1. What Organizations Need to Know About Leaning In: Women and Leadership
SHRM 2015 Colorado State Conference
Audrey Nelson, PhD O F C

2. Objectives What is a woman's relationship to success?
Sheryl Sandberg , the COO of Facebook is ranked one of Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She suggested in her NY Times best seller, that women need to Lean In. She asks the question why men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in the US. Women became 50% of the college graduates in the early 1980s. A meager twenty-one of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Women hold about 14% of executive officer positions, 17 percent of board seats, and constitute 18 percent of our elected congressional officials. Girls are increasingly outperforming boys in the classroom, earning 57% of undergraduate degrees in the United States and girls graduate with higher GPAs. This is a talent pool that HR professionals cannot afford to ignore or develop.
Objectives
What is a woman's relationship to success?
What are examples of micro-inequities women experience on a daily basis? 
What are the macro-inequities women experience from their organizations?
What are the most important things an organization can do to advance women to leadership?

3. A Woman's Relationship to Success
Sheryl Sandberg in her book, Lean In , says she had a "watershed moment" when she experienced a phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt-the imposter syndrome. According to Sandberg, both women and men are susceptible, but women tend to experience it more intensely and be more limited by it. Have you experienced the impostor syndrome? Why do you think women may experience this more than men?
Research shows that success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both genders. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less. Several decades ago, the fear of success syndrome was identified as a critical variable influencing women's success and achievement. What can women do to overcome this negative relationship to success?
A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on potential , while women are promoted based on past accomplishments. Warren Buffet has stated that one of the reasons for his great success was that he was competing with only half of the population.
A Woman's Relationship to Success

4. What are examples of micro-inequities women experience on a daily basis?
Interruptions
Defer to men in the group
Turn-taking and air time
Reactions to ambitious women
Who is sitting at the table?

5. Work-Life Balance – The “Mommy Track”
What are the macro-inequities women experience from their organizations?
Work-Life Balance – The “Mommy Track”
How many women hold existing leadership roles?
Female Models at the top
Who is being mentored?
Who is invited to off campus activities?

6. Aggressive mentoring program
What are the most important things an organization can do to advance women to leadership?
Aggressive mentoring program
Establish a leadership track with time lines and reviews
Work-Life balance policies
Retention-Recruitment
Leadership training
Establish a company funded women's group

7. The Gender Communication Handbook:
Conquering Conversational Collisions Between Men and Women
Audrey Nelson, Ph.D. (co-author)
Pfeiffer - An Imprint of Wiley
Code Switching:
How to Talk So Men Will Listen
Audrey Nelson, Ph.D. (co-author)
Alpha Books
You Don’t Say: Navigating Nonverbal
Communication
Between the Sexes
Audrey Nelson, Ph.D.
Prentice Hall

8. Top 4 CD Communication Hits"
"Audrey's
Top 4 CD Communication Hits"