{"id":1163,"date":"2016-03-10T13:11:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T18:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2018-01-31T15:16:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T20:16:51","slug":"womenexcel-dont-be-afraid-to-sit-at-the-head-of-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/womenexcel-dont-be-afraid-to-sit-at-the-head-of-the-table\/","title":{"rendered":"#WomenExcel: Don\u2019t be afraid to sit at the head of the table"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrated globally on March 8, International Women\u2019s Day recognizes the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. ArchTam has devoted the Impact blog to featuring women leaders across the globe\u00a0throughout the month of March. Join us here as we recognize the accomplishments of our staff around the world, embrace diversity and promote gender parity.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the first women enrolled at UC-Berkeley, my grandmother, Margaret, was an entrepreneur who believed in me from the start. She looked after me often as a child, and I remember her marching in the door of my home and saying to my siblings and me with great authority, \u201cWhen grandma\u2019s here, the rules change.\u201d Then off we\u2019d go to a restaurant, each with a \u201cbudget\u201d to spend on our dinner selection. This was not just a meal, this was a financial transaction.<\/p>\n

When I was 10, she bought 100 shares of Wendy\u2019s stock for me to \u201cmanage,\u201d and when we (occasionally!) ordered fast food, we only ate at Wendy\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is your<\/em> investment,\u201d she\u2019d say. \u201cYou\u2019re a shareholder and we\u2019re investing in your business.\u201d Then she\u2019d take me in to Wendy\u2019s to purchase 20 hamburgers, and we\u2019d give them to the homeless.<\/p>\n

She gave me a lot of advice in her long, incredible life, and I credit her with teaching me that I\u2019m a businessperson first \u2014 who happens<\/em> to be a woman \u2014 and that understanding is what\u2019s led me to pursue leadership roles throughout my career.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been blessed with so many incredible mentors on my career journey, and the lessons continue today. The best advice I\u2019ve received so far is to always come to the table with a point of view and a willingness to say, \u201cyes, I\u2019ll do it,\u201d and figure it out. This is the mindset that separates leaders. That\u2019s why I encourage my team members to jump in and tackle challenges that aren\u2019t their core strengths. I\u2019ve seen so many people skyrocket into new opportunities by taking a leap that pushed them outside of their comfort zone.<\/p>\n

There was an interesting study done on workplace gender differences. It showed that when a woman considers a new opportunity \u2014 say, a new job \u2014 with 10 qualifications, she would need to fit all 10 criteria before she\u2019d apply, while a man might say, \u201cI\u2019ve done six of these things really well \u2014 I\u2019m in, I\u2019ll figure the rest out.\u201d Many women feel this need to be perfectly prepared, and are so often fearful of failing. Perhaps that\u2019s because as girls, we were taught to follow the rules and were rewarded for doing so. But in the business world, those who challenge conventional wisdom and take risks rise to the top.<\/p>\n

I recently attended a networking event where one of the few open seats was at the head of the table. I watched as many women entered the room and grabbed a chair off to the side \u2014 as I\u2019ve done countless times myself. Moments later, a man walked in and planted himself in that seat without hesitation. We have an incredible opportunity to change the life trajectory for our daughters by showing them that they can<\/em> take risks, and they can <\/em>sit at the head of the table (even when they\u2019re terrified inside). We can teach them to \u201cfail forward\u201d and to not be afraid to color outside the lines \u2014 and the best way to do that is to show her firsthand how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\"Heather_89x100\"Heather Rim is ArchTam\u2019s senior<\/em> v<\/em>ice <\/em>p<\/em>resident and <\/em>chief communications officer, overseeing <\/em>all aspects of ArchTam’s enterprise<\/em> communications including brand management, public relations,<\/em> employee communications<\/em>,<\/em> social media and digital communications.<\/em> She serves on the boards of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the Downtown Women\u2019s Center.
\n<\/em>LinkedIn: <\/em>Heather Rim
\n<\/em><\/a>Twitter: <\/em>Heather Rim<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrated globally on March 8, International Women\u2019s Day recognizes the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. ArchTam has devoted the Impact blog to featuring women leaders across the globe\u00a0throughout the month of March. Join us here as we recognize the accomplishments of our staff around the world, embrace diversity and promote gender parity. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":1165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,84],"tags":[2024],"yst_prominent_words":[2336,962,561,925,2332,2338,941,2330,2333,2331,2334,610,549,2339,2337,1042,2335,871,539,483],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employee-excellence","category-industry-insights","tag-inclusion-and-diversity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}