership style and behavior.

Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller “Lean In” paints a vivid picture of how far women in leadership still have to go:
• Out of 100 global heads of state, only nine are women,
• In the corporate sector, just 15 to 20 per cent of C-suite jobs are held by women, and
• In the non-profit sector, women hold only 20 percent of the top positions.

Helping women to develop their leadership potential has been a passion of mine and a key professional commitment I made many years ago. After more than two decades of executive consulting, study at some of North America’s most recognized leadership institutes, and my role as CEO of TEC, I have found the successful women leaders I have coached and worked with over the years generally all share four particular traits. What follows is a brief look at these four and what some of the world’s most successful women CEOs have to say about them. 

1. Believe in Yourself
Believing in yourself – your vision, your aspirations and dreams – will drive you forward especially on those days when you can’t see the forest for the trees. Author J.K. Rowling, fashion icon Coco Chanel, Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick – these are women with resolute beliefs in themselves despite their many critics and naysayers. Rowling, who was named the “Most Influential Woman in Britain” by leading magazine editors in 2010, achieved publishing success only after several years of constant rejection. “I was convinced the only thing I wanted to do was to write novels. So what’s the worst that could happen? Everyone turned me down; big deal,” she said.

2. Value Perseverance
Building a business, moving forward in your career and leading organizations all require dogged determination. Whatever obstacles may be put in your path, it is essential to move forward, modelling for your employees, colleagues and customers that you will not back down from a challenge. Cosmetic icon Estée Lauder once said, “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.”

3. Stay Focused
The power to set both short- and long-term goals should never be underestimated. Goals are the road-map to success and goal-setting takes place daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Consider what Mary Kay Ash, Founder of global cosmetic company Mary Kay, once said, “We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don’t know where you are aiming, you don’t have a goal.My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone will say ‘she cared.’” Staying focused is about knowing what you want, then mapping your path with the goals and measures to achieve it.

4. Be a Smart Risk-Taker
To truly accomplish great things, you must go outside your comfort zone because that’s where growth happens. As Sandberg says, this is where you need to “lean in,” raising your hand for opportunities and stepping into new challenges.

Never underestimate that quiet inner voice and its ability to lead and guide you forward. Your inner wisdom – something women are generally closer to – can help you to accurately assess risk. Calculated risks can lead to payoffs beyond what you thought possible.

Martha Stewart, who through her savvy, grit and determination created a brand and a business enterprise that has weathered all kinds of difficulties, maintains “it is within everyone’s grasp to be a CEO.” I am committed to making TEC the kind of organization where women business leaders can achieve beyond what they thought possible. 

If you are aiming to move your leadership skills and abilities to a new level contact Richard Peters at rpeters@tec-canada.com

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Have a Mentor

"Being an entrepreneur isn't an easy job," says Andres Teran, cofounder of Toplist, a social shopping recommendation startup. "There are moments that you have nothing and feel like things are never going to getting better."

Teran is referring to the days before his company's vital pivot point, when he and his team had dedicated their lives to creating a site they loved with features they themselves would want.

"Toplist, before being an app, was a website where people shuffled around cool products curated by their own interests," says Teran. "We worked hard to develop this cool site with great features that showed amazing products. After we launched the site, though, we noticed people didn't use all the great features we had built for them. They weren't engaging with the amazing content we had curated for them. Worst of all, they weren't coming back to use our service."

At that point, his team set out to raise capital for what they had built, hoping to secure enough money for marketing, hires and anything else it might take to help the concept catch on. But, with low user numbers, the Internet odds were stacked against them and time was running out. No one fronted the cash. 

"We were just about to let everything go and end the project when we landed a meeting with the CEO of a micro-credit company that had just gone public in Mexico to see if he wanted to be involved as an angel investor in our company," says Teran. 

It was the only lead they had, and soon, he would become the first investor. But not in the company's current state. First, there were essential pivots to be made, honest realizations to be had and hard-earned advice to be taken. The Toplist team needed an outside perspective and some guidance to find their way.

"On that day, he made us realize two things," says Teran. "One, the product we had been working so hard on did not work for the users; we thought it would, but it didn't. Two, not everything was a complete failure: We had learned a lot about how to build products that people could be engaged with, we learned about working together as a team. We had learned from our mistakes actually."

What was supposed to be a pitch meeting turned out to be a crucial pivot point for Toplist — one that wouldn't have happened without the right guidance and advice. Teran's team took the feedback seriously, made the necessary changes and their luck started to change. The company's new and influential mentor had saved just saved them from near failure.

"Before we left his office, he said that if we changed our project into something more attractive he would definitely invest," says Teran. "Sometimes you need someone else to honestly point out what is wrong. We were amazed by his good will. 

He could have just said, 'No,' and we would have gone on with our failure and him with his success. But he took our side.
 
He could have just said, 'No,' and we would have gone on with our failure and him with his success. But he took our side." 

 

Mentorship has been a hot topic in the startup world for years, with incubator and accelerator programs offering it — among other things — in exchange for stock in founders' ideas. Outside of incubators though, finding a good mentor is challenging. But finding the right mentor is a lesson in luck, persistence and not letting opportunities pass you by. 

 

"We did look for mentorship before we found someone that was right," says Teran, explaining that his company's mentor was discovered by chance. "I think the way to go is talk with people that can give you advice on certain topics and, most important of all, help you to make good decisions. 

 

A big thing, though, is not to obsess about finding mentorship, because you could lose focus on what's really important as an entrepreneur — executing the concept," he says. So how do you stumble upon your own honest and willing mentor without losing sight of your first priority (your company)? 

"Good mentors will be hard to track down, and their time is extremely limited," says Brett Hagler, cofounder of Hucksley, a marketplace for discovering one-of-a-kind brands. "Reach out creatively and always try to take the 'backdoor' approach by getting introduced through a mutual contact. Certain platforms such as LinkedIn allow you to have direct access to your targeted mentors. Always be creative on your specific ask and make it as relevant and direct as possible."

 

Look hard for a mentor and network as much as possible, but don't make finding a mentor your primary focus. Perhaps Sheryl Sandberg said it best in Lean In: you don't need a mentor to excel, "Excel and you will get a mentor."

By Tracey Wallace1 day ago