Ten commandments for women in the workplace: An interview with Dondi Scumaci

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the author of the best selling books, Designed for Success and Career Moves, Dondi Scumaci.

Dondi Scumaci is an international speaker, author and expert in professional and personal development. Her best-selling book Designed for Success: The 10 Commandments for Women in the Workplace empowers women to be more effective, successful and satisfied at work. Her signature 10 commandments, designed to mentor women, are a result of a seasoned business career spanning more than 20 years, including tenure as director for two top U.S. financial institutions. In 1995, she founded an advising firm, where she currently serves as president.

During our interview, Dondi provided a number of notable leadership strategies and walked me through her signature “Ten Commandments for Women in the Workplace” as follows:

1) Manage your message from the inside out: What you believe about yourself leads to how you present yourself and how others ultimately perceive you. Do you have empowering or limiting beliefs about yourself?

2) Empower yourself: When it comes to our careers, many of us wait for recognition or we wait for permission rather than take initiative to make things happen in our careers. Are you waiting? Where do you give your power away?

3) Equip yourself with awareness: Become more aware of yourself, of others and of the situations around you. The more aware you are, the more grounded and able you will be to face situations when they arise.

4) Learn to negotiate: Women in particular perceive negotiations as conflict. Reframe what a negotiation really is in your mind and develop effective negotiating skills.

5) Personal leadership: Take the initiative and lead from where you are.

6) Build a bridge to the future: Have a plan for your career future and support it with relevant and impactful action that will get you to where you want to go.

7) Think like a project manager: Learn how to manage time, people, and strategies. Begin to treat your career like a project.

8) Invest in the success of others: Help to equip others and invest yourself in their success.

9) Break through the barriers: Acknowledge that office politics and conflict exist in the workplace. Think about how you can begin to address obstacles that may be getting in the way of you getting ahead in the workplace.

10) Add value to everything that you do: Your contribution to the projects you work on play a role in developing your personal brand. Increase your value so that you can increase the career opportunities available to you.

These ten principles are sound advice for the women looking to get ahead in the workplace. Dondi Scumaci’s book, Designed for Success: The Ten Commandments for Women in the Workplace is available wherever books are sold.

You can listen to the full interview at: www.BlogTalkRadio.com/Ellie-Nieves.