Women in Leadership: An Insight Date:   Monday , April 04, 2011 The history of women in leadership roles always speaks of struggle and hard work. Challenges surround her from her early childhood, but she is intelligent and sharp, her wit, charm, ambition and abilities to be influential have led her to be a leader. SiliconIndia organized the Women Leadership Summit for all ‘her’ achievements on 25 Feb 2011 across five cities in India at Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai and on March 12th in Hyderabad. The event saw over 600 corporate delegates—mid and senior level women executives in each city come together to celebrate the great strides women are making in the business world. Ascending the Corporate Ladder Moving up is a challenge, either as a tech lead or biz lead. What does it take to make the cut? How to break through the barriers? Speakers shared their good times and not so good times, as they examined the formulas for success, and enlightened those who do not already know about the mountains they still have to climb. Sujitha Karnad, Chief Transformation Officer, Tech Mahindra said, “Women are competent, qualified and are able to excel in several fields and have broken the myths of glass ceilings and walls. Women still give family high priority while making career decisions, but always come back with renewed energy to take on more responsibilities. Much has to be done to support women in the mid parts of their career to ensure that they reach higher echelons of management, and I think this will certainly happen with time.” Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Sr. VP, Polaris Software) and Valsala Vijaykumar, Asst. GM, Canara Bank, shared their views on “Ascending the Corporate Ladder” at the Chennai event, and the qualities that women need to work on to enable ourselves in the level playing field at that level. While focusing on these attributes they explained how some of the inherent qualities help women in such positions and talked about the need for understanding and bridging the gap. They both echoed the thought in unison that at those levels it is more about how well the team does and no more a question of how capable an individual is. “What makes women leaders distinctively different is that their (inherent) true self nature always keeps them centered in their being, thus bringing high levels of sensitivity and intuition, empathy and collaborative approach, in addition to the stereotype traits that a male leader brings to the workplace. Having said this, it is important to say that it is not a question of who is better. Male or female leaders are as adept, or as bad. It is always the man or woman in question,” said Ranjana Maitra, General Manager - Global Head Healthcare & Manufacturing BPO, Wipro at the Mumbai event. Concluding, Seema Grover, Associate Director Mergers and Acquisitions, Dr.Reddys Laboratories said, “To ascend the corporate ladder be loyal to yourself. Put yourself first in any competitive work environment. Performance and hard work matters. You get what you negotiate. Ask for higher roles, ask for higher responsibilities. Be assertive. Have mentors. A mentor knows best, so cultivate relationships with people whose judgment you trust and go out and network. Your network is your job.” Women’s Work: The Great Juggling Act Every woman, no matter what age or stage in life, finds herself juggling many priorities, responsibilities, relationships, and pressures. “Women are naturally endowed with empathy, ability to multitask and delegate. These are critical traits that help women professionals prioritize both at work and home. It is not humanly possible to be good at everything, so pick the choices you want to run with and do them very well. Support of the family is extremely important,” explained Purnima Menon, Head Marketing, Infosys. Adding to this Padmini Sundaram, Vice President, HSBC bank said, “Personal, professional and social commitment and excellence is interlinked and non-exclusive. Participation in social initiatives which reach grass root helped me become a better manager and a better human being. In India, the balancing act is a lot easier with the social structure and support system that we women have. Building bridges and nurturing the circle of family, friends and professional network is the key to maintaining this balance.” The panelists also cited instances of how they divided work and inculcated support from children as well. Gita Ramachandran, Vice President ERP & IT, Bharat Petroleum said, “Your work life balance is in your hands. Work life balance is a state of well being that a person can reach, which is self determined, and which allows one to manage multiple responsibilities at work, home, and in community effectively and which supports physical, emotional, family, and community health, but without grief, stress , guilt or negative impact.” To strike a balance be aware of what gives you fulfillment and what causes you stress, exercise the power of choice by embracing those which nourish you, and releasing those which drain you and Experience more energy and power in your life. The more you realize that your life is created by your choices you become more energetic, powerful and guilt free. You will have the life you want and not the life you end up with. “Learn to prioritize and delegate, that will ensure one spends time only on important aspects and that will give time for self and growth, One need not be liked by all, discern and say ‘no’ where required and ask for help as necessary. Spend at least 15 minutes in a day for one self. Never carry guilt” said Ramani B Shetty, Vice President, TCS. At the Chennai event, Devi Jayaraman, VP, Mphasis drew an analogy on how an average women juggles her act with the various tasks at hand and it is not a novel idea that the IT industry has brought it. Pramila Hari Center Head - AM, Logica India brought in the perspective of the amount of planning and scheduling