To the Top E-Book

Jenna C. Fisher

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 294

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Wall Street Journal Bestseller The Next-Generation Women Leadership Playbook In To the Top: How Women in Corporate Leadership Are Rewriting the Rules for Success, accomplished leadership advisor Jenna Fisher reveals how the world faces a once-in-a-generation opportunity to close the gender gap at the top of organizations today. You'll discover how traits often held by women--including compassion, empathy, communication, mentorship, and collaboration--are now in high demand. And why, in this time of volatility and disruption, women are standing on the most solid foundation for success than ever before. Drawing on scientific research and the powerful stories of women business leaders who have already made it to the top, the book sets out how we can seize this opportunity in front of us. You'll learn: * Why corporate progress for women has historically been stubbornly slow and strategies for breaking through systemic biases to take a seat at the top table * Why women are particularly well-suited to lead companies through the complex challenges facing our world * The specific leadership skills that are in high demand and how to develop a compassionate and commanding leadership presence * The stories of women business leaders at the top of organizations today--their success, their missteps, and their lessons for success An essential and insightful treatment of women leadership in a world that desperately needs more of it, To the Top is the first book since Lean In that promises to energize and accelerate the potential of woman leaders everywhere.

Leseprobe

JENNA C. FISHER

Russell Reynolds Associates

to the top

How Women in Corporate Leadership Are Rewriting the Rules for Success

Copyright © 2023 by Russell Reynolds Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:

Names: Fisher, Jenna, author.

Title: To the top : how women in corporate leadership are rewriting the rules for success / Jenna Fisher.

Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, [2023] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022056052 (print) | LCCN 2022056053 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119988083 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119988106 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119988090 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Women executives. | Leadership in women.

Classification: LCC HD6054.3 .F57 2023 (print) | LCC HD6054.3 (ebook) | DDC 650.1082—dc23/eng/20221118

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056052

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056053

Cover design: Russell Reynolds Associates

To the next generation of women who have set their sights on leadership. Stay the course. Make change. You have the power to improve our world.

And to my parents, Marsha and Ted, whose unconditional love gave me the confidence to realize my dreams and the inspiration to help other people realize theirs.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful for the multitude of talented, insightful and cutting‐edge thinkers in my life who have helped to make this book a reality. From an idea that first germinated six years ago with my dear friend Mary Abusief, the incredible writer Sara Leslie and my gifted colleague Heather Blonkenfeld, as we brainstormed together around a conference room table in my Palo Alto office, imagining how we could use our collective wisdom and experiences as professional women to benefit the next generation.

Fast‐forward five years to the middle of Covid in 2021, when I decided to use the two hours I had recaptured every day by not having to commute to instead interview 50 incredible women around the globe who are shining examples of how we can get women to economic parity with men. I then had the unbelievable luck of being connected to the fierce and whip‐smart Lisa Roth and Alanna Stang at Well Said in New York, who served as my True North and got me to synthesize my findings and taught me how to engage with LinkedIn as a tool to help spread my gospel. I so admire you both: thank you.

When I pitched my fantabulous CEO Constantine Alexandrakis on this book concept early in 2022, he was immediately enthusiastic and supportive, realizing that it gelled perfectly with RRA's goals of DE&I and improving the way the world is led. From there, marketing genius Amy Scissons, RRA's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, partnered with me to expertly shepherd me through the publishing labyrinth, which had heretofore been a mystery to me.

My writing companion Samantha Marshall beautifully wove together our stories of these diverse women into a cohesive whole in record warp speed, always ensuring my voice was coming through. It bears noting that a few months into this book‐writing process, Sam was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation alongside our interviews; and yet, she never stopped believing in the message of this book and stuck by my side until the manuscript was done. To say she was courageous and tenacious in the face of enormous stress and physical discomfort would be an understatement of monumental proportions, and I am forever grateful to her for never giving up, even on the really dark days. (And I am overjoyed to report that she has made a full recovery.)

Susie Sell, my London‐based marketing colleague who was always literally nine hours ahead of me – and figuratively, always even more on top of things, is an absolute gem. Susie, we are so incredibly lucky to have you here at RRA. From telling me what to wear to photo shoots to reassuring me that we had everything under control, your talents seem to be truly limitless. This book definitely would not be possible without your expertise and innumerable talents. I owe you a knickerbocker glory.

