Don’t expect to see a blueprint for leadership success in the profiles of these powerful Texas women.

For one, the path to success involved a decision to attend law school when this field was considered unusual for women. For another, the path to leadership began as a young Spanish-speaking native enrolled by mistake in regular English classes.

The profiles of these eight powerful and influential women in Texas show that there is no “right” or “best” way to achieve in business, but that certain attributes are needed to rise to the top. Among them: Hard work, discipline, focus, teamwork and the willingness to take risks.

Of course, these women also bring the talent to make all this effort worthwhile.

Whether in human resources, corporate diversity efforts, legal affairs, accounting or higher education, they all talk about the importance of bringing their own background and perspectives to their work.

And isn’t that what diversity is all about?

It Starts With Taking Risks

AMY CHRONIS, Central Texas Managing Partner, Deloitte & Touche

Sometimes, people travel abroad after college to experience a new culture. As a graduate fresh out of Ohio State, Amy Chronis experienced her own sense of culture shock by coming to Houston in the 1980s.

“I was a Yankee female who didn’t go to [Texas] A&M,” she says. “Early on, I had an appearance issue. I looked and sounded like a little girl.”

Now, with a couple of decades of experience, she has worked her way into a position as the managing partner for the Central Texas office of accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. For her, the path to executive success began when she arrived in Houston in the last few years of the oil boom and the beginning of the oil bust. “They call those ‘learning opportunities’,” she says.

Chronis comes from an entrepreneurial family that knew about taking risks. Her family in Ohio owned a horse farm, and then a supply business that became a janitorial business. So after taking the risk of coming to Houston with the firm then known as Arthur Andersen, she went to Austin in 1999 at the very beginning of the tech boom. It turned out to be a perfect move. Then she moved from Andersen to Deloitte. The office – and her profile – grew.

In her job, Chronis oversees the operations of the Austin and San Antonio offices of the multinational accounting firm. “I know the risks and perils of a small business,” she says. “I like having the infrastructure of high-quality people around me. I see it as having the best of both worlds.”

Chronis is also a mainstay on the Austin nonprofit circuit. She is a member of the board of directors for both the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation and the Austin Chamber of Commerce. She is also the chairwoman of the board of directors for the March of Dimes Central Texas Chapter.

And as a leader, she says that one of the most important traits to bring is the ability to listen. “I can talk forever; listening is more important to get to the root of the real problems at hand,” she says. “You can’t make good decisions unless you get good information.”

Perhaps more than anything else, Chronis says that success in business begins with a combination of talent and hard work. “In our world, it’s a meritocracy,” she adds. “It’s pretty obvious whether people are competent or not.”

And for those looking to move up, it starts with high performance. Mentors, coaching, and professional development also help. “It’s not good enough to be average, you have to be outstanding. But that’s not good enough to be a leader,” she says. “You can’t fake sincerity and passion about what you do.”

Prioritizing Work and Family

PATRICIA DIAZ DENNIS, Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, AT&T

Patricia Diaz Dennis has had a lot of “firsts” in her life. She was one of the first Latinas to graduate from law school at Loyola University and the first Latina to join a major law firm in Los Angeles and serve as national board president of Girl Scouts of the USA.

Now she is the first to say that her path to success went much smoother because she had a supportive partner. “The smartest dumb thing I did was to marry young and marry the right one,” Dennis says. Indeed, her husband, Michael Dennis, was the one who encouraged her to go to law school in the first place, and he moved with her as her career took their family to different cities.

Before her current position, she worked as an assistant general attorney for the ABC television network, and was the first Hispanic to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. Then she went to the Federal Communications Commission, and later, the first President Bush appointed her to the post of assistant secretary of state of human rights and humanitarian affairs.

Those may have been challenging years, but they built Dennis’ confidence as she arrived to Washington in 1983. “I was really intimidated. I thought I was inadequate to become a peer with these decision makers who were elders in their field,” she recalls. “Sometimes, you just have to jump in. After 12 years in Washington, I knew that I could handle just about any job.”

Today, Dennis works as the senior vice president and assistant general counsel for AT&T. And throughout her career, she has had to prioritize work and family. “At some point, you have to realize that you have to let some things go. You have to realize that you’re never going to do everything perfectly all the time,” she says. “You literally cannot do it all.”