that is required to juggle the various acts. Gayathri Viswanathan, Vice President Delivery, Maarga Systems, gave an example of how she has extended the IT concept of “Daily Huddle” in her family and how this helps them in managing their expectations and have clarity on what needs to be addressed. When the rest of the panel spoke about how women juggle between work, family and kids, it brought in the perspective that juggling is not necessarily restricted to working moms and each one of us juggle every day and try to give our best with the changing priorities. It is essential to know which ball to drop at any point in time when things get out of hand. Priya Ganesh, Global Solution Architect, CapGemini, shared her experience when she worked in a village as part of an NGO and how an uneducated lady (called “The Administrator”) juggled things in her life to raise her three daughters and served the NGO too while being a part of it. Life is about the choices that you make and you need to be aware of the choices you have and then be happy with whatever you decide. You need to prioritize different things at different times of your life, for instance, you will have times when your career takes high priority and your personal life takes a back seat and times when the opposite happens. You need to make a conscious choice at these times and be satisfied with these decisions. Make sure your home is set up in a way to support your career aspirations, get help where you need it, be it through family or hired help. “There is no pride in cooking every meal on your own,” said Shireen Alam, Director, Sapient. “Balancing is an act that we grow up doing — from early years at school, to higher education, profession and work. Therefore, the challenge of balancing should be treated as only transactional. While making a choice, or creating a ‘so-called balance’, we will surely have to let go of something - basically a lesser priority will need to be let go. Once we decide on what is lesser priority, then letting go should not be a painful process. Ultimately, the stress that we feel in terms of ‘balancing’ is best dealt through the mind - take a decision, come to peace with it and then stay convinced about it. In our Indian context, we are blessed with a family support system which is better than many other parts of the world and this should be leveraged to bring semblance in life,” said Veenu Jaichand, COO, Centum WorkSkills (A Bharti Associate & NSDC) at the Delhi event. Kavitha Dhar, Director, Worldcon Technologies, speaking on the same topic said, “Meaning - Managing Energy - Positive Framing - Connecting – Engaging; these 5 dimensions of leadership help an individual with juggling multiple roles. One needs to find meaning in what one does, manage energy so that one has it when one needs it, with positive mindset and positive approach to life, have an optimistic mindset then nothing is impossible, stay in touch with the environment, society, self so that there is a meaning to what one does and finally engage in voicing your thoughts, take risks, make choices and be responsible for what one chooses.” The Women Innovators Throughout history famous female inventors and mostly have contributed enormously to the world of invention. Women inventors are responsible for a wide variety of inventions that we all encounter in our daily lives, from the automatic dishwasher to life saving medical inventions. What is the driving force for women innovators that motivates them to excel? Panelists all across the cities shared their personal experiences and advice. Srividya S, Vice President, HCL Info systems said, “Innovators are forward thinking, create new ideas, market those ideas and create their patents in the society. Women as innovators / entrepreneurs bring value to enterprise in a rapid changing world. Common barriers to women’s advancement as innovators – lack of definite development opportunities, imbalance of recognition and adequate support with excessive difficulties, work-life balance. Some of the driving forces for women innovators to excel are: a. Motivation – with respect to wages, job security, intrinsic motivation, working condition et al, b. Self-efficacy - Women’s self-efficacy is correlated to achievement and positive interactions and it is hypothetically proved that high self-efficacy women are likely to excel and engage in more innovative behavior, c. Women empowerment – Self-defining, authenticity, creativity, increased diversity in thinking, freedom to express ideas and innovations without constraints and d. Leadership style - Women use a more participative or democratic and a less autocratic or directive leadership style - a pattern well suited to 21-century global organizations.” “The contribution made by women innovators as patent holders and inventors is only around 10 percent across the globe. It is imperative for women to take an active role in research and innovation. Women have all the characteristics such as intelligence, patience and diligence to be successful researchers and innovators,” said Shyamala Jayaraman, Vice President - R&D, Ramco Systems. Giving a different perspective on Innovation, Rohini Shankar, Senior Business Analyst, L&T Infotech, said, “Innovation — many people link this word straight away to invention (and this is right in many cases) and a perception comes out of a disruptive nature.” Here is what she thinks is important: * The application of innovation in everyday life is what will improve quality of life/comfort and in most cases should be coupled with costs and values. The key is that lots of money is globally being spent on R&D across private and government sectors and as result disruptive invention is being created in silos. In today’s context it is important to understand the applicability across different areas. A case in point is the areas of Nano particles, different industries are discovering new particles which are being utilized in altogether different