Increasing Your Power Currency: How Women Climb the Ladder Naturally!

I’m really excited to share the article that I wrote for the Idaho Women’s Journal with you!

Since many of you won’t have access to the printed version because you live outside of our geographic region, I thought I’d share it here!

Increasing Your Power Currency: How Women Climb the Ladder Naturally! 

Imagine that woman who shot up the proverbial corporate ladder in record time. Standing around the water cooler or in kitchens, the only explainable reason is that she slept her way to the top.

Before selling her short, let’s consider the other, although less comfortable answer. She used her feminine characteristics to create change, drive results, and lead her team. It was all hard work.

For women in leadership, here are ways to leverage womanly characteristics to deliver results that will increase your power currency—and let’s not be shy about it!

Women are notorious team players, who create collaborative environments. Women tend to give credit to others abundantly, which can sometimes be misconstrued as a negative. The truth is, when women give credit and recognize strengths, accomplishments, or contributions, it creates loyalty and great working environments that lead to calculated risk-taking and the accomplishment of goals.

Women are social by nature which creates excellent networking. These skills can create strategic alignments and build important support from key decision makers within various teams, divisions, or companies. These skills can also shorten the sales cycle.

Women are nurturing. When paired with accountability, these skills are untouchable. Everyone makes mistakes, but when critiqued in a nurturing way, these mistakes can create a great learning environment and further loyalty. By nurturing ideas, solutions, or the growth of team members, it also advances the organization.

Women who embrace conflict to create solutions have an edge on their peers. When conflict is looked at positively, it can successfully lead to new products or new ideas for an organization, and also new assignments for the individual.

Women can also leverage their perseverance, ethics, multi-tasking skills, and confidence to command leadership while generating improvements for their companies, increasing their ability to stand out from the crowd.

So, the next time you hear about a woman achieving success, think about the hard work and womanly characteristics that got her to the top!

For more from the Idaho Women’s Journal, follow this link.