Working to Be a Leader

In February 1982, I was working as the Administrative Assistant to the Vice President of Public Affairs at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.  The job felt like a good fit for someone who wanted to use her writing skills and transition into a corporate job.  (A few years as an elementary school teacher taught me that the playground/playing field was not big enough for my skills and interests.)  My then husband was in a Ph.D. program on campus and that, too, made the position a good one.  (FYI:  Today my ex-husband is an esteemed professor of English Literature at a very good college.)

 “March is Women’s Month at Brandeis” was the headline on a brochure that caught my attention one day as I was going through the VP’s mail.  I carefully read the list of all the events being scheduled throughout the month and looked for one I could attend.  “What about a program for the women who work on campus!”  I thought after not finding even one program. “Don’t we exist?”

Leigh (l), Moderator, "9 to 5 The Brandeis Way"

 Taking the initiative, I met with a Women’s Studies professor and proposed a panel discussion called, “9 to 5 The Brandeis Way.”  We discussed my idea of having women I knew from different departments share their stories about job sharing, part-time work, and other experiences of being employed at the university.

 “If one person shows up for the program, consider yourself lucky,” the professor kindly cautioned.  Her words made me more determined to develop an audience.  I created a flyer and posted it around campus, submitted a news release to the local paper, contacted professors I knew, and tried to be positive that in addition to the panelists and my then husband, other people would attend the event.

 Seventy-five staff, students, and faculty showed up for “9 to 5 The Brandeis Way,” the first of what became a series of panel discussions on workplace issues.  The event was a success and, as my career evolved, a path I continued to travel.

 Thursday, March 18, 5:30p.m.-8:30p.m. The Fourth Annual “Pearls of Wisdom” Women’s Leadership Conference, Baruch College.

This is my third time as moderator of the panel and I’m very enthused about the executives that the “Women in Business” committee has selected. The keynote speaker is Diane Garnick, Investment Strategist, Invesco Ltd. Panelists include Heather Maloney, Executive Director, Hope & Heroes Children’s Cancer Fund; Lenore Jarvis, President, Professional Women in Construction National; and Virginia McNeil Montangue, President of NY Coalition of 100 Black Women. The event is free to students (dinner with wine included). For more information, visit Baruch’s “Women in Business” website at http://baruchwib.webs.com/ or contact Sufia Farha, President, Women in Business, at sufia.farha@gmail.com

 Tuesday, March 23, 1:00p.m.-3:30p.m. “It’s Not Over: You Still Have a Chance! Reinvention and Resilience in the Older Worker” hosted by the Employee Assistance Professionals Association-New York City Chapter (EAPA-NYC).

As Co-Chair of the EAPA-Women’s Issues Committee, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on the multigenerational workplace last year. This year, the panel is focused on ways those 40 and over can remain positive and competitive in the job market. Lynda Johnson, my Co-Chair, will welcome the audience. The panel I’ll moderate includes Jane Cranston, Managing Director, Executive Coach NY; Doris Traub, Traub & Traub, P.C., attorney specializing in age discrimination in the workplace; and Wendy Lewis, President, Wendy Lewis & Co. Ltd, a Global Aesthetics Consultancy—an image enhancement consultant dubbed “The Knife Coach®” by the media. The fee for the event is $20 for a guest. To confirm times and get location, please contact Barbara Friesner at barbara@agewiseliving.com

When a Colts fan was on her way out of the restaurant where I was watching Super Bowl XLIV, this woman made it a point to stop next to me, touch my shoulder and say with a big smile on her face and a smirk in her voice, “The Colts really are the best team.  The Saints don’t have a chance in hell to beat the Colts.”  Obviously, she hadn’t read the e-mail I had received from a friend in NOLA.

“It is hard to express the wonderful effect the Saints have had on our community – it has brought us all together in the glow of their achievement, and we are awash in black and gold and ‘Who Dat’.  I am sure the intense and widespread emotional involvement is directly related to the depth of commitment we have made to the recovery and improvement of NOLA. So many things are coming back but not there yet, but here is one area where success is palpable and was a long time coming (43 years!).  And it’s wonderful Lagniappe that Drew Brees is such a fine  human being – not just a great quarterback.”  Suzy Mague, a woman I met when volunteering in NOLA after Hurricane Katrina, pinpointed what was going to help the Saints win the Super Bowl:  the collective belief in success by those in the Gulf Coast region.