At the same time, employers can be more accommodating, Dennis says. Things are getting better, but there is still plenty of room to go. “The workplace simply has not found the model on how to accommodate parenting,” she says. “We bear the children; you have to take some time off to have them.”

Not only was it a matter of prioritizing and working with a very helpful partner; there was a certain amount of resistance to a young Hispanic female working her way up. “Sure, there were things that happened and things that were said as I was coming up. One thing I always caution people on is to not develop a chip on your shoulder,” she says. “It’s not productive to hold on to this.”

That mindset has been one of the keys to her success — focusing on the goals of doing well at home and with her family while not letting herself be distracted with other things. “I always tell people to have a sense of humor,” she says. “Take your job seriously but don’t take yourself seriously.”

Mentoring Plays a Crucial Role

HARVA DOCKERY, Partner, Fulbright & Jaworski

When Harva Dockery started out in law school, there weren’t many women in her class, and practicing female attorneys in those days were still somewhat unusual.

“For a long time,” she remembers, “I was not a lawyer, but a lady lawyer, and often the lady lawyer.”

That was then. Now, Dockery is a partner at the Dallas office of Fulbright & Jaworski, and has been for the past 20 years. To get to her position, it took “being determined, being willing to work hard, and being creative. And a little luck along the way,” she says.

“I suppose when I decided to go to law school, it was considered an unusual thing for a woman to go to law school and be a practicing attorney,” Dockery says. “At University of Texas Law School, about a quarter of the class was women. When I look at my incoming class at Fulbright & Jaworski, it was about a quarter. Now, it has risen to about 50 percent. Now it reflects the community.”

Indeed, she has been working to make the number of qualified attorneys at the firm more reflective of the larger community. She has served as a leader of the firm’s initiative to recruit and retain top-caliber women, and has helped lead Fulbright’s firm-wide diversity committee. That is, when she’s not practicing corporate and securities law.

Despite the demands on her as a partner, Dockery devotes much of her time to diversity efforts because she sees it as just being good for business. Research shows that diversity is more conducive to finding solutions that are better for the organization, she adds.

Along those lines is the push to mentor younger workers, whether it’s in a formal or an informal setting. “For those of us who have been out of law school for a long time, we have a crucial role to play,” she says. “I take that role very seriously and lots of women of a certain age take it very seriously.”

Dockery remembers that when she started out as a “lady lawyer,” there were sometimes meetings where people in other firms would ask her to get coffee. She says she would handle those situations with a sense of humor and not let it get to her.

Today, she sees a much smoother path for the people coming behind her. “Earlier, there were barriers. People thought women could not be good leaders or could not lead,” she says. “[However], if an intelligent young woman in high school wants to lead, wants to be a leader in business or any other field, she can do it.”

Confidence is Key

WINELL HERRON, Vice President-Public Affairs and Diversity, H-E-B

When Winell Herron addresses a crowd, her poise and sincerity make it all look effortless. The reality, she says, is that she’s pretty shy. But early in her career, she took a chance and it paid off.

“I often think that if I hadn’t taken the risk, I would not be in my current position as spokesperson for a major corporation,” Herron says. “Years ago, I’d rather do anything than speak in front of a large group of people. As they say, the rest is history.”

The event was a reception for MBA students at her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. Her speech was a huge success, and she later learned that it inspired a talented student to go to work at Herron’s company, H-E-B.

The experience, Herron says, taught her two key lessons: “You really have to challenge yourself to do things you are not comfortable doing” and “you never know what impact your activities will have.”

The process of challenging herself led to other positions, including vice president of customer service, and ultimately led to her current position, group vice president of public affairs and diversity.

Herron is the youngest of eight children and grew up on a dairy farm outside Austin. By the time she was old enough to work on the farm, much of it was mechanized. But not all of it. She also learned from her father – who used to wake up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows – all about the importance of hard work.

“Being from a large family, I know the importance of being able to work as a team,” she says. “I am focused on building relationships and giving back to the community.”

That’s the essence of what she does now for the grocery company. She tries to help others advance in their own careers. Among the challenges: balancing work and family and achieving a good quality of life.

