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No Ceiling, No Walls
Quotes Ready-to-Use
From leadership and the gender wars to how companies are failing to develop women to how women can lead with an authentic voice, No Ceiling, No Walls author Susan Colantuono provides wisdom and spice to anchor or enhance your story.
Attribution to: Susan Colantuono, CEO & Founder of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls
The Essence of Leadership
"Leadership is using the greatness in you to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness in others."
"There are many definitions of leadership that aren't useful or that aren't prescriptive. 'Leadership is action, not position,' is one. What kind of action? Hitler took action, should we be like him? Another is, 'A leader is someone who takes you to places you wouldn't go by yourself.' Does that mean that we should emulate Jimmy Jones took followers to suicide or all the dot com executives who took people into bankruptcy? Obviously not. I've developed a definition of leadership that meets 5 important criteria: applies to leaders of any race, gender or nationality; applies to leaders in any endeavor from business to social movements, applies at any level in an organization, is useful and leaves people like Hitler out. It is, 'Leadership is using the greatness in you to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness in others.'"
Leadership and the Gender Wars
Do women make better leaders than men? No Ceiling, No Walls makes it clear that while the practice of leadership is neutral the perceptions of men and women are different. "Men are perceived as being better at business acumen and women are perceived as better at interpersonal skills. Fundamentally, the most outstanding executives of either gender are great at both," says Susan Colantuono, CEO of Leading Women and author of No Ceiling, No Walls.
"Before No Ceiling, No Walls was published a woman wrote to me complaining that we don't need another book on leadership for women. Her argument was that you don't find books written about what men need as leaders. I countered that every leadership book that focuses on interpersonal skills and the importance of being human is a book written for men. After all, those are the areas where men are consistently rated as underperforming women. For example, men are seen as underperforming women when it comes to empowering others, empathy and listening. Books that focus on skills like these are really being written to teach men how to be better leaders."
Leadership Development for Women
"For over 30 years corporate America has done a great job developing interpersonal skills as part of management and leadership development. But, this hasn't served women very well," says Susan Colantuono. "In study after study, women are seen by bosses as outperforming men in the area of interpersonal skills. To help women advance, companies need to offer programming in business, strategic and financial acumen. These are among the areas where women are consistently rated as underperforming men."
"Fundamentally, most leadership development programs are built on flawed definitions of leadership and incomplete success equations. They over-focus on personal skills (like time management or ethics) and interpersonal skills (like team building, giving and receiving feedback or communication skills). They under-focus on business skills like strategic acumen and financial acumen. And, they pretty much ignore strategic networking and strategic communication. Because of this, most companies' leadership development programs need a radical rethink."
"Business skills are The Missing 33%™ of the career success equation for women. Conventional wisdom has offered an equation that goes something like this: Professional Competence + Interpersonal Skills = Career Success. For women the success equation is Business Skills + Professional Competence + Interpersonal Skills = Career Success."
Do Leaders Really Differ from Managers?
"When I hear a woman say, 'I want to be a leader, not a manager,' I shake my head in dismay. The myth of leader vs manager is a poor one on which to base a definition of leadership. Competent managers at all levels must drive change. Competent managers at all levels must lead. True leadership competence is not an either/or, it's a both/and. Leadership means doing the right things AND doing them right. It means managing others through capable processes AND engaging their hearts and minds. It means focusing on transactions AND on transformation."
Getting Ahead
"A favorite quote of mine is this, 'no one cares the storms you encounter, they only care did you bring in the ship.' If you complain about how busy you are, you're giving the message that you can't handle the job you have. That's a surefire way to create your own glass ceiling," advises Susan Colantuono. Instead, she says, "Focus on progress you're making on the key outcomes you're being paid to deliver."
"Leadership differs by levels. Many competency-based performance programs don't make this clear. What it takes to succeed as a supervisor not only has to be added to as you move to manager, executive and into the boardroom. You also have to let go of activities and behaviors."
"You will find leadership at every level...if you know what to look for. That means you need a useful definition of leadership. The one at the center of No Ceiling, No Walls is this: 'Leadership is using the greatness in you to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness in others.' With this definition in mind, you can identify and develop people at every level who are focused on key outcomes, tap their personal greatness and engage others."
Executive Presence
"Fashionistas would have you believe that executive presence is about what you wear. That's icing on the cake. Fundamentally, executive presence rests on a foundation of belief in self-worth, is supported by your use of the Power of Language, and complemented by non-verbals that say 'I am here and worth paying attention to.'"
Language of Power
"In business, the language of power is the language of outcomes. If you can't speak the language of outcomes, no one will take you seriously. Can you describe how what you do impacts the cash position of your organization? What about an impact on growth or return/margin? How does what you do help service and retain customers? These are the outcome areas that are core to the business."
Work/Life Balance
"Give up the illusion that you can put work on one side of a scale and balance it with life on the other. This masculine paradigm simply doesn't work. A more useful way of thinking about your whole life is this from Anne Morrow Lindberg - 'to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central mother-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.' Think about what you can do to maximize joy from each ray...and remember that woman CEO after woman CEO says you can have it all, but not at the same time!"
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