To my many RRA partners around the globe – I wish I could list all 180 of you by name here! – who checked in with me, believed in this book's message, and proactively and graciously opened your Rolodexes to introduce me to the most incredible professional women you know. Robert Voth, Ulrike Wieduwilt, Harald Kringlebotn, and so many others – your generosity and trust are what our firm is all about. And to Aimee Williamson and Dee Fitzgerald for your incredible research, and, of course, Tina Shah – I am so privileged to work with cutting‐edge thinkers who care so deeply about this important mission.

To Gena McAndrews for working scheduling magic to somehow shoehorn all of these interviews onto my already overly committed calendar – I truly could not function without you by my side. To Catherine Schroeder for helping me diligence and research so many of our interviewees – you are always at the ready to help me be prepared, so thank you for being so caffeinated and ready to spring into action when I need you. To my other partners Amy Hayes, Chris Faralli, Tuck Rickards, Nick Roberts, Jim Lawson, Clarke Murphy, Justus O'Brien, Justin Cerilli, Paul Ottolini ‐ thank you for letting me poll you on book title ideas, cover designs, and myriad other things. To Clemens Frischenschlager and his team – thank you for designing more book cover concepts than I can count – I am so delighted and impressed with your creativity and your end product – I really appreciate how you “got” me in all of my pinkness. To Abby Zeitlin, Callie Bennett, Bea Constable, Miranda Thurtell and the rest of my beloved FOP team, who never stopped cheering for me – thank you for being the best colleagues someone could ever ask for – I'd trust you with my life.

And to the many, many women who enthusiastically jumped in and said, “Yes!” when I asked them if I could interview them, hear their life's stories, and who openly and candidly shared their struggles, fears and successes with me. I am humbled by how impressive all of you are; if the next generation of women can learn only a tenth of what I have had the privilege of learning from you, they will be so much better off for it.

And a huge thank you to my wonderful publisher Shannon Vargo at Wiley who believed in this book’s mission and message from the first moment – the way you made me feel so supported is something for which I’ll always be grateful.

Finally, to my devoted, loyal, insightful, and hilariously funny husband Colin, who is as much of a feminist as I am – thank you for always putting my career at the top of your list of priorities. I know you believe in this book as much as I do, and I appreciate that more than you can know. And to the two lights of my life, Morgan and Peyton: you are the part of my legacy of which I am most proud. I wrote this book in large part because I want you to grow up in a world that is even better than the one you inherited, and it is my hope that you will each continue our tradition of repairing the world, little by little. Keep being your awesome, unique selves – you are perfect just as you are. I love you with everything that I am.

Introduction: A Post‐Pandemic World

A few times a year, I am asked to talk to MBA students at leading business schools around the country about how to manage their careers. In 2022, I was speaking to a group of undergraduate students at a leading school, and at the end of the session we held a Q&A. In addition to their intelligence, savviness, maturity, and poise, what really stood out to me was that many of the women students asked me essentially the same questions:

“How can I make my voice heard – and make it to the top?”

“How should I negotiate my compensation, even when it feels awkward?”

“How many boxes do I need to check before starting my own company?”

“Is it

really

possible to have both a career

and

a family?”

These were some of the brightest and most accomplished women from all around the world, and yet the undertones of their questions made me realize – at the age of 21 – that they were already looking down the barrel towards their futures and questioning whether they could “have it all,” whether they could succeed when they looked at how few women were at the top table today, and when they had seen so many talented women permanently step out of the labor force.

After everything that women have accomplished and the myriad ways in which things are so much better for us than they were only a generation ago, we still have some of the most talented and fiercest women questioning if they can rise to the highest ranks within corporations. It struck me that businesses and society are failing this generation of young women. We are so far from where we need to be in terms of gender parity.

As a partner at one of the top global leadership advisory firms, I have had a mission to get women to 50–50 representation at the highest levels of management and boards in corporate America, but for specific reasons I will break down in the chapters to come, it's not happening nearly fast enough. In the United States, women comprise 51% of the population; 47% of the workforce; and 70% of high school valedictorians; and yet (at the time of writing) Russell Reynolds Associates' research shows that only 9% of CEOs in the largest 100 companies in the S&P500 index are women.1 There are, in fact, about the same number of women CEOs in the S&P500 as there are CEOs named James or Michael.2 Over my 20‐plus‐year career, I have met thousands of eminently qualified and intelligent women with long lists of educational and career accomplishments who have struggled to make it all the way to the C‐suite. It is a loss not just for these individuals, but for society as a whole.

So how do we get there?

