Leading Gracefully: A Woman's Guide to Confident, Authentic & Effective Leadership

By Monique Svazlian Tallon

"This book is a must-read for any woman who wants to make a bigger impact in the world." - John Gerzema, New York Times Bestselling Author,  The Athena Doctrine

"I think working women in all stages of their career from entry level to senior executives could benefit from re

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highest Path Publishing
• Release date: Feb 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996984416

Monique Svazlian Tallon

Monique Svazlian Tallon is a Feminine Leadership expert, executive coach, leadership trainer and speaker specializing in empowering women and closing the gender gap. Founder of Highest Path Consulting and the Women & Power Leadership Forum, her diversity and inclusion work is driven by a deep desire to help create a world where men and women hold equal positions of power.

Book preview

LEADING GRACEFULLY. Copyright © 2016 by Monique Svazlian Tallon. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to Highest Path Publishing, [e-mail].

First Edition

Cover Design by Sarah Knouse

Inside Design by Creative Digital Studios

ISBN:  978-0-9969844-0-9

14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my loving husband Chris

and

my great-grandmother Maritza

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Current State of Affairs

Chapter 2 - Redefining the Relationship With Ourselves

Chapter 3 - Masculine vs. Feminine Leadership Styles

Chapter 4 - Vision

Chapter 5 - Vulnerability

Chapter 6 - Care

Chapter 7 - Intuition

Chapter 8 - Empathy

Chapter 9 - Collabortation

Chapter 10 - Humility

Chapter 11 - Become a Game-Changer

Resources

Acknowledgments

Notes

Introduction

I was born a first-generation American to Armenian parents, raised in a traditional and conservative household, and at the same time grew up in the most progressive and liberal of cities, San Francisco. My parents sent me to an all-girls Catholic high school thinking that was the safest route, and they wouldn’t let me date till I was in college. I spent most of my early twenties rebelling against them, stuck in an identity crisis and had to really dig deep to figure out who I was at my core.

By my mid-twenties I found myself working in the corporate world, leading large-scale conferences and events. I landed a job at a well-known technology company in the very male-dominated Silicon Valley. However, this company’s head was a female CEO and I had the opportunity to witness her lead the organization to great success. And I was—a young, twenty something manager, working my way up the ladder, with high hopes and ambitions.

But as I stepped into leadership positions, I had a hard time finding women role models that I really connected to. I also had a hard time getting noticed for promotions. I saw others move up the proverbial ladder, while I just kept my head down and busted my butt to no avail. There was something wrong with this picture. I quickly realized that getting ahead wasn’t necessarily based only on merit. It was based on visibility and building relationships with those in decision-making roles. Unfortunately, at the time, this wasn’t my strong suit! To top it all off, I worked for a female boss who was more interested in taking most of the credit for my efforts. When she suddenly resigned, I decided this was my chance to prove myself and gain visibility. So I bravely volunteered to take over her role, which entailed producing a 10,000-person conference for our customers.

As the reality of what I had volunteered for began to sink in, I realized that although I had managed many large events before, I had never done anything on this scale. I was now responsible for the largest, most high profile consumer-facing event for our company. I had to figure out a game plan and step into my leadership, fast. But first I had another big decision to make—how was I going to show up as a leader? Was I going to emulate my female ex-boss and continue micro- managing my teams? Or was I going to find another style that would work better and felt more authentic to me?

I soon realized there was NO way I could micro-manage as my previous boss had successfully done because (a) it just wasn’t who I was and (b) I didn't know what to delegate because I had never done this before! The only option I had was to ask my team to help me tackle this monster project. So on the first day of our big task force meeting with 20 executives staring at little old me, I started the meeting by openly admitting that I had no idea what I was doing. I need your help! I declared. I’ve never managed an event this size, and I know some of you have been involved with the planning of this conference in the past, so I really need all of you to help me produce the best conference ever!

I thought for sure I had completely lost my credibility and authority in that moment. I never dreamed that being so vulnerable would have the impact that it did. What happened next was nothing short of miraculous.

One by one, people took on roles and responsibilities based on their past experience and department expertise. Each person on the team came forward to help, and from then on, they continued to come to our task force meetings prepared and ready to share and contribute. Instead of me having to tell people what to do, they took ownership of their respective tasks, and came to me with their knowledge and expertise. In short, everyone stepped up to the plate and contributed all that they could to make our conference a success.

My Learning

What I discovered from this experience was that by getting out of the way and empowering people to take responsibility, I created an environment where collaboration and creativity flourished. I didn't have to micro-manage everything because they were naturally creative, resourceful, and accountable. The more I trusted them, the more they delivered. By being totally vulnerable, admitting I didn't have all the answers and by asking for help, I had connected with them at that first meeting on a very human level and established immediate trust. From that point forward, they were dedicated to helping me by being contributing members of the team. Which was lucky for me, because that is exactly what I needed to produce this gigantic event!

But that’s not all that I did differently. I also spent time establishing relationships with key players, really taking the time to work with them to get to know them. I opened up channels of communication and empowered them to make decisions so they could work amongst themselves without me becoming the bottleneck. I communicated my strong vision for the event, and what I hoped people would experience and take away from the conference, inspiring our teams with a compelling vision of the best-run event our community had ever experienced. And I also delegated, setting clear expectations and creating accountability for all of my teams. Of course there were moments where I wanted to jump off a cliff, but for the most part I was able to keep calm and stay focused.

