I am delighted to be a newbie blogger for Women on Business. This site is filled with great ideas to help all of us climb even higher on our journey to excellence.
I believe this is the time for us as women to bring our unique gifts and talents into every aspect of the workplace. We are masters of intuitively understanding that everything is connected and no one wins unless we all do.
Way, way back in our evolution we gathered while our men hunted. That “gathering gene” is an important aspect for how we lead today. Gatherers had to be discriminating, separating the “okay to eat” from “looks good, yikes, its poison”.
This ability to separate the better from the bitter, the helping from the hindering, is a skill that is core to successful leadership. As women we have it, need to own it, and need to speak up when we sense that decisions are being made that can be toxic.
The other side of our deep ability to discriminate is the pattern, also ages old, to be a pleaser. For centuries our survival and security was based on our ability to smile, say yes, and stand behind. This faulty relationship pattern is now ready to be shattered along with the remains of the glass ceiling.
In my book, Don’t Bring It to Work, there are 13 major patterns we see in every workplace. The pleaser pattern has often belonged to women who have felt the need to be careful, sometimes through control of economic factors, sometimes more covertly through psychological pressures.
The “healthy opposite” of the pleaser is the truth teller. It is what the world needs now. Presently, there is a thrust for radical transparency and that means searching for and telling the truth in all areas of life. I believe that women have the deep capacity to lead into a new way of relating at work and at home where partnership rather than domination is key and where telling the truth is the marker of successful leadership.
Sylvia Lafair
Sylvia Lafair, PhD, is President of CEO – Creative Energy Options, Inc., a global consulting company focused on optimizing workplace relationships through her exclusive PatternAware™ Leadership Model. Dr. Lafair is the author of Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success published by Jossey-Bass. As an executive coach and leadership educator, she has more than 30 years of experience with all levels of management from leading corporate officers of global companies to executives of non-profits and owners of leading family-owned businesses. She is now offering GUTSY Women Weekends, giving women the opportunity to dialogue and clarify next steps.
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