As I thought more about the Q&A session with the undergrads, I realized that while some of the answers to these students’ questions hadn’t changed since I was myself a college student, some of them had – and drastically.

It made me think of a conversation I'd had with Christa Quarles in September 2020, a few months into the global Covid‐19 pandemic that, as I write this, is still playing out around the world. Christa had been recently appointed as CEO of the global software company Alludo. She was a client‐turned‐friend who also happens to be a neighbor of mine in the suburbs of San Francisco. On a scheduled break between Zoom calls, we decided to throw on our sneakers and take a power “walk and talk,” to discuss my concepts for this book. It was a welcome chance to check in with each other in person.

At this point the dramatic shift from office life to working remotely from home was still relatively new. Christa and I started comparing notes about how our professional lives had changed. Suddenly we had a luxury we'd craved for years: time. As working moms who were no longer spending two hours a day commuting in our cars to and from the office, we were able to see our children more and have family dinners together for the first time. And although I was working intensely, bouncing nonstop from meeting to meeting virtually, networking and writing reports from my craft‐room‐turned‐home‐office, I was getting more work done than ever.

It goes without saying that the pandemic resulted in untold personal and economic losses for millions. But some light was emerging from the darkness, and we were just beginning to see it.

“Christa, I can't imagine ever going back to the old way of working. I am getting a lot more accomplished than when I was sitting at my office desk. Am I crazy to think that this should be the new way forward?” (Little did I realize then that it would be more than two years before I would return to the office.)

“3,000 percent!” said Christa. “The pre‐2019 office is a relic. Why would anyone ever want to go back to that artifact of a factory organization? In a digital economy we can talk to someone face‐to‐face from anywhere, we know how many deal closures you’ve made, and none of it is predicated on whether you did it inside an office. Who cares if you’re picking your kids up from school at three o’clock when you’re crushing it!”

This mindset was a complete change for Christa. Charismatic, with an acute intellect, a razor‐sharp sense of humor, and endless reserves of energy, she'd ascended to the highest ranks in the male‐dominated software industry, and before the pandemic had been attending every function, event, and leadership forum in her industry, flying across the country and around the world to meet customers and colleagues.

“If you'd asked me in 2019 whether I would ever become an advocate for remote work, I would have absolutely said no. I've got to corner that person in the elevator. I've got to stop people at the coffee machine. Being an in‐person leader was part of my special sauce. I loved getting in front of that town hall meeting. I fed off the energy of it all.”

Long before the lockdowns, many Alludo employees were already working hybrid or remotely in different locations across the world, from Ottawa to Tokyo, to Frankfurt, to Austin and Seattle. But it was an ad hoc approach that left some on the sidelines. The pandemic changed that, establishing a new normal that created the opportunity for a more inclusive work environment that took into account different approaches. The tech industry has historically been a man’s world where the most vocal – or perhaps the tallest – get recognized. But Christa began to appreciate the individuals who were quietly getting it done.

“Do you think the universal remote work situation was empowering to certain personality types who may have been overlooked in the past?” I asked her. “And to women in particular?”

“The thing about remote meetings with larger groups is that everybody's Zoom box is the same size,” Christa observed. “It enables you to go around the room, or I should say the screen, and ask people's opinions. It engenders a kind of equality. Everyone's viewpoint gets represented and it becomes much harder for a few people to dominate.”

As Christa spoke, it occurred to me that we were in a rare moment in history where we could completely reset the workplace culture in a way that would be more inclusive. We were undergoing the biggest shift in how we work since the Industrial Revolution. And with more leaders like Christa at the helm who were reshaping organizations to allow for more multidimensional ways of working, communicating, and thinking, a long‐overdue change could be here to stay. Through the forced circumstances of the lockdown, many of us were given our first delicious taste of what a healthy work–life balance could be. It showed us that this way of operating wasn't just new, but better – and it could potentially become the launch pad for more women to reach the highest level of corporate leadership. This was our chance to finally break through, in what Arianna Huffington described as a “Third Women's Revolution: The first one was giving us the vote; the second was giving us access to all jobs in the top of every profession; and the third one is women saying, ‘We don't just want to be at the top of the world, we want to change the world, because the way the world has been designed is not working.’”3

Fundamental to this revolution is a workplace environment that's more authentic and welcoming to all genders, where leaders empower and enable the best from individuals, whether they are new moms pumping breast milk at home before jumping onto the next client call, a young, newly “out” gay Black man struggling to find his voice in large group meetings, or a “sandwich‐generation” person in need of a more flexible schedule to care for an aging parent with dementia. It is about taking into consideration the life circumstances of an individual – male, female, or non‐binary – and giving the trust and work style options necessary to bring out their best as professionals and create a pathway for them to rise in the organization. In short, it is nothing less than a transformation of the world and its social values to welcome all genders and backgrounds.

