As professionals, do you ever notice how women can be either our best friends or our biggest critics?
I ran into a friend today at the doctor’s office. She was telling me about her conversation with a top-level female executive of a large product company. My friend is the current speech writer for several corporate execs there and learned that this client was receiving negative marks for her speeches – at least more often than any of her colleagues. My friend writes speeches for both genders. So it’s hard to believe that the speech itself is the problem.
What did she do? She finally told her client she needed to change her wardrobe. She knew it was probably an issue with appearances. And she was reminded of this story (in the waiting room) when I was sharing a little bit about our Covert Leadership project and how I started out wanting to write a white paper about Hilary Clinton as a female brand. And what went wrong.
Her story made me think about the position with the new company I’ll be starting soon. As the newbie, I’ll need to rethink my current frumpy mom brand and really focus on how I look. Maybe it’s not always going to be a good hair day, but the apparel will matter.
What about you – do you focus on a certain “style” at work? Do you have your “schtick” for how you present yourself?
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