But Herron sees another issue that’s more likely to face women, and that’s having the confidence to advance in their careers. “Many women will question whether they’re ready rather than having the confidence to move up,” she says. “Sometimes we’ll talk ourselves out of a position or promotion.”

For people looking to advance in their careers, she advises them to start by focusing on what they’re doing now. “Many folks will come into an organization and focus on the next two or three positions,” she says.

Her advice continues with urging people to look for opportunities to make an impact in their current positions. In the next step, people should communicate goals and aspirations to their managers and then go about demonstrating their abilities.

“Finally, look for opportunities to stretch yourself. Look for projects that demonstrate leadership ability, creativity and strong technical skills.”

Even if that project involves public speaking.

Leaving the Comfort Zone

ELSA MURANO, President, Texas A&M University

Whether in work or life, Elsa Murano always advises others to push themselves outside their comfort zone. “You have to do it in order to grow,” she says.

As the first woman and first Hispanic to serve as president of Texas A&M University, her very presence is pushing one of the country’s most tradition-bound institutions beyond its comfort zone.

For her, it continues a history of pushing her own limits that began at a young age. In 1961, her family fled Havana in the early days of the Cuban Revolution. From there, her family went to the Caribbean island of Curaçao, and later Peru, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. The family arrived in Miami when she was 14. She didn’t speak English and was accidentally enrolled in regular classes instead of those for students learning a new language. But she learned English in just a few months.

Murano’s career as a food scientist took her to become the first woman on the faculty of Iowa State University’s microbiology, immunology and preventive medicine department, the first Hispanic to serve as undersecretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and later the only female dean at Texas A&M in its College of Agriculture.

Along the way, she remembers the encouragement and challenge that came from her mother, who used to tell her “why not you?” In other words, success wasn’t something only for other people; it was possible for these immigrants, too. The lesson stuck.

Now as the leader of a university, Murano says that one of the most important qualities of any leader is to be open to new ideas and even opposing ideas. “Leaders have to be open enough to consider other ideas and accept that maybe they’re wrong,” she says. “Otherwise you’re not a leader, you’re a dictator.”

And that goes beyond any stereotypical roles or images. “When you say the word ‘leader’, I don’t think of it as having any gender. The best leaders are those who lead by example,” she says. “You trace a path as a leader and you inspire people to want to work with you, shoulder to shoulder.”

Part of the role of leadership is mentoring others, and it’s something that Murano strongly supports. “Men are used to being mentors. [Women] are great friend mentors, but we’re not used to being professional mentors,” she says. “Women in executive positions need to realize that they have that responsibility to pass on.”

The learning works both ways, too. “Being a mentor, you learn a lot. A younger person always brings a new perspective,” she says. “It’s refreshing to have a young mind that believes it can change the world.”

Who knows – she may be mentoring her successor right now.

“If you work hard, get out of your comfort zone, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish,” Murano says. “You can even become president of Texas A&M University.”

Versatility Opens New Doors

KAREN TAYLOR, Senior Vice President-Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer, Reliant Energy

A sports analogy: When football and baseball teams draft players, they often look for great athletes who can play a number of positions instead of focusing on just one type of person for specific positions. This type of thinking in a corporate setting prompted Karen Dyson Taylor to make the initial move from accounting to human resources.

Taylor is now the senior vice president of human resources and the chief diversity officer at Reliant Energy in Houston. She oversees all of the company’s human resource and administrative functions.

But she didn’t begin her career thinking that she’d be a top HR executive. She is an alumna of Louisiana Tech and a CPA. After college, she went to work in 1979 with the accounting firm then known as Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. Fast forward a few years and she was working for a manager who valued ”best athlete” types. “He looked for bright and capable people,” Taylor says.

“The first time I had any HR responsibility,” she remembers, “I wasn’t sure I wanted that.” But once she began to demonstrate a proficiency in these HR projects, she also got more of them. Ultimately, it led into a completely different path.

“I allow myself to think of my career openly. I’ve never defined myself as an accountant,” she says. “It was a very freeing thing to use the educational background as a tool, not as an end in itself.”

