Geronimo Leadership Coaching

Meg Whitman: The Laser Light with a Big Smile

When you reach the Top of the Top, "la Crème de la crème" of the most successful leaders of the world, and you're the only woman out of The 100 Best Performing CEOs in the World,the way you communicate and express yourself in public is certainly worth studying.

Hence, Meg Whitman makes the first of my series about women leaders and communication styles.

• What makes her stand out?
• How does she communicate?
• How could she act as a role model for women in business?

Let's watch her first in this speech

What makes her stand out?

Ease, confidence and flexibility, combined with strong persuasion.

• Leading eBay from 1998 to 2008, Meg Whitman helped the Company grow from 30 employees and a little over $ 4million in revenue to more than 15,000 employees and nearly $8 billion in revenue

• Prior to eBay, she held various leadership positions with Procter&Gamble, Disney and Hasbro
• She's now running for Governor of California

How does she communicate?

• A charismatic leader, she uses influence rather than force.

• She's flexible when persuasion is needed to convince others, yet fast-paced, swift at making decisions.

• She's famous for being excellent at expressing ideas and she has brought to eBay her natural charisma and a strong desire to make a decisive impact.

How could she act as a role model for women in business?

• Meg Whitman is The Symbol of Success in Corporate America:

"If you’re looking for a role model for your children or grandchildren, look no further. Share the details of her past and simply focus your attention to your newspaper, magazine, television or the internet to see what she’s mastering at the moment. Her bio reads like a fairy tale, and just when you think her career has peaked, she takes it to another level." Harry K.Jones

• She personifies Confidence which is what women crave for
• She combines a preference for Self-Enhancement, rather masculine, with listening skills, boosted by a great enthusiasm and optimism.
• Both women AND men can identify with her.

Here's what eBay's executives say about her :

Apart from the fact this is also a political campaign for California, and I don't support any political party here, what strikes me is the way these men speak about their ex CEO :

"Joyful, always having fun, huge smile. She's got a great laugh." (Henry Gomez, former Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, eBay.)

"She's your friend, she's the one who challenges you, she's the one who pushes you to new heights." (Bill Cobb,former President eBay North America.)

"With her laser light focus,she would get to the two or three things which really matters, knock them out and then move on to the next." (Rajiv Dutta, former President Marketplaces, Paypal and Skype, and CFO eBay.)

They're in adoration with the Goddess Meg!

That's why I called her the laser light with a big smile!

In the SPM Leadership and Communication styles Profiling Model, where you can identify 12 preferences, Meg Whitman represents best the Persuader Communication Style.

Persuaders have a strong personal drive to lead and guide others. They are likely to have developed a strong ability to convince others through a variety of communication skills, which can include communicating with a large audience, assertiveness and understanding the motivational drives of others.

Verbal and non-verbal communication : clear, direct but well-structured argument, free flowing body movements, vocally forceful without raising their voice.

Core competencies-Excellent at expressing ideas, assertive, self confident, decisive, competitive, autonomous.

If we take into account the cultural mapping of the SPM, this dimension is also very representative of the Anglo-Saxon culture, and especially the US.

I started with an emblematic personality for the United States, representing a model of assertivity, self-confidence and clear communication.

Meg Whitman is a charismatic woman in a men's world.

We'll see that there are other ways of expressing our voice, around the world, depending on our culture and our values.

It's the 31 st of January, and my first of 12 posts about women leaders.Thanks to your enthusiastic comments , tweets and emails, I'm starting to collect plenty of new names, different personalities I would never have thought before.

Thank YOU!

• I also decided to write in collaboration with Ann Perschell, who is as passionate as I am about empowering women.

• With Dorothy Dalton, "it's never too late to start up", or to speak up, we're co-creating a workshop to empower European Women in Bruxelles.

• In addition to this series, I intend to conduct interviews of women I met thanks to twitter, who have found their Voice and learned to express it, with more or less assertivity or confidence, but always with integrity and passion. They will tell their stories and share their successes, their failures and their hopes, their role models and also their tips.

