Toot Your Own Horn...Don't Blow It
by Connie Glaser
Best-selling author and keynote speaker Connie
Glaser is one of the country's leading experts on gender communication and women
in leadership . Exploring communication differences
between men and women, Connie offers corporate seminars on effective communications
and overcoming barriers to leadership.
Tooting our own horn is one of the greatest challenges for women in business.
So let's take a look at some strategies that have helped women successfully
promote themselves.
Nick Corcodilos, online host and author of Ask the Headhunter, shares this
story about a women who knew how to crow.
Leslie was a successful manager at a large retail chain. Recently divorced,
with two children to support, she decided she needed a change of scenery
and an opportunity to start over somewhere else.
"So I picked the city, identified the two best companies for me, and
did lots of homework," Leslie says.
One of the companies -- an international clothing retailer -- invited Leslie
for an interview for an upper-level management position. On the plane, she
decided to change her attitude about interviewing.
"No more trying to sell myself based on my credentials. It wasn't enough," she
told herself. "I had one goal: to show them I could do the job."
As her interview hummed along, Leslie took a huge risk -- but one that made
her credibility soar. "In the midst of explaining exactly how I was
going to make the company more successful, I got up and walked out the door," she
says.
"Come on! No more talk! I'm going to show you what I can do," Leslie
announced. She led her two interviewers onto the retail floor, where she
started demonstrating changes she would make to increase sales. By the time
she was finished, the interviewers were speechless. Finally, one spoke up. "You’re
exactly what we’re looking for," he told Leslie. "Someone
who's ready to do the job. When can you start?"
When it comes to self-promotion, few of us are as gutsy and up-front as
Leslie. Yet it's sheer confidence and enthusiasm like hers that goes a long
way in persuading higher-ups that you've got what it takes to make them look
good and to motivate others.
So what's holding you back from blowing your own horn? Chances are, those
outdated cultural messages and social conditioning are mostly to blame. Growing
up, so many of us are taught that it is unladylike to draw attention to ourselves
-- that it's egotistical and boastful.
Indeed, in her landmark study, Harvard University professor Carol Gilligan
found that as girls enter adolescence, they begin to submerge their personalities
under the cultural mask of femininity. "Girls are afraid to speak up
for themselves because they see that women who do are often spoken about
and ostracized," says Elizabeth DeBold, a member of the Harvard Project
On womens Psychology and Girls' Development, who worked on Gilligan's study.
Is it any surprise, then, that even, when we do shine, so many of us feel
vaguely apologetic about it? As Lois Wyse once noted, "Men are taught
to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths."
Adds career coach, Judith Rutkin, "Women often become confused when
their good work is not recognized. And most likely it won't be -- unless
you point it out to others."
The good news is promoting yourself doesn't have to make you cringe. "The
goal," Rutkin adds, "is to come across in a positive light that
establishes your credibility without appearing boastful or self-aggrandizing."