At Reliant, the 3,500 employees of the company work to provide electricity to approximately 1.6 million residential customers; 157,000 small businesses; and nearly 76,000 commercial, industrial, and institutional customers, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Yet, one of the important keys to becoming a good leader is to not let that responsibility go to one’s head, Taylor says. “Leadership is a privilege, not a birthright,” she adds. “I have an important job, but I try not to wear that title on my sleeve.”

For those who are coming up in the corporate pipeline, she advises them to know their own strengths and weaknesses, have a plan to address both, and be open to opportunities when they come up, especially if they’re unexpected. “A lot of it still comes back to the individual taking accountability for their own job,” Taylor says. In other words, she advises those looking to move up to get all types of mentoring and training – and make their own final decisions.

“One thing that’s important is to be true to yourself. Try different things. Seek advice. But ultimately, it has to be true for you,” she says. “No one’s career path is the same. Success for one person is the death knell for another. Being authentic is an important part of knowing that.”

Earning Credibility Through Self-Management

LINDA VALDEZ THOMPSON, Executive Vice President of Administration and Diversity, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

From a native of West Texas comes a management philosophy that’s easy to articulate and remember: Before you can manage others, you must first manage yourself.

As Linda Valdez Thompson explains it: “Managing yourself is fundamental. Managing time, projects, emotions, relationships with other people. It’s very difficult to provide leadership to other people when you don’t know how to manage yourself,” she says. “Sometimes people climb the corporate ladder quickly and don’t know how to manage themselves, and it shows.”

Indeed, it is a lesson Thompson learned in a career that has taken her as an executive with companies such as Hasbro, Baxter Health Care Corporation, Turnkey Services and Levi-Strauss & Co. Now, she is the executive vice president of administration and diversity at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. She oversees the airport’s human resources, supplier diversity, internal communications, risk management and procurement management, and its diversity programs.

All of this started, the Wichita Falls (Texas) native explains, with a commitment to never settling for just good enough and the willingness to take some risks. “The most important quality is performance, consistently doing excellent work,” Thompson says. “It can’t be emphasized enough that if you perform on a consistent basis, it is recognized.”

She remembers a time early in her career when a vice president took a leave of absence and she asked if she could fill in. Back then, she was a manager. “All they could say was ‘no,’ ” she says. Her supervisors said yes, and she was able to impress plenty of people – including the vice president on leave.

If she learned early the importance of doing good work and taking risks, she learned later the importance of leavening those qualities with patience. “When I was younger and full of passion, if things didn’t happen the way I wanted in the fist couple of years, I was gone,” Thompson says. “It was a matter of maturity.”

But patient doesn’t mean passive. “Don’t wait to be invited, because you may not be,” she says. “Make it so that people want to invite you to the table. Every meeting is an opportunity. Every encounter is an opportunity.”

Now, Thompson talks about the importance of earning credibility to do the things she wanted to. For example, she spent her first year or so doing items that she had already done in her career, but it built credibility and relationships. “Now, I can say we need to do a mentoring program and voilà – we have one,” she says.

Thompson says this mentoring program now includes about 40 women and it’s an investment that’s paying off for the airport. She explains that more women than men are now flying through DFW – and having more women on staff helps the airport to better understand the needs of the increased numbers of female customers.

And those women are in a position where they can excel, too. “You do your job, you perform it well, you get on two or three highly visible projects and you get noticed,” Thompson says. “Everybody wants a contributor on their team,” she adds. “They don’t care about your gender or your race.”

Leaders Must Earn Respect

LORA VILLARREAL, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, Affiliated Computer Services

A child of East Los Angeles who effortlessly quotes John F. Kennedy, Warren Buffett and a Toltec-inspired best-seller as sources of tremendous wisdom – clearly, Lora Villarreal is not your typical corporate leader.

Since 1998, she has been running all the human relations activities for Affiliated Computer Services, a Dallas-based outsourcing and technology firm. She says that diversity isn’t just her job; it’s the job of everybody at the company.

“You ask what diversity is. Look around – it’s all around you,” Villarreal says. “Diversity is having respect for one another.”

Her path to leadership wasn’t easy, and it taught her lessons about the importance of personal strength. “You have to be strong,” she says. “You look at all the good leaders – they’re tough.”