Lagniappe is a term used in Louisiana which  means “”something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure.”  What the Saints gave the city of New Orleans were gifts of hope, commitment to a goal, and success against great odds to even reach the Super Bowl.  What the city of New Orleans gave back was their enthusiastic support and hope that the area’s recovery would be as successful as that of their Saints.

 The consensus was that the Colts were the better team, Peyton Manning the best quarterback ever, the defense so strong that Manning had only been sacked 10 times all season, and on and on.  My clapping and cheering for the Saints when they were behind 10-0 in the first quarter did give me pause.  Yet, as is the nature of a 60-minute game, there was still a chance.  In football, you have to play the game to the very last second even if your team is losing 54-0.  The Saints went the distance in great form.

To lead off the second half of the game, Saints’ Coach Sean Payton used a tactic that brought his team success:  a practiced  surprise.  For the first time in Super Bowl history, a team started the third quarter with an onside kick.  The Saints punter made a short kick (more than 10 yards) to the Colts, a Colts player touched then lost the ball, a Saints player recovered the ball, and the Saints earned very good field position.  The Saints had practiced this surprise over and over again during the week leading up to the big game.  The timing made history, shifted the momentum to the Saints, and helped them come away with a 31-17 victory.

Today I wish that I could call the Colts fan who told me to give up on the Saints because they didn’t have a chance.  There is always a chance, always an opportunity to succeed whether on the football field, a baseball diamond, or the workplace playing field.  Give yourself a chance by practicing a surprise that can get you noticed,  realize the potential you have as a leader and become an outstanding team player for your followers while working to be a leader.

Miss me?  My last post was on December 10, 2009, around the time when I began working on another level playing field special report.  Almost finalized, it will be availabe  at the Leadership Training Room website in early February.

The report contains almost 11,000 words that I’ve crafted into a letter and six essays about the impact of the Great Recession on lives, my own included.  Great Recession (two words, 15 characters with the space) is  better to use in a 20-page report than writing out the worst economy since the Great Depression (six words and 40 characters with spaces). 

The level playing field special reports I write are based on workplace behavior and the impact of external factors on an individual’s performance.  My reports are positioned to inform, educate, and enlighten readers on topics that resonant with them and can help further their careers.  The youngest of nine children, my older siblings loved to tell me, “Children are to be seen and not heard.”  Well, I’m being heard now on an international stage like this blog and enjoying writing to be heard by you and others.

What I’ve also been doing since I last posted a blog entry is volunteering the area of human resources for organizations.  The work has included collaborating with other volunteers in the process to fill a position:  developing an accurate position description, reviewing and evaluating resumes, identifying the first and second tier candidates to be called in for interviews, and interviewing a series of professionals to filter out the one we feel has the credentials and the ‘good fit’ demeanor to be hired.

Although I’ve hired people previously, the hiring process during the Great Recession has been different.  It’s different because I’m sensing desperation by how words are strung together.  Very determined to get a job since being laid off or fearing being laid off, the tone of a candidate’s writing often gives off a feel of, “It’s all about me and you should hire me because I am so great and I really need this job!”

How do I know that?  Well, in one very long cover letter, the writer composed 12 sentences and they all focused on her.  “I am…”   “I have…”  “I worked…” “I look forward…” was what I read and thought, “What about how her skills, knowledge, and experiences apply to and can benefit our organization?”

Hers was not the only cover written that way.  Many came in with a form cover letter with obviously only the inner address and salutation changed—which is not good form from my perspective.  What I wanted to read in their sentences was that the prospective candidate had done their research:  been to our website, searched periodicals online that could provide them more background, and then could translate this information into words that created a relationship between our needs and their backgrounds.

