Welcome all Passionate, Dynamic Women Driven to Achieve, and those who work and live with them
Two years ago, I was watching a well-known speaker talk about the difference between men and women. He said that throughout their lives, men shift their focus from career to intimacy as they age. Women focus first on intimacy, then on career. I said, “Not the women I know.”
That’s when I decided to do my dissertation on the current generation of high-achieving women, specifically looking at what personal factors serve or frustrate their aspirations.
I was right. There’s a new generation of women in the workplace. They grew up in the self-help era so they are more confident and bold than most of the women who came before them. They engaged in competitive sports at school, giving them a sense of physical as well as mental strength. They have advanced and professional degrees.
At work, they want frequent new challenges. They love being busy and hate feeling bored. They want to be valued, respected and recognized and will work hard to deserve this. Yet they struggle when they feel pigeon-holed, underutilized, micro-managed, slowed down, and ignored.
What I found most interesting was how these women are redefining their relationships. Of the women I surveyed, 95% of those married or living with someone either made the same amount of money or more than their partners. They weren’t looking for a man to take care of them; they desired someone who would be their life partner, sharing in all the responsibilities, be it child-rearing or taking out the garbage.
When I shared these facts with the women I surveyed, many of them asked if they could meet the other women. They didn’t realize so many other women felt like them. They often felt like they were the only ones who worked so hard and cared so much at work. Wouldn’t it be great if they could share their thoughts, dreams, frustrations and victories?
So I created this Blog.
One of the first papers I wrote in graduate schools was called, “The Burden of Greatness” where I looked at the light and dark side of having a strong drive for achievement. So I created this Blog where women who are driven to achieve can meet, share ideas, rant, dream and learn. Please post your comments and insights, and send me articles. I will share with you my research to increase your self-awareness, and tips to help you get what you most desire in your life.
This is your site. It is a place to come home. You deserve it.
6 Responses to “Welcome all Passionate, Dynamic Women Driven to Achieve, and those who work and live with them”
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You have just described my life perfectly! How ever did you know? Obviously there are so many more of us out there than I thought. One of my biggest issues is boredome & underutilization. To solve this I have recently decided to leave the corporate world & start my own business. In this world I feel I will be able to create new challenges regularly, stretching & growing at my own rate. I hope that breaking free from the structure of the corporate world will finally free me of the burden part. Thanks for the blog! Great idea!
Kim, you are one of many high-achieving women who will opt out of the workforce, taking your wisdom and experience with you, because corporations are not meeting your needs. It’s one of the reasons women-owned businesses is on the rise. It’s time corporate leaders take a look at how to best use their “driven women.” I will address this in future posts.
Thank you for the statistic that 95% of these woman make more or the same as their spouses! I have made about 8 times as much as my husband for quite awhile now and at times I have felt resentful,and burdened especially with having 2 children in college. I realize however how much my husband contributes in other ways , he allows me to have balance and encourages me to play more, let go,laugh more, and he is the best example of support and unconditional love.
Great blog. And of course I have my own business too and love the freedom this allows in my life. Thanks here as well for this blog and your great research!
Entrepreneurship as an Alternate Gateway
to Professional Success for Canadian Women
By Margaret Page
The facts are undeniable: more and more Canadian women are leaving corporate careers, escaping a field of institutionalized limitations and reaching for the freedom and flexibility of self employment.
Canada is a global leader when it comes to women entrepreneurship. In fact, women entrepreneurs are one of the fastest growing segments of the Canadian economy, with more than 821,000 women entrepreneurs in Canada. In fact, 10 percent of all Canadian women are self employed. According to Stats Canada they are leaving the workforce at twice the rate of men to start their own business – and according to the Royal Bank of Canada they are starting businesses at almost 7 times the rate of men.
Why is entrepreneurship becoming increasingly attractive to Canadian women? Studies point to a growing frustration with the inherent limitations of the corporate career path for career women.
According to a Catalyst study, 29 percent of women business owners with prior private-sector experience cited glass-ceiling issues as the primary reason for leaving corporate positions. Of those women, 44 percent felt their contributions were not recognized or valued. No longer content to toil in corporate careers, where pay is 70 percent of men’s and opportunities to assume leadership roles are scarce and hard won, many women are seeking alternatives to the stunted corporate career path.
Their feelings of unequal treatment are validated by statistical evidence of a longstanding deficit of women in corporate leadership roles.