If you want to be part of this adventure, leave me a comment now!

Only One Woman CEO out of The 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World!

Happy to be back to blogging after one week "on the road", (snowy road!) giving 5 days training in a row. Team building and then leadership seminar for International Generation Y business school students from the CEFAM, Franco American School of Management in Lyon.French, American, African, Asian students... Incredible shift among young women, and men, too, in how they picture themselves as leaders in the next 5 years...

I will share some insights from this experience with you very soon, but first, let's start with Women Speakers Series!

Before writing on my blog, I like to check my tweets and favorite blogs, about women, presentation, learning and leadership.This morning, I clicked on a link:

"The 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World" from the Harvard Business Review.

Not very surprised, I discovered the top of the list with Steve Jobs ' picture showing up.

Much more surprised, then, when I figured out how many women were on that prestigious list.

How many? Out of one hundred? Have a guess!

One!...Only one woman...Incredible! And this woman is Margaret Whitman, ex CEO of eBay.The woman on top of the 12 women leaders list I decided to blog about this year.

If, like me, you're wondering why there's only one woman nominated, take 10 minutes to read another article from HBR,

"Women CEOs: Why So Few?" especially the comments, coming both from men and women.If you're more interested by Margaret Whitman Communication Style, skip to the bottom of the page, or even better, wait for my next post!

I can't help but quoting Anne Perschell, from Germane Consulting, whom I "met" via twitter(@BizShrink).

"We need to change the lens and reframe this entire discussion. Let's begin with a review of the criteria for best performing companies and best performing CEOs. Under what cultural rules were they determined? What are the underlying assumptions about what "best" companies and CEOs do and put into the world? Do they include a measure of the social or environmental good vs harm; building strong families and communities; raising moral standards? As long as the lens for determining goodness is based on the predominant culture, those who are seen as successful will for the most part be members of that predominant group that creates the rules. Women in business are creating a parallel economy that is changing the lens, the culture, the rules and the way we measure business and CEO success. For evidence, consider Andrea Jung's mission for AVON - "To improve the lives of women globally." It may take a while but we'll get there. Harvard Business may see the light some day but is not currently a leader in transforming how we define successful businesses and the leaders who create them. If they were, we'd have a different list based on different criteria and more women would be included."

For presentation skills, I believe there's a similar bias.

What used to be the predominant model of Communication Style for leaders ?

• Assertive
• Determined
• Speaks at a fast rythm
  
• Free flowing body movement
  
• Vocally forceful without raising their voice
  
• Direct and straightforward
• Self-confident
• Competitive
• Convincing
• Influencing others to share their vision and objectives
  

According to Spony Profiling Model, an integrative management model sensitive to both personality and cross-cultural differences, this communication style matches the "Persuader" Leadership style.

I've been using this model in my training and coaching for 6 years now, especially at Cranfield School of Management with L'Oreal Executives.

This model reveals 12 styles of Leadership, and 6 Dilemnas.

Given the large part of women Marketing directors among L'Oreal, who were looking for role models, I decided, after asking the permission to Gilles Spony, to illustrate freely his model.

I researched and found 12 women leaders, illustrating each one "archetype" of communication and leadership style.

The ideal would be to ask each of the women speakers and leaders to take the questionnaire on-line and get an objective result.

This series of post is based on my perception and personal interpretation of how these leaders communicate, based on interviews, articles, testimonies and sometimes videos.

While I think the Persuader communication style is still one of the most successful in a corporate western environment, I believe each one of us has to speak according to our values, our personality and also respecting our culture or the cultures we are communicating with.

Next Post: Why is Margaret Whitman, "Meg" Whitman a perfect illustration of this communication style?

Meanwhile, some questions for you:

• Is there a predominance of the anglo-saxon leadership and communication model in your company, or with your clients?
• What about non-western cultures?
• Latin and Mediterranean cultures?
• Scandinavian cultures?
• Do you sometimes find it difficult to relate to assertive styles of communication?
• How comfortable are you with a wide range of original communication styles?