Resumes, also, left a lot to be desired.   Proof and proof again.  Use the “Grammar Check” in Word.  Punctuate consistently in descriptions and bullets.  Be accurate with the tense:  all past or all present tense.  Etc., etc., etc.

Finally, if you want to be heard and be seriously considered to be hired for a position, use the appropriate wording to describe what you do.  We, charged with hiring an employee, need to trust that an individual expressing an interest in being a candidate and possibly ‘the one’  hired, has documented authentically what she has done and is capable of doing from the first day on the job.

Whether you are in the process of developing a cover letter or resume—or an 11,000 word paper—write so that you are heard.   Now, it’s time for me to go resume finalizing my next level playing field special report.

On Sunday, November 1, over 42,000 registered runners in the New York City Marathon sped, ran, walked, or limped through the streets of the five boroughs. As the premium runners raced their way through Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, the majority of runners ran at a slower pace.

Runners nearing the finish line

As in years past, I like to watch the runners as they near the finish line, specifically those who take four or more hours to finish the 26.2 mile course—a course the leaders had run in just over two hours.

This year, I found a place behind a barricade just past the 26 mile sign in Central Park.  That vantage point gave me the opportunity to slap hands with runners zooming with enthusiasm that they were close to reaching  their goal or dragging with focused determination that they would reach the finish line even if they had to crawl.

Many of those going past had their names on their t-shirts, a way to tell the total crowd of over a million cheerleaders along the route that they wanted a shout out of, “Hi, Amy (or Frances or Tim or…). Keep going. You’re doing great.”

One man was more direct with not just his want for a shout out but a need to be encouraged. On this man’s shirt was a directive, “Yell, Hi, Art!”

Of course, I, as did others around me, did yell, “Hi, Art!”

My working to be a leader lesson from Art:  identify what you need from others then make it clear how they can fill that need for you.

No matter where you are in your career, it is important to be proactive, to fill a gap, to meet unmet needs.  Here’s an example of what I mean.

At the end of the spring semester, a former student called me up and shared with me her frustration over not being able to find a job in her major of human resources—or even an unpaid internship.  She started to cry and, after reassuring her she would find something, we talked about specific ways she could move forward.

That and other phone calls from students past and present inspired me to propose teaching a class during the summer to help alumni and students in their job searches.  The Chair of the Management Department at Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College considered the idea a good one and got the needed approvals.

The class went very, very well.  Everyone was engaged, open, and willing to trust each other.  They participated in mock interviews, role playing the interviewer or potential client.  They networked with each other and honed their elevator speeches.  Resumes were reviewed as were rules of etiquette in the job search process.

What I did was fill the need for a way students could actively work on their job search.  The experience was a win-win-win:  I won because my idea for a class was supported; the students won because they learned practical career skills; and the Management Department won because they met their students’ needs.

On Saturday, October 17, the Management Dept. will once again offer “Supercharge Your Job Search.”  During one day, we will cover the topics you need to start your job search and take the next step in getting a job or positioning yourself to change careers.

Baruch alumni and students can register and pay for the class by calling Linda Moore at 646-312-3625.

Here’s a couple of comments from two who attended:

—Sharing and doing exercises pushed me to realize the important of networking and maintaining relationships.

 —After a role-playing exercise, I got instant feedback from the class members and instructor on my interviewing skills.

Remember to think about ways that you can be proactive to move forward in your career search.

Today is September 1, 2009, the start of a new semester teaching at Zicklin School of Business.  Even when I wasn’t teaching, I always felt that September was a new start, a new beginning, a time to put into action what I might not have gotten done during the summer—or even the spring.

My last blog “Congratulations Future Leaders” was posted on May 27 and was still visible a couple of weeks ago.  I know because I was a co-presenter of a program on “Social Media:  What’s the Return on Investment?” and used my blog to explain what a blog was to those in the audience who didn’t know.

It also pointed out how not to use a blog.  That is, to be successful, you must write blog entries two or three times a week.  What happened to my last blog entry I don’t know.  Maybe I can find it.  Maybe not.  It was a piece directed to the seniors at Zicklin, part of Baruch College, and included my good wishes to them for a good career as the leaders we need in the future to guide us.