Indeed, her early years took place in East Los Angeles with her grandparents, who raised her after her parents divorced. As a teenager, she and her sister went back to live with their mother and new stepfather. After high school and a brief first marriage, she began her life as a single mother of two daughters – without a college education.

From there, she went to work for Southern California Edison in human resources. A supervisor encouraged her to get her college degree, and she began her studies. A few years later, she met a career Air Force officer, Larry Villarreal. They married – and are still together.

As a military wife, Villarreal and her daughters moved as a family with his various assignments. Along the way, she worked in human resources and various other positions for the Omaha World Herald and as an assistant at the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And she was able to obtain her undergraduate degree from Bellevue College and a master’s in administration and management from Central Michigan University.

As chief people officer for Affiliated Computer Services, Villarreal is now responsible for making sure employees receive the right training, salary packages and career development opportunities. “We are supporting a group of 60,000 people,” she says. “They depend on us to make the right decisions.”

As she looks back, Villarreal notes that many of her mentors throughout her career were men – and they encouraged her because she showed talent and potential. From those examples, she learned the importance of developing talent. “A leader’s role is to help the people under them to be successful,” Villarreal says. “You have to find a way to encourage them, to guide them, to motivate them to take the next step.”

By the way, the Toltec-inspired words of wisdom come from Don Miguel Ruiz, whose 1997 bestseller, The Four Agreements, gives these principles: Be impeccable with your words; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; always do your best.

To that list, Villarreal would add the importance of respect, both giving and receiving. “A lot of leaders demand respect. That’s not ever going to work,” she says. “You have to earn it.”

Edmund Tijerina is a columnist with the San Antonio Express-News and part-time freelance writer. He resides in San Antonio , Texas .

For many businesses, diversity is a smart choice. But experts in the field agree that in coming years, diversity will be required of organizations to remain competitive in the shifting marketplace.

“The ability for an organization to remain competitive will be dependent upon its ability to mold to the changing workplace,” says Donna DeBerry, president of DRP International, a diversity-consulting firm in Austin. This includes retiring baby boomers; an increasing number of women and immigrants; and generations X and Y, which tend to be more inclusive than their predecessors, she says.

Changes in the workplace are the result of various shifts in U.S. demographics. Among these are shifts within the country’s racial and ethnic makeup. People of color have reached 100 million, according to a May 2007 report by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The white population accounted for 18 percent of the country’s 2.9 million growth between 2005 and 2006, according to the report. The Asian population increased by 3.2 percent, the black population rose by 1.3 percent and Hispanics accounted for almost 50 percent of the growth at 1.4 million.

But the demographic shift creating a new customer base and workforce is not the only reason to implement diversity initiatives within a company’s business strategy. Increased globalization, improved financial results and employee retention are all part of a growing business case for diversity.

A Required Approach

“Embracing a culture of diversity helps to improve financial results,” says DeBerry. Diversity also strengthens a company’s brand, unifies the corporate culture and empowers stakeholders, she adds.

“It’s all about that innovation that happens with a diverse team of people,” she says. “They bring in diverse cultures, skills and talents to a team. There is a purity that exists in a group of people when you have all these experiences together.”

In today’s new economy, success requires a global perspective as well as knowledge of other cultures, says DeBerry. Whether doing business nationally or internationally, she adds, people want to see others who look like them in their local businesses. Customers will shop and dine where they feel comfortable. Employees will work at companies where they feel welcomed and valued.

The Business Case

One of the motivators behind AT&T’s diversity initiatives is ensuring the company is able to compete in the global marketplace, says Belinda Grant-Anderson, AT&T’s vice president of workforce development and diversity.

Other reasons she cites include customer retention, increased employee engagement, business growth, higher employee productivity, and a greater ability to recruit and retain talent.

Women and people of color represent a majority of the individuals entering into today’s workforce, says Linda Jimenez, chief diversity officer and staff vice president of diversity and workplace culture at the health care benefit provider WellPoint Inc. For that reason, it is critical for companies to be able to recruit and retain diverse talent.

“Retention is critical,” she says. “It costs at least four times an employee’s salary to replace that employee.”

