leadership

Women Supervisors: The Danger of Micromanaging

lawblogger — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:24:52 -0500

Lately, I’ve started to wonder if women are more likely to be ineffective managers than men. I think, after mulling it over for a few days, that women (who we already know have to work harder to get into positions of power) might have perfectionist complexes that go past the objective and into the subjective, which might make them difficult to work under.

For example, I have a friend who has been complaining to me about his boss (a woman). He says that she likes to be kept “in the loop” on everything he does, including minor emails, and that she will often correct him in front of others or send clarifying emails following his emails that mostly say the same thing he said but in different words. (i.e. he’ll send out an email that says “We’re meeting in the conference room at 10. Please bring your case materials” and she’ll send an email that says “Just to clarify, all the members of the team will be meeting. Please bring your drafts of the memo.”) He can’t stand his boss. At first, I thought he was just chafing to work under a woman or that, if anything, this particular woman was a bit of a micromanager.

I had the issue in my head though, so I started noticing things around my own office. Last week, I had to get a few documents approved by one of my female supervisors, and she made me go back and forth with several minor, subjective changes (i.e. I wrote “individuals” and she wanted “people”). I thought of my friend and started to wonder whether female supervisors feel the need to vouch more for their employees than male supervisors, which then leads to a painful degree of micromanagement. In my case, the document was not that important, and I was actually signing my name to it, so my supervisor wasn’t publicly linked to it at all. Why, then, the need to have me make several superficial wording changes?

HLS Celebration Fifty-Five: The Women's Leadership Summit

jlwallace — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 11:55:45 -0500

Start: 18 Sep 2008 - 5:00pm

End: 21 Sep 2008 - 1:45pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

What is leadership? How should we use it? How do we foster its growth?

These questions will be at the heart of Celebration 55: The Women's Leadership Summit, a historic four-day event honoring fifty-five years of women leaders at Harvard Law School. For a look at the program, scheduled for September 18–21, 2008 at HLS, please click here.

Why Do We Need Women's Bar Associations?

Elizabeth Peck — Fri, 2 May 2008 08:07:00 -0500

Elizabeth K. Peck is President and Co-Founder of the Finger Lakes Women’s Bar Association and the Director of Career Services at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY

Why Do We Need Women’s Bar Associations?

I asked myself this very question 18 months ago. Back in October of 2006, along with 300 other women attorneys in my area, I was invited to breakfast by the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) to discuss starting a new chapter of the organization. Honestly, I had no interest then in a “specialty bar.” What I did have, however, was interest in meeting local attorneys. Much as I had tried, I hadn’t yet connected with lawyers in my community. Tapping into this network was important to me because I am a career counselor at a law school in rural New York. Each year a small number of my students want to stay in our lovely hamlet to practice law after graduation. Without contacts among local lawyers I couldn’t serve their needs as well as I wanted to. In small communities, if you want to find a job, you’ve got to know people.

So, I went to breakfast. I listened to the pitch. I ate luke-warm eggs. Nothing. Then, I just happened to meet the right person at the right time. On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, I struck up a conversation with a young woman attorney working for a local firm. “Ah ha!” I thought. “This is exactly the kind of person I’d like to get to know.” I quickly realized that helping to start this new organization would connect me to the very people I had been yearning to meet. So, after 20 minutes of chatting in the October sunshine, we’d decided to start a new bar association.

And, to make a long story short: we did. Six months after our initial meeting, the Finger Lakes Women’s Bar Association was born. I am, to this day, continuously surprised at our success. Our little chapter grew from 25 to 60 members in a year. (In fact, although we are a women’s bar association, we are open to all and quite proud of our sole male member.) We have held meetings, social events and continuing legal education courses. Our members have learned of the sacrifices of the suffragettes, listened to the wisdom of an early NOW president, and come up to speed on the continued struggle for women’s equality in the world of college sports.

And because our bar association is a chapter of the state-wide women’s bar, we have also witnessed the immense power that women, singly and collectively, can have. At the state-level, WBASNY (yes, it is an ungainly acronym) gives voice to the needs of women, children and families before the New York State Legislature. With a paid lobbyist and very committed volunteer members, our organization analyzes legislation pending in Albany and advocates for those bills which will best serve the people of New York, especially those people who are women, children or members of families.

This is all very nice, but get back to the original question: so, why a women’s bar association? Don’t co-ed bars do the same things? Well, yes and no.

Women in Law Leadership Academy

Karen H — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:33:25 -0500

Start: 8 Nov 2007 - 9:30am

End: 9 Nov 2007 - 12:30pm

Timezone: America/Chicago

Sponsored by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

Visit http://www.abanet.org/women/will.html for more info, to register, to sponsor, etc.

Chicago