But it's not just the changing working practices that made me optimistic for women. The global pandemic helped to rewrite the rules on what it means to be a great leader. The seeds of this change were planted long before Covid‐19 hit, but there is no doubt that the pandemic accelerated the shift.

We are living through a moment in history when the old definitions of success and what it takes to lead are giving way to something that is altogether more collaborative and more inclusive. Gone are the days of the “hero CEO,” who mimicked a wartime general to exercise absolute authority and control. Today's world is a much more complex world, as events like Covid‐19, and issues like sustainability and digital disruption, force every business to rethink their business models, their operations, and yes, their leaders.

We are seeing a demand for leaders who cultivate a kind of compassionate command. A study of thousands of direct reports published in the Harvard Business Review4 found that, during a time of crisis especially, there was a strong desire to be led by individuals who could “pivot and learn new skills; who emphasize employee development even when times are tough; who display honesty and integrity; and who are sensitive and understanding of the stress, anxiety, and frustration” that people were feeling, listening without judgment or recrimination.

This is good news for women. Among top leadership characteristics, according to Pew Research, women were perceived to be more compassionate, empathetic, and able to reach compromise. Women also rated higher in terms of resilience, integrity, taking initiative, and showing a willingness to learn – traits highly valued not just in a crisis, but in the new and inclusive workplace that must define the post‐pandemic world.

For example, an analysis of 122 speeches5 of men and women leaders during the pandemic also showed that women were more likely to use terms of compassion, reassurance, and unity, compared with war analogies and threats to keep their populations in line. The gentler, more sober messaging worked. Studies even found that countries with women leaders during the pandemic had better outcomes, including fewer Covid cases and deaths than nations led by men, while states in the U.S. with women governors fared better in terms of Covid deaths than those with men holding that office.6

So the evidence is in that with traits like compassion, empathy, the ability to listen, mentor, nurture, and collaborate, it can be argued that women leaders have certain advantages. That is not to say men can't also possess these qualities, or that women don't possess so‐called male traits. Great leadership surpasses gender. But there's a reason why more male C‐suite leaders are brushing up on their “soft skills.” It is what their employees want.

The table was set for change by the seismic global events of 2020 to 2022, and there has been widespread recognition that there is a better way to manage our world. But gains from this moment could so easily be lost if organizations don't become more intentional about building flexibility into the workplace and codifying a hybrid model that allows people of all genders to channel their whole, authentic selves into their professional lives. If these dynamic times have taught us nothing else, it's that our well‐being as workers and future corporate leaders matters.

That's why I am writing this book. Where we are now – in any industry – isn't good enough. At the current pace, there is no way women can achieve parity in my lifetime, or even my daughter's.7 According to a 2022 study by the World Economic Forum, at the current pace of change, it will take 132 years for women to reach economic parity with men! Personally, I feel a deep sense of urgency to build on the strides that we have made during the pandemic, before they are displaced by a reflexive and destructive return to the “old” normal. We must not go back.

My perspective on this subject has been honed from two decades of experience recruiting people to the highest ranks of companies on behalf of the global leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds Associates, where I am a managing director and head of the CFO practice.

Throughout my career, I've had the good fortune to get to know countless inspirational and successful individuals. It has given me a front‐row seat into the cultures of a broad cross‐section of industries, particularly how supportive and equitable companies are, or are not, towards their women leaders in terms of pay, promotions, and access to opportunities. This book chronicles the journeys of some of those talented and resilient women – across geographies, industries, races, and functional specialties – who have charted a path to the top, with some unique and often surprising insights on what they believe it will take to clear the obstacles for the next generation of women leaders.

Executive Search: A Primer

Executive search is an often‐elusive industry, so let me take this opportunity to tell you a bit about it.

