This year’s ILM report ‘Ambition and Gender at Work’ explores the hurdles women face along their career path and the factors that create the ‘glass ceiling’ effect that many women managers encounter. The research found that 73% of women believe there are a number of barriers preventing them from progressing to top levels of management. Alongside the well known obstacles of maternity and childcare-related issues, other critical factors included lower ambitions and expectations.

Compared to their male counterparts, women tend to lack self belief and confidence, with half of women managers surveyed admitting feelings of self doubt, compared to only 31% of men. Women had less clarity about career direction, lower expectations about becoming a manager, and were on average 3 years behind men in moving in to management roles.

The ILM’s recommendations (reinforced by the Governments’ independent review in February this year) focus on a business-led approach, where organisations set their own targets and act decisively if they are to avoid the introduction of government impositions or quotas.

They suggest recruitment practices, talent management and work-life balance policies have an important part to play and place a strong emphasis on training and development.

How can training and development help?

The research suggests employers should target their development spend to both address gender imbalance and maximise the impact of their leadership development by tailoring it to the differing needs of individual managers. Coaching and mentoring were identified as being highly effective ways of encouraging women to realise their leadership potential.

Coaching stands out as an ideally flexible solution which can address the more emotional aspects of leadership development and can be a powerful way to build women managers’ self belief and encourage them to take measured risks.

Mentoring programmes can also be instrumental in raising women managers’ aspirations. Employers should look at using networking and development events to raise the profile and visibility of successful women. They should also identify successful leaders of both sexes to serve as mentors to female managers, providing advice and encouragement based on their own experience and encouraging them to seize career opportunities.

Only by taking such proactive steps to development will organisations help women start to break through that glass ceiling.

It’s not easy being a manager – I know from personal experience.  But if January’s Management offerings are anything to go by many of us are making it harder than it needs to be. 

The high profile Sky Sports case has managers tackling a culture of inappropriate behaviour that should have been dealt with long ago and the Chief Exec at Carlisle city council is having to deal with some very heavy handed management by two of his team leaders attempting to manage performance via email. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-12307749

Perhaps on that basis we shouldn’t be too surprised that the Government think we need two years to assess if a new recruit is right for our business!  Their recommendation is to increase the qualifying period for employees before they can make a claim for unfair dismissal from one to two years. http://www.recruiter.co.uk/1008389.article?cmpid=REC04&cmptype=newsletter&email=true
The danger in my eyes is that some already lax management practices will become even laxer if managers think they have longer to make their minds up.

There are some key steps that managers should be taking to manage effectively, but often just don’t….

• Discussing and agreeing specific expectations.  The vast majority of people really welcome having clear direction
• Having regular face-to-face meetings.  How many times do you hear people saying “Communication here is rubbish”?  What they usually mean is they don’t know what their managers expect
• Noting down agreed action points and reviewing them.  Why do so many people tell us things are talked about, but never followed through or reviewed?
• We all like to know if we are on track with something.  Why do so few managers give constructive feedback?

Good managers are those who do these things and do them on a regular basis.  That way...

• They and their team members know what’s appropriate and what is not

• People know the boundaries; when to have a few minutes to show interest in someone without affecting targets and productivity
• They know if a new team member is suitable long before two years and deal with it at the right time and in the right way

   

Despite the market place remaining a challenging one, we know that many forward thinking companies out there are still keen to invest in developing their people …but of course are looking for cost effective ways to do so.

So why would we be advocating less training? Well one way to get very tangible and very immediate results is to use more one to one coaching. Good coaching can make a world of difference to upping your team’s skills and raising motivation levels at the same time.

And it doesn’t have to be done by an external training company. Using the expertise you have within your organisation in the form of line managers can have a great impact on performance. The key is making sure those managers are equipped to coach effectively.

We see many situations where line managers intend to offer support to their teams, but end up “telling” them what to do. There are times when a directive style is the right approach, but for the most part a more questioning, coaching style will get people thinking for themselves and develop their skills more effectively. You get greater buy- in too… people tend to kick against being told exactly what do (think of your own reaction to a very instructive style of management!) 

So here are 5 top tips for Line Managers wanting to do more effective coaching…..

1. Remember 90% of learning happens on the job so there are opportunities for coaching all around us in the workplace.. we just need to look out for them.

2. Coaching is about asking questions. It develops problem solving skills and builds a more capable, self reliant team. The next time you are tempted to tell one of your team members exactly what to do next, just check yourself and try turning the statement into a question…”what steps would you take?” “What do you want to do next?”
3. Good coaching doesn’t have to be a planned sit down 30 minute session. Great coaching can also happen in a spontaneous 5 minute conversation when you have observed a team member dealing with a customer.
4. Listen carefully – there is no point in asking good thought provoking questions if you don’t give your team member a chance to think and answer. Be comfortable with pauses.
5. Coaching should not be a one off event but an ongoing way of developing your people. Start to make it a management style rather than something you just do to address a specific skill and you will begin to reap the benefits.

A recent survey has found that where employees are engaged and enabled companies can increase their turnover by five times… Isn’t that a compelling case to invest in some coaching capability??