About John M. McKee
John M. McKee, founder and president of BusinessSuccessCoach.net, author of "21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot," and a Tempur-Pedic Wellness Advisor, is one of America's premier executive and business coaches. A 30-year veteran of corporate boardrooms and executive suites, John provides sound, first-hand advice, along with proven tips, tools and strategies, for fast-tracking upward career mobility. As a Wellness Advisor, John has partnered with Tempur-Pedic to identify timely insights into sleep and wellbeing to help educate consumers on the impact of night-time renewal on their professional lives.
Buy the Book: "21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot."
WIB: In your book, "21 Ways Women in Management Shoot Themselves in the Foot," you address gender bias at work. While you admit men may not truly appreciate the unique challenges business women face your book seeks to help women better understand the male corporate culture. But to foster diversity and inclusion shouldn't we be better educating the men, too? How can more women get more involved in shaping change within their own business environment?
McKee: The first step in women shaping and improving their own business environments is to put into place attitudes, management styles and structures that create an environment and atmosphere where women can succeed. I can't tell you how often I hear from female clients their supervisors convey the attitude, "I had to work hard to get where I am today, and you can too!" Women flourish in egalitarian and supportive work environments with an open communication management style, and women in positions of power within their own business environments should strive to create these environments for their own employees, female or male.
And of course the guys can use some additional schooling in quite a few areas. Here are three key learnings that men need to be clear on:
- Men and women really do communicate differently! Simply put, women talk to think and men think to talk. I think everyone can benefit from reading "The Female Brain" by Dr. Louanne Brizendine because it brings to the forefront the role anatomy plays in how differently women think and process information.
- Women are instinctively more egalitarian in their management style and men are more hierarchical. The guys need to learn and adopt this style in today's environments where one's title is less important than one's contribution.
- A woman's life is not as simple as career and family. The research is clear that women still handle the majority of the workload on the home front - and remember, running the household was once considered to be a full time job. The impact children have on a woman's career is very different than her male counterparts.
