Author: Lilian Oduor

Ways to Succeed as a Woman

Posted on by Lilian Oduor

As we celebrate Top 40 under 40 women this week, we are reminded of great women who are doing an amazing job in areas such as corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, law, finance, medicine, academics, research, technology, sports, philanthropy and media just to name a few.

Even with these feats, women still face struggles at the workplace; from unequal pay to advancing into leadership roles.

Did you know that only 14.6 per cent of executives in companies nationwide are women? More strikingly, did you know that women hold just 4.6 per cent of CEO positions?

Why is this the case?

Is this difference because women leave their careers to care for their families before reaching a top position? Or are women afraid to ask as a result of attitudes towards them in the workplace?

This got me critically thinking about what a career woman can do to set herself apart.

What should women do to boost confidence and get ahead at work?

To succeed at the workplace, the tips I have outlined in this article below are necessary.

The courage to speak up

We get in life what we have the courage to ask for.

Women don’t speak up as much as men do at the workplace, often because they lack confidence and also because our culture has for a very long time, encouraged the man to speak up more than the woman. Women need to realise that the promotion, the salary raise, the change of terms for their career cannot be addressed if they are silent.

The worst that can happen when you push for what you deserve is getting “No:” for an answer.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is the belief that you are not as competent as others think you are, or that you don’t deserve the success you have.

Many women suffer from imposter syndrome – the self-doubt that they have what it takes. The career woman has often struggled with rising above the challenge that comes with gender equality in the workplace, often wondering how they can balance between being mothers, wives and still deserve a seat in the boardroom full of powerful men.

Women then must begin to feel comfortable in both spaces, deserving every good thing that comes with the responsibilities placed on them. Women deserve it too.

Rising above the challenges

The responsibilities placed on the woman are quite heavy. The career woman has often struggled with work-life balance, better pay especially for roles majorly held by men, workplace harassment, fewer seats for women leadership in the organisation and so much more.

Women can grow if they rise above these challenges by pushing to lead. It’s through leadership that they can change the unhealthy cultures and bring new policies at the workplace that support their growth.

Persuasive communication

This is the key to unlocking the woman’s full potential.

Persuasive communication is a valuable skill that women can learn and use at the workplace. Being excellent at your job, unfortunately, is not enough. There is a need to persuade at interviews, at sales pitches and in meetings among other areas.

Part of being persuasive is being genuine, natural and a little charismatic. Stepping out of your personality and comfort zone and improving your interpersonal relationships is one of the best ways to become more skilled in persuasion. Successfully implementing your persuasion skills will require time, energy and practice. Once you learn persuasive communication, then there is no opportunity that you cannot scoop.

Confidence

Confidence is many things. It’s how we speak, how we behave, how we dress. It’s our ideas and how we articulate them. Most of the time, women who are picked to lead and for that promotion, have mastered the art of confidence.

A woman must brand herself in a certain way to set herself apart. Learning to be self-aware and portraying emotional intelligence at the workplace allows us to be confident in our speech and thoughts and when we top that up with our outward image, then people want to hear what you have to say. People change how they view you.

Supporting our own

Sometimes women are told they are their own enemies. Controversial as it is, lies some truth in this.

I believe there is something we can borrow from the man on this one. The need to celebrate one another and support others’ success. Every woman also needs to learn to go where she is celebrated instead of sticking in toxic spaces that tear her down.

“Your candle does not dim because you lit another woman’s candle, so go on, pick her up, celebrate her, give her a chance. If she shines, you shine too.”

Conclusion

The power to lead and be seen lies in the hands of women themselves. All these women we celebrate today had to step out of their comfort zone and do it differently to stand out. Women compared to men undersell their experience and capabilities but these must change if the woman wants to stand out. Women need to be more intentional about their careers and where they are headed, because one of the things that have continuously worked for the man, is his focus to keep pushing through and how intentional he is about growth. Real change in the career woman begins when she inhales that confidence and exhales the doubt.

Silvia Mwangi is the training and development manager at Corporate Staffing Services, an HR Consultancy firm based in Westlands, Nairobi.

Kenyan Women in Boards Rise by 36 percent

Posted on by Lilian Oduor

In the past decade, the representation of women in Kenyan boardrooms and executive suites has trebled, but much has to be done if parity is to be achieved.

Board diversity and inclusion has risen from 12 percent in 2012 to 36 percent this year, a survey carried out by Kenya Institute of Management (KIM), Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and New Faces New Voices (NFNV) shows.

In the C-suites, the percentage of women stands at 37 percent, up from 26 percent in 2017 and well ahead of the global average of 21 percent.

For instance, Kenya’s two listed energy utilities—KenGen and Kenya Power— both have female chief executives, with Kenya Power also having a female board chair.

Old prejudices remain, however, keeping a large number of deserving women out of their rightful place in the executive offices and boardrooms.

This is despite convergence in academic and competency levels between the two genders.

“Although there is plenty of progress in gender diversity and inclusion, unfortunately, it has remained challenging to break down roadblocks of age bias and prejudice in board recruitment,” read the survey report.

“This can be attributed to negative bias, unconscious or otherwise; a lack of opportunity for employers to access key talent and skills; inadequate retraining programmes and retention; or policy support requirements.”

The survey polled 193 firms, consisting of 112 private firms which are Kepsa members, 41 NSE listed firms and 40 other non-listed firms.

On the bright side, companies are taking concrete steps to address the gender imbalance in boardrooms, which will likely improve Kenya’s leading position in Africa in gender inclusivity.

According to the report’s findings, 97 percent of the polled companies were encouraging employees of diverse backgrounds to apply for board positions, while 85 percent had diversity and inclusion policy statements.

A similar number (85 percent) were providing training programs aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion to the rest of the organisation.​

Charles Mwaniki

There’s a new breed of women who are hungrier, trailblazers

Posted on by Lilian Oduor

There was an assumption that women value careers less or that they do not take up high-profile jobs and that it is okay to relegate the younger ones to less erudite, non-challenging jobs set up far away from the glassy C-suite offices, just a tiny desk tucked in a corner. Not that there is anything wrong with a tiny desk.

Then came a new breed of women who are hungrier than their mothers and grandmothers. They have become trailblazers in medicine, having studied specialities that were unheard of in Kenya, or icons having branched off in different spectrums of law or gotten bolder in changing the world.

In recognising the strides they have made to stand out, the 2021 Top 40 Under 40 project attracted over 1,000 nominees.

These were highly educated, some whom we could read ambition from their long list of achievements, very impactful in society and real models to the younger generation.

The list had activists, artists and athletes, scientists, and several people running enterprises. These are women who have broken rules and questioned why such rules existed in the first place. They broke records. They broke into new boundaries, revealing that what young Kenyans need is just a chance.

In coming up with the final list, the Business Daily, together with judges from key sectors and professional bodies, used all sorts of yardsticks to measure ‘outstanding.’ The judges picked the majority of the candidates, while the rest were cherry-picked by professional bodies, and a few from the original nominations list.

To capture what sets the winners apart, we reached out to people who watched them rise, to professional bodies that understand them better, and interrogated their success stories.

They share their experiences, attitudes, and decisions that catapulted their careers. Our goal is for every girl and woman to read someone’s story of scaling the highest reaches of success and hear that it is safe to climb.

​ Diana Mwango