industries for example Nano research in the super conductor industry is paving the way for smarter drug deliveries. * Another important aspect of Innovation is to incrementally improve on processes and products on a continuous basis. Some times what technologies have been prevalent for a long time and yet remained peripheral become mainstream due to multitude factors including market readiness, growth of complementing technologies etc. A case point here, would be the innovative application of TeleHealth which has been in existence for some time. With the boom in telecommunication technologies and integration of medical and other devices with software applications, TeleHealth will impact the lives of millions of people in a positive way.” “Innovation is when the three meet — what technology can accomplish, what is desirable to users and what is viable in the market. Innovation has to be done on all fronts – Technology, Process, Pricing and Offering. Innovative organization is one which is nimble, bold and has an engaged work force,” said Nandini A, AVP, GlobalLogic Achieving Success: Turning every Adversity in to an Advantage Sarita Bahl, Vice President and Head, Group Corporate Social Opportunities, Multi Commodity Exchange of India said, “Women have all the qualities of a good leader, a good CEO. Nothing fazes her and adversity is her middle name”. “Adversity is as inevitable as taxes or death. When in a difficult phase - accept the situation, control your mental resistance, assess the best and worst case scenarios and take positive steps, knowing that “This too shall pass”. More often than not, the situation is not as bad as we mentally make it out to be, and in retrospect, helps us move to something we would not have thought of if we did not face the adversity” said Akila Jaikumar, Senior V.P & Director, Bodhtree Consulting. Sujata Puranik Rakhra, Leader, Global Branding and Advertising, Dell, said, “It is critical that we recognize that we are different and celebrate our differences without being diffident or defensive. Nevertheless, it is important that women speak up when they encounter gender discrimination, overt and covert. Adversity is not gender specific, although the challenges men and women face may be different. A sense of confidence in one’s identity and professional capability will help turn adversity into advantage,” at the Bangalore edition of the event. Adversities are inevitable, but suffering is optional, stressing on this we had Tanuja Abburi, Global HR Director, Intelligroup who said, “Women handle adversity different from men and their reaction to adversity is very diverse. A few syndromes that women get caught while handling an adversity are – ‘Why Me Syndrome’, ‘Poor Me Syndrome’, ‘I am the Victim Syndrome’, ‘Not Good Enough Syndrome’ and others. Accepting and adapting to change or adversity is the first step towards benefiting from it and turning it into opportunity. Adversity is a call to action. Allow adversity and change to wake you up, sharpen your instincts and move you forward.” It does not matter how many times you get knocked down. What matters is how often you get back up. Sharing Thoughts and Experiences Deepa Deo, Lead - India Leadership Development, ThoughtWorks shared her views on the overall event and said, “It was a heartening experience to meet, interact and share stories with so many bright and enthusiastic women professionals at the Women’s Leadership Summit on Friday. For such a large gathering, the strong sense of community and fellowship in the room was amazing! I am sure a lot of us left the Summit with a rejuvenated sense of purpose.” “The summit had a good mix of women professionals from various walks of life including Healthcare, Education, IT, NGOs to name a few, which led to rich and engaging discussions with the audience. It is heartening to see 100s of women leaders come together to learn and share in events such as this. Hope to see a lot more men participate in upcoming events to brining in different perspectives to the discussions!” said Nandini Sabanayagam, General Manager, Global Accounts, UST Global. “It was indeed a pleasure to be there among some eminent industry leaders and hear them talk. I had a good time sharing advices and my experiences with other women folks and really got a good opportunity too to network with couple of successful ladies from different organizations and domains,” expressed Nivedita Jain, Sr. Manager, Ness Technologies. “It was a very enjoyable experience for me interacting with the aspiring women leaders from diverse backgrounds and sharing our own experiences. I was delighted to see that most of us have self belief in our capabilities and are willing to challenge the myths associated with women leadership. It was also interesting to see that most of us face similar challenges and forums like this always enrich our experiences and equip us better to face them in our work life” said Jaya Singh, Senior Manager, Texas Instruments. “The Summit was a great forum for women to network and share viewpoints; topics that are usually considered sensitive or close to heart, and would otherwise not be discussed in all forums, were brought to the fore and this helped open up new channels of thinking. The ideas discussed during the Summit will also help reinforce women to stand by their beliefs, be focused on work and not necessarily live up to someone else’s expectations. It will allow women to pick a place for themselves in the complexity of their lives at work and at home; help them understand that they have to live their lives to the best of their capabilities and aspirations, as good humans and not necessarily as superwomen. Gender diversity is not about men against women but about women finding their feet at their own rhythm; this needs to evolve at a natural pace and I think the speakers at the forum were able to put up this thought with conviction,” said Sunitha Lal, Business - HR Head – BPO, Mphasis.