Release:
February 7, 2024

Women of NATE Today Newsletter
Volume 6, Issue 2

Galentine’s Day, inspired by Parks and Recreation icon Leslie Knope's fearless spirit, really hits home for me in terms of sisterhood and empowerment. "Every February 13, my lady friends and I leave our partners behind and just chill, breakfast-style," captures that sense of celebrating women's strength and resilience. In today's telecommunications industry, where we're all carving out our space, I am reminded of the amazing women who've had my back.

Reflecting on the many hats I wear as a woman, I am deeply touched by the unwavering support from the incredible women in my life. So, in the spirit of Galentine’s Day, I am committed to turning up the volume on my fellow women's voices and fostering a culture of empowerment. Let's stand strong together, offering genuine support and standing in solidarity. This month, I'm diving in headfirst, leading with my heart and checking in on my colleagues to see how I can lend a hand in their personal and professional journeys.

Let's embrace the essence of Galentine’s Day and the empowerment it embodies. As we navigate the twists and turns of life, let's not forget the profound impact we have on each other. Together, we're an unstoppable force, capable of achieving greatness. Let's lift each other up, celebrating every success and milestone along the way. By cultivating a community of support and empowerment, we're laying the foundation for a future where every woman feels valued and empowered to thrive.

And remember what Serena Williams said, "The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up." Let's live by that creed, propelling each other forward as we climb the ladder (and tower) of success in the telecom industry.

WON Profile: Lindsey Westphal

Where will you find the Women of NATE?

Take Women of NATE with you!

Are you traveling for work or taking a leisure vacation?

Take a creative photo holding a Women of NATE (WON) logo in front of a landmark that lets us know where you are. 

Upcoming Events

Register for NATE UNITE 2024 Today!

NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association invites you to attend NATE UNITE 2024, February 19-22 at the Renasant Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

NATE UNITE is widely regarded as the premier conference and trade show in the diverse tower and wireless communications infrastructure, construction, service, and maintenance infrastructure industries focused on safety. The NATE UNITE lineup consists of an impressive array of educational sessions, networking receptions, luncheons, and speakers. NATE’s tower stage area in the exhibit hall will host several opportunities for attendees to see the latest in new safety equipment and techniques. New to the lineup this year, NATE is proud to offer the first annual Customer Diversification Workshop Pavilion! The series of workshops, free to attend for NATE UNITE 2024 attendees, will highlight how to position companies to secure new work opportunities with the federal government, fiber deployment, and electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure sectors. 

Visit natehome.com to register to attend and view further details regarding NATE UNITE 2024. Information regarding the educational sessions featured at NATE UNITE 2024 can be located in the Pre Show Planner. For further information on how to become an exhibitor and showcase your products and services to NATE UNITE attendees, the Sponsor and Exhibitor Planning Guide and the booth space contract are also available on the NATE website. Contact Shari Wirkus, NATE Events and Meetings Manager, at 605-882-5865 or shari@natehome.com for additional information on exhibiting or sponsoring NATE UNITE 2024.

Recent Event Highlights

(Above) NATE Chief Operating Officer Paula Nurnberg met with Brian Wing of PerfectVision at the NATE booth at the Avalon TUF Event in Dallas, Texas. 

(Above) NATE Director of Finance and Human Resources Kari Stein was invited to the Colorado Wireless Association Holiday Social to accept a donation of $7,500 to the Tower Family Foundation. Brian Fisher and Chris Ecton of COWA were there to present her with the check. Thank you, COWA for your generosity! 

(Above) NATE Board Member Jimmy Miller of MILLERCO, Scott Burdette of Tower Systems, Inc., and NATE Chief Operating Officer Paula Nurnberg caught up with both NATE members and new potential members at the BICSI show in Orlando, Florida.

New Research: Women More Effective Than Men In All Leadership Measures

In 2023, for the first time in history, women CEOs led about 10% of Fortune 500 companies. This is undoubtedly an important milestone. But it also underscores the need for more women at all levels of leadership.

