GRAPEVINE, TX—Amid the backdrop of a national conversation about women, Best Western Hotels & Resorts held its first all-day event for women, Today’s Women in Leadership Forum, as part of its 2018 North American Convention.
Dorothy Dowling, the company’s SVP and CMO, who spearheaded the event and led it along with Dr. Lalia Rach, founder, Rach Enterprises, told Hotel Business that the forum was, in part, a response to the company’s members who had been looking for an opportunity like this. “But, to me, it’s just that broader macro trend that’s going on in terms of women leaders wanting to have the opportunity to learn together and to have that experience of being part of that community,” she said. “We’ve done it with Lalia leading one-and-a-half-hour sessions for two years now, but I just felt this was the year that we could put a full day together.
“It really was in response to our community of hoteliers, thinking about women hoteliers and where our future needs to be in terms of our development plans and, also, the leadership gaps we have to close at Best Western and the hotel community at large,” Dowling said.
The executive stressed that, while having a forum for women was important, equally important was buy-in and collaboration with men. “I think the harder part in our industry is that some of the men haven’t come along with the women at the same level, and that’s something I’ve always had great respect for with David [Kong, [president/CEO, Best Western],” she said. “I was incredibly gratified by the men in the room with us because I just think that’s an enormous signal; and I had some of our owners call and say, ‘I’m bringing three of my female leaders at the hotel because I believe in them and I want to empower and develop them, and this is an opportunity for me to show how committed I am to their futures.’ But that hasn’t been the experience throughout my career. I hope that these times are different.”
While the event was a women’s forum—with men included—both Rach and Dowling agreed that the goal is to get to a point where a forum like this isn’t necessary. “I’m waiting for the day it’s just leadership development,” Rach said. “I do think that day is coming… I worry, 20 years from now, are we going to be just so incrementally ahead?”
Rach stressed the importance of building up female leaders. “I ran the NYU investment conference for 15 years, and it was a constant battle to even get a woman on a workshop—forget the general session,” she said. “Every year, I looked to find a woman who could be on these panels, and they just weren’t there. The worst thing you can do in that situation is bring in someone who is not an equal… And until we have more women in positions of power, we will not see any great shift in the CEO/president ranks.”
To open up the event, Dowling shared her own personal story about being an unconventional woman in a business world that urged women to conform. “Women of my generation, when we started in the industry, we were taught to be conformists. That’s how we were rewarded and that’s what I learned,” she said.
But upon reflecting on her life thus far, Dowling realized she hadn’t conformed as well as she thought. She was born an only child to older parents of the late 1950s. She was the only kid in her neighborhood who had two parents who worked out of financial necessity to have a lower-middle-class lifestyle. She married at 26, the last of her friend group to do so. She chose not to change her last name. She waited until after her career was established to have a child at 37, again, the last of her friends to do so. And when she had the opportunity to emigrate from Canada to the U.S. to advance her career, her husband became a stay-at-home dad.
“I think I’ve led a pretty unconventional life,” she said.” I want to share with you what I’ve learned along the way: Choose the right partner because they will define your life. Take measured risks and go through doors that are sometimes scary. Someone told me to always put my husband and son on my shoulder when I make tough decisions or am negotiating because I was the breadwinner and they were counting on me; women typically under-negotiate for themselves, but if you’re carrying others you love on your shoulders, you’re going to make sure you get the right outcome for them.
“An old boss told me 10% of your time should be invested in building your network because that network will fuel your career,” she continued. “Put numbers on the scoreboard because then success is irrefutable; you should always know how success is going to be measured before, so you can achieve that. You have to listen to your inner voice because it never fails you. You have to hire the right boss and make the right decisions on cultural fit. I’ve also learned being a constant learner is as important as intelligence and emotional intelligence. If you don’t constantly invest in learning, you get left behind.
“Reputation is the only thing you truly own and you have to surround yourself with great teammates,” she added. “You’re an average of the five people you spend the most time with, so make good choices about those people.”
Throughout the event, several recurring themes emerged to help attendees become more effective leaders:
Examine executive presence. “Executive presence is your individual professional statement,” Rach said. “You have to be able to say it concisely and clearly, and you have to be able to translate your statement for your employees because you are a role model.”