The results were surprising. Working with you is such a breath of fresh air, my team members would tell me. At the conference, we got comments from attendees saying how much they felt cared for and how well organized the event was. This is one of the best events we have ever attended. What they didn't know was our success was due to the collaborative effort of hundreds of people behind the scenes that worked together to pull it off, under my direction. Needless to say, I was very proud of our collective accomplishment.

Women Can Make a Different Choice

This huge learning experience taught me that women (and men) have a choice on how they show up in their leadership. Outdated, more masculine styles of command & control, authority, and hierarchical structures can sometimes be necessary, but not always. And more and more, these approaches no longer work in our fast-changing world. In 2015, Millennials have now become the majority of the workforce. They are looking for flatter structures, more autonomy, purpose and work/life flexibility in the companies they work for. If organizations want to attract and retain the best talent, they need to listen deeply to these requests, instead of feeling threatened by them. In an ever-increasing competitive environment, businesses want to drive innovation and creativity to stay ahead of the curve. In order to thrive, they need to create inclusive cultures by leveraging diversity. This means cultivating leaders who encourage people to contribute, be creative, and thrive.

All of this requires us to collectively redefine what leadership looks like. It requires a more integrated, balanced approach where feminine qualities of leadership are brought into the mix and valued. But for far too long, women have been told and taught that bringing their feminine selves to work is not OK. Many of us have given up some of our natural strengths just to fit in with our male counterparts. Isn’t it time to examine if this has really served us, and think about whether we need to find a different approach, which includes all parts of ourselves—both masculine and feminine? And isn’t it time that we give men the permission to integrate feminine qualities in how they show up as leaders?

Realizing that I had an alternative choice in my style as a female leader was life changing for me. It gave me a sense of hope knowing that I could be true to myself, be taken seriously and still do a good job. It helped me gain confidence in my abilities and gave me a sense of ease, knowing I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. It showed me that women could be effective, if not more effective, when they practice Feminine Leadership, by bringing more parts of their authentic self to the table.

Emerging women leaders are hungry for powerful yet authentic and feminine role models to show them the way. Yet they’re looking around and not finding them. Instead, they find women who seem to be either threatened by them, or feel the need to compete due to generational biases. This more masculine style of leadership feels outdated and less authentic to the current generation of women in the workplace. If we are to truly thrive, close the gender gap, and lead the way as change makers, we must find another path to work together through generational lines and support each other along the way. Most importantly, we need to adapt to a changing competitive landscape that is asking their leaders to be more inclusive and collaborative. This book provides the pathway to do just that.

It’s a Man’s World

Since women entered the workplace, they have had to navigate a man’s world. At first, women decided they would do this by literally looking like men. I remember when I first entered the workplace, I cut my hair short, wore a dark suit and a little tie, so I wouldn’t stick out, says Diane Reichenberger who is Head of Strategy at a Fortune 500 Company. She goes on to describe how afraid she was to be feminine in any way. I didn't want anyone thinking I wasn’t capable, so I did what I could to fit in. Finally, as a senior executive, I feel free enough to embrace my femininity.

This is the story of countless women who were the pioneers of the feminist movement, the courageous women who braved ridicule, harassment, and all sorts of Mad Men-esque behavior to pave the way for the rest of us. In those days, you had to look like a man, act like a man, and practically be a man to be taken seriously in business. And it worked for those women who were willing to play the part.

What it also did was slowly lead to the masculinization of women. As women took on more responsibilities once held by men, they felt the need to do it the same way men did. They adopted and conformed to masculine qualities they were observing around them, taking on traditional forms of leadership such as command and control, or authoritative styles of leadership that could be described as aggressive, competitive, and dominating. While this might have been effective and allowed women to prove that they could lead just as well as men could, it also had a detrimental effect on their identity, self-esteem, self-worth and also on their relationship to the feminine. Most of all, women ended up believing that showing any type of weakness was bad, and would hurt their career advancement. They began to compensate by acting as strong and as tough as men.

It’s worth noting the tremendous effort, courage, and bravery of the women in the first and second wave of the feminist movement of the 60s, 70s and beyond, paving the way for us to have the opportunities we have today. With their heads held high, brave and strong women like Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan walked into the fire, day after day, to prove women’s worth and to fight the political battles that won the legislative protection and rights women enjoy today in the United States. For that, I and millions of other women will be forever grateful.

Yet since that time, women have evolved to operate in a man’s world. Adapting to fit in a corporate world really designed for men, by men, it resulted in the swinging of the pendulum from one extreme to another. It took women from a state of being overly feminine (and not empowered) to a state of over-masculinization. The result—women decided to leave their strengths at home. They started to hide their emotions, stopped trusting their intuition, and began acting like ice queens or Queen Bees in the workplace to conform and compete in the boy’s club. They took on more of a command-and-control style of leadership, not because they wanted to, but because it was what they saw being role-modeled around them by men. Not only did this lead to unintended negative consequences on women’s self-expression, but it’s also had unintended consequences in their effectiveness as leaders in business and in the world.

As women gave up more and more parts of themselves, they also stopped expressing their unique gifts and talents. Instead of speaking up, voicing their opinions, and making decisions, they gave up their power, deferring to their male counterparts or compensated and ruled with an iron fist. They underestimated their full potential, allowing themselves to fall victim to a