It’s now been three months without writing a blog and my readers need an explanation.  I’m calling my time away my summer vacation.  Although I drafted blog entries, nothing seemed to come together in a final form.  Very unlike me, a prolific writer.  My lack of coherence was due to shifts in my personal life which kept me from the focus and the momentum that I had built up with my blog.

Today is the first day of class.  It is the first day of my renewed commitment to writing a blog and working to be the best leader that I can be.

Dear Student, er Graduate:

Today you will be one of 3,000 students receiving a degree during the Baruch College Commencement Ceremonies at Madison Square Garden.  Baruch, the nation’s most diverse campus, is part of the City University of New York (CUNY), a group of 23 colleges and institutions serving 480,000 students in New York City.

As one of your teacher’s in the undergraduate Management Department at the Zicklin School of Business within Baruch, I congratulate you on your achievement and wish you the best as you begin a new phase in your life.

In your journey of working during the day, going to school for three or more hours of classes on two to four nights a week, then returning home to hug a child, kiss a spouse, embrace your parents, pet your dog, you’ve prepared yourself for the new leg of life’s journey as a college graduate.

Your hunger for knowledge, curiosity about how to reach your potential, willingness to push yourselves out of your comfort zones made my job as your instructor that much easier and a challenge.  A challenge that made me a smarter, wiser, and more informed person.

You are a future leader, someone who will have followers seeking answers, making requests, needing your time, being curious about their futures.

You are stepping into a world that needs your energy, your enthusiasm, your commitment to others that I saw you demonstrate in class.

We need you, I need you, the world needs you to value your degree, to make the most of the entry level jobs and administrative work you will do as you climb the career lattice, moving sideways and upward on your merits and demonstrated capacity for growth.

Future leader, I offer you two pieces of advice. 

#1:  Know yourself, what is meaningful for you, how you want to be known in the world.

#2:  Keep smiling through the tough times, the good times, the down times, and the up times because a smile is contagious and invites others to come into your world.

Thanks for letting me be part of your world.

Now, future leaders, go out and continue working to be the best possible leader you can be—we need you!

Best regards,

Prof. Henderson

In honor of Mother’s Day, I feel moved to pass along one bit of advice that I got from my mother. This advice is relevant to girls/women and boys/men on a career search — or the ambitious employed who want to stay employed or get a promotion.

Although Mom died in 1968, I can, at times, still hear her voice reciting one of her many pieces of advice.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say if I wanted a pair of white boots just like all the other girls were wearing in TEEN magazine.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say then proceed to tell me about the twin girls who used to live down the street and who had their own way of dressing and being in the world.

“Don’t be like all the other girls,” she’d say on any occasion to encourage me to be who I was and not someone else.

Mom was right.  When I left for college, all I wanted to be was normal and like all the other girls.  A bit of a challenge to figure out what normal was since I wound up at the University of California at Berekley during the height of the Free Speech and Vietnam War protests.

As I’ve gotten older, however, and worked my way into leadership roles and developed a business providing leadership coaching to executives, I embrace the essence of her message.   Her message: to be fully present and let others know the unique qualities you possess and the great skills you bring to the table.

Today with the economy the worst since the Great Depression, women and men looking for work—or working to keep their jobs—have to stand out, to not be like all the other girls/boys, to demonstrate their unique brand of passion and how they will contribute their skills, abilities, and talents to the workplace.

Mom would like the person that I am today.  I’m not like all the other girls.  And not like all the other women I know.  I’m me.  And that’s a good thing.

Sit back and reflect on how you stand out with your own unique brand.

Then wish your mother and other nuturing women in your life a Happy Mother’s Day!

On a beautiful spring day, I gave myself the job to stay indoors and organize files that I had placed in a filing cabinet two years ago.  Along with the “Why am I keeping this?” questions I kept on asking myself, I discovered a few “I know why I kept this!” documents.

In the piles of paper within what I labeled my “Teaching and Consulting-early 1990’s” file folder, I uncovered a letter dated May 23, 1990.  When reading it, I began to cry.  I cried because I was once again reminded about why I teach.