▪ Catalyst surveyed all of the Financial Post 500 companies in Canada in April 2007 and found that only 15 percent of upper management positions were held by women. Yet women comprised 49.6 percent of the labour force (as of 2006).
▪ A study conducted by executive search firm Rosenzweig & Co. found that of the 535 highest paid and most senior positions in Canada, only 5.8 percent were held by women in 2007 (down from 6.9 percent in 2006). Furthermore, only 26 percent of those companies have at least one woman in a C-level position (i.e. CEO, CMO, COO, CIO, CFO, etc.), down from 30 percent the year before.
These discouraging statistics certainly reflect an area of serious concern for the Canadian career woman, but these factors only tell part of the story.
In addition to taking control of their career path, many women are drawn to entrepreneurship by the dream of seamlessly running their careers, families and homes. Flexibility, more choice in time management, and relief from the tension of straddling many realms of responsibility are compelling measures of success for women.
According to a 2000 study by researchers Fenwick and Hutton of 95 Canadian women who left corporate employment for self-employment, women measure their success by a number of factors beyond revenue. “Success reflects children, daily satisfaction and fulfillment, quality of relationships comprising work networks, ability to choose daily activities, contributions to communities, reputations, and quality of life,” it says. This suggests that women use a holistic scale to measure their success and satisfaction with work.
Women’s natural tendencies to be nurturers and caregivers has often been limited by traditional career commitments, but the path of entrepreneurship offers the chance to capitalize on these innate talents without compromising professional ambitions. Whether that means working from home while raising young children or taking business relationships in a friendlier direction, entrepreneurial women are discovering new heights of fulfillment on the career path.
One of the pivotal factors in entrepreneurial women’s success is their ability to leverage their feminine qualities in the realm of networking. Women approach networking in a distinctly different style than men. While men tend toward strategic conversations, women generally aim to develop strong interpersonal bonds. Business topics certainly get addressed, but their style tends to address the whole person rather than the strategic objective alone.
Veering away from the golf course and cocktail hour, women are also leading the way into virtual networking. Online networking groups have become extremely popular for career women. WorldWIT, an online and offline network for women in the business and technology, is one such virtual hub for working women, connecting over 40,000 women.
As Canadian businesswomen continue to raise their profile in the realm of entrepreneurship, corporations will continue to see a drain of knowledge and talent from their ranks. In time, perhaps this trend will force them to reconcile the gender disparity in pay, recognition and leadership opportunities offered to Canadian women.
Margaret Page is a professional Business Coach and Life Coach who guides individuals along the path to success, providing the encouragement and support they need to live a life less ordinary. To find out if coaching is right for you, schedule a complimentary call by sending an e-mail to margaret@beyondthepage.ca or call (604) 885-0208.
Having been raised by a ‘driven woman,’ I can attest to the fact that it can create a great burden for their offspring, as well as themselves. My mother is one who most certainly would describe herself as one “called,” nevertheless, I struggled for many years with having felt ’secondary’ to her high aspirations. I read “The People of the Lie” by M. Scott Peck, and books on narcissicism to help me understand why I felt rather ‘conditionally loved.’ It led me to find a career in mental health as a nurse, but married for thirty years to a husband who has been devoted primarily to family,children,and home, unlike my physician/father. He passed away only a week ago after a brief and unexpected illness; his lifelong career in preventive and community medicine was balanced with his avocational ‘pursuit of meaning.’ He would have been 91 in June. Family, I have concluded for myself, must take priority over career, not just in sentiment, but in action. Faith in the God of the Bible has required me to re-evaluate how to use the gifts He has bestowed on me, so that honoring Him takes precedence over all else. In practice, this means demonstrating love to my husband and children, and then toward the community, in that order. Having spent too many years feeling the need to earn love from my parents by following their example, my ability to achieve that goal was unfortunately compromised. Establishing my life according to God’s Word, however, has brought about a sense of peace and acceptance that could never have come about through therapy, friends or worldly success.
I appreciate your Brain Tips, Marcia–you strike a familiar cord every time!
Thanks for sharing your story, Beth. There’s another great book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, that really helped me to understand that being “conditionally” loved is a form of abuse. It has been a long journey learning to love myself for who I am, not just what I do…and how to love others for who they are as well. Yet in the end, it is so freeing! Sounds like we are sharing a similar path.