This goes all the way down to the small details. “Make sure you shake their hand firmly, look them in the eye—those are the things that express to other people immediately your executive presence,” Rach said.
There are three aspects to this: gravitas—how you act; communication—words matter, and lazy speech is unacceptable; and comportment—are you polished and poised?
Speaking to communication specifically, Rach said, “Women were taught to use qualifiers, but you can be untaught. When your speech denigrates you, you’re telling others, ‘Don’t listen to me.’”
Being well-rounded is overrated. We’ve all heard it before—from the time we were applying to colleges and needed excellent grades, high test scores, to be star of the school play, president of student council and on a varsity sports team to prove we were the type of person who should attend a university, we’ve been taught that having varied talents is the way to succeed.
But Best Western doesn’t believe that. “Growing up, you had to be good at everything in order to be successful,” said Rachel Austin, VP, human resources, Best Western Hotels & Resorts. “How much time did we spend beating ourselves up on the things we struggled with versus fueling ourselves with things we were naturally talented at and enjoyed?”
Instead, Best Western focuses on strengths. “Let’s focus on what’s right with people rather than what’s wrong with them,” said Dawn Antrim, manager, human resources, Best Western Hotels & Resorts. “When you have an awareness of those talents, you’re able to truly leverage them. It’s a change in our mindset from a conventional thinking of identifying and fixing what our weaknesses are.”
According to Gallup, when people enjoy what they’re doing, they’re six times as likely to be engaged at work and three times as likely to have excellent quality of life.
“It’s important we identify the talents of our team,” Antrim said.
But, she added, it’s important to not just assume. “As leaders, we tend to assume we know the strengths of our team, but you need to talk to that person. Ask, ‘What energizes you and what do you want to do more of?’” she said. “That’ll give you a clue as to what they gravitate to. I’ve seen leaders who, based on that, will realign things and see amazing results.”
“Be honest with yourself on what your strengths are, and surround yourself with people who complement those,” Austin added. “It’s the team that should be well-rounded.”
Cathy Tucker, senior account executive, Google, added, “We are all compensated on team goals, not individual goals, which was new to me when I came to Google. Understanding where the strengths are of the other team members, how we can complement each other well, so we’re not duplicating efforts and being efficient with our time, and yet we’re all feeling good—seeing that success happen really motivates me.”
Be open. “One of the biggest problems with most leaders is allowing short-term emotion to dominate them: I can’t talk about that now. Don’t you see I’m busy? What have you people been doing?” Rach said. “We allow the moment to dominate us rather than stepping back and thinking, rather than asking questions. Your job as a leader is not to be an answer woman or man. Your job is to think. Employees are not something for you to take angst out on, anymore than the reverse is true.”
Remember balance. “Work/life balance is so much more important today than in years past,” Austin said. “People are looking to be able to attend their kids’ hockey games or school activities. Be flexible.”
And that goes for leaders, too. “Women, in particular, don’t follow this rule: Put your own oxygen mask on first,” Wendy Ferrill, VP, worldwide sales, Best Western Hotels & Resorts, said. “If you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. As female businesspeople, we’re constantly giving and not filling our own bucket.”
Take risks. Natalie Holbrook, managing director, client advice and management, Initiative, recalled a time when she was selected for jury duty and chose not to take on the role of foreman. However, she later regretted not stepping up when she should have and, despite another person having the title of foreman, actively ran the jury meetings as if she had the title.
Since then, she hasn’t shied away from volunteering. “If you get the opportunity, take the risk because it could turn out to be something amazing,” she said.
Filomena Andre, VP, travel products, Automobile Club of Southern California, added, “The ability and opportunity that’s around the corner might mean taking some risks. [Twice] in my career I left a stable job to take one that would take me further into leadership, and I took a pay cut. To this day, it was the best decision I ever made. Do not be afraid to take the plunge and move on to what you know will provide an opportunity to learn and grow.”
Regarding the event overall, Dowling noted that the turnout was excellent—better than had been projected. “The feedback I’ve gotten is it was a meaningful experience,” Dowling said, adding that as a result of feedback, the company has already set a date for next year to host the second Women’s Forum. “It’s something I welcome because it’s inspiring to me to be with our hoteliers, our partners and leaders, and get to work with remarkable women.” —Nicole Carlino