9
Lean In and Lead with a Yes
Julia was up for an endowed professorship at the university and, as she told it, the job interview had gone swimmingly. “The appointments committee was super-enthusiastic about my stature in the field and my contribution to the department,” she said. “In fact, one member went out of his way to congratulate me on the big foundation grant I had just pulled in—the largest in five years.”
But as the interview was winding down, the chairman of the committee peered over his glasses and threw her one last question. “If you got this appointment,” he began, “you’d obviously have many more leadership responsibilities.” There were nods all around the table. “And so we’re wondering,” he continued, “if we could still count on you to teach Economics 101?”
Everybody looked at Julia expectantly.
As she remembers it, she immediately sensed a test and answered very carefully, “Much as I’d love to continue teaching undergraduates, I think my focus should be on graduate students. That would align much better with my duties as lead person on the newly funded research.” She flashed what she hoped was a gracious, accommodating smile.
Her response didn’t seem to elicit any reaction. She shook hands with committee members and was politely shown the door.
She didn’t get the job.
Shocked, hurt, and more than a bit confounded, Julia didn’t see her error until a colleague and good friend who sat on the appointments committee called to give her some offline advice and feedback. As soon as he started to speak, she could hear the exasperation in his voice. He liked and respected Julia and was irritated that she had shot herself in the foot. “Never,” he began, sucking in his breath, “never ever say no to that kind of question. What the committee was testing was your loyalty to the university. They know you’re a star. You didn’t have to convince them on that score. They understand you have a huge external reputation. What they didn’t know and wanted to find out is whether you’re committed to this institution. Econ 101 is not at the top of your list, but it is at the top of theirs. It’s a cash cow for the university, one that can pull in 125 students a year if it’s taught by someone with your star power. If you don’t teach it, it will hurt their bottom line.”
Julia tried to reiterate the logic that lay behind her response. But her colleague cut her short. “Next time,” he urged, “just say yes. You can save the caveats for when you’ve gotten the job.”
Attitude Is Everything
It bears repeating: just say yes. Hold back on sharing your reservations until you’re in a position to negotiate.
Too often, CTI research shows, women don’t. They lead with a long explanation of why they’re not, regrettably, going to be able to step up to the plate. They’re not able to fully commit, they explain, or they’re not ready or perfectly qualified, or they have child-care issues. Women don’t consider themselves capable of assuming greater responsibilities unless they’re certain they have what it takes to deliver on expectations. They don’t want to disappoint. They don’t want to fail. They insist on being totally honest. So even as they come through on both essential fronts, and even as they distinguish themselves with a personal brand, they eliminate themselves from a sponsor’s contention by indicating they’re not willing to just go for it. To use Sheryl Sandberg’s term, they don’t lean in.1
Men, on the other hand, tend to overstate their abilities and their capacity to deliver. They also exude much more can-do energy than women. A 2005 University College London study compared men and women’s estimation of their intelligence and corroborated earlier work showing that men of modest IQ award themselves higher estimated scores than women with high IQs.2 In Beyond the Boys’ Club, Suzanne Doyle-Morris demonstrates what she calls the female self-sabotage phenomenon in job interviews.3 In Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever see how women do themselves a disservice in negotiations by constantly low-balling what they could get.4
To be sure, women worldwide are more constrained than men. They’re burdened by responsibilities on the home front as they continue to shoulder the bulk of the child care and the majority of the housework. Asian women in particular feel the weight of elder-care demands: 95 percent of Indian women and 95 percent of Chinese women working full-time say they have responsibilities to aging parents. Seventy-five percent of high-echelon women in the United Arab Emirates recognize how imperative international travel is to their careers, but 62 percent point out that cultural mores make it all but impossible to travel alone, and 71 percent contend that they cannot obtain visas.5
But constraints needn’t be the first thing discussed when an opportunity is gleaming on the table. What’s critical to communicate about yourself, as Julia learned the hard way, is not ability but eagerness to grab hold of the offer. Sponsors aren’t looking for “yes men” in the political sense: they expect someone with real leadership potential to have real conflicts. When they throw a stretch assignment or a fear-inducing opportunity at you, they want to gauge your attitude, a critical component of the loyalty they value so highly, and not your ability, which they’ve already assessed. CTI research shows that 57 percent of sponsors value a can-do attitude in their protégés; 44 percent agreed that protégés should deliver 110 percent. Yet among protégés, only 32 percent say they “lead with a yes.” A great many women, and at least some men, inadvertently dim their prospects for advancement or opportunity by failing to demonstrate their commitment first, their reservations later.
Say Yes Even If You Know It’s a Qualified No
What does “leading with a yes” look like? The CFO of a Fortune 500 company gave us a great example. He wanted to put forward his protégé, Susan, for the newly vacant chief operating officer position. Her competence, credentials, and experience weren’t at issue (she was the best qualified of the candidates), but he wanted to be sure, before risking his relationship capital on this candidate, that she had the “go-getterness” to outshine the other six contenders on the chief executive’s short list for the COO position. So he called her into his office to explore her attitude.
“Susan, we’ve got an incredible opportunity opening up,” he began. “It’s going to require going to Omaha for six weeks, where we’ve just gotten the go-ahead to set up a new office. We need someone first-rate, someone who can put together a crack team on short notice. You’ve got the know-how and the network, and you know what our priorities are going forward, so you’re my first choice. What do you say?”
Susan didn’t miss a beat. “Fantastic!” she said. “When do I leave?”
The next day, Susan returned to the CFO’s office to reiterate her enthusiasm but also discuss logistics. She had a one-year-old, a roster of clients to maintain, and a major project she needed to wrap up. “I’m hugely fired up about the assignment,” she began, “and delighted you chose me to carry it out, as I’m entirely confident I can get the job done in six weeks. But”—she drew a breath—“I wonder if I might propose a slightly different approach.” Susan then laid out her plan: three days a week on-site in Omaha, two days a week overseeing the project from the home office. She’d send her own trusted lieutenant to Omaha to hold the fort and maintain momentum for the entire six-week period. Could that work out? She would absolutely lead the project, but this arrangement, she explained, would allow her to keep a close eye on the mission-critical work at the home office as well as the fledgling Omaha operation.
“Of course I agreed,” this CFO commented. “I could hardly expect one of my top performers to drop everything and relocate to some outpost for a straight six weeks. She handled the whole thing like the executive I suspected she was, delegating what she could in order to lead what she must, all the while convincing me she was totally gung-ho.” He added, “As far as I’m concerned, she’s more than cleared the bar for the position.”
- Save “yes” for your sponsor. One biotech recruiter I interviewed observed, “Be selective about whom you say yes to: you can’t say yes to everybody or you’ll be spread too thin to ace any one assignment.” Consider, too, how this particular yes, said to this particular person, will advance your career. It really comes down to being strategic about who you’re cultivating as a sponsor.
- Propose solutions rather than present problems. You’re perfectly entitled to accept a mission with caveats. But show enormous enthusiasm and gratitude, and don’t throw your conditions back at your sponsor as issues you expect him or her to solve. Think through how you can make the opportunity work best for you. You owe it to yourself and your sponsor to give yourself the latitude you’ll need to succeed. Lead with this solution when negotiating next steps.