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Jennifer McCollum CEO | Author | International Speaker | Gender Equity Advocate | Leadership Expert

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  • Why the Leader Gender Gap Matters -- and What Organizations Can Do to Close It

    Leader to Leader Magazine: Spring 2024 Women really want to advance in their career. A company's willingness to make this a priority and really deliver on it sets it up to compete differentially.

  • How to Accelerate Gender Equity in Leadership

    Key Points: 1. The shifting landscape for advancing women in leadership requires more proactive measurement and planning. 2. Success requires culture, people, systems, and processes, leadership development, and executive action. 3. Early success indicators of engagement, values fit, commitment, and net promoter scores should be measured.

  • The Double Bind for Women -- Being a Razor Blade and a Cupcake

    One of the most difficult manifestations of externalized bias is the double bind for women. It's a constant tightrope we walk. We must balance the irreconcilable demands of meeting societal expectations for women—demonstrating female characteristics, like being compassionate, warm, communicative and collaborative—with the expectations for leaders, which are dominated by male characteristics of being forceful, assertive and dominant.

  • External Bias and Its Impact on the Advancement of Women

    Gender bias occurs when people show favoritism toward one gender over another. Whether this behavior is conscious or unconscious, the result is that men and women are treated differently. Today, gender bias generally refers to the preferential treatment men— specifically white heterosexual men—receive. This does not make men the bad guys. It's a reality resulting from a long history of certain societal expectations and experiences that we have all internalized.

  • How I Engaged With a Critical Mentor Who Helped Me Succeed

    When I started my role as Linkage CEO, I spent several months engaging our board of directors, executive team, clients, partners and vendors. Slowly, I developed an expanded set of trusted advisors, whom I informally call my "CEO Success Circle." They play specific roles in my circle of trust because I know I can't do it alone. I have learned that actively managing this group of partners is a significant investment of time and energy, but it is a critical part of my job, and it is exceptionally rewarding work.

  • Women in the Workforce: Making Things More Equal for Women Could Help Solve the Talent Gap

    Economists may be celebrating the recent Bureau of Labor and Statistics data that indicates women's participation in the workforce has reached pre-pandemic levels. But organizations aimed at promoting equality for women in the workforce say there's still work to do.