To measure diversity gains, Jimenez says WellPoint looks at the age, race and gender of new hires, promotions into management, senior leadership, and board of directors. They also track supplier diversity, the frequency of internal and external diversity communications, awards earned by the company, and placement of philanthropic dollars.

The Workforce Focus

When it comes to the workforce, recruitment and retention are two major areas of focus right now, DeBerry says. “Companies are scrambling for diverse talent,” she adds. “And when you talk about evolving and really getting it, the innate place it has to happen is in the workforce. It’s the core and everything else will be a domino effect.”

According to AT&T’s Web site, the company’s workforce is 44 percent female and 39 percent people of color. Forty-one percent of its management is female (above the average of most Fortune 500 companies) and 28 percent are people of color (compared to 12 percent nationwide).

“We want to make sure we don’t get too wrapped around trying to prove diversity is the right thing to do,” Grant-Anderson says. “It has to become part of everything within the company.”

Many organizations point to their inability to find enough women or people of color to fill positions, says DeBerry, and this is mainly because they don’t know where to look. “Ninety percent of the time they are not looking in the right places,” she adds. “I think it’s OK to mainstream everything, but you will only get a percentage of the diverse talent you are looking for if you don’t widen the search.”

DeBerry says businesses need to expand their search beyond traditional or Ivy League colleges. She recommends looking at historically black or Hispanic universities, partnering with organizations such as the National Council of La Raza or National Urban League, and using women- and minority-owned executive search firms.

Supplier Diversity

James Harris, the director of supplier diversity for H-E-B, a San Antonio-based grocer, says the company has focused on diversity in its pool of suppliers for more than nine years.

From a supplier diversity standpoint, minority suppliers better understand the needs of H-E-B consumers, Harris says. “They are connected with their needs and it makes us more reflective of the communities we serve.”

Harris adds the company is able to save money by using minority suppliers as they are often smaller and more efficiently run.

Each area of procurement at H-E-B, such as produce, meats, construction and transportation, has a supplier champion in charge of seeking opportunities in their area to work with minority businesses. Harris says the organization measures its spending with minority suppliers by department and collectively.

“We put money back into the community when we buy from minority suppliers,” he says. “Whether construction or food producers, most are Texas suppliers, and that’s important to us.”

Multicultural Marketing

Supplier diversity and marketing are also part of WellPoint’s focus. “A committed focus on supplier diversity opens access to multicultural markets, leverages flexibility of small business and realizes significant cost savings for an organization,” says Jimenez. “And with the shifting demographics, there is a whole venue of expanding multicultural consumers to consider.”

Jimenez says her organization takes a holistic approach to diversity. “We offer benefits to over 36 million Americans and know that not all of our customers speak English and not everyone has the same disease management practices,” she adds. “In the workplace, what may be a successful diversity initiative in California may need to be tweaked in Wisconsin.”

Jimenez adds that they also try to actively engage in community partnerships in all of their markets nationwide. An example is their annual Saturday WellPoint Community Service Day, during which associates are engaged with their family and friends in community projects.

“We get involved in local chapters, present at conferences, sponsor scholarships – it’s something that’s long-term and ongoing,” she says.

An Inclusive Environment

Once companies have recruited diverse talent, they often flounder when it comes to treatment of these employees, says Carmen Carter, a consultant and founder of the Women’s Multicultural Council in Texas.

“One big question is, what do you do with the people when you get them?” says Carter. “When we show up, our person shows up with us.”

Grant-Anderson says that diversity is fundamental to AT&T’s success, so the company has implemented numerous programs to help with employee advancement and retention. The AT&T Self-Development and Learning Resource Center offers assistance with resume writing, building interview skills and diversity awareness and education.

“Once someone becomes part of the AT&T family, we have a lot of internal programs to help them develop,” she says.

AT&T’s Leadership Development Program has been in place for 20 years and focuses on building “strong and diverse leadership,” says Grant-Anderson. Hundreds of employees have participated in the program, nearly half of which have been women and/or people of color.

Jimenez points out that one of WellPoint’s programs, its talent acquisition and leadership development pipeline, helped to replace former CEO Larry Glasscock after his retirement with Angela Braly, a working mother who is now one of the few female CEOs in the country to run a Fortune 50 company.

