The meek will not be rewarded with salaries: Alpha Females earn more: FACT!

I read an interesting article in the Daily Mail about Alpha Females earning considerably more in a lifetime than meeker, kinder, nicer females.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1199367/Women-act-like-men-earn-40-000-feminine-colleagues-Essex-University-study-shows.html

Now the Daily Mail is not known for its feminist stance in the news and no doubt this is a double edged attack on women working; women bosses and well, women. However there is some interesting about this. The article, and the research focuses on different personalities in women and how 'effective' and 'successful' they are in the workplace - the measure being the size of salary. The best rewarded women were those who were very assertive and confident enough to negotiate and manage conflict. Those that were neurotic earned less as did those who were too 'nice': the argument that the latter were less effective at negotiating salary rises and coping with conflict.
I am not going to get bogged down by the results - and also the Daily Mail's interpretations, but from Executive Voice's point of view there are skills that benefit any person in business - whether they are male or female:

• Hard work; being focused; getting your work completed.
• Having the confidence to negotiate for a salary increase
• Being pleasant - but not a pushover. This is a challenge for some ladies because we are brought up to be 'nice' and this can be interpreted as being a pushover.
• Developing from the previous bullet point - developing assertiveness. Learning to say no and recognising your (or you job's) boundaries.
• Not being moody or whingy.
• Being able to ASK
• Being able to be noticed through some self PR.
  

The challenge for some women is that as I mentioned before; we are sometimes brought up to be 'nice'; not to ask for things and not to be assertive. Also there is the opinion (no doubt by your average Daily Mail reader) that assertiveness in women creates the 'businesswoman from hell'. But the alternative is to be meek - and miss out on salary and career development rewards.

Or, in fact we are attracted types of jobs that are suitable for our personality and are paid accordingly...

For more information about Executive Voice go to http://www.executivevoice.co.uk