And this is not just about representation. Women leaders are good for business:

• The Ready-Now Leaders report from the Conference Board shows that organizations with at least 30% women in leadership roles are 12x more likely to be in the top 20% for financial performance.
• Research from Leadership Circle, based on assessments with over 84,000+ leaders and 1.5 million raters (comprising boss, boss’s boss, peers, direct reports, and others), shows that female leaders show up more effectively than their male counterparts across every management level and age level.

Creating a pipeline for women leaders is a business issue. IBM’s report this year states that “Women remain acutely underrepresented in the middle management tiers, jeopardizing prospects for a healthy pipeline of future women leaders.” So, how can you best develop a pipeline of female leaders to drive equitability and bottom-line results?

First, it helps to understand what exactly makes women more effective leaders. And who could better break down the research than Cindy Adams, President and CLO at Leadership Circle? Adams was at the helm of Leadership Circle’s new study, which offers insights into the differences in leadership impact between male and female leaders. She is passionate about using this data to help women advance in leadership roles.

The Feminine Leadership Advantage—How Women Outscore Men In Leadership Effectiveness

The research that Adams led at Leadership Circle is from the Leadership Circle Profile, a scientifically validated 360-degree assessment of leadership that measures “Creative Competencies” and “Reactive Tendencies.”

“Creative leaders’ behaviors flow from their values and purpose,” Adams said, “rather than from a set of assumptions about how leaders are supposed to behave.” Creative Competencies are highly researched and validated effective leadership competencies around the world. These include competencies that scale across five dimensions:

1. Relating
2. Self-awareness
3. Authenticity
4. Systems Awareness
5. Achieving

Reactive Tendencies, on the other hand, are tendencies that “got us here, but won’t get us there,” Adams said. “The reactive structure of ‘beliefs and assumptions’ are designed to keep us safe or to protect a sense of worth. But, they contain self-limiting beliefs and behaviors that hold leaders back from achieving their full potential.” Reactive leaders rely heavily on early life scripts of what leaders are supposed to do and say, which often leads to autocratic micromanaging. The three reactive dimensions include:

1. Complying
2. Protecting
3. Controlling

Based on Leadership Circle’s growing database of more than 240,000 complete leadership profiles, Adams highlighted three key advantages that research indicates contribute to female leaders being more effective than male leaders.

1. Women score significantly higher on all five Creative Dimensions: Women leaders score significantly higher in their capability to “connect and relate to others,” as well as in the Authenticity and Systems Awareness competencies. This suggests that women leaders are not only better at building relationships but also that the relationships they build are characterized by authenticity and an awareness of how they contribute to “the greater good beyond the leader’s immediate sphere of influence.”
2. Women are more likely to lead from a Creative mindset and “play for all to win”: Adams wrote, “Female leaders more often lead from a ‘playing to win’ orientation—focusing on their natural curiosities about what matters most to the future they are creating and partnering with others to move toward that vision. Male leaders can and do also lead from this orientation, but they are just as likely to lead from a ‘play not to lose’ orientation and may spend as much time moving away from what they don’t want as moving toward what they do.”
3. Women build and cultivate stronger connections: Adams said, “Female leaders show up in a noticeably different way than male leaders in terms of building caring connections, mentoring and developing others, and exhibiting concern for the community. In today’s business environment, this acts as a superpower.”

“In a nutshell,” Adams said, “female leaders demonstrate higher levels of leadership effectiveness and higher levels of Creative competency (in all dimensions), and they demonstrate lower Reactive impact compared to their male counterparts.”

Despite all the measurable benefits female leaders bring to organizations, many still do not effectively develop and support them.

How To Develop Women Leaders To Harness the Feminine Leadership Advantage

“If you’re not forging a path in your company to make leadership more inclusive or leveraging the full power and potential of women in leadership, then you’re not doing all you can for the success of your organization.”

