Many thanks to the women who got back to me following my last newsletter with regard to the number of senior women in Calgary's business community. There's a couple of updates. Jennifer Mazer-Mikus advised me that Statoil (a Norwegian company with a Canadian office), meets the standard of 3 women on their management team in Canada and that the most senior operations position is led by a female engineer. In addition, Statoil has 4 women on the Norway Board, which supports their progressive policy for pushing for a broader representation of women in the management of the company.

In addition, I had the data for Agrium incorrect. Thank you to Melody Wisoley for gently letting me know that I only counted one female on the executive team, when in fact, there are 2. The revised data for Agrium should be 2 of 13 on the management team, with 15.3% representation.

Organizational Markers for Advancing Women -
What to Look For

Here are 6 organizational markers - what you can look for in your company to see how the advancement of women is managed.

• Ratio of Men to Women: Look at the number of women in your organization who are in senior management, on the board of directors or who are officers of the company - what is the ratio of men to women? (see the previous Leibham & Company newsletter for some interesting data on what's happening in some organizations in Calgary).
• Career Path - Ask your manager or HR representative what the typical career path to senior management is.
• Company Champions - Look inside your organization. What senior managers support the leadership development and promotion of women? How do you know this? How verbal are these leaders in advocating for women?
• Leadership Development Program - Does your company have a leadership development program targeted for women?
• Balance - What is the company's view on work-life balance? Are there perspectives that reflect a desire for flexible work arrangements? If so, are these captured in a policy?
• Career Building Experiences - What kind of experiences are women encouraged to include in their career repertoire? Is there a strategy to include profit and loss? The management of people? Is there a strategy to support leaders when faced with adverse conditions? How are women selected for positions of greater responsibility?

According to executives I interviewed in 2006, there are a number of key work experiences that women had that facilitated their advancement. These experiences included assignments that required her to work outside her technical expertise, managing a project that was a success, a project that brought visibility or a challenge that was resolved successfully, to name a few. Women also reported a number of positive experiences that contributed to their leadership success. In addition to the aforementioned, these included having a large scope project, contributing to the turnaround of a department or team that was struggling, having a supportive relationship such as a mentor, and positive role models, including their boss. And finally, recognition was mentioned 16% of the time. This ranged fro simply feeling valued to acknowledgement from management, being perceived as having credibility and having support from colleagues.

There are some specific strategies that you can put into place to move your career forward that are covered in the Leading From Within Leadership Coaching Program. Contact me to find out more about the leadership coaching program specifically geared to the leadership and learning needs of women. Or, if you'd like more information on how a needs assessment can be conducted in your organization, so that you know what can be put in place to keep your company competitive, contact me for information on management consulting services that I provide related specifically to attracting, retaining and developing female talent at leibham.and.company@shaw.ca.

Congratulations to These Leading Women:

Jennifer Mazer-Mikus who has moved into an HR Advisor role at Talisman Energy.

Wendy Bull who has been promoted to Manager, Calgary Procurement & Operations at Long View Systems.

Lorraine Mitchelmore of Shell Oil, who has been named the Canada Country Chair & VP Exploration Americas Onshore.

Judy Fairburn who is part of the executive team building the new company Cenovus Energy as the EVP of Environment & Strategic Planning.

In my experience, women tend to be quite humble and rarely blow their own horns when it comes to their accomplishments, so if you know of someone who has moved or perhaps your own role has changed, please let me know so we can celebrate!