I am writing this essay on Equal Pay Day, the day in the year that symbolizes how far into the new year women must work to make what men did in the prior year. I am all for equal pay for equal work, but the gender salary gap is a complex, multi-dimensional problem that is not easily solved. I’ve touched on the difficulty women have in asking for more money in another essay (The Crone in the Corner Office: “Money Makes the World Go Around,” August 25, 2016). There is much research that documents that we women often start out with lower salaries because we have a harder time than men do in asking for money at the outset of a…

A few weeks ago I had the occasion to speak to a man to whom I used to report.  He had read one of my essays and sent me a note and we used the occasion to schedule a catch-up call.  He had always been one of my very favorite people; he was smart and savvy about business while at the same time he was well read and knowing, quick to acknowledge that life was complex and about much more than the bottom line.  Moreover, he was the shining example of gender blind management.  He hired, promoted and critiqued his male and female direct reports with equally exacting standards. It was sheer delight to speak with him! Our conversation bounced from…

The Crone in the Corner Office is on vacation.  My next essay will appear on March 30, 2017. Thank you for reading.  Kathi

A professional woman whom I coach had been invited to give a short presentation to another department by that department’s head, another professional women with executive and professional degrees.  After finishing what she felt was a well-received talk, she sat down in the audience, a few rows in front of the department head.  When the meeting was over, the department head approached my client, telling her, “I noticed how tired you seemed while you were sitting there.  Are you ok?” This is organizational politics at its very worst!  Let me be very clear: if anyone at work (unless they are your very best friend and close confidant) tells you that you look tired, they are insulting you, attempting to undermine your…

I am fortunate to work closely with my undergraduate alumnae association.  When I did my undergraduate work Douglass College, a division of Rutgers University, was all women, serving as the sister school to Rutgers College, then all men.  Rutgers College admitted women in1972, my sophomore year, but Douglass remained a degree-granting, single-gender school until 2007.  Now it’s been renamed as Douglass Residential College but it remains focused on programs and services dedicated to women and women’s education. I am the head of an alumnae-mentoring program (alumna to alumna) and, along with my work as an executive coach, I come in contact with many young millennial women.  I get it that my sample is skewed.  However, I am fascinated with how many…