—Cindy Adams, Chief Learning Officer at Leadership Circle

To harness the feminine leadership advantage, Adams points out that simply hiring more women isn’t enough.

“Diversity in leadership ranks is proven to have a strategic advantage,” Adams emphasized. “It’s important to not only hire and promote female leaders but to encourage their development early and to help them gain as much business experience and knowledge as they can in roles that may still be male-dominated.”

Perhaps the single best way to develop a strong pipeline of female leaders is to build a Women in Leadership program. What follows are four key elements to enable a successful program.

1. Focus on “Authentic Self-Advocacy.”

Leadership Circle’s data reveals that, despite female leaders showing up more effectively than male leaders, they underestimate their skills and influence to a greater extent than male leaders. Female leaders are also “overloaded and overcommitted” to a higher degree than their male counterparts.

To Adams, this points to the need for women to learn how to see themselves authentically and to learn how to talk about their strengths and advocate for themselves. For example, the first several months of Adobe’s women-in-leadership training program focus on personal leadership practices intended to empower up-and-coming women leaders. Participants explore questions like:

• What are your superpowers? What are your unique talents and strengths? How can you amplify them and bring them to the organization?
• What are your values?
• Who can be on your personal board of directors to support your success?
• How can you maximize your time for greater impact?

Emphasis on authentic self-advocacy helps narrow the gap between women’s measurable effectiveness and their self-perception.

2. Lean on Cohort-Based Learning and Peer Learning.

Learning is much more likely to “stick” when it happens in a community of like-minded people. Adobe’s program, for example, leverages “Mastermind” groups of four to six women participants, in which they can peer coach and dive deeper into what they’re learning. Cohort-based learning emphasizes networking and relationship-building, which are especially vital in remote and hybrid work environments. A cohort-based approach can help create an ongoing network of support that extends far beyond the period of your program.

3. Leverage Executive Coaches To Personalize Growth and Support.

In a one-on-one coaching relationship, women leaders can get personalized support as they navigate their growth and development. The pharmaceutical company Endo prioritizes coaching in its “ASPIRE” program for women in leadership. “I've seen the power of pairing strong female talent with strong female coaches,” said Patrick Barry, EVP and president of global commercial operations at Endo. “So, I helped build ASPIRE to formalize the pairing of female talent with coaches.”

Similarly, Adobe weaves executive coaching into the fabric of its women-in-leadership program. At Adobe, executive coaches are involved not only as one-on-one support for participants but also in conversations with participants’ managers. This helps deepen the coaches’ impact and involve the participants’ managers more directly.

4. Bridge the “Knowing-Doing Gap” with Application Exercises and Manager Engagement.

Providing leaders opportunities to practice, experiment, and apply new beliefs and skills is the best way to translate “learning” into “doing.”

At Adobe, participants move into breakout groups immediately after a new concept has been introduced. Breakout sessions offer participants the opportunity to reflect and discuss how they’ll put new learnings into practice and answer questions like:

• How will I use this concept?
• What will it look like?
• What questions do I have?

Adobe is also intentional about engaging participants’ managers in the process. “We ask the participants to give monthly updates to their managers and share what they learned, how they can apply it, and how their manager can help,” said Angela Szymusiak, director of DE&I talent development at Adobe. “Encouraging participants to engage their managers throughout this experience helps ground their learning and makes it practical, relevant, and valuable in their day-to-day jobs.”

Start Developing Your Women Leaders NOW

No matter the design, content, or length of a leadership development program, Adams says it’s crucial to start early—for the benefit of future women leaders and the organization at large.

“Women, in particular, make that shift from ‘less effective’ to ‘more effective’ sooner than men,” says Adams. “If we start building more diverse teams and organizations now, businesses will be better for it, and the world will be better for it today and ten years from now.”

This article was previously published on forbes.com.

Book Recommendation of the Month