Search is like any other professional services field like law, investment banking, or accounting in that our clients pay us to represent them in the market. We are paid a fee (never contingent) to go out and to find the very best people for them to consider for their next CEO, CxO, or board role. Think of us as matchmakers for the corporate world, linking the best people to companies and executive roles. Our counsel and market intelligence are invaluable to clients, who often need to decide between promoting someone internally versus hiring from the outside, as both tangible and intangible skills and benefits must be considered. Because most of us who are search professionals end up loving it and doing it for a lifetime, the same person in our professional milieu can serve as a client one moment, a candidate another, and then also just be a member of a shared professional community. People often ask our advice about compensation, the reputation of other executives, and how to navigate and negotiate delicate and dynamic professional situations. We get to know these individuals' partners, their children, what motivates them, and what keeps them up at night. We are honest with them because we know that the same candidate or professional contact might become a client in the future. I think of my privileged role like that of a proverbial priest or rabbi to the professional world. Although we aren't saving lives in our work, when you think about the most profound changes most people must manage – short of marriage, divorce, birth of a child, death of a loved one, buying a home – taking a new job ranks right up there.

The women's stories in this book have taught me that we have reached a critical juncture. I have advocated for women my entire professional life. But never in my career have I been more convinced that the time to advance the path to parity is now. As Winston Churchill once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

On the coming pages, I will outline how we can permanently build a more inclusive way of working into corporate culture to launch more women to the highest echelons of business. In Part One, I will set the scene in detail to describe the moment we are in, how we got here, and how we can leverage what we now know into real transformation. This book is anchored in both proprietary research, including RRA's own data on the specific leadership traits companies are looking for, as well as insights on how well women perform against them. Taken together, these data points prove that women are standing on the most solid foundation for success that we have ever seen.

In Part Two, you will learn how bold actions and radical shifts in mindset, both for individuals and at the organizational level, can accelerate the pace of parity and finally close the gap. Beyond the data, I will give you detailed examples and stories of individual women leaders – from Nike, to Walmart, to Atlantic Records, and dozens of other global organizations – who have already done it and are doing it every day.

What you will not read on these next pages is a list of instructions on how or what to change within yourselves. The pages that follow will put the onus on organizations – not on the individual – to change and keep women on a sustained path to success. After all, the reason that women constitute less than 10% of CEO spots at the largest 100 companies in the S&P 100 isn't because women aren't working hard enough.

Instead, by the end of this book, I want you to recognize, embrace, and leverage all the many strengths that you likely already possess. My promise is that I will never implore you to bend, lean, or adjust to outside expectations. From countless books and TED talks, you've already heard enough lectures. It is the narrative that must change, not you! By all means, evolve, educate, and develop your skills. Just know that you already own the tools: my goal is to help build your confidence to use them. The women who inspire me most are successful precisely because they have embraced who they are and achieved that critical balance not just for themselves, but for those they have mentored, developed, and empowered along the way.

Which brings me back to Christa. She was among the leading architects of this redesign of work as she onboarded dozens of new associates from diverse backgrounds during the pandemic. She brought on impressive leadership resulting in a C‐suite that was 50 percent women. She created a safe space for honest feedback, setting up a channel with thoughtfully worded survey questions where all employees could anonymously give their candid views on how they felt about their work conditions. (Oh and by the way, 95 percent of respondents said they wanted to continue with remote work, and the number of women who said they wanted to go back to the days of physically going into an office could be counted on your fingers across the entire company.)

Coincidentally, her survey results aligned with my own research from July 2020, where I polled 200 of my clients, “Once it is safe to do so, how many days a week would you like to return to the office?” Only men said they would want to go back five days a week. Women overwhelmingly preferred remote work or some sort of hybrid model.

Christa then analyzed the three main reasons why her associates might want to gather together in a physical location: a desire for in‐person action, “to see the whites of someone's eyes” even if just for one day out of the work week; the potential creative benefits of collaborating in a group; and a place to go, “a work pod” that offers a better environment to focus in than, say, a 500‐square foot apartment in Tokyo shared with a musician boyfriend (who plays drums). Whatever these employees' motivations for changing out of their yoga pants, Christa carefully crafted a hybrid work model that included flexibility, trust, and a set of metrics for quantifying actual productivity and not just how many hours are logged in front of a computer screen. Because when individuals, including leaders, are held accountable using objective measures of success, it is often the quiet achievers who shine.

“I have long seen women get judged on experience and men get judged on potential. That's why we need to get clear on the right way to measure. It's not the input, it's the output we should be focused on,” Christa explained.

As we finished our walk and stretched on the front steps to my house, I wondered aloud if Christa and I were alone in our observations, or if more women in the highest ranks of corporate America were also having this epiphany.

“Christa, would you say these past few months have made you a stronger leader?”