The letter is from a student who had just completed my course in “Public Relations” in the Marketing Department of the Business & Communications Division at New York City Technical College, a two-year school that is part of the City University of New York. 

English majors put your red pen away and refrain from your comments on grammar.  Read the message that someone new to America felt at his moment of great accomplishment: graduation from an American college.  Also pay attention to the difference that one person in the role of a teacher can make in someone’s life.

My search has already begun on Facebook and LinkedIn to see if I can find the author of this letter.  Perhaps now, almost twenty years later, I can tell him that I was proud he was my student.

Dear Professor Henderson,

I’m very glad to receive a letter from school, saying that I’m going to graduate.  At this exciting moment, first of all, I would like to express my inner thanks to you.  Thank you for your teaching and helps to me.  I am in appreciation of all your advices.  This experience will never be forgotten in my life, because it’s an important experience in my life.  It’s just a milestone which will be recorded in my life history.  This unforgettable American college experience will affect me in every step I stride forward in the future.  I deeply believe that what I learned are useful and helpful to me.  I’m proud of being your student.

While in an out of the classes, we established a friendship between teacher and student.  This friendship will be extended to become our concern and help to teach other in the future.  That’s the most beautiful friendship in life.  It’s as great as the friendship of parents.  So, we are not only teacher and student, but also friends.

I came from Canton City, the largest city of southern China.  It’s a busy port and the capital city of Guandong Province.  It has over two thousand years in history.  Before I immigrated with my family in 1984, I was a senior student of the Traditional Chinese Medicine University of Canton.

America is a country which full of energy and vigor.  She possesses the modern high tech, science, advanced economic system, democracy government, and multilateral brilliant cultures from different races.  She is becoming more beautiful along with the development of the communication and understanding among people.  I wish I can always have your advice to guide my future career.

Thank you again!

So long!

Sincerely Yours,

Last year at this same time, I was on a flight from Athens, Greece, back to New York City.  With me was my niece Tomi Sue Henderson, a veterinarian who lives in a town of 146 located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

This year, during spring break at Zicklin School of Business where I teach, I had planned to visit Tomi Sue’s father, my brother, in his small town near in the southern part of Oregon.  The launch of Temping with Tycoons and the state of the economy made me decide to stay in my big city hometown of New York.

So instead of sharing a travel report from a trip this year, I’ll reflect on some memories from last year—and tie in my report with how I feel about the economy.

Here’s a picture taken at Santorini on the last day of our “Grecian Delight” tour.  Tomi Sue has her arm around me on what was a gorgeous spring day on this “volanic” island.

You’ll notice the mostly white houses of the town of Fira clustered together at the top and down the steep incline to Tomi Sue’s right.  On Santorini, Mykonos, and other Greek islands we visited, home owners are required to paint their houses at regular intervals.  Tourists who arrive by ship or air are a major source of income for Greece, meaning that maintaining an immaculate impression at each port-of-call is an absolute necessity.

Off to my left you’ll see the steep drop off of land into the Aegean.  Santorini is believed by some to be the site of the “Lost Continent of Atlantis,” a legendary island that one day just sunk into the sea.

Santorini earned this reputation because around 1450 B.C., a catastrophe happened.  The volcano on the island erupted, the center of the island collapsed into the sea, and earthquakes reverberated throughout the Aegean, toppling some advanced civilizations as far away as the island of Crete.

The edge that we’re standing on around the sunken watery center of the island is called the caldera.  A caldera is formed by the collapse of land after a volcano erupts. 

Caldera is also a good term for what I see when thinking about what happened to the economy.  There’s been an earthquake on Wall Street that is still reverberating across the land with more layoffs at companies, foreclosures of homes, and individuals who will have to settle for “survival jobs.” 

We’re on the edge looking out from the caldera to the center of the economy, hoping that it will rise up and renew itself to restore faith in our financial system as well as opportunities get off the “career bridge” and into meaningful work.

I still want to visit my brother and I also want to return to Greece.  That’s why I’m hoping that the Wall Street we lost will be rebuilt with a solid foundation for a stronger economy and more jobs.