Equal Doesn’t Mean Equal Yet: Women’s Equality Day, ERA & The Story of My Life

My friend Carol Jenkins, a board member of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition was updating me over lunch about the current attempt to get the ERA into the U.S. Constitution.

“This is where I came in,” I said.

How and Why Women CEOs Need To Handle Bully Shareholders

Playground wisdom reminds us that if you expose a bully by reporting the behavior, the bully retreats.

This may help some women CEOs, who are more likely to be bullied by shareholders than their male colleagues at the same level. A recent study from Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business says shareholders try to exert more influence on a company’s board of directors and top management when a woman runs the organization.

Changing the WorkplaceMichele WeldonAugust 22, 2016Career, Change, female CEO, gender bias, LeadershipComment

Finding Your Landsfroyen: Friendship Is Important For Women Networking

Girlfriends are rarely on any list of important career development tools. We are more likely to read about women exhibiting jealousy of their girlfriend’s latest promotion or ease of landing a job. In reality our female friendships have always been a valuable support to our careers.

For Real: Strategies for Women of Color Entrepreneurs To Succeed

If only life was like it appears on TV.

Cookie Lyon, played by Taraji P. Henson, is the co-founder of the fictional Empire Entertainment and the roar behind Lyon Dynasty. Anika Calhoun, played by Grace Gealey, is the head of A & R at Empire Entertainment. Pop icon Mariah Carey will also be featured with the regular cast of characters in the upcoming season three of the wildly popular, award-winning TV series, “Empire.”

Can We Get An Amen? Struggle for More Women in Leadership in Religions

Billions of women across the globe reportedly follow the world’s major religions, yet leadership by women in these religions remains elusive and rare, in the United States in particular.

Change LeadershipMichele WeldonAugust 16, 2016Change, Community, parity, religion, women in leadershipComment

Are You Tough Enough? Why Competitive Winning Matters To Women Leaders

As humans, we care a lot about winning. As women leaders and competitors in the workplace, we may care a whole lot more.

The literal finger-wagging battle signifying who is No. 1 in the Rio 2016 Olympics swimming competitions between USA gold medalist Lilly King and Russian silver medalist Yulia Efimova has been dramatic and perhaps non-diplomatic. King turned her win into a platform against doping in competition and touted hers as a clean victory. She later apologized.

The Real Deal: Impostor Syndrome As Women in Workplace in STEM

I’ve been lucky. By and large, I haven’t run into any major disadvantages or advantages to being a woman in the software field. I feel like that’s a story not told enough in the debate, where the experience is just like anything else in life: some good, some bad, overall average.

Data Proves Women Leaders Dominate This STEM Profession

Do you know which major STEM field boasts as many women in the profession as men? Where almost half the college degrees – even at the PhD level – are granted to women? Where women have a significant presence in the most influential circles of the profession?

Say My Name: Why Acknowledging Successful Women Directly Matters

What’s in a name?

For some, not much. After all, it certainly was easy for the Chicago Tribune to erase Olympic medalist Corey Cogdell’s name in their tweet about her accomplishment:

“Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.”

Susy SchultzAugust 10, 2016acknowledgments, Career, recognition, women leaders Comment

On The Rebound: What Makes Great Women Leaders Resilient and Why?

Bounce back. Get up. Put on your big girl pants.

We sometimes repeat trite clichés when we (or one of our friends, colleagues or family members) have a setback.

But what does it mean to be truly resilient? And how can we fill our toolbox with a set of skills and strategies that will help us recover?

Career successMichele WeldonAugust 9, 2016business, Career, resilience, women in the workplace, women leadersComment

A is For Ambition: How and Why Women Leaders Can Claim It Without Apology

Being happy is not the sole, top professional goal for me, nor for many women leaders I know. It’s a welcome and worthwhile byproduct of a productive, meaningful life, not the whole point.