While diversity tracks differences, inclusion examines how synergies are created within an organization, Jimenez says.

“Inclusion makes a corporation resonate so they not only look like the communities they operate in and the customers they serve, but they think and act like them too,” she adds. “That is what is going to drive business performance.”

The Future of Diversity

The face of diversity will be changing in years to come, says DeBerry of DRP International. Because of the shifts in the workforce, she adds, the message will change from one of race and color to one of overall inclusion.

“It’s not going to be about raising a playing field,” she says “It will be where all are competing on the same playing field.”

Jimenez says WellPoint has seen steady, incremental progress in its diversity initiatives in recent years. “With diversity comes innovation and creativity,” she adds. “Diversity makes us react and think differently, approach challenges and solve problems differently, make suggestions and decisions differently and see different opportunities. Superior business performance requires diversity of thought and tapping into unique perspectives.”

Grant-Anderson says that diversity is already part of the business process at AT&T – from training, to customer service, to internal teams and people in the field.

“When you look at the future and see what it takes to be successful, companies that can leverage diversity will have a competitive advantage,” says Grant-Anderson. “It is a fundamental, core way of doing business.”

“I can’t tell you what happened with my daughters in those two years,” she says. “After that period I said to myself, ‘Surely there is another way to make a valuable contribution and still make time for family and priorities.’”

In her current position as an assistant vice president of customer relationship marketing at BNSF Railway, Ishii, like many other working mothers, has since learned to find a balance between her varied commitments.

But the task of creating a healthy work/life balance is no longer placed solely on the shoulders of working women. With women accounting for nearly 60 percent of the nation’s workforce, helping female employees meet their obligations both in and out of the office is becoming compulsory for most employers to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.

Mandatory Tender

Kimberly Woollard is a professional born at the very end of the baby boom. Her generation, she says, entered the labor pool with the expectation of working 55-hour workweeks. This is not the case with the younger staff at Grow Financial Federal Credit Union in Tampa Bay, Fla., where she works as senior vice president of human resources and the Professional Development Center.

“Especially Generation Y,” says Woollard. “With them, work/life balance is not even an expectation; they feel it’s an entitlement. And I think it’s good that they don’t have to work all those hours. We support that.”

At Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the 2007 Working Mother Top 10, candidates fresh from college are asking for flexible work arrangements during their interview process, says Natalie Jackson, work/life program specialist for the McLean, Va.-based company.

“The younger workforce is smart and they know what they want and are demanding it,” she adds.

But work/life balance is much more than a perk expected by today’s youths. It consistently ranks as one of the top two most important aspects in most human resource surveys, says Woollard.

“We really try to make accommodations for people (at Grow Financial),” she says. “It can’t always be done, but it is important – if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

Base wages and conventional benefits are still important, but employees are looking for more, says Lillian LeBlanc, a long-time health care consultant and the current director of work/life effectiveness for Baptist Health South Florida, a health care organization listed on the 2007 Working Mother Top 10.

“From everything we read in the literature and hear from the employees, these traditional benefits are important,” says LeBlanc. “But so is a compassionate manager that treats me as an individual and who understands that getting to my kid’s soccer game is important.”

The Business Perspective

Employers seem to be tuning into the fact that a positive work/life balance is requisite to remain competitive. But many are also seeing an additional return on their investment.

Benefits of good work/life programs include improving employee engagement and retention, reducing absenteeism and tardiness, and increasing on-the-job focus, says Frank Briamonte, senior director of corporate communications at The McGraw-Hill Companies, also listed on the 2007 Working Mother Top 10.

“People appreciate working for an employer that has made an investment in employee services,” says Briamonte. “If our employees and their families stay healthy and get the assistance they need, we will have a smarter, stronger, healthier workforce – today and in the future.”

In a recent work/life survey at McGraw-Hill, Briamonte points out that 92 percent of the company’s employees said they have the informal flexibility needed to address personal issues.

Jackson, from Booz Allen Hamilton, echoes the sentiment.

“Besides being the right thing to do, our employees are more productive and they are more present at work when they have the tools to help them meet their needs,” says Jackson.

