Women at The Top

WSJ announced today the 50 Women to Watch 2007. Attorney Angela Braly tops the list as President and CEO of WellPoint, the nations largest health care insurer.

More interesting than the list itself is the WSJ article View From the Top, which details a panel discussion with 6 female executives. Sheryl Sandberg, Google's Vice President of global online sales and operations (and #19 on WSJ's 50 Women to Watch 2007 list), had this to say,

A woman who is a rock star who works for my team at Google was going to have a baby, and I had a baby a few years prior to her. So I took her to lunch and said, "I want this to work for you. I'm doing this myself and we don't want to lose you." And she looked at me and said, "You do? Well, then, stop sending out emails at 11:30 at night." What she was saying was, "Look, you can take me out for lunch and be nice, but as long as you're sending out emails at 11:30 at night, everyone thinks you need a response by the morning." So we have to think not just about what we say but about what we do.

This hit home for me because I am often working late at night from home and there have been times when my staff has questioned the time of my emails. Since my staff cannot work from home (only attorneys and myself), I never could figure out what their issue was with it. In retrospect I can see how one might feel pressured when their boss is emailing them all through the night. In reality though, it's just a convenient time for me to be working.

Working from home is a great luxury. I started working from home on occassion about a year and a half ago. I love the flexibity it gives me and it's one of the reasons I consider opening my own in-home practice after law school, rather than working for a firm. Until you've had the opportunity, no one can really tell you how valuable it is. I've found that my stress level has reduced and my overall wellbeing improved. Unfortunately, around the same time that I was able to start working from home, I also took on the added role of office manager, which means I have less time for paralegal functions (which I enjoy) and more time for office management (which, at time, is just an overpaid babysitter!).