Seeking Balance

Feeling torn between the demands of work and home – a universal challenge for most working mothers – can end up adversely affecting both areas.

“It is important to be fully present, engaged and attentive, whether at work, home or at a community function,” says Ishii. “When nagging voices in your mind tug or distract you, you need to say, ‘I am here to give this my full attention and will deal with that when it is time.’”

Although Woollard has always been a white-collar professional, she says that accommodating the needs of her job and her family has been more difficult since becoming a senior-level executive.

On top of her traditional workload, she also attends monthly board meetings. With three children, and a husband who frequently travels, her equilibrium is sometimes upset.

“I think we are proving ourselves day in and day out, and it poses an even greater challenge for someone at the senior level,” says Woollard. “It is important to stay on top of your game and the best way to do that is to keep a balanced approach.”

Outside of the Box

Part of what keeps Woollard afloat is the flexibility and culture of her company, which is comprised of more than 65 percent women.

Grow Financial is equipped with a corporate gym, pool tables and a flat-screen television. Management is also supportive of flexible hours, and allows her to work from home when necessary, she adds.

In lieu of taking a shot in the dark, many organizations are trying to tailor their work/life portfolios toward the specific demographics, schedules and needs of their workforce.

Along with their traditional benefits, Booz Allen offers forums to encourage mentoring relationships and to allow employees share similar experiences, Jackson says. The programs encompass areas such as learning creative ways to manage time at a flexible work group or, for new mothers, suggestions on how to transition back to the job after having a child.

The work/life program at Baptist Health South Florida is based on tending to the staff to help reduce burnout, says LeBlanc.

“Traditionally, women in healthcare are caregivers on the job and they go home to that same role,” she says. “We have had a focus on caring for these caregivers so they can come to work with the right mindset and approach patients without being emotionally drained.”

In 2003, Baptist undertook a work/life study. According to the results, what employees needed was to “plug the holes” in the care of their children and elderly parents, says LeBlanc. In response, the organization adopted a backup care program.

While nurses used to prefer 10- to 12-hour shifts to shorten the workweek, she says, a study performed in 2007 found that their nursing population, now skewed toward a 50-plus demographic, prefers shorter shifts. To accommodate them, they are being more creative with their schedules, often splitting 24-hour shifts into six-hour increments.

Another way in which Baptist is responding to the specific needs of their workforce is through their Homebuyers Pineapple Perk program. Because of the high cost of living in Miami and the Florida Keys, a few years ago the organization began offering housing grants of up to $10,000 in exchange for an employment commitment.

The health care provider has recently shifted its focus. They are now offering financial assistance to employees who bought too much house and are having difficulty paying their mortgages. The organization offers on-site education with a financial expert, financial resources, and contact information of trusted advisors such as consumer credit counseling centers.

“What Baptist does very well is we have the ability to respond and change to the demographic area and cultural needs of the workforce,” says LeBlanc. “It is all about individuality.”

McGraw-Hill also offers financial tools that include a suite of higher education planning resources and a recent addition called the Financial Confidence Series. The series is comprised of seminars designed to help employees learn, grow and succeed financially. Briamonte says that more than 1,200 employees participated in the most recent series.

Meeting the Challenges

When she was young, Ishii’s parents stressed the importance of education and achievement. She realized early on that she was extremely driven and career-oriented. As she matured, her family and community also became important, so she began prioritizing.

It wasn’t until she understood the advice of a mentor, who said to just take one day at a time, that she’s been able to more aptly balance work and family, says Ishii.

“What I try to do is to look forward and plan to the degree that I can and put it on the calendar. Then dynamic prioritizing takes place,” she says. “Then I do take it one day at a time. It took me a while to fully embrace the concept. It is a conscious effort for me.”

Woollard says one of her biggest challenges is to take the time away from home and work to train as a triathlete. To spend more time with her family, she has started running with one of her children and – to be closer to the office – she works out in the company gym.

But no matter how supportive a company or family is, the bottom line to creating balance with most women is learning how to say no, says Ishii.

“It comes down to exercising self discipline,” she adds. “You have to prioritize and fully be here and enjoy it.”

Article written by Tammy Worth.  Tammy Worth is a freelance writer from Kansas City, Mo.